Synchronicity: The Meaningful Coincidence

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What do you think of the concept of synchronicity? Is it real, absurd, useful or something else? Please explain and try to illustrate with examples. This could get pretty strange pretty fast. Try to stay on point. Thanks y'all.
 
I do believe in synchronicity. At the moment, I am too tired right now to go over examples in which it has occurred in my life. I obviously can't explain it, but it may have something to do with collective consciousness, the wisdom of our unconscious, and of course non-standard concepts of space and time.
 
Fortune tellers exploit the subjective part of synchronicity, by directing conscious, or subconscious attention to fairly probable events, so that these insignificant events are interpreted as significant.

The objective aspect of synchronicity integrates the subjective disposition to notice and interpret, with events that coincide with expectation/attention. Two aspects are of interest to me: whether objective synchronicity is real; and if it is, what type of causality is at work.

Whether objective synchronicity is real probably cannot be established scientifically, but only as a statistical refutation of improbability. Frequent, highly improbable events, connected to uncommon, and specific anticipation may mean something.

IF synchronicity is probably real, it's mode of causality is virtually impossible to determine:
* Does the expectation cause the event?
* Does the impending event cause the anticipation, as a quasi sense stimulation from the future, backwards to the present?
* Is the accurate anticipation of future improbable events merely an intuitive prognostication from present factors (ie. The events weren't actually improbable, but that probability is only subconsciously know by a few).
Etc.
 
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I believe in synchronicity. For example, this morning I fell asleep listening to several Tony Benn lectures; he touched upon many political and societal matters, but none more so than the current 'Mind War' and Information Warfare. He mentioned that a useful information Clearing House which he often utilised was a magazine called the Private Eye.

Whilst I was out on business today, I popped into a shop which I haven't used in years; I was walking past the news papers when lo and behold, there was the Private Eye. It's been in circulation for a fair few years, unbeknownst to me; presumably because it's not stocked in many shops.

I've now got my end of April issue, and I intend to subscribe. Stuff like that happens to me all the time, and always at the right time... synchronistically.
 
Sinny said:
I believe in synchronicity. For example, this morning I fell asleep listening to several Tony Benn lectures; he touched upon many political and societal matters, but none more so than the current 'Mind War' and Information Warfare. He mentioned that a useful information Clearing House which he often utilised was a magazine called the Private Eye.

Whilst I was out on business today, I popped into a shop which I haven't used in years; I was walking past the news papers when lo and behold, there was the Private Eye. It's been in circulation for a fair few years, unbeknownst to me; presumably because it's not stocked in many shops.

I've now got my end of April issue, and I intend to subscribe. Stuff like that happens to me all the time, and always at the right time... synchronistically.
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Me too. That's why the whole subject fascinates me. I used to be obsessed with Jung. I try to be an atheist and skeptic but sometimes I experience things that seem so unlikely based on probability theory. A rationalist could dismiss synchronicity as mere pseudoscience. But when you are receptive to its possibility, you notice it can seem to occur. It's like a fine line between being enlightened and delusional. Most people are not as observant, intuitive and analytical as I am. Infjs tend be very balanced between right and left brain so we can be pretty receptive and critical simultaneously. I really need to know two things in order to be able to live peacefully: Does synchronicity exist, and if so, how does it actually work? The possibilities are endless. But there has to be an answer. And it is absolutely vital we grasp what it is. Good replies so far. Looking forward to more good perspectives. Push the limits of metaphysics y'all. It's good for the soul.
 
Flavus Aquila said:
Fortune tellers exploit the subjective part of synchronicity, but directing conscious, or subconscious attention to fairly probable events, so that these insignificant events are interpreted as significant.

The objective aspect of synchronicity integrates the subjective disposition to notice and interpret, with events that coincide with expectation/attention. Two aspects are of interest to me: whether objective synchronicity is real; and if it is, what type of causality is at work.

Whether objective synchronicity is real probably cannot be established scientifically, but only as a statistical refutation of improbability. Frequent, highly improbable events, connected to uncommon, and specific anticipation may mean something.

IF synchronicity is probably real, it's mode of causality is virtually impossible to determine:
* Does the expectation cause the event?
* Does the impending event cause the anticipation, as a quasi sense stimulation from the future, backwards to the present?
* Is the accurate anticipation of future improbable events merely an intuitive prognostication from present factors (ie. The events weren't actually improbable, but that probability is only subconsciously know by a few).
Etc.
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You are slightly intellectual. After reading this a few times I conclude that it makes sense to me. You have laid out the issues. Now what are the most likely answers, not to mention best approaches to finding them?
 
