Predetermination, Death, and OOOAAAHHHH

[agnosticOCD]

Recently my brother had a troubling itch on the back of his brain, and it's been troubling me since he told me about it yesterday.

It seems his professor had some kind of disturbance he felt in one of my brother's classes some weeks ago. This professor told his class this week that he wanted to apologize for the disturbance that meeting because he said he always has that feeling when a student of his or anyone in a room with him is about to have a relative die.

A few days after this professor supposedly felt the disturbance, our aunt died, leaving my mom the only one in her nuclear family left here in the country because her only other sister still alive from all their siblings is in Australia.

Just when he and I had already let go of supernatural explanations for everything, and just when I was settling to the idea of atheistic agnosticism that I've adopted, this thing comes along.

I don't believe in predetermined circumstances. I don't believe that a series of events that unfold are "planned" there since the beginning, but then something like this comes along and I just can't find a solution for it.

I'm of course not about to believe in all that I've let go, I can still see what's wrong with the religion I left behind, but in cases like this, it makes me question whether or not there has already been a predetermined sequence of events in the universe.

As an atheistic agnostic, I don't believe in gods in any religion, but I have never discredited the possibility of the existence of a god. Such a question cannot be answered by the finite capacity of the human mind. Perhaps this predetermined set of circumstances is by some kind of entity that constitutes the universe; lies within everything, but it's not conscious and not as any religion describes it.

Apologies if this might seem like over-analyzing, I just had to get it out of my system.

Is there an explanation for this besides the supernatural? There has to be.

What do you people think? Any idea you can share, perhaps beliefs or insights would be helpful in finding answers to this.

 

[Matt_LRR]

Is there an explanation for this besides the supernatural? There has to be.

Coincidence?

Your teacher sees how many students in a week?

Assuming he said that to all of them, at one point or another, what are the odds that one or more of those students had some relative die in the days surrounding his claim.

Actually pretty good.

If no one had died, you'd never have thought twice about his comments.

That someone you know happened to die makes his claim seem remarkable.

It's not.

This is how professional "psychics" get work.

-m

 

[FalloutJack]

I can never say for certain, as this is neither an exact science nor a thing easily studied. Suffice to say, he was bound to be right even if it was unintentional. Fact is, he was in a classroom full of people with families. One of them was bound to have something happen to them at some point. Still, I can't say for sure because I don't actually know.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Is there an explanation for this besides the supernatural? There has to be.

Coincidence?

Your teacher sees how many students in a week?

Assuming he said that to all of them, at one point or another, what are the odds that one or more of those students had some relative die in the days surrounding his claim.

Actually pretty good.

If no one had died, you'd never have thought twice about his comments.

That someone you know happened to die makes his claim seem remarkable.

It's not.

This is how professional "psychics" get work.

-m

This.

But assuming that that's not the case here...

There are things that science, as it is set up today, cannot explain.

Perhaps there is scientific reason behind supernatural phenomena, and we just don't know how it workes yet.

After all, in the past, some of what was treated as magic, such as Hatian vodoo zombies, or greek fire, is now known to be due to chemeical reactions.

 

[agnosticOCD]

Is there an explanation for this besides the supernatural? There has to be.

Coincidence?

Your teacher sees how many students in a week?

Assuming he said that to all of them, at one point or another, what are the odds that one or more of those students had some relative die in the days surrounding his claim.

Actually pretty good.

If no one had died, you'd never have thought twice about his comments.

That someone you know happened to die makes his claim seem remarkable.

It's not.

This is how professional psychics get work.

-m

But then what would cause the disturbance he and some other people I've met before seem to get right before someone's death? This isn't something he's commonly felt, but it just so happens that whenever he does, someone in the room has a relative or relative die. Basically someone they know and are close with.

Coincidence I can go with, but it's a question of what made him feel it in the first place, because he gets it before someone's relative's death. I doubt he'd have to lie about it. Death isn't exactly a good thing to joke about when it's true, and he's not known to make money of claims like this. In fact, it was during class that he felt it, so he even apologized at the next meeting.

 

[agnosticOCD]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

 

[Aiden_the-Joker1]

Here is a story I like to tell people because it freaks me out a bit. One day my mum was moving all our stuff to our new house and she put the picture of her dead dad up but every place she put it it fell down. Later on she was upstairs with the picture and headed towards the staircase when she felt like she walked into a wall just before the stairs. So she stopped and looked down instinctively and saw that there was something on the first step (This happened years ago so i can't remember exactly what it was) that had fallen out of one of the boxes. I don't know maybe she subconsciously noticed it and stopped herself. In answer to your point maybe he did really realise this otherwise that would be an asshole thing to do if he was just making it up

 

[Jamboxdotcom]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

well, i believe that the answer most people would give you is that he didn't actually feel anything, and it was all part of his hoax. i would tend to be one of those people, although, having a belief in God, myself, i realize it's rather hypocritical to say that my hoodoo is more legitimate than someone else's hoodoo.

