Littlewood's Law of Miracles, Apophenia, and the Intentionality Fallacy
While I understand that unusual occurrences can indeed be interpreted in super-mundane ways, it doesn’t mean that such events are the result of something trans-rational. Indeed, even the most apparently miraculous of synchronicities may have a mathematical basis.
The probability of any two events intersecting in meaningful ways is higher than we usually suspect. The linchpin in all of this is our ability to remain aware of how probabilities arise in our life, moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.
John Edensor Littlewood, one of the great mathematicians of the last century and a senior wrangler at Cambridge University, worked intensively on the theory of large numbers. In his extensive research, oftentimes partnering with his more famous cohort G.H. Hardy, Littlewood unearthed some remarkable properties in large numbers that at first glance seem extraordinarily odd. One peculiar oddity is what is now known as Littlewood’s Law of Miracles.Freeman Dyson writing in the New York Review of Books explains it this way:
“Littlewood's Law of Miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hearthings happening at a rate of about one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month. Broch tells stories of some amazing coincidences that happened to him and his friends, all of them easily explained as consequences of Littlewood's Law.”
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The probability of any two events intersecting in meaningful ways is higher than we usually suspect. The linchpin in all of this is our ability to remain aware of how probabilities arise in our life, moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.
John Edensor Littlewood, one of the great mathematicians of the last century and a senior wrangler at Cambridge University, worked intensively on the theory of large numbers. In his extensive research, oftentimes partnering with his more famous cohort G.H. Hardy, Littlewood unearthed some remarkable properties in large numbers that at first glance seem extraordinarily odd. One peculiar oddity is what is now known as Littlewood’s Law of Miracles.Freeman Dyson writing in the New York Review of Books explains it this way:
“Littlewood's Law of Miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hearthings happening at a rate of about one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month. Broch tells stories of some amazing coincidences that happened to him and his friends, all of them easily explained as consequences of Littlewood's Law.”
Littlewood's Law of Miracles, Apophenia, and the Intentionality Fallacy
While I understand that unusual occurrences can indeed be interpreted in super-mundane ways, it doesn’t mean that such events are the result of something trans-rational. Indeed, even the most apparently miraculous of synchronicities may have a mathematical basis.
The probability of any two events intersecting in meaningful ways is higher than we usually suspect. The linchpin in all of this is our ability to remain aware of how probabilities arise in our life, moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.
John Edensor Littlewood, one of the great mathematicians of the last century and a senior wrangler at Cambridge University, worked intensively on the theory of large numbers. In his extensive research, oftentimes partnering with his more famous cohort G.H. Hardy, Littlewood unearthed some remarkable properties in large numbers that at first glance seem extraordinarily odd. One peculiar oddity is what is now known as Littlewood’s Law of Miracles.Freeman Dyson writing in the New York Review of Books explains it this way:
“Littlewood's Law of Miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hearthings happening at a rate of about one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month. Broch tells stories of some amazing coincidences that happened to him and his friends, all of them easily explained as consequences of Littlewood's Law.”
The probability of any two events intersecting in meaningful ways is higher than we usually suspect. The linchpin in all of this is our ability to remain aware of how probabilities arise in our life, moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day.
John Edensor Littlewood, one of the great mathematicians of the last century and a senior wrangler at Cambridge University, worked intensively on the theory of large numbers. In his extensive research, oftentimes partnering with his more famous cohort G.H. Hardy, Littlewood unearthed some remarkable properties in large numbers that at first glance seem extraordinarily odd. One peculiar oddity is what is now known as Littlewood’s Law of Miracles.Freeman Dyson writing in the New York Review of Books explains it this way:
“Littlewood's Law of Miracles states that in the course of any normal person's life, miracles happen at a rate of roughly one per month. The proof of the law is simple. During the time that we are awake and actively engaged in living our lives, roughly for eight hours each day, we see and hearthings happening at a rate of about one per second. So the total number of events that happen to us is about thirty thousand per day, or about a million per month. With few exceptions, these events are not miracles because they are insignificant. The chance of a miracle is about one per million events. Therefore we should expect about one miracle to happen, on the average, every month. Broch tells stories of some amazing coincidences that happened to him and his friends, all of them easily explained as consequences of Littlewood's Law.”
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Littlewood's Law of Miracles, Apophenia, and the Intentionality Fallacy
Littlewood's Law of Miracles, Apophenia, and the Intentionality Fallacy
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940012233066 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | MSAC Philosophy Group |
| Publication date: | 02/28/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| File size: | 242 KB |
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