We’ve learned to put it out
Man is the only creature that dares to light a fire and live with it. The reason? Because he alone has learned to put it out.
–Henry Jackson Vandyke, Jr
I had a conversation tonight about they way we interpret certain events as signs. My position being that events happen all the time, but only in their proximity to other larger events do we put emphasis on them This led me to consider the phenomenon on my drive home. I determined it should be called “Retroactive Prophecy”, a form of the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy. A google search of that phrase returns the wiki page for Postdiction. It doesn’t quite line up, but we can start there. Linked from that wiki post, I found the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy wiki page. I really think this is the key. It’s different than the typical hindsight in the way that we use events from the past to try to explain why something else happened. Hindsight just tells us that “yes, that happened and we should have foreseen it.” My theory of Retroactive Prophecy is just a way for our brain to re-imagine the small events that happened before a larger event. These small events are seen as more important than normal. They have helped the larger event happen.
Religious people (or even those who believe the universe itself controls destiny) often look for signs that they should or shouldn’t do something. I often see people re-interpreting their life after they’ve made a choice and telling me “I should have done X because this sign Y happened.” If that’s the way you see the universe, who is to say I’m right? I don’t have better answers than anybody else. This is just what my delusional mind sees on one Saturday night.