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Synchronicity is a word coined by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung to describe the "temporally coincident occurrences of casual events." Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "acausal connecting principle" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality). Plainly put, it is the experience of having two (or more) things happen coincidentally in a manner that is meaningful to the person or persons experiencing them, where that meaning suggests an underlying pattern. It differs from coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events. It was a principle that Jung felt encompassed his concepts of archetypes and the collective unconscious , in that it was descriptive of a governing dynamic that underlay the whole of human experience and history — social, emotional, psychological, and spiritual. Jung believed that many experiences perceived as coincidence were due not merely to chance, but instead, suggested the manifestation of parallel events or circumstances reflecting this governing dynamic. One of Jung's favourite quotes on Synchronicity was from Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll, where the White Queen says to Alice: "It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards".
Examples A well-known example of synchronicity is the true story of the French writer Émile Deschamps who in 1805 was treated to some plum pudding by the stranger Monsieur de Fortgibu. Ten years later, he encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant, and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be M. de Fortgibu. Many years later in 1832 Émile Deschamps was at a diner, and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only M. de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete — and in the same instant the now senile M. de Fortgibu entered the room. During production of the The Wizard of Oz, a coat purchased from a second-hand store for the costume of Professor Marvel was later discovered to have belonged to L. Frank Baum, author of the original children's book upon which the film is based. * Study A recent study within the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Lab has suggested that there is a small though statistically measurable link between human thought and patterns that occur in random data sets. There is no evidence as to whether this is caused by individuals unintentionally recognizing complex patterns and then moulding their thoughts towards an unconsciously known result or the thoughts of the individual are themselves affecting the random patterns in a manner of individuation. This study's results have not been replicated, and its methodologies are disputed. * Criticism Since the theory of synchronicity is not testable according to the classical scientific method, it is not widely regarded as scientific at all, but rather as pseudoscientific or an example of magical thinking. However, it is doubtful that Jung would have considered the theory to be scientifically testable. Probability theory can attempt to explain events such as the plum pudding incident in our normal world, without any interference by any universal alignment forces. However, the correct variables required for actually computing the probability cannot be found. This is not to say that synchronicity is not a good model for describing a certain kind of human experience, but, according to the scientific method, it is a reason for the refusal of the idea that synchronicity should be considered a "hard fact", i.e., an actually existing principle of our universe. Supporters of the theory claim that since the scientific method is applicable only to those phenomena that are reproducible, independent of observer and quantifiable, the argument that synchronicity is not scientifically 'provable' should be considered a red herring, as, by definition, synchronistic events are not independent of the observer, since the observer's unique history is precisely what gives the synchronistic event meaning for the observer. In addition, if synchronicity actually occurs, to say that it is untestable by science is tantamount to saying that science is unable to investigate some natural phenomena. A synchronistic event appears like just another meaningless 'random' event to anyone else without the unique prior history which correlates to the event. This reasoning claims that the principle of synchronicity raises the question of the subjectivity of significance and meaning in the sequence of natural events. Alternative explanations The feeling of making a connection where there is none has been described as apophenia. Aspects of the subjective experience of schizophrenia have much in common with the subjective experience of synchronicity, in the sense that ordinary events are seen as having a direct personal relevance to the schizophrenic, but are seen as 'normal' by non-schizophrenics. Many psychoses are similar to schizophrenia but can last for a very short time, such as in rare instances from nicotine withdrawal (as an example) causing the same effect even with a non-schizophrenic. Those who have experienced a near-death experience or mystical awakenings (such as kundalini awakenings) report an increase in synchronistic events happening to them. This is also common in the study of mystical symbol systems such as Kabbalah. A religious analogy of this experience might be attributed to the fulfillment of prayer or miracles, however Jung did not describe it in these terms. Correlation describes the relational strength between two or more events and is a possible explanation for the phenomenon of synchronicity when statistically significant. Though correlation does not imply direct causation, correlation may of course be a property shared by events without there being a direct cause-effect relationship, i.e. two events in an acausal relationship. However, the link between two correlated events which are known to be causally unrelated is not generally the subject of scientific investigation. For example, there is a very high correlation between drownings and ice cream sales. While not directly related, they share a common factor, that being that lots of swimming and ice cream sales occur during summertime. However, it would be very un-scientific to say that ice cream causes drownings. Synchronicity has been proposed as a corollary phenomenon of the many-worlds or parallel universes theory of quantum physics, in that the subject might somehow be 'navigating' to those particular alternate worlds that are correlated to their past history, avoiding the myriad possible other worlds that are not as strongly "correlated" to their past history. Although this idea has made it into the popular press, it is considered pseudoscience by most scientists as the parallel universe theory states that all possible futures exist simultaneously, therefore the subject indeed lives out all possible futures in parallel, and would be consciously present in all of them. Notes Trivia Further reading See also | ||||||||
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