Strangest Thing

[jambo372]

A terrible but strange thing has just happened.

My dad's friend lives in Brasil and his step daughter was pregnant. The baby wasn't due until mid September.

We hadn't heard from them for a few months. On Wednesday I told my parents that I had the feeling that her baby had been born, they said that would be very unlikely as this would be very premature.

He has just phoned us now and told us that the baby was born on Wednesday and died the following day from a heart defect.

Have you any explanations for this ?

[CFLarsen]

Prove that you really foretold this.

[Beleth]

Originally posted by jambo372
Have you any explanations for this ?
Yes. Do you?

[aargh57]

1. Coincidence
2. Selective memory (you may have made other predictions before of this type that didn't pan out but chose not to remember them)
3. You could be lying (I'm not saying you are but I think this has happened before in the history of mankind)
4. You may be distorting your story somewhat
5. You may be distorting the significance of the event
6. You're psychic


Using Occam's Razor, which one do you think I'll rule out first?

[Kell]

Originally posted by jambo372
He has just phoned us now and told us that the baby was born on Wednesday and died the following day from a heart defect.

My sincere condolences to the bereaved family.

Have you any explanations for this ?

See aargh57's post.

[Bronze Dog]

Additional thought: Cryptomnesia. You may have gotten hints that something was potentially wrong with the baby and mistook them for psychic revelation.

As for the whole list of explanations: We can probably come up with still more ideas. Sorting out which answer is correct would probably require that we know just about all the information you exchanged with the couple. That's why anecdotal evidence tends to be unconvincing: You can't control for other explanations.

My condolences for the family, as well.

[Tricky]

Here's another odd one.

Last Thursday I was walking to the credit union and I saw someone in the lobby who I thought was a fellow I used to work with (call him David L.) I looked closer and it wasn't David L., but it got me thinking about him and if he had found a good job since he had been laid off from my company about five years ago.

As I continued my walk to the credit union, I bumped into David L. He told me he had just been re-hired by my company.

Creepy, eh?

Got any explanations for this?

[case sensitive]

Got any explanations for this? You do a lot of thinking I guess...

Start writing your thoughts down. Be very specific. Then when something happens let someone else evaluate the "evidence".

Things like this happen to me "all" the time. Well, perhaps once a week. And considering I probably think about a couple of millions of things every week... Well you do the maths.

[Tricky]

Originally posted by case sensitive
You do a lot of thinking I guess...

Start writing your thoughts down. Be very specific. Then when something happens let someone else evaluate the "evidence".

Things like this happen to me "all" the time. Well, perhaps once a week. And considering I probably think about a couple of millions of things every week... Well you do the maths.
You're right, of course, Mr. Sensitivity. I'm actually trying to prove a point about "coincidences". Not only do we remember the hits and forget the misses, but sometimes they are not so coincidental as one might think. Here's all of the stuff I didn't tell you.

David L. is was doing consulting work at our offices at the time. I've bumped into him a few times recently.
We bank at the same credit union. I was going to it, he was coming from it.
It was lunchtime. The sidewalks were full of people going from building to building.
My company (an oil company) is hiring like crazy and is especially fond of re-hiring ex employees who know the ropes.
I had his face in my thoughts, making it more likely I would pick him out.

So you see, the things you omit when you are telling one of these anecdotes can really lessen the randomness of the "coincidence". This doesn't even include anything that I might subconsciously know, but not remember. It is possible that I heard in passing he had been hired, but had forgotten it. In the same way, Jambo may have heard something about "trouble with the pregnancy" but forgotten it. The brain is funny that way.

[case sensitive]

You're right, of course, Mr. Sensitivity. I'm actually trying to prove a point about "coincidences".

Ah... I do a lot of thinking... doesn't mean I am good at it.

Good post!

[aargh57]

That's kind of like my 4th explanation (distorting your story). Also, CFLarsen asks for proof that she really predicted this and I don't think that's necessary. Even if she could absolutely prove that she predicted it doesn't necessarily mean anything. Even if everything in her story was true we couldn't deduce anything more than it being quite a coincidence. If she was able to repeatedly predict births by more than mere chance than we may have something (and she could have some $$$$ courtesy of Randi). Unfortunetly, I suspect she'll say something on the lines of having had a "connection" because of family or some such. If this is the argument, fine. We have one lone selective case of a very strong coincidence(I'm still making a lot of assumptions here, like assuming she's not doing something like in Tricky's example). So unless she is very meticulous and writes down every time she has a thought or gets that "funny feeling" and compares her hits and misses objectively (which may be somewhat hard to do if she believes she's got a "gift") we can conclude...nothing.

