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(Split Thread) Synchronicity or Coincidence

And there you go again, spouting "supernatural" non-sense.

It would be fair to say that Jung's synchronicity, should it exist, has not yet been demonstrated by empirical science, at least so far as you and I know.
 
We need three classes instead of two.

1) Natural-1: Empirically deterministic.
2) Natural-2:: Behaving according to laws which work on a metaphysical level.
3) Supernatural: Non-law-bound - the actions attributed to something outside the system which has its own intelligence/will (i.e. something like an abrahamic God).

The difference between 2 and 3 is that with 2, no external input is required into the system but that with 3, external input is required. The difference between 1 and 2 is that with 1 we can see the connection between cause and effect and with 2 we cannot. Both are law-driven. 3 requires something existing outside the system described by 1 and 2.
 
O.K I apologise to Darat for being abusive. It was stupid and I regret doing it.

But I am still in disagreement with the way you behaved in this thread. Geoff told you in numerous occasions that no evidence would be of any use to you. Nevertheless you persisted in your demand to explain claims he made five years ago. Again he told you no evidence of synchronicity would be relevant to a third person and again you brought more old posts. To me that was a malicious attempt to demerit someone else´s arguments, not based on reason or logic but on personal attack. I´d have ignored this if it had been an isolated event but you have done this more than once in the past.

You just can´t throw stones at people without expecting any sort of reaction, even from people who apparently has nothing to do with it. Geoff is my friend and as such your attacks are not ignored by me. Of course this doesn´t justify being rude so that´s why I am apologising.
 
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Hammegk said:
And there you go again, spouting "supernatural" non-sense.
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Hammy, calm down. When I say something is supernatural, of course I'm willing to discover later that it was naturalistic all along. It just sounds supernatural now. From the Wiki article:
Jung spoke of synchronicity as an "'acausal connecting principle'" (i.e. a pattern of connection that cannot be explained by direct causality) a "‘meaningful coincidence’" or as an "‘acausal parallelism’". Cause-and-effect, in Jung's mind, seemed to have nothing to do with it.
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Sounds supernatural, not naturalistic, woo-woo, whatever you'd like to call it. Explicitly so.

~~ Paul
 
UndercoverElephant said:
We need three classes instead of two.

1) Natural-1: Empirically deterministic.
2) Natural-2:: Behaving according to laws which work on a metaphysical level.
3) Supernatural: Non-law-bound - the actions attributed to something outside the system which has its own intelligence/will (i.e. something like an abrahamic God).

The difference between 2 and 3 is that with 2, no external input is required into the system but that with 3, external input is required. The difference between 1 and 2 is that with 1 we can see the connection between cause and effect and with 2 we cannot. Both are law-driven. 3 requires something existing outside the system described by 1 and 2.
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The text I've bolded above doesn't make sense to me.

In what sense can we ever "see" the connection?

"When we look about us towards external objects, and consider the operation of causes, we are never able, in a single instance, to discover any power or necessary connexion; any quality, which binds the effect to the cause, and renders the one an infallible consequence of the other. We only find, that the one does actually, in fact, follow the other." -- David Hume
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The laws we discover are just abstracted from our observations. Even if there were, in some sense, different types of cause we could not distinguish between them.
 
UCE said:
We need three classes instead of two.

1) Natural-1: Empirically deterministic.
2) Natural-2:: Behaving according to laws which work on a metaphysical level.
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I'm completely lost. You'll have to clarify what it means for something to behave according to metaphysical laws. Such laws are presumably not based on cause and effect, yet are naturalistic. And the resulting events are not random. So what exactly are they---can you explain the third mechanism at work here?

~~ Paul
 
chriswl said:
The text I've bolded above doesn't make sense to me.

In what sense can we ever "see" the connection?
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When one billiard ball hits another, we can see the connection between cause and effect. All of empirical causality works like this. Quantum entanglement does not, and neither does synchronicity.
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I think if you investigate what Jung meant by sychronicity, you will find it is supposed to be more than a perceptual association. There is a supernatural aspect to it.

