AJ, the conclusion I draw from such an experience is it was meant to be. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been there. But the fact that I was drawn there seems to me to support the idea of synchronicity. Yes its a coincidence but a very extraordinary one.

"You don’t remember, or are not aware of, all the times you could have been there for someone and weren’t." That makes no sense at all in the context of amazing times that events do come together; there is no coincidence if it doesn't happen.

"What about that time you weren’t driving along Arthur Highway and didn’t accidentally get into a head-on crash with Martin Bryant killing him before he could commit the Port Arthur Massacre?"

Come on, give me a break - What about the time you were so sceptical about everything that when you won the Lotto you through your ticket away?

correction... I meant 'threw' your ticket away

AJ, while your comment seems reasonable on the face of it, is assuming that event probabilities are entirely stochastic. Do you think you could provide a proof of that?

Apart from that, it is an excellent example of the incompleteness theorem at work, although I suspect you didn't intend it that way.

CH, a better test would be if you noticed a whole series of improbable events. There don't have to be too many before the probability that stochastic (random) chance is at work becomes vanishingly small. However, it is very difficult to eliminate selection bias (which is what AJ was trying to get at) and even a small selection bias may (it may not though) be a problem.

ConservativeHippie,

You've missed my point entirely.

<<...the conclusion I draw from such an experience is it was meant to be. If it wasn't, I wouldn't have been there.>>

So why can't it have 'just happened'? Why does there have to have been some mystical force causing it? What would the world look like if such a force didn't exist, do you think? Would occurrences like that never happen? That, I would think, would take an even greater force.

<<But the fact that I was drawn there seems to me to support the idea of synchronicity.>>

How do you know you were actually drawn there? How do you differentiate between mere coincidence and a mystical force at work?

<<Yes its a coincidence but a very extraordinary one.>>

Not really. Given the amount of people who live on the planet, and the sheer number of interactions that are inevitable as a result of the fact, occurrences like that are bound to happen all the time. There was nothing extraordinary about it at all.

<<That makes no sense at all...>>

I was illustrating confirmation bias. Look it up. What I said actually made perfect sense.

<<What about the time you were so sceptical about everything that when you won the Lotto you through your ticket away?>>

You're mistaking scepticism with cynicism. Keeping an open mind does not necessitate or justify believing whatever the heck we want.

Craig Minns,

If this is not a Shifting of the Burden of Proof fallacy, then it comes pretty close...

<<...while your comment seems reasonable on the face of it, is assuming that event probabilities are entirely stochastic. Do you think you could provide a proof of that?>>

I'm not assuming anything. I'm simply asking what conclusion would appear to be the more rational one given what we currently know. Pathways cross, convenient ones too. I think it would be more extraordinary if they didn't.

You're simply failing to understand the problem, AJ. Whether you think the alternative explanation is more rational or not depends on whether you accept that events are stochastically distributed.

I'm simply asking you your basis for accepting that axiom.

Obviously if you want to assume it without proof, that's up to you and it is a great demonstration of Godel's theorem. Alternatively, if you'd like to attempt a proof, you'd be breaking new mathematical ground.

In the meantime, unless you can do the latter, then CH's explanation is just as plausible as yours, mathematically speaking.

ConservativeHippie made the statement: "AJ, the conclusion I draw from such an experience is it was meant to be."

This implies an existing purpose. However, that there is such a purpose is a matter of belief. AJ doesn't have to prove anything. He has made no unverifiable assumptions.