This reminds me of a personal story of when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded. I was in grade school and had a teacher that said she thought when she woke up that something was going to happen, something just didn't seem right. Of course, if anything would've happened it would've been a hit, and if the flight would've went fine she would merely have forgotten it.

[Francois Tremblay]

People are notoriously extremely bad at evaluating statistics. It's built in our brain biases. The fact is, an event that has 1 chance out of a million to happen in a day, will happen to thousands of people every day. So if your number turns up, it's not so extraordinary. If every single person in the world experienced said event, then we'd have a problem. It's the pattern of probabilities, not the probabilities themselves, that count.

[DangerousBeliefs]

Guys at work have started calling me "Mr. Psychic" as I often can tell not only that something is wrong with the our computer system but often exactly the machine causing the problem and what caused it.

Have you any explaination for this?

By the way, how many fingers am I holding up?

Wow! You're good.

[Ladewig]

Originally posted by jambo372
A terrible but strange thing has just happened.

My dad's friend lives in Brasil and his step daughter was pregnant. The baby wasn't due until mid September.

We hadn't heard from them for a few months. On Wednesday I told my parents that I had the feeling that her baby had been born, they said that would be very unlikely as this would be very premature.

He has just phoned us now and told us that the baby was born on Wednesday and died the following day from a heart defect.

Have you any explanations for this ?

You had a feeling that a baby was going to born prematurely and the baby was born prematurely. I am not sure why that needs an explanation; seems like an exceptionally ordinary coincidence to me.

Do you believe there is something supernatural in what occurred?

Remember that even if there is only a one-in-a-million chance of an event happening to a person today, in a world of 6 billion, then that event will happen about 6000 times every day.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by jambo372
Have you any explanations for this ?

Thats a tragedy :( Still, what kind of explanation would you require? about what? Most people know friends who are going to give birth, hey, I happen to have right now friends like that... guess what? I often feel the need to call them because "maybe"... if I call them and nothing has happened, I forget the call, if, like you, it happened, its automatically taken as a hit!

Nope. zero hits, guessing is only "meaningful" when it coincides with the facts... nothing to be amazed at.

[Bodhi Dharma Zen]

Originally posted by Ladewig
Remember that even if there is only a one-in-a-million chance of an event happening to a person today, in a world of 6 billion, then that event will happen about 6000 times every day.

Exactly, it would be only something if nobody could guess it ever.

[Gr8wight]

What's more tragic, is that baby is going to go to hell for the sin of having been born of a species whose original progenitor once ate an apple.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
Guys at work have started calling me "Mr. Psychic" as I often can tell not only that something is wrong with the our computer system but often exactly the machine causing the problem and what caused it.

Have you any explaination for this?

By the way, how many fingers am I holding up?

Wow! You're good. He he he. I do this too. I seem to have a very natural ability to be "psychic" about things. At least things that I know a lot about. It's really just a matter of quick thinking and logical reasoning (with some guess work). I can see Mr. A look at me across the lunch room and go over and say "If Ms. X is having problems with program Y she should do such-and-such and it will work." He says she just reported that problem, then she does what I said and it works. I'm psychic.

It's just a matter of knowing the people and the software well enough that a simple look gives you enough information to make a very reasonable guess about what is going on. It is kind of freaky though.

[TheBoyPaj]

Originally posted by DangerousBeliefs
Guys at work have started calling me "Mr. Psychic" as I often can tell not only that something is wrong with the our computer system but often exactly the machine causing the problem and what caused it.

Have you any explaination for this?


Because it's your machine and you're causing the problems?

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
Because it's your machine and you're causing the problems? Ha ha ha. No, IT guys can really be psychic. Sort of. Computers work in logical ways, but complex ways, so it can appear that a logical complex analysis is psychic.

But here's something freaky. Ever think about a friend you haven't talked to in a long time, look down at the phone, then the phone rings at it is that person is on the line?! It's hapened to me. Here's what is really freaky: this has happened to most people that I've asked. How unfreaky is that?! ;)

[Zep]

Because it's Microsoft - it ALWAYS has problems.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally posted by Zep
Because it's Microsoft - it ALWAYS has problems. Not really. Microsoft applications actually percentage-wise has by far the few problems. That includes operating systems. I really wish more software providers provided as escellent software as Microsoft. But Microsoft does produce frequent software changes. Those changes and upgrades cause lots of problems. That helps my "psychic" status as frequently the fix I tell people to do is to upgrade to a new version of some Microsoft product to fix the problem. :(

[TheBoyPaj]

Originally posted by DevilsAdvocate But here's something freaky. Ever think about a friend you haven't talked to in a long time, look down at the phone, then the phone rings at it is that person is on the line?!

