Do Coincidences Give Good Guidance?
Why Read This
What Makes This Article Worth Your Time
Summary
What This Article Is About
Sharon Hewitt Rawlette explores whether meaningful coincidences—or synchronicities—provide reliable guidance for life decisions. Through a personal narrative about finding a seemingly perfect academic job accompanied by multiple coincidences, she demonstrates that external signs can mislead when they contradict internal feelings. Despite the job matching her specialization perfectly and the application timeline aligning coincidentally with a planned New York visit, Rawlette experienced visceral resistance that ultimately proved more trustworthy than the apparent cosmic encouragement. Her decision not to apply, made 14 years ago, remains unregretted.
Drawing on 15 years studying coincidences through probability theory and psychological research, Rawlette proposes that while some coincidences may reflect organizing principles beyond chance—connected to our deepest needs and desires—determining causation in specific cases remains difficult. She offers three practical principles: never trust external signs over gut feelings, use coincidences as tools for accessing intuition rather than divine directives, and apply dream interpretation techniques to uncover multiple layers of meaning. Whether coincidences arise from subtle universal forces or selective attention, their value lies in facilitating self-understanding. The seemingly misleading academic job coincidences ultimately served by clarifying Rawlette’s true preferences, teaching that authentic confirmation comes from within.
Key Points
Main Takeaways
Gut Intuition Trumps Signs
External coincidences should never override visceral feelings—even seemingly perfect alignments can point toward wrong choices when internal resistance signals misalignment with authentic desires.
Chance Versus Deeper Meaning
While any particular coincidence might be random, cumulative evidence suggests some synchronicities reflect organizing principles linked to human needs, though determining causation remains challenging.
Psychological Mirror Function
Coincidences often reflect internal thoughts and feelings back to us, making them valuable tools for accessing suppressed emotions and clarifying unconscious preferences.
Dream Interpretation Techniques Apply
Methods developed for understanding dreams—exploring symbolic meanings and multiple interpretive layers—prove equally useful for decoding coincidences’ personal significance.
Unexpected Helpful Redirection
Coincidences seemingly steering you wrong can prove unexpectedly beneficial—perfect alignment in an undesired direction clarifies what you genuinely don’t want.
Self-Understanding Primary Value
Whether divine or psychological in origin, coincidences’ utility lies in facilitating deeper self-knowledge rather than providing external answers—they offer hints, not solutions.
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Article Analysis
Breaking Down the Elements
Main Idea
Safety Transcends Hype Cycles
Piper argues AI safety concerns remain valid regardless of boom-bust market dynamics, requiring sustained policy focus beyond investment fluctuations. The fundamental case—that human-level AI systems are theoretically achievable, commercially incentivized, and dangerous without undeveloped oversight—persists independent of whether GPT-5 disappoints or specific startups fail, making continued attention essential as thousands pursue powerful systems.
Purpose
To Inoculate Against Dismissive Reactions
Piper preemptively counters predictable public response if AI busts—reflexive conclusion that safety concerns were overblown. By acknowledging both unreasonable and sober bust scenarios while grounding safety logic in pre-ChatGPT reasoning, she aims to immunize policymakers against whiplash where yesterday’s hype produces tomorrow’s equally irrational dismissiveness, advocating steady attention to long-term trajectories.
Structure
Question → Critique → Case → Conflation → Prescription
Opens with central question—what AI bust means for safety—then categorizes bust arguments into unreasonable and sober variants. Pivots to fundamental safety case independent of hype, explores how safety and hype became intertwined, and culminates prescriptively urging policymakers to separate investor outcomes from societal trajectory, maintaining that sustained development efforts warrant safety attention regardless of company failures.
Tone
Measured, Anticipatory & Pedagogical
Piper adopts measured tone acknowledging legitimate bust possibilities without endorsing panic or dismissiveness, modeling the equilibrium she advocates. Explicitly forecasting public reactions preempts and defuses them through advance framing. Maintains intellectual generosity toward various positions while firmly insisting on conceptual clarity, avoiding both breathless alarm and complacent reassurance in favor of sustained vigilance grounded in structural incentives.
Key Terms
Vocabulary from the Article
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Tough Words
Challenging Vocabulary
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Identified or located with extreme precision; determined or specified something exactly among various possibilities.
“I had pinpointed one particular month as the right time to make this transition.”
The front or forefront; a position of prominence or visibility, often used in phrases like “to the fore” meaning brought forward.
“Coincidences can bring to the fore uncomfortable feelings.”
Subtle differences or distinctions in meaning, expression, or tone; fine shades of variation in qualities or characteristics.
“A great book about the nuances of dream interpretation is Jeremy Taylor’s Dream Work.”
Finally or in the end; after everything else has been considered or taken into account; at the most fundamental level.
