A striking coincidence is much like a small drama: The Causal Figment

A striking coincidence is much like a small drama: the participants arrive exactly on cue, wear the right makeup, know their lines, and produce results that are significant or trivial, amusing or, sometimes, awe-inspiring. The problem is that no scriptwriter, no director, no stage manager, and no collusion on the part of the actors are involved in the performance; it unfolds, without reason but with perfect order, as though by magic.

Coincidences are baffling because they seem to represent order arising by chance: they resemble the results of an orderly causal process, but they do not have a causal connection that fits our experience. For example, the beetle that flies into the psychiatrist's consulting room just as a patient is recounting a dream in which such an insect enters her room has no discernible connection with the patient. It could not have known how to enter the room on cue. Furthermore, the patient who dreams of this liberating encounter has no way of knowing that it will occur or any means of ensuring that her response will be the one predicted by the dream.

The problem with coincidences is that they violate our notions of cause and effect. But supposing our notions of causality are wrong?

In 1739 the Scottish philosopher David Hume published A Treatise of Human Nature, an analytical rejection of the commonly established ideas of causation. In philosophical terms, his arguments have never been fully rebutted; in scientific terms, much of what he maintained has been justified.

Since Greek philosophers first turned their attention to causality in the fifth-century b.c., it had been almost universally accepted that everything that has a beginning must be caused by something else. Hume rejected this. On the contrary, he maintained, it is not certain that every object which begins to exist must owe its existence to a cause. To believe, said Hume, that every being must be preceded by a cause is no more valid than believing that because every husband must have a wife, every man must therefore be married.

Hume aimed to show that the traditional starting point for theories of causation is incapable of proof; he was not, of course, trying to prove its reverse or any other position. All we can justly say of causality is that what we take to be a cause always precedes what we take to be its effect, and that there is always continuity between the two. Beyond this, he said, nothing could be claimed, and the view that a necessary connection exists between a cause and its effect is nothing more than a habit of mind.

The Scottish philosopher David Hume

The Scottish philosopher David Hume held that the idea of a causal relationship between two events occurring in sequence is nothing more than a habit of mind.

For example, while watching a game of billiards, we confidently expect that when one ball strikes another, the ball that has been struck will move, and we, therefore, persuade ourselves that there is a connection between the motion of the first ball and the motion of the second—between cause and effect. Such an idea, however, is not based on logic or observation, Hume said. All we observe is that contact—contiguity— occurs; the rest is an assumption. Our expectation that a stationary ball will move in a predictable way when struck by another ball may well be correct in most cases, but this is not a certainty. The momentum and inertia of the two balls must be considered—too little momentum or too much inertia, and the effect will not be what we expect. The materials from which the balls are made must also be taken into account, and so must their soundness—is one of the balls apt to shatter rather than move? We must also consider the shape of the balls, the nature of the surface on which they lie, and the stability of the situation in which the event takes place. Among all these variables and many more, we look in vain for an identifiable principle connecting cause and effect; and since we look in vain for it, we are under no compulsion to assert its existence or to accede to such assertions.

Although Hume's arguments may appear to fly in the face of common sense, they have to some extent been vindicated by 20th-century physics. At the subatomic level, ideas of predictability (which should pertain, at least theoretically, if causal connections could be found or even theoretically established) have been replaced by those of statistical probability.

Established ideas of causality have also come under fire at a macroscopic level, particularly among evolutionary biologists. For example, how can we describe the evolution of the reptilian egg in terms of cause and effect? Evolutionary theory holds that changes in organisms occur as the result of random genetic mutations; if one of these changes confers an advantage that allows the organism to produce more offspring, the change is likely to be inherited by the offspring and may eventually become normal for the species. But when we look at the reptilian egg (or the mammalian eye or any number of other features and organs), we see that numerous events must have occurred simultaneously for the development to succeed. The shell, for instance, had to be impermeable and strong enough to protect the embryo. But unless the embryo had at the same time developed some means of liberating itself from the shell, this durable egg would have become a tomb. In addition, the embryo had to develop a means of absorbing nutrition while in the egg. But unless it had also developed some means of storing its own waste products safely, it would soon have created a poisonous environment.

