It is tough having to soft-pedal discussion of Superstition
The author of a book on probabilities and the ubiquity of "miracles" was on MSNBC today talking to (among others) Abby Huntsman.
His point is that given the number of events and thoughts all us billions of people experience 24/7, probabilities demand that "miracles" happen all the time.
You go to NY for the first time and bump into someone you haven't seen since college who is also visiting NYC for the first time.
What are the odds?
Of that, in specific? Extraordinary. Of something incredibly unlikely happening during your trip to New York? Very high. You will have thousands and millions of thoughts, memories, associations, interactions, etc. in NY.
Watch a roulette wheel for a while an 23 will come up eventually. It will. And if you personally find something significant about 23 then you will tend to notice it.
Anyway...
Huntsman tells a story about how her Mom wanted to adopt a baby from China and her dad did not. Then one night he changed his mind and said he wanted to. So then, a year or three later, they adopt a baby from China and that baby's birth-date was the same night her dad changed his mind about adopting.
And she says, "Are you telling me that doesn't mean anything?"
His answer: "What gives us meaning... argle-bargle.... the human heart... science cannot.... blah, blah."
(Touré slyly complimented the guy on his "incredibly diplomatic answer"
And this is the problem. Why can the poor guy not even answer the question straightforwardly without sounding like he is saying that her dad is a liar and everyone should commit suicide to get their pointless non-miraculous life over with?
The right answer is: It is a cute story, and nice to tell the other kids and pretty innocuous, but no... it really has no cosmic meaning. It was not dictated by supernatural forces or fate.
Huntsman's story does not "mean" anything in the way she is using "means." It does not indicate any supernatural rightness to adopting that specific child. It does not suggest that anything is or was "meant to be." It does not mean that the baby's newborn soul reached out to her father's heart. (Do we get souls only at birth? Hmmm.)
And if it did, that would be a really crummy thing to say about everybody else who ever adopted a child. Few people adopt a child that happens to be born at the moment it entered their head to adopt a child. Are their adoptions meaningless? Were they not meant to be?
(Like the people who survive disaster and say God has a plan for them. Yeah... God was done with all those folks who died. Or sports people who thank God for their victories... what the heck does that say about the other team???)
And c'mon... nobody credits the post hoc miracle formation. I thought of my grandmother and then the phone rang with the news she was dead. This happens and creates a vivid memory. But the thousand times you think of Grandma and the phones rings and someone wants to sell you a time-share do not become vivid counter-memories.
It is how we are put together. We look at a zillion (almost) randomly placed stars in the night sky and start trying to see what animals they are pictures of. It's how we roll.
I felt sad that the guy had to be diplomatic about what was, at heart, pretty similar to a ghost story.
But here we are.
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