Is it a coincidence that we meet on Amsterdam’s Plantage Muidergracht, right in front of the former university building where the 20th-century ‘coincidence denier’ Albert Einstein taught? Or is it just the statistically predictable outcome of a throw of a digital dice?
Philosopher and writer Jeroen Hopster (1987) had given several options for interview locations in advance, the online number generator did the rest. In that sense, it is not a coincidence – an unplanned coming together of events that is experienced as remarkable or meaningful. There is, however, a contingency: the result could easily have been different. And is it also pure probabilistic coincidence, that can only be explained on the basis of chances? “That number generator generates pseudo-randomness, not pure randomness,” says Hopster. “Einstein himself would not accept it as proof anyway: he denied the existence of randomness.”
Hopster has written a fascinating, multifaceted book about all these different manifestations of chance (and their implications): Coincidence – An Unforeseen PhilosophyUsing numerous examples, he shows how Lady Luck plays a role in climate science, evolutionary history, jurisprudence and medical research, among other things.
Hopster himself is now conducting research on the ethical side of the climate transition at Utrecht University with a Veni grant. He is also affiliated with a large NWO program that deals with the ethics of ‘socially disruptive technologies’. “There too, chance plays an interesting role.”
With new technologies people try to make all kinds of things manageable
In what sense?
“People are trying to make all sorts of things manageable with new technologies. Think of AI, but also of the CRISPR-CAS technology, which can change DNA, or solar radiation managementwhere the incoming amount of sunlight could be dampened, for example, by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere – according to some a last resort against global warming.
“With this striving for control we try to suppress the accidental, that which escapes human control. But in vain. The Collingridge’s Dilemma shows that nicely. When developing new technology, we as a society are faced with a choice: either we intervene early, when the technology is still ‘malleable’ but we also do not yet know what we can do with it, or we let it take its course, so that we clearly see the advantages and disadvantages but cannot simply reverse them. In this, two forms of chance are opposed to each other: ignorance versus uncontrollability.”
In your book you also write about the ‘climate casino’. What do you mean by that?
“Climate change is certainly not a matter of pure chance – human action plays a crucial role and a warming of a few degrees will have far-reaching consequences worldwide. But we cannot yet predict exactly what temperature increase we will end up with. That is a combination of policy and unforeseen factors.
“Researchers at MIT University in Boston demonstrated this very vividly in 2001 in a risk analysis, in the form of two roulette wheels. On one wheel, the values range from 1 to 4 degrees Celsius warming, on the other they increase from 3 degrees to more than 7 degrees Celsius. With our current knowledge, we would adjust those margins somewhat downwards, but the thought experiment remains relevant. We do not know exactly where the wheel stops. But our policy does allow us to determine which of the two wheels we turn.”
We sometimes let ourselves be misled by coincidence, we think that something completely normal is very special
From the Plantage Muidergracht we walk to another of the locations Hopster had suggested: the Groote Museum at Artis, which is dedicated to evolution. “My interest in chance was largely sparked by paleontologist and writer Stephen Jay Gould, who was the first to coin the principle of evolutionary contingency. The evolutionary process has an unpredictable and opportunistic character: new opportunities present themselves unexpectedly, in a complex interplay of events. The fact that early humans lost their fur to cool down after hunting meant that young children could not hold on to it. Subsequently, the community took on a greater role in upbringing, which in turn contributed to social development.”
And the theory of evolution itself could have looked very different, he emphasizes. “Darwin almost didn’t sail on the Beagle: his father advised him against it. Without Darwin, a comparable theory of evolution would have been thought up without further ado. That’s how his contemporary Alfred Russell Wallace also got on that track. But the precise interpretation of the theory would have been different. For example, Wallace was critical of Darwin’s use of the term natural selection.”
On the terrace the waitress takes our orders; Hopster orders a fresh mint tea.
What a coincidence – I was just about to order mint tea too!
Laughing: “Yes, you could call that coincidence, although it is not very remarkable. Suppose there are only three drinks on the menu, or that neither of us like coffee, then it immediately becomes a lot less coincidental. Moreover, such ‘small’ coincidences occur all the time. Therein also lies a danger in our view of coincidence: we are sometimes misled by it, we think that something completely normal is very special. The Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer came up with the principle of seriality more than a century ago, which aims to explain how similar events follow each other, even if they are not causally related. Think of two women who both happen to be wearing a red dress, or the two of us with our mint tea. Forms of stupid coincidence, you could say, and statistically very easy to explain. But that statistical view was alien to Kammerer. He allowed himself to be fooled by coincidence.”
Coincidence has many manifestations, in history, science and everyday life
So we shouldn’t exaggerate the coincidence?
“That’s right, but certainly not too small. It is precisely by being open to it that major new discoveries have sometimes been made within science. Think of bacteriologist Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin after a mold accidentally ended up on his petri dish, which stopped the growth of bacteria. His colleague Louis Pasteur stated three quarters of a century earlier: ‘In the field of observation, chance favors only prepared minds.’ Many scientific discoveries take place according to the principle of serendipity, i.e. as an unsought find.
“It is also important to appreciate the role of chance in the judiciary. Take the case against nurse Lucia de Berk. During her shifts, a relatively large number of deaths and resuscitations occurred, and she was found guilty of these. A statistical expert calculated that the chance that De Berk happened to be on duty during all those incidents was small. But that did not mean that she was guilty. Extremely improbable events do happen more often.”
Was Einstein wrong? Is the world essentially random?
“According to quantum mechanics, yes, at least according to dominant interpretations. But an even more fundamental insight is that the existence of chance does not depend entirely on quantum mechanics. Chance has many manifestations, in history, science, and everyday life. We try to control it, but also to play with it, to take advantage of it. As Francis Bacon remarked: ‘If a man looks closely and attentively, he will see Fortuna; for though she be blind, she is not invisible.’”
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