Is There a Metaphysical Force?

Shawn

Shawn

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I'm a cynic, always have been and probably always will be. So I would be the first to want to believe this world is all random, that we are nothing but extraordinarily evolved members of kingdom animalia.

Now, I'm still a firm believer that humans are just animals that have evolved more than other species. I'm just mentioning that as a preface to show I'm not really one of these spiritually enlightened people, let alone being religious.


So, I'm not spiritual and certainly not religious; I don't think there is any benevolent creator that is up there watching our backs and lending a helping hand to those in need.

But lately, the last few months, I've started to notice certain patterns in life which I just cannot reason my way through. Things happen to me sometimes, from the good to the neutral to the bad, and I just cannot convince myself that those things happened randomly and by pure coincidence.

So I'm wondering, where do others stand on this issue? If you believe in a god then your answer is obvious, but what about the rest of you? Do you think things happen randomly or do you think there are metaphysical forces which control what happens in our universe and how?

For me it's just a long series of occurrences which have brought me to the conclusion that there must be some force controlling some or all of what happens in life. No, I'm not saying you can't change the course of your life no matter how much you try, that our fates are written at birth. I'm talking about instances like when you go years without seeing or even thinking of a former friend, then waking up one morning thinking of them and then running into them that very same day.

This happened to me today and it was kind of the last straw in me arriving at this conclusion. I haven't seen the guy in five years and haven't thought of him or looked him up online in half that time, yet both happened today.

I'm not sure I can say I believe everything happens for a reason, I have dealt with a lot of crap in my life which years later I still see no purpose in. But I certainly don't think I can go on pretending like everything happens totally by chance because certainly many things seem to be connected in a way I cannot even begin to explain.


What do you think? Do you ever feel like there's somebody/something at work behind the scenes or do you think things are mostly random? Keep in mind I'm not saying your actions have no effect on your life because they certainly do, I'm talking about when statistical impossibilities occur against all odds.
 
I've been toying with the idea of precognition. Maybe in our dreams we are able to see future events. Of course maybe our dreams just help us make sense of things and we suddenly realize what was right in front of us. Probably doesn't relate to what you experienced.

I will say this though....lately i've been experience some major deja vu.
 
A major factor in this is our selective memory. How many times have you met someone for the first time in a long while without thinking about him just before that? Quite often I suppose, but you don't remember those because they were insignificant. That one time you happen to think about someone just before seeing them again sticks to your memory though. It works the other way around as well, how many times have you thought about someone you haven't seen in a while without him walking through your door the next day?

I've noticed similar patterns with car models. Whenever I get to use a specific type of car it appears to me that all of a sudden everyone was driving the same car - every time I see a similar car to mine I notice it, every other car just goes by unnoticed and hence does not count.
 
narf said:
A major factor in this is our selective memory. How many times have you met someone for the first time in a long while without thinking about him just before that? Quite often I suppose, but you don't remember those because they were insignificant. That one time you happen to think about someone just before seeing them again sticks to your memory though. It works the other way around as well, how many times have you thought about someone you haven't seen in a while without him walking through your door the next day?
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That makes sense, but that's exactly the kind of logic I can't apply to some of these experiences.

Sure, I sometimes think of that friend and other old friends in passing but that's it. This specific guy I had not met since we broke our friendship years ago, and when I say I was thinking about him this morning it wasn't just in passing. I actually browsed his Twitter and his Flickr for a while before heading out and running into him, don't recall doing that in over a year at least.

But you're right, there is something to be said for selective memory and also different people probably perceive and process things differently. The example I provided might seem like a complete non-issue to most people, but I know that I tend to remember lots of mundane details to a point of shocking people so I do remember it if I think of someone or something and then get confronted by that soon after.

I do appreciate the insight but as I said I'm pretty convinced myself, I mostly thought I'd see where others stood on this issue of random occurrences vs. a metaphysical force.
 
People are predisposed towards noticing patterns.

It's really useful. For social animals you can figure out what people might do based on behavior. For hunting animals you can figure out what the prey is probably going to do.

