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How do you guys explain really bizarre cases of synchronicity?

Rodney said:
"Document" is too strong a word because no one here has produced any evidence that would stand up in a court of law about their knowledge of statistics. For the record, I have taken undergraduate courses in statistics and mathematical economics and a graduate level course in statistics, and have done a fair amount of statistical and probability analysis since that time.
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And that's the thing about making ad hominem arguments: they're irrelevant. Whether or not you could provide evidence of a knowledge of statistics has no effect at all on whether arguments you've made are valid.

When someone is publishing their research, for example, a proper review of their data analysis would not entail checking their transcripts. The work stands or falls on its own regardless of the person. (In fact, even after the author dies, the work remains valid or invalid.)

For example, your claim that all heads is less likely than any other specific outcome is not true. It doesn't matter how many courses on statistics you've had. I've amply illustrated what I mean when I say that the probability of the outcome of all heads is just as low as the probability of any other specific outcome, so it's not legitimate for you to pretend to think that I was only talking about total number of heads or total number tails. (Again, there are thousands of outcomes that have 500 heads and 500 tails, so it's cheating to lump those all together as one outcome.)

The only thing that separates outcomes that you think are significant or meaningful is the fact that you see a pattern in some of them. Seeing a pattern in random data is called apophenia. If you think there is more to the phenomenon than this, then I think you're wrong. However, I agree with you that the term synchronicity is about there being something more going on.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
For example, your claim that all heads is less likely than any other specific outcome is not true. It doesn't matter how many courses on statistics you've had.
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I couldn't agree more with the latter statement. However, your first statement is incorrect. What I actually stated (in Post # 704) was: "When you toss a coin 1000 times, you are guaranteed to have an outcome and, while the odds against any one permutation is vanishingly small, the odds of some combinations occurring are much higher than others. For example, the odds of the combination 500 heads and 500 tails occurring is about 1 in 40. On the other hand, the odds of the combination 1000 heads and 0 tails occurring is about 1 in 10^301. So, you should not be astonished if you get the former combination, but you should be if you get the latter combination."
 
Rodney, I am really trying to find out where you are going with this subject. let's take some of the examples of "synchrosity" (and only from memory, and only some) which have been so far announced here:

1. Two teapots.
2. Three Plum Puddings
3. Number sequences from looking at a clock
4. An impulsive unusual decision which resulted in a marriage three years later

You can add to this - there have been others mentioned on the thread. You are suggesting that it maybe could be possible to calculate odds for these events. I don't think that this is possible, because before the events (including the 1,000 heads) the odds are almost incalculable, and after the events the odds are exactly one.

But for the sake of the discussion, let's say the odds for these events can be calculated, and all turn out to be One Billion to One, which means they will occur to somebody - somebody always wins the lottery, or conversely dies in an absolute freak accident.

My question is what then? Since synchrosity, even for those who look for it can only ever be established in retrospect. If it exists, it has no predictive value, and can only ever be investigated after the event, since nobody can ever know in advance, including buying a teapot, where any event is headed. And even after, as Two Teapots said, it has not exactly changed his life.

And that is true of anything that anybody does. As far as I can see, it is a pretty useless "science", so I would also like to know that outside of establisihing odds, well to repeat, what next?

We seem to be going in circles and arguing definitions, so if this thread is to advance, we need to keep moving.

Norm
 
Rodney said:
I couldn't agree more with the latter statement. However, your first statement is incorrect. What I actually stated (in Post # 704) was: "When you toss a coin 1000 times, you are guaranteed to have an outcome and, while the odds against any one permutation is vanishingly small, the odds of some combinations occurring are much higher than others. For example, the odds of the combination 500 heads and 500 tails occurring is about 1 in 40. On the other hand, the odds of the combination 1000 heads and 0 tails occurring is about 1 in 10^301. So, you should not be astonished if you get the former combination, but you should be if you get the latter combination."
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And the combinations are irrelevant to the discussion of these "synchronicity" events, just the individual outcomes. I've explained this to you over and over.

The way the game is played, you aren't predicting which outcomes might be significant ahead of time. So when you have an event, and you try to claim it is significant by asking, "What are the odds against that?", the odds are exactly the same as any other low-probability outcome.

Recasting the question to compare low probability outcomes to higher probability outcomes doesn't separate a low probability outcome that is mere random coincidence from an equally low probability outcome that is "synchronicity".

ETA: By the way, I'm sure I introduce examples that involved coin tosses and dealing cards long before your post 704 to answer your question, "What are the odds of that happening?" wrt to purported examples of synchronicity. So pos 704 was simply you improperly recasting the question.
 
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JoeTheJuggler said:
Not really. That's why I put those terms in quotes.

Again, in Quarky's example about a fly coming along as a guy is sitting in a chair considering whether to mow the lawn or continue taking it easy. It is a meaningless random event. If the guy thinks that the fly was sent to motivate him to mow the lawn, it is not merely a personal and subjective feeling. It's a purported explanation. It's a hypothesis about the external world.

