Why do people get so excited about coincidences? Taking into account the virtually infinite combinations of people, places, information, and situations, there are bound to be some apparent anomalies, but that does not make them special.
One common example is when people realize they have the same birthday. But if you know more than 365 people, odds are good that at least one of them will share your birthday.
Finding coincidences after the fact is like randomly drawing from a swimming pool filled with 10,000 numbered balls and saying, “Wow, I pulled an 11! I was born in November! What a coincidence.” Or, “Amazing, 313! That was the area code of my childhood home phone number!” These examples fall flat because humans extrapolate associations where none really exist. It would only be interesting if I correctly predicted which ball would be pulled on the first try before it was drawn.
But even when making predictions, we only tout the few times we were right, quickly forgetting the 98% of incorrect predictions. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And that’s the problem with coincidences—we only remember the handful unique occurrences, but don’t take into account the billions of other events in our lives that weren’t coincidences. Like I said, given the nearly infinite number of interactions, the only true anomaly would be if no coincidences happened at all.
One common example is when people realize they have the same birthday. But if you know more than 365 people, odds are good that at least one of them will share your birthday.
Finding coincidences after the fact is like randomly drawing from a swimming pool filled with 10,000 numbered balls and saying, “Wow, I pulled an 11! I was born in November! What a coincidence.” Or, “Amazing, 313! That was the area code of my childhood home phone number!” These examples fall flat because humans extrapolate associations where none really exist. It would only be interesting if I correctly predicted which ball would be pulled on the first try before it was drawn.
But even when making predictions, we only tout the few times we were right, quickly forgetting the 98% of incorrect predictions. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. And that’s the problem with coincidences—we only remember the handful unique occurrences, but don’t take into account the billions of other events in our lives that weren’t coincidences. Like I said, given the nearly infinite number of interactions, the only true anomaly would be if no coincidences happened at all.