Today is Friday the 13th - What Superstitions do you have

[Mike Henderson]

I am well known at work for my logical breakdown of problems - but, I do believe in ghosts and believe that we can occasionally see the future - not just in general, but specific actions. I once saw an accident, and the response about two minutes before it occurred - just enough time to describe it to my friends before we all saw it happen. Not really a superstition except in the sense that it is something that I believe without any scientific proof.
Mike
BTW, I would consider not walking under ladders just good sense. mh

There's a logical argument against being able to know the future.

Basically knowledge of the future conflicts with the concept of free will. So if it was possible to know the future, then when you came to a decision point in your life (when you had to decide to do "A" or "B") you really didn't have a choice if the future is known - the choice is already determined.

So you get to choose which one you think is real: Free will or knowledge of the future.

Or as some put it, "Any knowledge of the future denies free will."

Mike

[Joe Pelonio]

i don't walk under ladders unless I have to. The dumbest one I do is to toss salt over my shoulder if I spill it. I use my right hand, and left shoulder and don't even know if that's the correct method. It happens rarely but somehow I always remember to do it.

[Prashun Patel]

The dumbest one I do is to toss salt over my shoulder if I spill it.

I used to do that too, until I got married and now throwings of anything over the shoulder in SWMBO's domain are promptly followed by a rolling pin (does anyone still use these things?) to the head. I've explained to her that this is precisely the reason i need to upgrade my shop's dc to a 3hp Oneida cyclone with separate ducting to the kitchen, but she's not buying it.

[mark page]

Not too many for me....But my ex-wife left me on Friday 13th, so after work when the driveway is in sight, I count cars. All in all, Friday 13ths are kind of lucky for me. But today was the first weird thing since the ex left. The facility that I manage is commercial accounts only and closed to the public. A guy comes up to the front door and tries to get in, of course they are locked. He looks through the glass doors, sees all of us in the facility, and then commences to urinate on my front glass doors, with no regards for anyone watching, in retaliation for being closed to the public. I tended to kinda take it too much personal, until remembering some of the "war" stories my wife tells me from working at a casino. This one was pretty trivial compared to some of hers.

[Terry Hatfield]

Friday was my birthday and still I have no superstitions.

Terry

[mike holden]

Mike - you have free will? How do you know?

This is a logical conundrum. There is no way to know.

Or as Shakespeare put it: "Life is but a passing shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage"

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

Mike - you have free will? How do you know?

This is a logical conundrum. There is no way to know.

Or as Shakespeare put it: "Life is but a passing shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage"

Mike

That's very true. But you get to choose which one to believe. You can choose to believe you have free will, or you can choose to believe you are predestined to live the life you live - where every action you take is known in advance and you're just living a script.

And while it's just a choice, I choose to believe in free will.

Mike

[And as I pointed out earlier, if you believe in free will, then you cannot know the future, because if the future is known, then you're living a script. And if you think you can know the future, then you cannot believe you have free will. You get one or the other, but not both.

It's impossible to know which is actually correct. If we are all living a script, we'd never know it and believe we have free will. For that matter, the belief in free will could be part of the script.]

[David G Baker]

Paul,
I had a chemical salesman go behind my back to management once. He didn't know I was the person that did all of the purchasing in my department and had the final word on every chemical purchase. He had 5 years worth of Friday the 13th before I purchased from his company again and by that time he was long gone.
I have a few superstitions but try to work through them without giving them a lot of power.

[Scott Kilroy]

I won't use a blue pen unless I'm required to. For example, a lawyer I worked with wanted all signatures in blue pen so he could easily tell a copy from the original.

I don't have any rational explanation for this and wasn't even aware of it until a few years ago.

[Gary Herrmann]

Only sports related, and since I'm too dinged up to play anymore, I guess I don't have any.

Hm. Maybe I'll start tapping my lathe three times before starting a hollow form...

[Richard M. Wolfe]

I know I'm a couple days late, but I just noticed this thread. I went to the post office on friday and picked up my economic stimulus check.

Since it came on Friday 13th its obviously tainted so I'm looking for someone to take it off my hands.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

None, no beliefs in anything I can't document.

[Bill Cunningham]

I'm with Cliff!!! Not superstitious at all.. I could drag a salted, black cat under ladder to show him a mirror I just broke when I opened my umbrella in the house!