Skepticism of any "revelation" we may receive is completely justified. Cognitive science tells us that our behaviour can shape our thinking, so if we smile a lot, we will feel happier…just because we smiled. The Vlogger known as Collider on YouTube and Spooky Valiket on FaceBook pointed out that even if 100% of the project participants converted to theism, all it would prove is the effectiveness of this behavioral-cognitive quirk. Nicola Holt also referenced an article on Chinese thought manipulation practiced on American soldiers in Korea.
It was predictable, therefore, that some of us would begin to interpret coincidences as potential communication. That started to happen yesterday as well. To clarify my post from yesterday, though, I don't think all coincidences have to be ignored; they just need to be considered based on their statistical likelihood. As I put it on FaceBook, such instances should be relevant to this particular project, and they should be statistically very unlikely.
If I get on a plane tomorrow, and I sit next to someone who starts talking about prayer, that doesn't count. Why? I've had some great conversations on airplanes, but a lot of religious people use that time as an opportunity to talk about their faith. It isn't unusual for someone to talk about prayer if they perceive you as a willing listener.
If I get on a plane tomorrow, and through no intentional manipulation on anyone's part, I sit next to Tim Mawson, the philosopher whose paper spawned the project, that would count as extremely unlikely. He does live on a different continent, after all. (Of course, if it happened, I'd want to know that he had no connections with the airline on which we were flying, and that no one at the airline or any booking agencies were aware of the project. In other words, I might still be highly skeptical, but I would have to admit that our sitting next to each other was more likely to be the result of intelligent intention than random chance.)
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