(Split Thread) Synchronicity or Coincidence

[Darat]

I'm still not clear on this. Could you give an example of the type of objective evidence you think is available.

See my post above and the word document.

 

[Beth]

See my post above and the word document.

okay

A word document appears on your PC, that document is a piece of objective evidence in other words we all can examine it, check it's provenance and so on.

And if UCE sent you a copy of the word document and claimed it just 'appeared' on his PC, that would constitute evidence? Or would that be an unverifiable anecdote?

Tests are run, e.g. was your PC connected to the outside world at the time, was there some clever trojan software installed on your PC. We run the most exhaustive tests imaginable and then are forced to conclude "this document appeared and there is no explanation in our current understanding of how the world works for its appearance".

That type of evidence would not be, as you claimed earlier, "useless" it would be a very powerful piece of evidence for something we at least currently don't know about or understand. And that "something" may well be your synchronicity however that is not my point.

To re-iterate my point: at least some of the type of evidence you have claimed allowed you to come to the conclusion that there is something called "synchronicity" is in fact objective evidence that we all could examine even if we couldn't all come to the same conclusion.

So if UCE claimed the document just appeared, that the computer was NOT connected to any other computer nor was there any other possible source for the document, you would simply believe him and accept the story without doubt? Somehow, I doubt that

Further, even if a possible explanation was found - i.e. the computer was connected to the internet - I don't think it would invalidate the hypothesis of synchronicity. My understanding of synchroncity is not that impossible coincidences occur, but rather that the coincidence was not random but occured for some inexplicable reason and has personal meaning to the person who experienced it, but not necessarily for anyone else.

 

[Darat]

...

And if UCE send you a copy of the word document and claimed it just 'appeared' on his PC, that would constitute evidence? Or would that be an unverifiable anecdote?

...snip...

Did you not read all my post? I'll quote myself:

....

Tests are run, e.g. was your PC connected to the outside world at the time, was there some clever trojan software installed on your PC. We run the most exhaustive tests imaginable and then are forced to conclude "this document appeared and there is no explanation in our current understanding of how the world works for its appearance".

...

And as I keep saying I am talking about whether in principle a type of evidence is objective or subjective. A computer file is an objective piece of evidence, as is a website not being there one moment but is there the next. These represent types of evidence that are objective.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Unsatisfying answers are why people continue to search for other explanations. While coincidence may be your default answer, that doesn't mean it is the default for everyone else, nor does it make it the correct explanation. As UCE is pointing out, syncronicity is inherently subjective, and thus not amenable to traditional scientific analysis so you are right about it being an unfalsifiable explanations. I'm not so sure about incoherent, but I'll let UCE deal with that issue if he is so inclined.

Coincidence is the default explanation because we know coincidences happen, but we do not know if synchronicity happens. It's similar to why blowing wind is the default explanation for flying leaves, rather than psychokinesis. (This assumes that you do not think every pair of events is synchronicity.)

There is no point in me answering that question. The answer is of no use to you. We've already agreed that personal testimony is no use. There's no reason for you to believe my claims.

If there is any way to decide, personal testimony is it. You explain the synchronicity you think happened, then we calculate the probability of it being a coincidence. I realize that is almost impossible, but it's the only handle we can get on it.

On the contrary, the significance of the events to these people is critical. Nothing else matters.

Then there is no reason whatsoever not to dismiss it as mood making.

Maybe they do. If so, don't rely on their reports of synchronicity.

Since no one has proposed a means of telling synchronicity from emotional reaction, I cannot rely on anyone's reports of synchronicity.

I didn't define it like that.

I know, but your definition doesn't make sense.

My understanding of synchroncity is not that impossible coincidences occur, but rather that the coincidence was not random but occured for some inexplicable reason and has personal meaning to the person who experienced it, but not necessarily for anyone else.

The problem is that the coincidence is supposed to be nonrandom, yet have no empirical cause. If someone could give me even the vaguest glimmer what this nonrandom, acausal mechanism is, I'd be grateful. And I bet that same person could explain libertarian free will to me, too.

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

And how many times will I have to explain to you that we are not talking about conclusions but about objective evidence? Again let me use one of your specific examples:

__________

A word document appears on your PC, that document is a piece of objective evidence in other words we all can examine it, check it's provenance and so on.

How do you determine whether or not I just wrote the document myself?

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Coincidence is the default explanation because we know coincidences happen, but we do not know if synchronicity happens.

So that means it is the default explanation for you. It can also be the default explanation for me, up to a point. At that point, the fact that it is merely a default explanation no longer matters.

If there is any way to decide, personal testimony is it.

Personal testimony is of interest from the point of view of a person who collects anecdotes of this sort, such as William James or Jacques Vallee. But those people are not scientists. They were psychologists/parapsychologists.

Since no one has proposed a means of telling synchronicity from emotional reaction, I cannot rely on anyone's reports of synchronicity.

Nobody is asking you to. All I am asking is to be allowed to believe my own experiences.

The problem is that the coincidence is supposed to be nonrandom, yet have no empirical cause. If someone could give me even the vaguest glimmer what this nonrandom, acausal mechanism is, I'd be grateful. And I bet that same person could explain libertarian free will to me, too.

