I would like to share with you something very weird that just happened to me a few hours ago, I heard in a conversation about this new site fiverr.com and I visited the web page just out of curiosity, I was amazed about all the crazy gigs that people offer in that site for $5, then I saw the ad of someone offering to paint your first name on a grain of rice, I thought that it was cool and I wondered if a long first name as mine (Guillermo) fitted in a grain of rice, so I clicked in the ad link and SURPRISE! there it was a picture of a grain of rice with my name painted on it, it gave me the chills!

You can take a look at the grain of rice with my name Guillermo painted on it at http://www.fiverr.com/users/medstudent/gigs/write-your-name-on-a-grain-of-rice-and-send-it-to-you

I swear that I did not make this up, excuse my English, my first language is Spanish.

Is this just a coincidence or just another joke of the master programmer hinting us about this programmed reality where we "live" ?

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"We are living in a computer programmed reality."
- Philip K. Dick, 1977

It would be great if we could set up some kind of experiment to prove without any doubt that we are in fact living in a programmed reality, maybe we are close to such proof as explained here: http://blog.theuniversesolved.com/2009/01/18/noise-in-gravity-wave-detector-may-be-first-experimental-evidence-of-a-programmed-reality/

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"We are living in a computer programmed reality."
- Philip K. Dick, 1977

Hi Guillermo,

Your story is a great one. I have always thought that one of the most interesting aspects of our reality is the idea of coincidences; hence this "Anomalies" forum. I happen to feel that there is something beyond coincidences; that there is some meaning behind some of the statistical anomalies that we encounter. My favorite case involved a girl named Laura Buxton, aged ten, who released a balloon from her garden in Staffordshire, UK. It landed 140 miles away in Wiltshire, in the garden of another Laura Buxton, aged ten. (this anecdote is from "Beyond Coincidence" by Martin Plimmer and Brian King, 2004)

The skeptics say that for each apparent coincidence where the odds calculate to 1 in a million (for example), there are another million instances of unrelated events that COULD generate coincidences but don't. I have investigated this and found no solid statistical research that lends support to either side of the argument. However, my book does cover one case involving a dispute between Uri Geller and skeptic Richard Dawkins and the evidence appears to support the meaningful coincidence argument. Plus, there is my anecdote which was a 4 billion to 1 coincidence.

In your case, here is a site gives the relative frequency of first names in probabilities in California in 2009. Clearly, this isn't sufficient - not only is this representative of just one state in one country, but it is also completely different than the relative probabilities of names that might have been considered by the fiverr.com site. Still, it gives us a starting point. Turns out that the first name "Guillermo" represents 172 of the 528,000 names born in CA in 2009, or 1 in 3070. The skeptics might ask the question: how many non-coincidental incidents (that have the potential to create a coincidence) have you run into since your last coincidental incident. If the answer is over 3000, then this wouldn't represent a meaningful coincidence.

That said, I recommend writing down things like this, as you did via our forum. You might find that the more you notice coincidences and record them, the more frequently they occur. And, they may actually give you (and the rest of us) some insight into the nature of reality.

Thanks for sharing.

-Jim

I have no idea about how many non-coincidental incidents I have run into since my last coincidental incident, but I think that the odds of this event happening to me are even smaller, because of (172/528,000 Guillermos born in CA in 2009) * (probability of me hearing about fiverr.com) * (probability of me deciding to browse X number of pages until I read that particular ad) * (probability of me being a member of this forum and interested in programmed reality) * (etc, etc)

I regret that I don't have the statistical background to express my thoughts in a more mathematical or logical way, but still I think that we live in a programmed reality and that this kind of "coincidences" means more that calculated probabilities of a event happening ...

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"We are living in a computer programmed reality."
- Philip K. Dick, 1977

Haven't seen that one. Thanks for the tip, though.