Each of these developments—the durable shell, egg tooth, and so on—had to arise, according to evolutionary theory, as the result of random mutations. But between the mutations that produced the shell and those that produced the egg tooth there could have been no connection (they arose at random), nor between those concerning nutrition and waste disposal. And if there were no such connections, how was the whole process orchestrated? From this point of view, the reptilian egg must be seen as appearing without causal benefit and as representing the culmination of a series of wildly improbable coincidences.

David Hume was well aware that his view of causality would be hard for people to accept when he ascribed the difficulty to the force of mental habits that condition our outlook. If he was right—if we expect causal connections—we have only ourselves to blame (or congratulate) when we find coincidences a tantalizing and titillating affront to the commonsense view we hold of the world.

#coincidences #davidhume #TheScottishphilosopherDavidHume #philosopherDavidHume

Medieval Chronicles: Relics of the supernatural encounters

Medieval Chronicles: Relics of the supernatural encounters

The source of fairies is amongst the most discussed questions of folklore. In support of their arguments, researchers have turned to a couple of medieval texts, and occasionally to the evidence of place names. But there's room for doubt whether these resources should be regarded as describing fairies in any respect.

Drawing of Geoffrey Chaucer is a photograph

The fairy tradition in literature begins in the 1380s, with Chaucer and Cower. In their eyes, the fairies are already a vanishing race, partly frightening and partly comic. The implication (particularly in the preamble to The Wife of Bath's Tale) is that people used to believe in fairies, but do not do this anymore. However, Egyptian mythology as a consistent set of beliefs (dance in rings, living in hills, the principle of a queen, etc.) is itself generated by the authors who claim to be documenting its last echoes. Earlier evidence doesn't describe these fairies. Rather, it details encounters with various supernatural beings that were, in retrospect, treated like they were citizens of fairyland. The otherworldly beings that appear in medieval chronicles are a diverse lot. Some of them, like the barrow revelers in William of Newburgh and the maidens found in a wood by Wild Edric, are intentionally left unidentified;such as the maiden in the moor of the carol, their nonhuman standing is indicated by allusion rather than by direct statement. Others are defined by a single strange characteristic, like the color of the Green Children of Wool pit, or the small size of King Herla (a pygmaeus} who rides a goat.

John Dee and Edward Kelley communicating with a spirit

The homunculus is an enigmatic encounter story from Thomas Walsingham was equally diminutive and dressed in red. The otherworldly race who played with the boy Elidurus had their own language (a kind of Greek} and their own superior morals. There is nothing in these scattered references to suggest that the beings concerned are of the same type. All the medieval phrases for spirits were also used, sometimes, for devils. The achievement of fairy authors, from Chaucer to Shakespeare, was to enlarge the indications of an otherworld from the Breton courtly narratives until almost all previous tales of supernatural encounters could be shoehorned into their dominant discourse. Despite Bob Trubshaw's proposal in the accompanying article that Broadly speaking, these Middle English accounts adapt to the Anglo-Saxon categories of elves, dwarfs, and pucks, so appear to represent some continuity of belief there is no systematic mythology of fairies before 1380. There are many unrelated motifs - barrow dwellers, tricksters, little individuals, household guardians - that we know in hindsight will come together to define the fairy kingdom. But this identity is simply not there in the original references. In Old English, the aelfs are just one amongst many otherworldly communities. The Charm for a Sudden Stitch puts them on exactly the same footing as hags and the Aesir, and they have the same role as the Aesir in name compounds - compare Aelfric and Osric. An Anglo-Saxon language of 1100 leaves dryads etc. as types of elves. As Hilda Ellis Davidson revealed in The Road to Hell, the Scandinavian elves are closely assimilated to the Vanir.

