I'm Condemning the Future to Death So It Can Match the Past
I've been feeling a bit contemplative lately, made worse by continually watching philosophically interesting movies and having deep debative (yes I realize that's not a word) conversations.
The other day I was watching a new show on Sci-Fi called Mind Reading with Derren Brown or something like that. It's a really interesting show, because the guy says that he has absolutely no psychic ability, but he's practiced psychological techniques of reading people's affect and expressions and can tell what a person is thinking by that. This guy is no doubt a master of all in the realm of subliminal persuasion, but *IF* nothing on his show is faked (like he says over and over again) he's got to have some kind of extra ability that not all of us have. He can hypnotize people by just looking at them, and that's not normal.
So I was talking about this show to Andrew at work, and we were discussing "psychic powers" and other phenomena. We debate these things because he believes in nothing that there is no proof of. He doesn't say that so called "supernatural" things DON'T exist, just that he won't accept them unless he sees definative proof. I've always felt that some unknown force or energy was outside of human perception, but it still there. Lately evidence has piled up in my own mind that this is some sort of energy that humans can't detect, but that influences us or just accompanies us, in the case of ghosts. Some of my beliefs may be a bit out there though (I also like entertaining the idea that time actually travels backwards instead of forwards, and that we get a glimpse of it when we get deja vu)
So we were discussing the role of coincidence in all of this (like the chances that Derren can just be a lucky guesser). I believe that some coincidences are just too much, there has to be more to them than just luck. For example, and this probably happens to everyone, if I learn about something, or think about something I haven't thought about in awhile, the same thing will come up in a different format. One day I was talking at work about an Oprah show I saw when I was really young about putting your own urine on your face to help with pimple breakouts. Now this is something I hadn't brought up in YEARS, and nobody has every mentioned it to me either. The day after I mentioned it at work, one of the characters was talking about the same thing in the beginning of a movie I was watching. That is just one example of something that happens quite frequently.
Similarly, there was apparently a study done with random binary number generators a little while ago. This study had people sit at a computer and generate either 0s or 1s for a period of time. They were instructed to think the whole time about generating one number over the other number. By the end of the study, there were a significant number of people who tipped the random number generator in their favor, supposedly by just thinking about which number they wanted more. Now I'm not sure if study actually exists, but if it does, it's pretty interesting that we may be able to control our surroundings more than we think.
Anyway, yesterday I was thinking about this stuff, then I was thinking about the songs on my ipod. I have approximately 6000 songs on my Ipod that play in a shuffled order. Many of the songs are from Mike or other people, but I have at least 2000 songs of my own on there. Yesterday the ipod kept playing Mike's songs, so I started thinking about wanting it to play some of my songs, thinking specifically about whether I had put Damien Rice's "O" album on there, because I would have liked to hear "The Blower's Daughter". Well 2 songs later, that specific song was playing, and then the ipod played a series of my songs in a row. (at least 5, which is usally unheard of with my player).
Then, still contemplating these things, I went home and raided Mike's Blockbuster, as I call it, because he owns at least 70 movies I haven't seen yet. I randomly picked Magnolia to watch, because I'd never seen it before, and wouldn't you know, it was all about coincidences. (I really didn't know this--amazing film by the way).
Sometimes these things just make us think, and I think we do need to think about things other than ourselves once in awhile. I'm not a very religious person, but I do appreciate the fact that it's a big universe, and humans don't have all the knowledge of the world just yet.
*To end on a lighter note...there's a mouse in our apartment that I keep trying to tame as a pet. It's adorable, but it won't come near me. It's gotten as close as about 15 feet away from me, but I don't think it's gonna happen. I think if I don't get a real pet soon Mike's gonna find me home trying to pet ants one day, and it won't be good.*
The other day I was watching a new show on Sci-Fi called Mind Reading with Derren Brown or something like that. It's a really interesting show, because the guy says that he has absolutely no psychic ability, but he's practiced psychological techniques of reading people's affect and expressions and can tell what a person is thinking by that. This guy is no doubt a master of all in the realm of subliminal persuasion, but *IF* nothing on his show is faked (like he says over and over again) he's got to have some kind of extra ability that not all of us have. He can hypnotize people by just looking at them, and that's not normal.
So I was talking about this show to Andrew at work, and we were discussing "psychic powers" and other phenomena. We debate these things because he believes in nothing that there is no proof of. He doesn't say that so called "supernatural" things DON'T exist, just that he won't accept them unless he sees definative proof. I've always felt that some unknown force or energy was outside of human perception, but it still there. Lately evidence has piled up in my own mind that this is some sort of energy that humans can't detect, but that influences us or just accompanies us, in the case of ghosts. Some of my beliefs may be a bit out there though (I also like entertaining the idea that time actually travels backwards instead of forwards, and that we get a glimpse of it when we get deja vu)
So we were discussing the role of coincidence in all of this (like the chances that Derren can just be a lucky guesser). I believe that some coincidences are just too much, there has to be more to them than just luck. For example, and this probably happens to everyone, if I learn about something, or think about something I haven't thought about in awhile, the same thing will come up in a different format. One day I was talking at work about an Oprah show I saw when I was really young about putting your own urine on your face to help with pimple breakouts. Now this is something I hadn't brought up in YEARS, and nobody has every mentioned it to me either. The day after I mentioned it at work, one of the characters was talking about the same thing in the beginning of a movie I was watching. That is just one example of something that happens quite frequently.
Similarly, there was apparently a study done with random binary number generators a little while ago. This study had people sit at a computer and generate either 0s or 1s for a period of time. They were instructed to think the whole time about generating one number over the other number. By the end of the study, there were a significant number of people who tipped the random number generator in their favor, supposedly by just thinking about which number they wanted more. Now I'm not sure if study actually exists, but if it does, it's pretty interesting that we may be able to control our surroundings more than we think.
Anyway, yesterday I was thinking about this stuff, then I was thinking about the songs on my ipod. I have approximately 6000 songs on my Ipod that play in a shuffled order. Many of the songs are from Mike or other people, but I have at least 2000 songs of my own on there. Yesterday the ipod kept playing Mike's songs, so I started thinking about wanting it to play some of my songs, thinking specifically about whether I had put Damien Rice's "O" album on there, because I would have liked to hear "The Blower's Daughter". Well 2 songs later, that specific song was playing, and then the ipod played a series of my songs in a row. (at least 5, which is usally unheard of with my player).
Then, still contemplating these things, I went home and raided Mike's Blockbuster, as I call it, because he owns at least 70 movies I haven't seen yet. I randomly picked Magnolia to watch, because I'd never seen it before, and wouldn't you know, it was all about coincidences. (I really didn't know this--amazing film by the way).
Sometimes these things just make us think, and I think we do need to think about things other than ourselves once in awhile. I'm not a very religious person, but I do appreciate the fact that it's a big universe, and humans don't have all the knowledge of the world just yet.
*To end on a lighter note...there's a mouse in our apartment that I keep trying to tame as a pet. It's adorable, but it won't come near me. It's gotten as close as about 15 feet away from me, but I don't think it's gonna happen. I think if I don't get a real pet soon Mike's gonna find me home trying to pet ants one day, and it won't be good.*
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