Re: Another tedious hypothetical

From: Pete Carlton <pmcarlton.domain.name.hidden>
Date: Mon, 6 Jun 2005 16:56:05 -0700

Jesse has it right on here, and one can go even further in this
vein. You are impressed by the relationship between one particular
story and one particular event - but you hand-picked both the story
and the event for discussion here because of their superficial
similarities. You challenged me to find another example of a story
with the same resemblances that the Heinlein story has to the atomic
bomb project. But resemblances between any written story and any
similar event that happens after the story's publication would be in
the same class.

I'm not saying that the resemblances between the story and the bomb
are trivial - they do make an impression. It also makes an
impression when someone dreams of a relative dying and the next day
they receive news that that relative did in fact die that night; or
when you're in a foreign city and you look up the number of the taxi
company and it turns out to be your home phone number, or when
exactly 100 years separate (1) the election to Congress (2) the
election to the presidency (3) the birth of the assassins of and (4)
the birth of the successors of John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln.

These coincidences all make an impression on one. But nothing
special needs to be invoked to explain the occurrence of these events
-- what needs to be explained is the facet of human psychology that
makes people think something strange is going on when in fact nothing
is. Many people have taken stabs at it, and evolutionary
explanations seem to work well -- seriously, you should get the
Dawkins book and read the chapter to see where we're coming from;
Carl Sagan also addressed this issue very well.

--Also, you still have not explained how you get 1 in 10e-9.
Received on Mon Jun 06 2005 - 19:57:40 PDT