By the thirteenth century, the original context of Old English belief had become lost, and people were using the word in a variety of ways. La yam on uses elf to interpret the Romance fades - following a line of thought which was to lead into the elf-fairy equivalence - but other people had other ideas. Robert of Gloucester, explaining which type of being it was that fathered Merlin, says the sky is full of aliens called elves. Here we are on the verge of this diabolical, as we're in Beowulf when the cells have the seed of Cain.

Jacob Isaacsz Swanenburgh, Jaws of Leviathan, ca1600

Rather, their place is taken by puca, which appears to describe the inhabitants of wells, pits, and barrows. It is tempting to make the medieval pouke as identical with Renaissance Puck, but this is to fall into another retrospective reading. Even in Midsummer Night's Dream, Puck has the look of being moved into fairyland, somewhat awkwardly, from a quite distinct tradition.

Ana Maria Pacheco

The situation is different in northern England, where self is not uncommon and puca is absent. This is also the region where the elf was kept as the regular word for beings in the modern period, the Romance fairy being rejected. This could well be the consequence of Scandinavian influence - the fact that an elf is liable to chemicals with hair rather than being would imply this.

Scandinavian influence is certainly present in these place names that refer to dwarfs. The Anglo-Saxons had no concept of the reorg for a member of a small supernatural race. When we meet with clearly mythical dwarfs in North Country place names, it seems reasonable to suspect Norse influence, as Keightley observed more than a century ago. In a nutshell, the origins of fairy mythology lie not in the distant past, but at the court of Richard II. The creative synthesis that the poets made out of English and French customs was developed in the Tudor period to include tricksters of the Robin Good fellow type as well as the familiar spirits of cunning men, and domestic spirits such as the brownie. As an English language tradition, it managed to dominate and then alter the native sidhe beliefs of Ireland and the Highlands, introducing alien notions such as small size into their narrative.

Death-fires dancing around the becalmed ship, scene from ''The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'' S.T. Co

From the nineteenth century, it had been possible for Anglo-Saxon spirits such as the grima, scucca and others - that had lived outside a quiet rural existence as Church Grim's, Black Shucks, and Hob thrusts - to locate themselves reinterpreted by folklorists (not the folk!) It follows that we can no longer make out what they were like initially. The fairy glamour of the fully developed tradition has tended to obscure our understanding of the very disparate narratives of supernatural encounters which were patched into it.

#supernatural #medieval #medievaltime

Living the miracles in the realm of frogs and toads

In many parts of the world, frogs and toads have also fallen numerous times and in monstrous numbers; and so have winkles, worms, and snakes. Blood has been seen dribbling or pouring from the sky, beans and grains fall, and so do meat, muscle, and fat, as though granaries and abattoirs sailed invisibly overhead.

Reports of these and many other kinds of skyfall are included in this content. They range in believability from the more or less acceptable to the downright incredible. And at the farther end of this spectrum are events that may well belong to another category of the unexplained

You could find some strange topics in the next contents on here the ''DAILY STRANGE''. For example, non-meteoritic stones may be conceived to fall from the sky, perhaps ejected by a volcano or gathered by a whirlwind. That such falls of stones should repeatedly descend on the same two adjacent roofs (as they did at Chico, California, in 1921 and 1922) begins to stretch the imagination; and that some stone showers should single out and pursue certain people (two fishermen were such victims in 1973) is already beyond belief. But that stones should fall from undamaged ceilings in closed rooms or inside a closed tent (the victim here was an Australian farm handin1957) removes such incidents from the material realm to the realm of poltergeists...

Perhaps the earliest record of a mysterious—or miraculous - fall from the sky occurs in Chapter 10, Verse 11, of the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament. The Israelites, led by Joshua, have routed the Amorite army in a surprise night attack and are in hot pursuit:

And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth-horon, the Lord threw down great stones from heaven upon them as far as Azekah, and they died; there were more who died because of the hailstones than the men of Israel killed with the sword.

Two verses after this, incidentally, one of the most astonishing events in the Old Testament is described: the sun stands still until the Israelites have avenged themselves.

