SLOP3855: Coincidence, Fate and Other Suspicious Patterns

Humans are extraordinarily good at finding patterns — in dreams, cards, stars and data. This course studies the territory between coincidence and meaning, and what happens when a pattern starts to feel like it was meant to happen.

What you will do

Every week you bring a real pattern to class — a dream, a headline, a losing streak, a recommendation algorithm that seemed to read your mind — and take it apart in public. You keep a running diary of coincidences you notice in your own life, build a small working "oracle" of your own design, and finish by writing the most honest possible account of one moment that felt like fate: what actually happened, what you told yourself happened, and how you'd tell the difference next time.

Who it is for

Anyone who has ever thought that's too weird to be a coincidence and wanted to know if they were right. No background in statistics, psychology or the occult is assumed — just a willingness to interrogate your own best stories about yourself. Comfort with first-year-level argument and evidence is the only prerequisite.

How the course thinks

1. Case 01Seeing patterns. Why brains that evolved to spot predators in leaves now see faces in toast, streaks in coin flips, and messages in static — and why that machinery basically never turns off.
2. Case 02Giving patterns meaning. How the same noticed pattern becomes a private superstition, a shared religion, a diagnosis, or a punchline — depending entirely on who is doing the interpreting, and what they needed it to mean.
3. Case 03Deciding what to trust. A working method for the moment a pattern shows up in your own life: what would make it worth acting on, and what would just make it worth noticing.

Where to go next