There may well be some common factors to the two explanations.

Maybe the same person might be able to explain quantum entanglement at the same time....

 

[Beth]

And as I keep saying I am talking about whether in principle a type of evidence is objective or subjective. A computer file is an objective piece of evidence, as is a website not being there one moment but is there the next. These represent types of evidence that are objective.

If UCE provided you with such a file and claimed it to be 'objective evidence' would you accept it as such? Or would you dismiss it as unverifiable? If the latter, I do not think you can claim that it is 'objective evidence' even in principle.

 

[Beth]

Coincidence is the default explanation because we know coincidences happen, but we do not know if synchronicity happens.

If that were actually true, we would never bother to investigate any unusual event. In scientific testing, we set a limit on the probability of co-incidence that we are willing to accept (usually 0.05) and anything below that set probability is considered due to some cause, not co-incidence - at least not without investigating to see if we can find some other cause.

 

[Darat]

How do you determine whether or not I just wrote the document myself?

See my post: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2309255#post2309255

Remember - you made a universal statement that

I should add that in terms of the original post I made in this thread, it does not matter whether you believe in sychronicity or not. What matters is whether you are willing to allow me to believe in it without being harassed for my belief. It has not been proven false by science, because that would be impossible. It cannot be proven true by science either. Therefore I have no right to expect you to believe my truth claim with respect to synchronicity and you have no scientific grounds for denying that truth claim. You just have to stick with "I don't believe it. I haven't experienced it." I have to stick with "I believe it, because I've experienced it."

I have been pointing out that according to you the type of some of the evidence that made you beleive in synchronicity is in fact objective and accessible to all.

The type of evidence you have claimed for synchronicty in the past is the same type as someone who says they can bend a spoon with the power of their mind, i.e. objective evidence in the sense it is accessible to all of us, so we can all examine the spoon and see if it did indeed bend, if it did indeed bend in such a way that cannot be explained by our current understanding of the world. At least some of your evidence for synchronicity is of that type.

 

[Darat]

If UCE provided you with such a file and claimed it to be 'objective evidence' would you accept it as such? Or would you dismiss it as unverifiable? If the latter, I do not think you can claim that it is 'objective evidence' even in principle.

You are still missing my point.

I am not talking about the provenance of any particular piece of evidence but whether in principle it is evidence that is accessible to all of us.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Darat,

She's not missing the point. YOU are. The evidence you are claiming is "accessible to all" would be discounted by you, so it is not accessabile to you.

This has now been explained to you about ten times so far in this thread.

I'm know you're no Einstein, but you can do better than this. :-(

Geoff

 

[Darat]

Darat,

She's not missing the point. YOU are. The evidence you are claiming is "accessible to all" would be discounted by you, so it is not accessabile to you.

...snip...

You are wrong.

Objective evidence is as I have stated a few times in this thread evidence that is accessible to all.

The type of evidence you have claimed helped or made you believe in synchronicity is the same type of evidence as a spoon being bent 90 degrees - it is objective evidence i.e. evidence accessible to all. Therefore it is subject to verification by other people.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

Darat,

I'm not going to continue with this. I have had more productive conversations with my cat.

Geoff

 

[Darat]

Darat,

I'm not going to continue with this. I have had more productive conversations with my cat.

Geoff

I have shown that your claim that the evidence (or at least some of it) is not objective is contradicted by other claims you have made.

That contradiction can be solved by simply recognising that one set of claims was or is wrong.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

So that means it is the default explanation for you. It can also be the default explanation for me, up to a point. At that point, the fact that it is merely a default explanation no longer matters.

Beth said:

Coincidence is both an unsatisfying and unfalsifiable answer. Much like "goddidit", it doesn't explain anything and once people have accepted that explanation, they cease any further investigation.

I'm simply trying to get a handle on whether she wants to consider coincidence the default and by far most prevalent explanation, or whether she wants to investigate every pair of events in her life just in case a few might be this undefinable synchronicity thing.

Nobody is asking you to. All I am asking is to be allowed to believe my own experiences.

Of course you may believe anything you want. But this is a philosophy discussion, right? It's no fun to end philosophy discussions with "it's just a matter of opinion." As someone brilliant once said, I was hoping to settle this without avoiding some sort of argument.

My point is that I think you are placing too much weight on a particular interpretation of your own experiences.

There may well be some common factors to the two explanations.

Maybe the same person might be able to explain quantum entanglement at the same time....

Explain quantum entanglement, or explain a particular interpretation of quantum entanglement? Therein lies the very heart of both matters.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If that were actually true, we would never bother to investigate any unusual event. In scientific testing, we set a limit on the probability of co-incidence that we are willing to accept (usually 0.05) and anything below that set probability is considered due to some cause, not co-incidence - at least not without investigating to see if we can find some other cause.

Aha! I'm perfectly willing to consider that some pair of events are actually causally linked. By all means, do that, especially if the event happens repeatedly. But that is not what synchronicity is about.