Whatever the explanation of this maybe, we shall find many accounts in later centuries of motionless, bright, aerial disks.

A less explicit reference to aerial intervention on behalf of the Israelites occurs in the Book of judges, Chapter 5, Verse 4:

Lord, when thou didst go forth from Seir when thou didst march from the region of Edom, the earth trembled, and the heavens dropped yea, the clouds dropped water.

Whatever “the heavens dropped” may mean, it seems to refer to something other than rainfall, since the next clause describes that, explicitly, as an additional event. The next mention of heaven appears in Verse 20:

From heaven fought the stars, from their courses they fought against Sisera.

In the First Book of Samuel, Chapter 7, Verses 10-12, the Lord again intervenes on behalf of the Israelites

As Samuel was offering up the burnt offering, the Philistines drew near to attack Israel; but the Lord thundered with a mighty voice that day against the Philistines and threw them into confusion, and they were routed before Israel. And the men of Israel... pursued the Philistines, and smote them, as far as below Beth-car. Then Samuel took a stone and set it up between Mizpah and Jeshanah, and called its name Ebenezer; for he said, “Hitherto the Lord has helped us.

In Hebrew, the words eben ezer mean “stone of help.”

The Deipnosophistae (Banquet of the Sophists): Fall of fish and a spectacular deluge of frogs

The records of ancient skyfalls are less numerous than modern accounts but are comparably diverse. The Greek historian Athenaeus, for example, refers to a three-day fall of fish and a spectacular deluge of frogs in his historical anthology, the Deipnosophistae (“Banquet of the Sophists”), written about A.D. 200:

I also know that it has very often rained fishes. At all events Phenias, in the second book of his Eresian Magistrates, says that in the Chersonesus [the word means simply “peninsula” in Greek, and the exact locality referred to is uncertain] it once rained fish uninterruptedly for three days; and Phylarchus in his fourth book, says that people had often seen it raining fish, and often also raining wheat, and that the same thing had happened with respect to frogs. At all events, Heraclides Lembus, in the 21st book of his History, says: “In Paeonia and Dardania it has, they say, before now rained frogs; and so great has been the number of these frogs that the houses and the roads have been full of them; and at first, for some days, the inhabitants, endeavoring to kill them, and shutting up their houses, endured the pest; but when they did no good, but found that all their vessels were filled with them, and the frogs were found to be boiled up and roasted with everything they ate, and when besides all this, they could not make use of any water, nor put their feet on the ground for the heaps of frogs that were everywhere, and were annoyed also by the smell of those that died, they fled the country.''

Accounts of fish, grain, and frogs will be found in more recent history, but the closest approximation of the plague of frogs in Paeonia and Dardani occurs in the biblical account of the second plague in Egypt, the plague of frogs (Exodus 8:1 - 14) :

The skyfall recorded in the Book of Joshua illustrated photo

The skyfall recorded in the Book of Joshua is illustrated here. Great stones cast down from heaven upon the Amorites forced them to flee before the Israelite army. Many of the soldiers were killed by the stones.

The Lord Said: I will plague all your country with frogs; the Nile shall swarm with frogs which shall come up into your house, and into your bed chamber and on your bed, and into the houses of your servants and of your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls ... and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt... And they gathered them together in heaps and the land stank.

The Book of Exodus, Chapter 9, Verses 18-34, records deadly hail, and fire mingled with the hail, as the seventh plague of Egypt.

Ancient historians, including Procopius, Marcellinus, and Theophanes, record a fall of black dust in the year 472 b.c., during which the sky seemed to be on fire. The location of the fall is uncertain but may have been Constantinople.

During the reign of Charlemagne (ninth century a.d.) an enormous block of ice, 990 cubic feet of it, fell from the sky. (Camille Flammarion, The Atmosphere, p.398)

A burning object fell into Lake Van, Armenia, in a.d. 1110, turning the waters red. In the first plague of Egypt, the Nile turned to blood (Exodus 7:15-24).

#skyfalls #skyfall #skyfalling