One more thing. Discovering this forum and writing again for the first time in years seems like it could be synchronistic. My life and the way I feel has been transforming over the past week or so. Mere meaningless coincidence or perhaps synchronistic event? I feel like I have found my home. I am channeling my OCD into productive thinking, reading and writing instead of just wasting time and being stuck in my head. Hallelujah. Is it possible I found this place instinctually because I already unconsciously knew it existed and waited until I was ready to embrace it? The timing is perfect. And I hate membership.
 
I believe in synchronicity. There are times when I am not as open to it as other times. I think it's possible to experience synchronicity on a much deeper level than I have. I think it can touch on subjects of birth and death not only in the physical sense but on a consciousness and awareness level. Those moments when your thoughts and/or actions feel completely connected and part of a larger whole - when you're in synch with other seemingly unrelated things happening at a particular moment in time. Sort of like experiencing different layers of consciousness simultaneously.
 
Sadie said:
I believe in synchronicity. There are times when I am not as open to it as other times. I think it's possible to experience synchronicity on a much deeper level than I have. I think it can touch on subjects of birth and death not only in the physical sense but on a consciousness and awareness level. Those moments when your thoughts and/or actions feel completely connected and part of a larger whole - when you're in synch with other seemingly unrelated things happening at a particular moment in time. Sort of like experiencing different layers of consciousness simultaneously.
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Like when a basketball player gets into the "zone" while playing. Once I experienced that. I played so well it was shocking to me. I outplayed a kid who was bigger and better than me. I could do no wrong. I wasn't thinking, just reacting. It felt like a movie. I didn't miss a shot. Everyone thought I was amazing. Hasn't happened since with sports. It has happened occasionally in others areas of my life. Like when I lost my virginity. It was too good to be true. Imagine if life were always that flowing and alive? Wow.
 
Brain waves, yo, brain waves...

[video=youtube;R8976fuIqCo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8976fuIqCo[/video]
 
Synchronicity is simply a synonym for coincidence, but with an emphasis on meaning rather than causality (or lack thereof).

synchronous (adj.) "existing or happening at the same time," from Late Latin synchronus "simultaneous," from Greek synkhronos "happening at the same time," from syn- "together" (see syn-) + khronos "time" (see chrono-). Meaning "recurring at the same successive instants of time" is attested from 1670s. Related: Synchronously.
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coincidence (n.) c. 1600, "exact correspondence in substance or nature," from French coincidence, from coincider, from Medieval Latin coincidere (see coincide). From 1640s as "occurrence or existence during the same time." Meaning "a concurrence of events with no apparent connection" is from 1680s, perhaps first in writings of Sir Thomas Browne.
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While coincidence had come to acquire a vague connotation of 'meaninglessness' by its oppositional relationship with causality and its connotation of 'meaningful' occurrence, synchronicity simply restates the paradox of the term 'meaningless'.

'Meaning' and its antithesis, 'meaningless,' are both terms endowed with inherent meaning and by the contexts in which they are used. A randomized assortment of letters without any discernible interpretation might be a more illustrative usage of meaninglessness, yet would lack communicative effectiveness.

Synchronicity just places emphasis on what it means for something to be mere happenstance. Chance itself has existential meaning and can even be tied with the idea of fate or determinism without necessarily contradicting them.

My example concerns a young woman patient who, in spite of efforts made on both sides, proved to be psychologically inaccessible. The difficulty lay in the fact that she always knew better about everything. Her excellent education had provided her with a weapon ideally suited to this purpose, namely a highly polished Cartesian rationalism with an impeccably "geometrical" idea of reality. After several fruitless attempts to sweeten her rationalism with a somewhat more human understanding, I had to confine myself to the hope that something unexpected and irrational would turn up, something that would burst the intellectual retort into which she had sealed herself. Well, I was sitting opposite her one day, with my back to the window, listening to her flow of rhetoric. She had an impressive dream the night before, in which someone had given her a golden scarab — a costly piece of jewellery. While she was still telling me this dream, I heard something behind me gently tapping on the window. I turned round and saw that it was a fairly large flying insect that was knocking against the window-pane from outside in the obvious effort to get into the dark room. This seemed to me very strange. I opened the window immediately and caught the insect in the air as it flew in. It was a scarabaeid beetle, or common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), whose gold-green colour most nearly resembles that of a golden scarab. I handed the beetle to my patient with the words, "Here is your scarab." This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance. The treatment could now be continued with satisfactory results.

