The Power of coincidences
Coincidence is a word we tend to use often and without too much consideration for its impact on our lives. Every time Humans find themselves in front of a surprising succession of events, the majority will say:
“This is too big of a coincidence, it surely means something!”
or
“This is a sign from God, he’s sending me a message”
Both statements derive from your mind trying to make sense of things, trying to attach meaning to — more frequently than not — unrelated and random circumstances. We are psychologically wired that way!
Inside our psyche
Next time you find yourself reflecting on what you deem is a coincidence, notice how your consciousness will naturally try to imply a cause and seek patterns (illusion of causality). This is partly because of how lazy your mind is. A “laziness” predisposing it to reduce effortful tasks such as thinking statistically and making sense out of randomness. Let me explain through a simple but effective example:
A friend of yours is blindfolded and is asked to pick 8 balls (4 red, 4 green) from a basket. Every time he picks a ball, he is required to put it back in the basket before picking the next one.
These are the sequences he got:
1 - G R G R R G G R
2 - R R R R R R R R
3 - G G G G R R R R
Now if I ask you which sequence is most likely to happen, you will intuitively choose number 1. But if I tell you that numbers 2 and 3 are as random as number 1 and thus have the exact same probability of happening, you will find it absurd!
“8 red balls in a row? no way…there is surely some explanation!”
Okay, now that we acknowledge that Humans have this psychological tendency to attach causality to purely random events and see patterns when none exist, let's talk about one of the social consequences.
Conspiracy theories
Based on the premise that coincidences have the power to make up stories out of randomness, we can think of conspiracy theories as an intrinsic liability.
What better way to explain the aforementioned statement than with a historic example:
Let me take you back 80 years, at a time when World War II had Europe on its bleeding knees. Back then and for 8 months—from Sept 07, 1940, to May 11, 1941 — the nazi Germans took the initiative to strike the United Kingdom with approximately 30 000 tons worth of bombs spread a little over 20 cities… the British press called this attack The Blitz.
Here’s the gist; after the modeling of a map showing all the locations hit by the German bombs, some people noticed flagrant gaps. They then deducted that those untouched areas were too obvious to be random. The pattern they thought they found led to a theory stating that those areas were unharmed because of German spies conspiring and hiding there.
The theory was then debunked when William Feller, a renowned mathematician at the time, came up with a statistical analysis proving the randomness of the events.
This was one conspiracy theory amongst so many… some notable ones concerning the 9/11 event, the flat earth idea, the cancer cure, and at this moment in time; the Covid-19 pandemic and its dedicated vaccine.
Now that you have a better understanding of the subject, let me give you a little tip about how to fight it!
The law of large numbers
The theorem of large numbers basically tells you that the higher the number of trials, sample size, and experiments… the closer you get to factual truth (closer to the mean in mathematical terms). Think about it this way; if you ask one specific question to one person, the answer received will have a larger degree of bias than if you combine the answers of 100 people and focus on similarities.
Conspiracy theories come — for the most part — from a lack of information, and so, having the law of large numbers in mind should prompt you to gather more information from different sources before making up your mind about a given subject.
Of course, the law of large numbers isn't exclusive to conspiracy theories alone but should be kept in mind whenever you have a decision to make and an opinion to educate.
Final words
The impact of coincidences within our lives is a topic that can be addressed in many different ways. For this article, I have chosen an angle that focuses on the coincidences’ social repercussions, thus highlighting some negative sides. But this doesn't take out the fact that coincidences have the power to influence the lives of individuals for the better. On a spiritual level, for example, coincidences can play the role of enhancers because, in that case, personal interpretation matters more than objectivity! (A subject that would need a new article of its own).