Just saying it's his own "meaning" doesn't change the fact that he's making an hypothesis about the external world. (And that hypothesis is wrong.)



I agree, but I don't think you can then just take the term he made up and claim that it refers to something else--especially since, as I've shown, the definition Jung gave it is the one Rodney and a great many people are using.


Again, language works by convention. You're free to think up different ways of naming things, but then you're just going to cause confusion.
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In the fly example I used, there was no implication that the fly was sent for a purpose. It was a case of making a decision based on new data, and being willing to interpret it. I don't want to dig up the post, but I'm sure I also mentioned sudden rain, which jerked the decision the other way.

Is it superstitious , when vaccilating, to be swayed by the 'flavor' of a spontaneous event in one's personal inventory of likes and dis-likes?
I was going to play guitar, but I hit my finger with a hammer.
I was going to take a nap, but a fly kept landing on my nose, so I got up.

How does a line get drawn?
 
Rodney said:
Again, when you toss a coin 1000 times, you are guaranteed to have an outcome and, while the odds against any one permutation is vanishingly small, the odds of some combinations occurring are much higher than others.
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No.

For example, the odds of the combination 500 heads and 500 tails occurring is about 1 in 40.
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Nice cheat, here. You're combining several different combinations into a single one. HHHTTT is not the same as HTHTHT, even if the number of heads and tails is the same.
 
Starthinker said:
Same anger.
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Thinker, let's not derail the thread further. I'll close by saying that you have no idea if it's the same anger except by watching the associated behaviour. So if the behaviour is different it's hard to say it's the same thing, eh ?

I'll let you conclude, if you want to reply.
 
Rodney said:
Again, in the real world (i.e., outside this Forum), no prediction is necessary.
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That's because people are usually pretty bad at calculating probabilities, and doing so after the fact is usually pointless. Just because you have the same problem doesn't mean that it's the right way to do it.
 
Rodney said:
When you state -- "So synchronicity only happens in poorly-defined and poorly-controlled circumstances to people who don't understand statistics. There's a hint in there, if you would care but to look for it." -- the "hint" is rather obviously that I don't understand statistics.
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Well, another poster who doesn't understand what "ad hominem" means.
 
Belz... said:
No.

Nice cheat, here. You're combining several different combinations into a single one. HHHTTT is not the same as HTHTHT, even if the number of heads and tails is the same.
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Actually, he's technically correct here. In a combination, order doesn't matter; in a permutation, it does.
 
PixyMisa said:
Actually, he's technically correct here. In a combination, order doesn't matter; in a permutation, it does.
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Technically factual. But as many of us (and especially Joe) have pointed out there are other permutations that would be considered significant and hence could be considered syncronous. As was pointe out HTx500 would actually be more significant as it would be harder to fake.
 
Absolutely. The significance is assigned post-facto, arbitrarily and subjectively, and usually objectively incorrectly.
 
I think that the focus on the coin throwing is dragging this thread off topic. While it was introduced for a good reason it is being applied in a far wider context here and now that isn't a good analogy to the actual 'real life' situations.

1) The odds against throwing 1000 heads are astronomical, far greater than, for example, a particular song being played on the radio.

2) The circumstances are far more contrived, how often does someone toss 1000 coins and record the results? Most syncronous events are ordinary in isolation.

3) Most 'syncronicity' events are subjectively significant rather than objectively. The coin toss example would stand out as a hugely unlikely event to anyone.

4) The combination of 2 & 3 raises the suggestion of prediction. The suggestion is that someone comes in, sits down and throws 1000 heads in a row, it's a very constrained set of events that implies this result was expected. The definition of synconistic events we've seen so far has included them being identified in retrospect.
 
fromdownunder said:
My question is what then? Since synchrosity, even for those who look for it can only ever be established in retrospect. If it exists, it has no predictive value, and can only ever be investigated after the event, since nobody can ever know in advance, including buying a teapot, where any event is headed.
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That's not necessarily true. For example, someone might see a pattern in the stock market that seems to be repeating a prior pattern from many years earlier and possibly use that successfully as a predictive tool.

fromdownunder said:
And even after, as Two Teapots said, it has not exactly changed his life.
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I disagree. While it may not have changed his life in the sense that he henceforth will drink more tea, his attitude towards life seems to have changed rather dramatically. For example, I suspect that without his teapots experience, his attitude toward his recently-diagnosed multiple sclerosis would be much different. (He can weigh in here if I've misread the situation.)

fromdownunder said:
And that is true of anything that anybody does. As far as I can see, it is a pretty useless "science", so I would also like to know that outside of establisihing odds, well to repeat, what next?
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I think it varies from person to person. In some cases, such as Teapots Happen, it may be a completely different attitude; in other cases, such as a person who happens to run into his/her future spouse in an unlikely manner, it may be a significantly different lifestyle.
 
Belz... said:
Technically yes. But it's still a cheat because he's trying to have the to be equivalent.
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No, I was simply making the point that a combination of 500 heads and 500 tails shouldn't astonish us, whereas a combination of 1000 heads and no tails should.
 
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