Premonitions
I'm not sure what to call them, but premonitions will do. Sometimes I get these feelings that something will happen and then it immediately does. For instance, the other day I was at a restaruant and they gave out raffle tickets. I felt very strongly that we would win. We did. Also, sometimes when playing poker I get this feeling that my ducks will hit. They do. When I was a kid, in class, before having to give a presentation and waiting for my name to be called. Often, right before my name would be called I felt a strong wave of certainty that this would be it.
Skeptics, be skeptical, but I'm convinced I can tell the difference between times when I only think something may happen and times when I'm sure it will happen. As a skeptic, materialist, philosopher, believe me I have tested this as much as possible. (I'm more of a Nietzschean skeptic than Humean). I predict many of you will be like Hume and outright reject me and stop reading at this point.
First, alternative explanations I haven't thought of are certainly welcome, but I'm pretty sure I have this ability (it's very modest, basically worthless, and I cannot control it, mind you.)
I'm more curious how it is possible, given that I am a materialist. I think it has to do with the temporal structure of our minds. We experience time as a flux from past to future, but that doesn't mean time is ordered up in this way. Perhaps at certain times, our brains catch a glimpse into a different experience of time - one where future, present, and past exist simultaneously, like a spatial landscape. This is not totally pure conjecture, since a theory in physics, called block time, related to relativity, holds this very position.
Thoughts?
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