Experiencing and wondering how it affects you is not all you were doing.

You were also assuming some deeper meaning to your experience of coincidences.

Doing this relies on an implicit and arrogant assumption: that the world somehow arranges itself around you and your special subjective experience. The world somehow gives you lucky, meaningful coincidences. How about the depressed crack-addict on the side of the road? where are his specially arranged coincidences?

Self-conceded, is but all it is.

It's also perhaps arrogant and at least questionable to assume a comparison with a crack addict is more meaningful than an experience of personal sense.

One can say that coincidence and arrogance are minor, while the opportunity to explore meaning and/or the values of relationships are the implicit major importances of such a situation. That's very much decidable.

Why can't you compare coincidental experiences of normal people to depressed people that self-medicate with crack? Are you better than... or more worthy of special coincidences than crackies? They're in need of lucky, "meaningful" coincidences more than you, me and OP combined.

If I told you my story of surviving addiction and it involved a few coincidences and some meaning, who would I then next compare too?

Well done, but there are also many who don't survive.

The only meaning in whatever coincidences you experienced was the self-created meaning you put into them. If this helped, then all the better.
But whether everyone needs this kind of meaning is not clear-cut, and whether feeling artifically special is always a good thing, is not clear-cut either.

You can compare. Negative coincidences are no different then positive.

You are assuming that I am believing the world is revolving around me. That is not the case. I am wondering what these things mean to me because I am the only one to live my life and its experiences. Nothing positive or lucky has come of it per se. They have not changed my life, better or worse. Just make me wonder why such things bunch up and time themselves in such a way.

What are the potential answers that could explain why "things bunch up and time themselves in such a way"?

(1) Meaningless coincidence
(2) Meaningful coincidence

Your OP description implies that you are not merely 'wondering why' but that you are indeed leaning toward (2).

If you are inclined to believe that you are having meaningful coincidences, then:

(1) is everyone on earth having meaningful coincidences? or
(2) are only you having meaningful coincidences?

If yes to (1) then what meaning is there to unlucky coincidences of unnecessary suffering?
If yes to (2) then..self-concededness.
Based on my break-down of the issue above, unless you can demonstrate what meaning there is to unlucky coincidences of unnecessary suffering, you are likely engaging in self-conceded belief. If you demonstrate this to me, it will be plausible for me to believe that you do indeed believe that everyone has meaningful coincidences.

My assumption was that you cannot demonstrate this, but I could be wrong?

I challenged your comparative analysis on the grounds of authenticity. However I did not use the term artificial and here is why.

Referring back to a circumstance which is on a range, placing a litmus like artificial draws a distinction which require less consideration of the range and more consideration of litmus. Since the goal is authenticity, ascribing a range of less and more authentic helps frame an appropriate understanding of a range of circumstances.

So as a person may find more or less meaning, and different and similar meaning with any experience, including coincidence. So as it is authentic human potential to develop and use all personal sense and consider meaning and value.

Which makes the comparative method seem less authentic. Too much litmus, perhaps?

It would be idiotic if I said that you couldn't take something away from negative coincidences.

The initial post was more leaning towards how do you deal with not knowing whether we live in a world of determinism or free will. Those would apply for all. If we are living in a deterministic world that means everybody is intertwined and connected in some way to all the free flowing and connectivity of actions throughout the world.

Since we don't know, and we can't know (it is a non-falsifiable question) the way I have done it myself is by paradoxically relying on both beliefs simultaneously. Not in the traditional compatibalist way however.

I view others' choices and behaviour as being deterministic, but my own as being freely-willed. This way, I empathize with most and treat others nicely, while holding myself more accountable/to a higher standard. Yes, this is contradictory, but that doesn't particularly bother me, since the utility of this approach has been very fruitful. In essence, it is the pragmatic position on the free-will/determinism question.

When comparisons are more authentic, they have meaning and value which maybe articulable- (but why is that required?) and show a range of faculty, including personal sense.

A coincidence is a comparison. Surprise! What a coincidence.

Butterfly effect is a spooky thing. Making this thread has now continued the chain of continuous cause and effect. It led to the one girl reading it somehow and deciding to message me. Shes probably reading this lol.

Chaos theory is scary when you are able to go back and pinpoint exact things that led to your present state. Its hard not to go back years and years and look at decisions which were small at the time but led to major events in your present state.

Knowing certain decisions no matter how small can have such a major impact on your future trajectory. I know I have a bunch of actions or inactions I can take that will all probably lead to different places and those can be countered by action or inactions by others. There actions and inactions are going to be partially controlled by the actions or inactions of other and so on and so forth. Who knows how many degrees of seperation you can go back to see how many people in the chain it caused for certain events to take place.

The thing to realise about unlikely coincidences is that they should be very common.

Easy to understand in principle but hard to grasp in practice.

Yeah I understand that. With so many actions taking place over the course of a day, week or month they are bound to happen. The thing that boggles my mind is when they stack over a short period of time, happen because of certain actions you or others took and the close relativity to each other.

You mean it's an unlikely coincidence for very common unlikely coincidences to sometimes be clustered? That's expected to happen a lot as well isn't it?

Remember as well that the more attention you're paying, the more you will spot the common unlikely coincidences that normally go unnoticed.

Does the number 23 enter in to your coincidences?

PairTheBoard

Is that a meaningful number to you?

I'm grunching since my last post, but I'm just wondering: OP, have you learned ITT how to not kill your brain thinking about coincidences? Or what have you learned since making this OP?

PairTheBoard

No not really. It's becoming more of unexpected reactions to small meaningless actions. Creating this thread has now led to an unexpected reaction. It has continued the initial chain which led me to make this thread. I have no idea what it's outcome will be yet.

Hoping it leads to more than both of our non-contributions here.

On a related note. Today, I decided against giving money to a bum that I always give money to. Two minutes later, I get to my car and accidentally spill my coffee all over me.

Karma?

I've decided that next time I'm going to steal his money instead and see what Karma's got for me. I bet its got nothing......because its too cowardly to face me man-to-man.

You failed the coffee ritual because your brain was in a guilty trip revisit of the decision not to give the money (ok say some high probability it's this and some chaotic randomness the other). Even if not at the exact time of accident, the very moments before, reconsidering it, were enough to perturb the situation.

There is only one justice in this universe.

The one delivered by the laws of physics and probability.

Karma works great without superstition and irrational fear. One thing leads to another.

I spit on karma. Masque is correct.

PairTheBoard