It can make patterns show up where they don't exist, because we're all about looking for patterns already.

Patterns get reinforced because we only remember the times they work. Remember all the friends you suddenly got the urge to check on that you didn't see? Of course not, because there's no reason to. It's highly unlikely that you didn't think of this person in five years. But it IS likely you did and forgot about it, because nothing of note happened the last time.

So I don't really think finding a pattern in something really means anything.
 
Shawn, I am completely with you on this. I am not religious and I don't believe in a higher being, but I occasionally see things - small and unimportant things, but I notice them - which can not possibly happen accidentally.

Hang on, I think I once posted such a thing in the random thoughts thread...

EDIT: found it, it was in the Kal Penn joining Obama administration thread.
the Interceptor said:
Wanna hear some scary stuff? :unsure:
Just as I am writing these very words, I am watching the latest episode of 'House M.D.'. Not 5 minutes ago, they found Kutner who shot himself in the head. Now I came here to read who this Kal Penn guy is, cause the name didn't ring a bell. Turns out he is that very actor, likely written out of the show for this job. :?
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... will also provide my version of a possible explanation.

EDIT: I have come to the conclusion that these things do happen randomly. I sometimes just think they don't because of the typical "these things don't happen to me!" thinking. Problem is that everybody in the world thinks that, but the weirdest things have to happen to someone, and once in a while it's my turn.
Happenings often seem to be too special to be random, but then, what's special and what's normal is a product of my perception. My sensibility for certain things just shifts triggered by external events, so while I might miss happening X completely today, I may be awed by it tomorrow. But the happening will be just the same, it was me who saw it differently.

So no, I don't think there is a metyphysical force. I just think that what everyone of us deems as "normal" and "random" is very much a product of our current situation, and that the human idea of a random happening is pretty different from actual (= mathematical) randomness.
 
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Firecat said:
I've been toying with the idea of precognition. Maybe in our dreams we are able to see future events. Of course maybe our dreams just help us make sense of things and we suddenly realize what was right in front of us. Probably doesn't relate to what you experienced.

I will say this though....lately i've been experience some major deja vu.
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i have this... i can never be 100% sure of what i saw, but often ill have a dream in the middle of the night where some event happens, usually something trivial, and then ill wake up in the morning, think nothing of it then part way through the day (or sometimes a couple of days later) something like that event will happen, or something will happen that makes your stop for a second and have some serious feeling of de ja vu, where im sure ive seen this exact scenario before, but at the same time unsure because it was a fuzzy deep sleep dream.

its odd.... but whether it is a precognitive thing or not i dont know, im more inclined to believe its something your mind cobbles together from experiences + what you expect to happen and then sometimes, like playing your cards right, you dreamt up the winning combination of events and then by chance those events transpire in a round about way and you get some of that spoooky deja vu.

its a massive game of probabilities, but hey the odds of winning the lottery are biblically small and it still happens
 
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Shawn said:
I actually browsed his Twitter and his Flickr for a while before heading out and running into him, don't recall doing that in over a year at least.
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By doing that you subconciously increase your chances of running into him again. You get a very good idea of how he looks and dresses nowadays, so you're much more likely to spot him in a crowd. You also get a very good idea of what he does during the day, maybe he mentioned a specific place on Twitter he likes to visit, so subconciously you go there.

otispunkmeyer said:
its a massive game of probabilities, but hey the odds of winning the lottery are biblically small and it still happens
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That's because millions are trying every time.
Odds are hard to grasp for many people, even things as a coin toss. What's more likely, getting heads ten times in a row or getting heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails, heads, tails? Neither, both are just under 0.1%. Most will say the latter is much more likely because it appears "random".
 
As per M-theory, yes, I do believe there is a metaphysical force, in the form of gravitons that can exit the 3-brane in which we live. Outside our universe there's probably all kinds of cool stuff going on. One day we might be able to figure out how to use gravity to get a glimpse of it.

But, for there to be an all-controlling force that influences our universe it must be measurable, just like gravity is measurable (or, rather, it's effects are).
 
I just don't think about it, for the most part. I don't believe I'm supposed to understand.
 
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