
Mark Twain’s Mind Waves - apollinaire
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2020/08/25/mark-twains-mind-waves/
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kirse
I had this happen recently with such incredibly strong coincidental timing (a
few hours after years of no contact) that I had to do some research. One word
is "synchronicity", but it's a somewhat disparaging term that does not really
allow for a possible physical explanation.

Skipping over any quantum entangle-y coolness, my personal guess is that since
we are strongly cyclical creatures, if two people have experienced a strong
memory together (or some unity of mind/spirit), their minds likely re-process
those memories on similar receding timelines. It's well known that the brain
has a forgetfulness curve, and I'm sure it has a "remembering curve" just as
well.

It'd be interesting to do a study where you pair up random people and have
them experience some really unique memory together and then for 5-10 years
have them write down the date/time(s) they re-experience it. That of course
might mess with the curve since it would aid in memory, but I'm not the
scientist here...

~~~
hyperpallium2
I think a common trigger may play a role, e.g. evocative weather/smells, a
related news event, similar life changes. The key is a subtle trigger, so you
don't consciously register the connection.

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techbio
Just yesterday I was thinking of the difference in the perceived sounds of
many clock radios tuned to the same, or to different, radio stations.

Last week I came across a comment on HN having the quote "History never
repeats itself, but it does tend to rhyme", perhaps attributable to Mark
Twain.

Now this. That there is any significance to these coincidences remains as
unclear as the thesis of this article.

~~~
yesenadam
Apparently the line about history never repeating itself, but rhyming, comes
from about 1970:

[https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-
rhymes/](https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/)

[https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/his...](https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/history_doesnt_repeat_itself_but_it_does_rhyme)

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IAmGraydon
I’m a believer in only science, but I don’t think it’s too metaphysical to at
least entertain the idea that we may be one consciousness experiencing itself
from 7.8 billion different perspectives. These events would make sense in this
context.

~~~
anon9001
Well of course we're all one consciousness experiencing itself. How else would
you run the simulation?

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MrLeap
I am building a.. uhh.. parody.. text editor.. game.. toy called Mark Twain
Simulator(1), and I did not know this. This is too great not to absorb into my
project at a foundational level. It's now in my DNA and will never leave.

(1)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZlz_T_9aaU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZlz_T_9aaU)

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temp0826
Also fun is Jung's work on synchronicity and of course this gem-

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pauli_effect)

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Rapzid
I don't really buy the setup. Often the situations in these style articles
seem completely contrived; same as puff peices.

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kpozin
Just wanted to mention, tangentially, that I'm currently halfway through
Twain's _Roughing It_ , which comes up in the article. If you enjoy wry humor,
I heartily recommend the book (as well as Grover Gardner's narration, included
with Audible subscription).

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browserface
David Malouf writes about similar phenomena. I think he even uses a similar
term "waves of thought emanating out from somebody around the room" or
something, effecting other people.

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fuzzybear3965
"turn clown"? I tried searching and using context. Nothing.

Does it mean, "make a lot of money", "write fantastical stories", or "become
like someone else (the clown)"?

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adventured
These are always unsettling when they occur, even if they are ultimately mere
coincidences.

When I was in my early 20s, my older brother (and only sibling) was overseas
in the military and we had rare contact. We almost never exchanged emails or
phone calls. One day our father died suddenly of a massive heart attack. I
found out shortly after it happened, and proceeded to attempt to contact my
brother, calling his house in Germany repeatedly across many hours (while
attending to other family matters). While I was doing that, unbeknownst to me
he was simultaneously sending me five or six emails out of the blue while at
work, spanning various topics (he was entirely unaware our father had died). I
didn't get the emails until after we spoke - I was busy trying to call him and
with everything going on I didn't think to bother to check my email. He
probably hadn't sent me an email in years. What are the odds he'd be trying to
reach me at that particular moment, while I'm trying to call him about
something so critically important to both of us.

In my early 20s, my mother died of small-cell lung cancer (30+ years of
smoking), after about a 15 month fight with it. The disease progressed very
rapidly in the later stages. In the last weeks, her drift toward death was
essentially being managed, as there was nothing else that could be done (a
hailmary round of intense radiation therapy dropped her off a final cliff, she
died quickly after that). She was being cared for at home in the final two
months, which is what she wanted. I would occasionally go visit and spend time
with her, although she was out of it mentally in the final weeks, as her
organs were gradually shutting down. I hadn't gone to visit her in a week or
so. I unintentionally fell asleep the evening I planned to go visit, waking up
late, a bit after 11pm; that was far too late to go visit unannounced, but I
did it anyway, I felt compelled that night. So I drove to her house and I
spent several hours with her, just the two of us. The TV or radio was always
left on for her through the night (she couldn't communicate at this point),
with an assumption that it might be comforting if she was still receiving
input in some regard. I left at maybe 2am, turning off the TV as I left (I was
supposed to leave it on, it was just an automatic action), and she died a few
hours later that morning. Where did the strong compulsion to go see her that
specific night come from? It was particularly odd, somewhere in my brain I
knew I needed to regardless of how late it was, it couldn't wait until the
next night.

I'm an atheistically and scientifically inclined type, non-religious, without
a mystically-oriented mind, and these types of coincidences or oddities always
throw me a bit regardless. If you live long enough you inevitably see many of
them and they're always surreal. For the most part I chalk it up to the sheer
volume of events (micro or otherwise) that occur across a lifetime, such that
unlikely coincidences and strange events are bound to be produced.

The most common one seems to be where you're actively thinking about someone
you haven't spoken to in a long while, and suddenly they call or text. It's
always freaky and I don't think I've ever met someone it hasn't happened to.

I think our brains are subconsciously capable of rather remarkable
calculations, estimations, extrapolations and timings that are still vastly
underestimated. Roaming this planet with so many other people, the collisions
of these capabilities produce remarkable coincidences as our daily lives
unfold and cross paths. It makes sense, as we're all clones in the same human
family (I don't mean that literally), we probably have the same impulses
derived from a subconscious timer: both parties feeling a similar thing in the
same rough time frame. It makes sense that we'd have similar bounds and
reactions to reaching them, based on a shared relationship. And I think that
mostly explains Twain's concept of mental telegraphy.

~~~
dunmalg
>I'm an atheistically and scientifically inclined type, non-religious, without
a mystically-oriented mind, and these types of coincidences or oddities always
throw me a bit regardless.

Personally, I've had enough weird things happen to me in my life that I've
left that entire thing open to explanations simply aren't covered by our
current body of scientific knowledge. I'm a non-mystical atheist also, but I'm
not willing to completely write off the unexplained as simply "coincidence"
just because a lot of folks ascribe it to religion or other magic. I mean,
what did people think of bacterial/viral infection 200 years ago? A lot of
crazy mystical stuff, for sure, all laughably inaccurate. What sort of stuff
will they laugh at US about in 200 years?