“Ultimately, it’s important to realize that coincidences have the potential to be incredibly useful.”
Coming into position in a straight line or proper arrangement; matching, corresponding, or coordinating in a harmonious way.
“Sometimes it takes events perfectly aligning in a certain direction for you to realize how much you don’t want to take that route.”
The action of verifying or proving something to be true; evidence or assurance that validates a belief, decision, or suspicion.
“The ultimate confirmation of any decision comes from within.”
Reading Comprehension
Test Your Understanding
5 questions covering different RC question types
1According to Rawlette, she ultimately regretted not applying for the perfect academic job because the coincidences proved she should have trusted the external signs over her gut feelings.
2What does Rawlette suggest about the origin and nature of coincidences based on her research?
3Which sentence best captures Rawlette’s second principle about interpreting coincidences?
4Evaluate these statements about Rawlette’s career decision narrative:
The academic job matched her specialization precisely and had an unusually extended deadline that coincidentally aligned with her planned New York visit.
When she arrived in New York, she experienced strong resistance to delivering the application, unable to bring herself to enter the NYU neighborhood.
Looking retrospectively, Rawlette believes the coincidences were entirely meaningless chance events that provided no useful information about her true preferences.
Select True or False for all three statements, then click “Check Answers”
5Based on Rawlette’s discussion, what can be inferred about her view of the relationship between metaphysical beliefs about coincidences and practical interpretation strategies?
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Rawlette suggests that beyond currently understood physical laws, ‘our world does have more subtle organizing principles’ that link coincidences to ‘our deepest needs and desires.’ This doesn’t necessarily mean supernatural intervention but rather that meaningful patterns may emerge through mechanisms science hasn’t yet explained—possibly involving consciousness, intention, or interconnections between minds and events. Her probability theory research led her to believe some synchronicities exhibit statistical patterns suggesting non-random causation, though she acknowledges determining what forces operate in specific cases remains difficult and emphasizes practical interpretation strategies work regardless of ultimate metaphysical origins.
Selective attention means we notice events matching our current preoccupations while overlooking countless non-matching occurrences. Rawlette references clinical psychologist Kirby Surprise’s view that ‘coincidences often reflect back to us our own thoughts and feelings’—we perceive patterns because we’re mentally primed to recognize them. However, this psychological explanation doesn’t diminish coincidences’ practical value. Whether patterns arise from external organizing principles or internal attention filtering, they still reveal what occupies our minds and hearts, making them valuable self-knowledge tools. The visceral reactions coincidences provoke—surprise, resistance, resonance—provide authentic information about suppressed feelings and genuine preferences regardless of causation.
Dream interpretation techniques apply to coincidences because both phenomena involve symbolic meanings requiring active interpretation rather than literal reading. Just as dreams condense multiple meanings into single images that benefit from exploration rather than single definitive explanations, coincidences often carry layers of significance beyond surface appearances. Rawlette suggests asking ‘If your coincidence had happened in a dream, how would you interpret its significance?’—prompting examination of emotional resonances, symbolic associations, and personal context. Jeremy Taylor’s Dream Work offers methods for uncovering ‘multiple meanings’ that recognize interpretations evolve as understanding deepens. This approach prevents premature closure on single explanations while encouraging nuanced exploration of how coincidences connect to deeper psychological patterns and life themes.
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This article is rated Beginner because while addressing philosophical questions about coincidence and meaning, it relies primarily on accessible personal narrative, straightforward language, and concrete examples rather than abstract theoretical exposition. Rawlette introduces concepts like synchronicity, intuition, and selective attention but explains them through relatable stories—the perfect job search, stomach-churning resistance, unexpected financial support—that require no specialized knowledge. The three numbered principles provide clear actionable guidance without requiring advanced philosophical background. The writing maintains conversational tone suitable for general Psychology Today readership interested in self-understanding and practical wisdom rather than academic philosophy, making sophisticated ideas about consciousness and meaning accessible to beginners developing critical thinking about personal experience.
Rawlette’s perfect job narrative works rhetorically because it demonstrates rather than merely asserts that coincidences can mislead when overriding gut feelings. By detailing multiple apparently encouraging signs—precise specialization match, extended deadline, coincidental travel timing—she establishes how compelling external alignments can feel, validating readers’ temptation to trust such patterns. The visceral resistance she experienced—avoiding the neighborhood entirely, feeling sick viewing office workers—models authentic internal signals that proved more reliable than external encouragement. The 14-year no-regret confirmation provides empirical validation. This vulnerable self-disclosure establishes credibility: she’s not dismissing coincidences from skeptical distance but integrating them wisely after serious engagement, positioning her three principles as hard-won practical wisdom rather than theoretical speculation.
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