Reddit reviews The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day
We found 8 Reddit comments about The Improbability Principle: Why Coincidences, Miracles, and Rare Events Happen Every Day. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
And, I shit you not. I started reading this last night and then you post this.
so far pretty interesting book, You should also look up the Baader Meinhoff effect
Thanks. I will check that out. This is another great book on the subject http://www.amazon.es/The-Improbability-Principle-Coincidences-Miracles/dp/0374175349
But "extraordinarily" rare events are commonplace according to anything but. In fact, they're commonplace according to statistician David J. Hand. So I think your definition is off.
But the bigger question is why you'd want to have to different standards for historical things.
>Please clarify: are you stating that I stated a claim has to be absolutely true?
How else would one interpret this statement of yours: This lesser claim of a murder can not be found absolutely true, then the greater claim of jesus's resurrection is not absolutely true and therefore possibly not true.?
>Because this post is to Christians who believe the claim that the resurrection occurred, is absolutely (incontrovertible) true, without a possibility that is possibly not true.
Oh, you are asking this question to people who think that there are things that can be proven to be "absolutely, incontrovertible true without a possibility that is possibly not true", which is a logical impossibility. I don't defend the logically impossible.
>I often question whether nonphysical things can exist...
I phrase it differently--what reason do I have to think nonphysical things do exist? I can't know that something invisible, magical, undetectable can't exist, since I'm not omniscient. That doesn't mean "hmm maybe there are invisible genies." We have to remember that not knowing that something can't exist isn't an argument for it existing. Me not having a reason to think a given thing exists doesn't mean I'm declaring that it doesn't exist, nor am I "dismissing" the idea for all time. I just want to know what reason I have, at present, to think it actually exists.
>Darth Vader, for example, is something that does not exist.
Well, he's known to be a fictional character. But how about the chupacabra? Unicorns? Both were (or are, by some) thought to be real. We have reported sightings. I can't know for sure they aren't real, but I can ask if we have ample reasons to consider them real.
> One of the most common arguments for gods I see is that of experience.
Experiences are interpreted. So though we may say "People experienced God," what that means is that people had an experience that they interpreted as being God. The basis for that interpretation, the tenability of their inference, should be critically examined.
>Someone has an idea or is inspired out of nowhere, against any meaningful material connection (such as Jung's synchronicity).
There are different ways to frame that, though. Jung saw deep meaning in coincidences. But when we see meaning in coincidences, the meaning is provided by our own interpretation. The meaning is in us, not in the coincidence. And much of that meaning is, in my experience, due to us underestimating how probable coincidences really are.
>Could this not be evidence of nonphysical effects on nonphysical aspects of ourselves
What reason is there to think it is? Coincidences happen. They are shocking and eerie only to the extent that we are ignorant of statistical thinking. When we learn about statistical thinking or skepticism in general we learn that coincidences should be expected.
It's almost definitely just a coincidence. I bought this book recently and it explains the math behind coincidences and why they're actually very very common.
The improbable isn't that rare. That's the core concept to grasp. I'm pretty confident there's a pop-science book about this exact concept if you want some light reading.
Found it. It's The Improbability Principle. I haven't read the book, but plenty of buyers seem happy with it.
Here are some links for the product in the above comment for different countries:
Link: [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374175349/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_uS-rtb1VVP49N
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There's actually a book I saw recently about miracles where the author makes the claim that, statistically, miracles are very common. I haven't read the book sop I can't give a personal anecdote, but here's the link.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0374175349/ref=cm_sw_r_udp_awd_uS-rtb1VVP49N
Now supernatural miracles still haven't been proven to ever happen, but this is something you can show to someone who says God works miracles in their life.