The other day, while watching a movie on OTT, my kids and I were talking about Muesli ( a snack to be taken with milk). Moments later, we saw an ad for it popping up on the screen. Obvious, right? The TV is listening and playing targeted ads.
But it’s a little more complicated than that. Perhaps some app in our phone is listening, syndicating the details to an ad provider, which then matches the relevant ad to the stream linked to our registered phone number. Still, it seems obvious, its ok, and who cares .
But what about these situations:
1. A mother instinctively reaches out to her child, sensing they are in trouble.
2. Parents get a gut feeling that something is wrong with their child, even when the child is far away.
3. A job seeker feels butterflies in their stomach just before receiving a job offer.
4. An investor chooses a startup, or rather a founder, and the decision turns out to be right.
5. A student suddenly feels compelled to read the last page of the questionnaire and finds those same questions in the exam.
6. A person feels the eerie sensation of being watched, only to realize someone is indeed watching them.
7. Particles behaving differently when being observed in the double-slit experiment.
And many other such documented cases that can’t be easily explained but have been happening for ages.
What is it in these cases that is “listening”? Or rather, what medium carries these thoughts?
Are these just flukes or coincidences? Or is there something more to it—another level of syndication at play?