 

[agnosticOCD]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

well, i believe that the answer most people would give you is that he didn't actually feel anything, and it was all part of his hoax. i would tend to be one of those people, although, having a belief in God, myself, i realize it's rather hypocritical to say that my hoodoo is more legitimate than someone else's hoodoo.

a lot of the people i know who feel things like that sincerely believe that they feel it, this is assuming that they do actually feel something, what causes it? he doesn't seem have anything to gain by quasi-creeping out his students, and he's not public about it.

 

[Matt_LRR]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

No it doesn't. He just has to think it does.

confirmation bias, man.

Prof feels "a disturbance" then someone dies, he thinks "maybe that's why I felt a disturbance".

subsequently, when he feels one, he goes looking for confirmation that someone died.

When he finds someone that did, he attributes that to the "disturbance" he felt.

It's all coincidence, and human bias & preconception. We're really terrible as a species about chalking coincidence up to coincidence.


-m

 

[agnosticOCD]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

No it doesn't. He just has to think it does.

confirmation bias, man.

Prof feels "a disturbance" then someone dies, he thinks "maybe that's why I felt a disturbance".

subsequently, when he feels one, he goes looking for confirmation that someone died.

When he finds someone that did, he attributes that to the "disturbance" he felt.

It's all coincidence, and human bias & preconception. We're really terrible as a species about chalking coincidence up to coincidence.


-m

You have a point there, but then, my brother was the one that came up to the professor himself.

I tend to question everything... And right now, I question even my own beliefs.

 

[dagens24]

What do you mean by 'a disturbance'?

 

[Matt_LRR]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

No it doesn't. He just has to think it does.

confirmation bias, man.

Prof feels "a disturbance" then someone dies, he thinks "maybe that's why I felt a disturbance".

subsequently, when he feels one, he goes looking for confirmation that someone died.

When he finds someone that did, he attributes that to the "disturbance" he felt.

It's all coincidence, and human bias & preconception. We're really terrible as a species about chalking coincidence up to coincidence.


-m

You have a point there, but then, my brother was the one that came up to the professor himself.

I tend to question everything... And right now, I question even my own beliefs.

The vagueness of the whole situation should give away that it's not legit.

The prof claims to have felt an undefined "disturbance" that he claims to feel whenever "someone" at least two degrees of separation away is going to die.

It's all terribly nonspecific. How many people do you think you have at two degrees of separation from yourself. It's a lot.

And considering it's a rare event, the liklihood of reporting it back to him is high, which then confirms his preconception.

This is literally how professional "psychics" do what they do, and it's all smoke and mirrors. He may believe that he's legit, but he's not. This is simply a confluence of coincidence, and not even particularly unlikely ones at that.

-m

 

[dagens24]

Everyone, let's not forget than Obi Wan felt a disturbance in the Force and then Alderaan got blown up. Food for thought.

 

[agnosticOCD]

Everyone, let's not forget than Obi Wan felt a disturbance in the Force and then Alderaan got blown up. Food for thought.

Doesn't count. Alderan blew up before he felt anything. lol

 

[agnosticOCD]

What do you mean by 'a disturbance'?

He felt something like a finger is touching his hip, as if someone trying to get his attention.

 

[agnosticOCD]

The burning question here is what made him feel it, and how? It has to have a connection with someone dying, that's for sure, whether or not it's coincidental.

No it doesn't. He just has to think it does.

confirmation bias, man.

Prof feels "a disturbance" then someone dies, he thinks "maybe that's why I felt a disturbance".

subsequently, when he feels one, he goes looking for confirmation that someone died.

When he finds someone that did, he attributes that to the "disturbance" he felt.

It's all coincidence, and human bias & preconception. We're really terrible as a species about chalking coincidence up to coincidence.


-m

You have a point there, but then, my brother was the one that came up to the professor himself.

I tend to question everything... And right now, I question even my own beliefs.

The vagueness of the whole situation should give away that it's not legit.

The prof claims to have felt an undefined "disturbance" that he claims to feel whenever "someone" at least two degrees of separation away is going to die.

It's all terribly nonspecific. How many people do you think you have at two degrees of separation from yourself. It's a lot.

And considering it's a rare event, the liklihood of reporting it back to him is high, which then confirms his preconception.

This is literally how professional "psychics" do what they do, and it's all smoke and mirrors. He may believe that he's legit, but he's not. This is simply a confluence of coincidence, and not even particularly unlikely ones at that.

-m

Certainly convinces me, then...

 

[HT_Black]

I dunno. I didn't make the universe, so I don't know how it works. If you want an explanation, just go with whatever seems the most likely and hope that you're right.