It's odd, but that has never happened to me. I always feel left out when people talk about that. Maybe it did happen but my stupid ape brain got distracted by something shiny and forgot to log it.

[TheBoyPaj]

Actually, thinking about this I've realised why this doesn't seem to happen to me. I'm not a very warm and cosy person, so I tend to only think of people if I want something from them. So if they subsequently phone up I say "ah, just the person I need," and carry on with the business at hand.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Originally posted by TheBoyPaj
It's odd, but that has never happened to me. I always feel left out when people talk about that. Maybe it did happen but my stupid ape brain got distracted by something shiny and forgot to log it. I felt wierd when it happened to me and started telling other people. I'd guess maybe 60% said that the same thing had happened to them. Actaully I guess it has happened to me twice. I was also once with about 5 friends and we were talking about an old acuantaince and wondering whether we should try to call him when he suddenely called out of the blue. We all freaked out. It was fun. It wasn't really freaky though because we had a (somewhat disatant) mutual aquiantance that was getting married at the time that would have got us thinking about each other and would spark the call.

[Jyera]

Originally posted by jambo372
A terrible but strange thing has just happened.

My dad's friend lives in Brasil and his step daughter was pregnant. The baby wasn't due until mid September.

We hadn't heard from them for a few months. On Wednesday I told my parents that I had the feeling that her baby had been born, they said that would be very unlikely as this would be very premature.

He has just phoned us now and told us that the baby was born on Wednesday and died the following day from a heart defect.

Have you any explanations for this ? Sorry to hear the sad news.

And sorry if you feel hurt for what I might have to say.

What is the likely chance that you had indirectly and unconsciously caused the baby's death?

Perhaps, as likely as your ability to predict her birth.

[Blue Bubble]

Originally posted by DevilsAdvocate
Not really. Microsoft applications actually percentage-wise has by far the few problems. That includes operating systems. I really wish more software providers provided as escellent software as Microsoft. But Microsoft does produce frequent software changes. Those changes and upgrades cause lots of problems. That helps my "psychic" status as frequently the fix I tell people to do is to upgrade to a new version of some Microsoft product to fix the problem. :(

Hmmm... somehow I get the psychic impression that you don't have much experience of anything but Microsoft products. I'd even hazard a guess that you haven't actually used any other operating systems ever. Wait ... my psychic powers even suggest that you are younger than 35 years old. :p

[Lothian]

Originally posted by jambo372
A terrible but strange thing has just happened.

My dad's friend lives in Brasil and his step daughter was pregnant. The baby wasn't due until mid September.

We hadn't heard from them for a few months. On Wednesday I told my parents that I had the feeling that her baby had been born, they said that would be very unlikely as this would be very premature.

He has just phoned us now and told us that the baby was born on Wednesday and died the following day from a heart defect.

Have you any explanations for this ? Jambo,

Doctors don’t know the reason for ½ of the premature births they come across, but here there appears there might be a link between the heart defect and the pre-term birth.

This (http://www.tommys.org/index.html) Charity do a lot of work in this area and when you stop patting your ‘psychic-self’ on the back you might wish to consider giving them a donation in the memory of this child.

[aggle-rithm]

Originally posted by Ladewig

Remember that even if there is only a one-in-a-million chance of an event happening to a person today, in a world of 6 billion, then that event will happen about 6000 times every day.

And probably more often in Brasil than in some other places. On the average.

[Ladewig]

Originally posted by DevilsAdvocate
Not really. Microsoft applications actually percentage-wise has by far the few problems. That includes operating systems. I really wish more software providers provided as escellent software as Microsoft. But Microsoft does produce frequent software changes. Those changes and upgrades cause lots of problems. That helps my "psychic" status as frequently the fix I tell people to do is to upgrade to a new version of some Microsoft product to fix the problem. :(

If I may paraphrase Shakespeare: Cry evidence and release the dogs of skepticism.

So do you have any evidence of this astounding claim?

[kedo1981]

Yes I do
You’re a lying, self aggrandizing a**hole who isn’t above using a tragedy (real or dreamed up in your sick pea brain) to bring attention to your self, how’s that?

[delphi_ote]

Originally posted by DevilsAdvocate
Not really. Microsoft applications actually percentage-wise has by far the few problems. That includes operating systems. I really wish more software providers provided as escellent software as Microsoft. But Microsoft does produce frequent software changes. Those changes and upgrades cause lots of problems. That helps my "psychic" status as frequently the fix I tell people to do is to upgrade to a new version of some Microsoft product to fix the problem. :(

This post has the stink of a "Microsoft Certified Technician." I call BS on "percentage-wise has by far the few problems." Unless maybe it was per line of code.

*cough* bloatware *cough*