— Carl Jung
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I remember that anecdote. Good example. Hard for a rationalist to explain that one.
 
dang said:
I remember that anecdote. Good example. Hard for a rationalist to explain that one.
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Half the time I think he's making this stuff up. Great reading though.

although I suppose he is not saying the scarab turned up to help him or that she prophesied the scarab with her dream, it could simply be a comment on the meaning we assign to chance, and the way it can modify us, or as much of Jung's writing, more ambiguous than that, both those explanations, or not possible to know.
 
higs said:
Half the time I think he's making this stuff up. Great reading though.

although I suppose he is not saying the scarab turned up to help him or that she prophesied the scarab with her dream, it could simply be a comment on the meaning we assign to chance, and the way it can modify us, or as much of Jung's writing, more ambiguous than that, both those explanations, or not possible to know.
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I feel like I am fated to continually alternate between dismissing Jung, and praising him. I can't seem to find a middle ground. I guess that makes him polarizing. I wish we could actually apply science, or at least mathematics (testing for unusual probabilities as was mentioned earlier) to his views. As it currently stands, Jungian theory is like a belief system or religion more than a social science or part of modern empirical psychology. It is just really seductive and fun at the end of the day. I guess at least it challenges pure left brain thinking. By the way. I find something about you intriguing. Why do people generally notice you? Is it a shadow projection type of deal as you seem to be eccentric? What do you think? Is this question synchronistic? Is this something you have been confronted with recently? Maybe this thread will answer it's own questions organically. Or perhaps we will be having this same discussion 20 years from now without having made any progress. Hope not.
 
Firts half of your post about Jung I agree with everything.

Second half about me I just have no idea what to say lol. Idk I don't feel very noticed and no more eccentric than the next person. I have not experienced synchronicity in a while, although I used to quite frequently. Music or recurring symbolism and imagery. I think if there is anything we can know about synchronicity is you cannot force it :-) it's obviously down to pattern recognition and applying higher meaning to that pattern.
 
higs said:
Firts half of your post about Jung I agree with everything.

Second half about me I just have no idea what to say lol. Idk I don't feel very noticed and no more eccentric than the next person. I have not experienced synchronicity in a while, although I used to quite frequently. Music or recurring symbolism and imagery. I think if there is anything we can know about synchronicity is you cannot force it :-) it's obviously down to pattern recognition and applying higher meaning to that pattern.
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Makes sense. Sorry to put you on the spot. Was sort of trying to pull a "cool teacher" move. You could have said that you were thinking about that topic right before you read what I wrote and it would have blown our minds. Alas, my efforts failed. Low risk, high reward attempt. Thanks for your contribution to this thread.
 
dang said:
Like when a basketball player gets into the "zone" while playing. Once I experienced that. I played so well it was shocking to me. I outplayed a kid who was bigger and better than me. I could do no wrong. I wasn't thinking, just reacting. It felt like a movie. I didn't miss a shot. Everyone thought I was amazing. Hasn't happened since with sports. It has happened occasionally in others areas of my life. Like when I lost my virginity. It was too good to be true. Imagine if life were always that flowing and alive? Wow.
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Haha, sometime last week I must have channeled Bruce Lee or something... Me and my bestie were play fighting, and it sort of (d)evolved into ninja style... And for like 15 minutes straight my defenses were impenetrable... and he was left gobsmacked... We've tried to repeat the scenario since, but I failed miserably.

I had an epic basketball experience the once too.. I was at Nuneaton Army base (years ago) and I was playing basket ball with them, I was the only player not to get benched for over the course of nearly two hours, and I was fookin awesome. ... Played basket ball the other day tho and I sucked ass.

'Zones' are definitely there to be ... gotten into to.

IMO.
 
Sinny said:
Haha, sometime last week I must have channeled Bruce Lee or something... Me and my bestie were play fighting, and it sort of (d)evolved into ninja style... And for like 15 minutes straight my defenses were impenetrable... and he was left gobsmacked... We've tried to repeat the scenario since, but I failed miserably.

I had an epic basketball experience the once too.. I was at Nuneaton Army base (years ago) and I was playing basket ball with them, I was the only player not to get benched for over the course of nearly two hours, and I was fookin awesome. ... Played basket ball the other day tho and I sucked ass.

'Zones' are definitely there to be ... gotten into to.

IMO.
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You sound like a cross between Bruce Lee and Michael Jordan. Are you a synchronistic cyborg?
 
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