It's difficult to discuss this subject in light of science, because science does not postulate a mechanism like the (poorly defined) one that sychronicity requires. Furthermore, p values are based on a calculation of the expected probability that the event occurs at random. This calculation can sometimes be quite difficult, as is the case in various psi experiments. It is surely almost impossible with the sort of events people attribute to sychronicity.

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

She's not missing the point. YOU are. The evidence you are claiming is "accessible to all" would be discounted by you, so it is not accessabile to you.

It wouldn't necessarily be discounted.

Here's the thing. If two empirical events occur, from which I infer a synchronicity, then at least the events were empirical ones accessible, in principle, to everyone. Sure, it's possible that the history of the two events is impossible to track down after the fact, and so there's nothing we can do. But they were still empirical. What is questionable is your interpretation of the juxtaposition of the two events.

Here's something that happened to me:

I dated a woman during the summer between high school and college. When I went away to college, I got involved with another woman and cut off my relationship with the first by writing her a letter. This was in 1970. In 1982, I was visiting St. Louis, where I grew up, and went to a mall that I had been to perhaps twice before. I went into a bookstore and bought a book, then stood in line to pay for it. Standing in front of me was the woman I had dated that summer! She lived a fair distance from the mall and only visited it occasionally. That evening we had dinner and I could apologize in person for my abrupt termination of the relationship. A marvelous closure, to be sure.

Synchronicity? Well, the events are all perfectly empirical and accessible. What if I interpreted it as sychronicity and she as coincidence? Doesn't that either ruin the entire concept, or render it clearly a matter of opinion?

~~ Paul

 

[UndercoverElephant]

My point is that I think you are placing too much weight on a particular interpretation of your own experiences.

And mine is that you are not in a position to ask me to accept that. Why should I allow your explanation of my experiences to over-ride my own? I think if you had experienced what I experienced, you would change your mind.

What is the problem with just leaving it at that? You are not going to be able to argue me out of this position.

Explain quantum entanglement, or explain a particular interpretation of quantum entanglement? Therein lies the very heart of both matters.

~~ Paul

Explain how two things on opposite sides of the galaxy can apparently affect each other instantaneously. It looks like another example of a connection between events which looks impossible. The only difference is that this time it is scientific fact.

 

[UndercoverElephant]

It wouldn't necessarily be discounted.

Here's the thing. If two empirical events occur, from which I infer a synchronicity, then at least the events were empirical ones accessible, in principle, to everyone. Sure, it's possible that the history of the two events is impossible to track down after the fact, and so there's nothing we can do. But they were still empirical. What is questionable is your interpretation of the juxtaposition of the two events.

Here's something that happened to me:

I dated a woman during the summer between high school and college. When I went away to college, I got involved with another woman and cut off my relationship with the first by writing her a letter. This was in 1970. In 1982, I was visiting St. Louis, where I grew up, and went to a mall that I had been to perhaps twice before. I went into a bookstore and bought a book, then stood in line to pay for it. Standing in front of me was the woman I had dated that summer! She lived a fair distance from the mall and only visited it occasionally. That evening we had dinner and I could apologize in person for my abrupt termination of the relationship. A marvelous closure, to be sure.

Synchronicity? Well, the events are all perfectly empirical and accessible. What if I interpreted it as sychronicity and she as coincidence? Doesn't that either ruin the entire concept, or render it clearly a matter of opinion?

~~ Paul

That's just an ambiguous case. Those happen all the time. You cannot draw any conclusions from it. Maybe it was a synchronicity, maybe it wasn't. All you need to do is make a mental note of it, which you have done. If one day your mental notes start to add up to something, then maybe you should think about synchronicity. Until then, it's no big deal.

The real humdinger synchronicities happen to people who are searching for spiritual truth. That is the language they speak in. If you aren't interested in such a search, you might just as well forget about synchronicity.

 

[chriswl]

Explain how two things on opposite sides of the galaxy can apparently affect each other instantaneously. It looks like another example of a connection between events which looks impossible. The only difference is that this time it is scientific fact.

Why would you say this looks impossible? Do you have some pre-conceived notion of what things are possible in the physical world that isn't simply a generalisation of the things that you have actually observed to happen?

As I was arguing on another thread recently, there is nothing inherently less surprising about a Cartesian physical world consisting purely of solid billiard ball-like particles than a world with non-local quantum connections. It seems natural that bodies transfer momentum locally through collisions because we see this happen all around us unlike quantum effects. But if we lived in a Newtonian world we would no more understand why or how Newtonian mechanics worked than we understand quantum mechanics. The "laws" are just observations about the way the world happens to be. You can't go beyond that.

If you found predictable regularities in synchronistic phenomena then they would constitute an empirical law. If you found no such regularities then you have random phenomena.

Now I agree that real synchronicity that wasn't just randomness would be a huge challenge to our conception of science. It would be an entirely different kind of non-reductive law of nature, a high-level phenomenon that isn't reducible to anything more primitive. But whether this is in fact the case is very much an empirical issue.

Unless you want to be some kind of solipsist who thinks that what happens to you is all that really counts. For example, a solipsist wins the lottery and this tells him something profound about the goodness of the universe. The rest of us just see the inevitable working out of the laws of chance because we don't discount the experiences of the millions of people who lost.