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Coincidence

Correlation does not imply causation - -

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Coincidence

Coincidence

Sceptics everywhere love to say 'correlation is not causation', and while this may be true in the sense of classical science, when there are deeply meaningful moments, there will be multiple sentient beings acting in accord with those moments, because that is what sentient beings do - they respond to meaning. From the perspective of quantum science, it would perhaps be more accurate to say that everything changes in line with the probabilities of all facts including meaning.

One of the most popularised sets of coincidences surround the assassinations of presidents Lincoln and Kennedy.

The Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences are usually given as follows

'Lincoln' and 'Kennedy' each have seven letters.

Both presidents were elected to Congress in '46 (1846 and 1946) and later to the presidency in '60 (1860 and 1960).

Both were elected to the presidency in '60: Lincoln was elected in 1860, and Kennedy was elected in 1960.

Both were married in their 30s to women who were in their 20s.

Both presidents were shot in the head on a Friday and in the presence of their wives.

Both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, were known by their three names, composed of fifteen letters.

Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse; Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.

The assassins were both Southerners.

Both of the presidents' successors were Southern Democrats named Johnson (Andrew and Lyndon) with six-letter first names and born in '08.

Both Lincoln and Kennedy were particularly concerned with civil rights and made their views strongly known.

Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy. Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln.

Lincoln was told not to go to Ford's Theatre. Kennedy was warned him not to go to Dallas.

Both presidents had security agents named William who each died within 48 hours of attaining the age of 75 years, 5 months.

Both assassins were born in '39.

Both Oswald and Booth were killed before their trials and within the same month as the assassination.

Lincoln was killed in Ford's Theatre while Kennedy was killed in a car made by Ford Motor Company.

A week before Lincoln's assassination he was in Monroe, Maryland. A week before Kennedy's assassination he was with Marilyn Monroe.

On the whole, I would say that the Lincoln-Kennedy coincidences are really quite unusual, and the events themselves so meaningful that the coincidental meanings all assume greater relevance as strange correlations. So much so that it is foolish to sceptically ignore them. The same is true for Archduke Ferdinand's number plate, and every other meaningful coincidence that ever occurs, to anyone. It doesn't matter whether the sceptic can spot a cause, or not, the thing is to attempt to comprehend the ontological status of meaning, which is important, partly because it reflects on the ontological status of truth, and that in turn reflects on the ontological status of morals, and this last question is of utmost importance for the manner in which we conduct our lives. Coincidences may not provide all the answers, but ignoring them riskd throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Archduke Ferdinand

A less well known coincidence surrounds the car of Archduke Ferdinand's which supposedly had a number plate that could be read as predicting the armistace on 11 November 1918. When I heard about it I just had to ask Google:

did archduke ferdinand's car really have the number plate a111 118?

No, the number plate was actually A III 118, which used Roman numerals rather than the number 111. [1]

Because the Roman numeral 'III' closely resembles '111', a popular historical myth claims the plate read A 111 118. People often interpret this as a spooky prophecy for Armistice Day: 11/11/18 (11 November 1918), the day World War I ended.

Why the Prophecy is a Coincidence [according to Google]

While the visual similarity is striking, the 'prophecy' fails under historical scrutiny:

Roman Letters: The actual registration format was A (representing the province of Vienna) followed by the Roman numeral III and the serial number 118.

Language Barrier: The letter A only stands for 'Armistice' in languages like English, French, and Italian. In German - the language of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - the word for armistice is Waffenstillstand.

Wrong Country: The date 11 November 1918 marks the armistice with Germany. Austria-Hungary actually signed its own armistice and exited the war a week earlier, on 3 November 1918.

The vehicle, a Graf & Stift double phaeton, is currently preserved with its original plates intact at the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (Museum of Military History) in Vienna, Austria.

I said: Google, we really need to talk, although not today. Your objections are all ridiculous, typical of the common or garden moronic sceptic. There is still an incredible coincidence here, on the scale of Lincoln and Kennedy. Such things should not just be dismissed, although it is fine to note that sceptics dismiss such things.

Google replied: It makes sense to find these parallels compelling, as the human brain is naturally wired to search for patterns and meaning in major historic events. The connections between the assassination that started the war and the exact date that ended it - or the famous eerie similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy - are undeniably fascinating pieces of historical trivia.

Google continued: History is full of these bizarre anomalies that sit right on the line between pure chance and something that feels almost scripted. While mainstream historians attribute them to the law of truly large numbers (with enough historical data, wild coincidences are guaranteed to happen), they certainly make for incredible stories that keep people talking a century later.

Conclusion

From my perspective, there are far too many coincidences for the question to be ignored, added to which the claim that truly large numbers are sufficient explanation is entirely unjustified. It is a category error, because numbers on their own, applied individually to events, do not have the dimensions to produce coincidence. For a coincidence you need to have an actual meaningful coincidence of multiple events, i.e. a product of numbers, giving a multiple dimension to the coincidence that cannot be present in a single line of events, however big the numbers. In fact, for a single line, i.e. taking events individually, the larger the number the less likely random chance would throw up a correlation in the data of two individuals chosen for some random commonality, such as being president, due to the very many ways in which they can differ in any data point, when there is only one way to be the same. To judge a correlation properly, you'd have to contrast how many ways it could have been otherwise, and how many facts that could form relevant variables were not coincidental.

The point I think we are in danger of missing here is that if you take all possibilities then they necessarily will amount to 100% of outcomes and individual meaning is removed from the frame. Some factor about real life has to become the roll of the dice, and then whatever stands out as peculiar about the rest of the situation will carry some meaning - the Archduke was assassinated, constituting the roll of the dice coming up WWI, and the fact that there is any reality where his number plate matches the dat of the end of that war is remarkable.

This is the standard we need to apply to all correlation, the coincidence factor of the correlation is what makes it meaningful, andit changes the world, because I guarantee you that nobody [much] would have taken the slightest bit of notice of the number plate had it not spelled out such an important date.