~~ Paul
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I agree, when Jung was working the neuropsychology and behaviorism had not occured. His work on alchemy is still meaningful to those who wish to engage is self exploartion. Although the sentences run on and on, a lot like Faulkner.


My defintion of the perceptual association assigned (deliberately or indeliberatly) was not meant to reference Jung, but to place the term in a more modern context. So i amy have been very confusing. Yes Jung and his practioners are very supernatural at times. There is meaning in alot of what they teach, although I sometimes have to reframe it to match my perspective. "Collective unconsious" for example, OOOK, first off it starts with the UC-word!!!!!
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
I'm completely lost. You'll have to clarify what it means for something to behave according to metaphysical laws. Such laws are presumably not based on cause and effect, yet are naturalistic. And the resulting events are not random. So what exactly are they---can you explain the third mechanism at work here?

~~ Paul
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They are based upon cause and effect. The only difference is that we cannot see connection because it is non-local. We cannot see how observing one particle in an entangled pair causes a change in the state of the other - we just know that it does. Synchronicity (or karma) is even more obscure because the connection is both non-local and non-temporal.

Can I explain the mechanism? Well, can anybody explain the mechanism behind quantum entanglement? No. And I can't really explain the mechanisms behind karma and synchronicity. At least I can't give the sort of explanation which would make sense to scientistic naturalists. There is no empirical explanation. From a purely empirical viewpoint, it must remain inexplicable. Can I give a philosophical/metaphysical explanation? Yes, I think I probably could do that. But I'm not going to do so, for at least two reasons. First, I don't think most of the people here are capable of either believing or understanding it - it would require them to think about reality in a way that is very different to the way they normally think about it. Second, I think that there are some important reasons why people need to work out these answers for themselves. The process of working out the answers is a process of self-discovery. If I just supply the answers, then not only will they be rejected, but the process of self-discovery won't happen.

The synchronicities themselves lead to answer to the question of how they are possible.
 
hammegk said:
And there you go again, spouting "supernatural" non-sense.

It would be fair to say that Jung's synchronicity, should it exist, has not yet been demonstrated by empirical science, at least so far as you and I know.
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True but the associative framework of consciousness is being demonstrated and may be fleshed out someday.

As a behaviorist i think that reports of the individual can be objective, if screened for validity and taken in large samples.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
They are based upon cause and effect. The only difference is that we cannot see connection because it is non-local. We cannot see how observing one particle in an entangled pair causes a change in the state of the other - we just know that it does.
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How ?

And I can't really explain the mechanisms behind karma and synchronicity.
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I can't explain how Balrogs emit fire, either.

At least I can't give the sort of explanation which would make sense to scientistic naturalists. There is no empirical explanation. From a purely empirical viewpoint, it must remain inexplicable.
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How convenient and nonsensical, all the while.

Can I give a philosophical/metaphysical explanation? Yes, I think I probably could do that.
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How also convenient.
 

In an effort to get this thread back on track, I have split the side-conversation between UndercoverElephant, Darat and others and moved it to AAH. Do NOT continue this diatribe in this thread.

I hope that is sufficiently clear to all involved.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: jmercer
 
I get back here for a read and the thread has a split...and it's interesting reading. For whatever reason, this discussion is pulling in The Celestine Prophesy for me, which was a fictional take on belief, and specifically referenced "Coincidences" as proof of the characters' beliefs. It struck me at the time I finished the book, that I had read someone else's belief system, and didn't buy in. I have other beliefs. And I also have personal experiences that influence my beliefs. This might be a stretch since The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield) has aged, is very woo, and is not a book I'd recommend to others, so I don't expect others to have read it.

So, boiling this down, there is a book (NYT Bestseller?) out there that actively links (confuses?) synchronicity and coincidence and "belief".

What I've taken away from the discussion is that an event may be seen as synchronistic by a person who is in tune with the many significant layers and meanings of the event - and many of those may be deeply personal. The event can be labeled as a coincidence by any observer, or even a participant that does not assign or notice any significance to the event beyond it happening, including not assigning significance to the event's timing. If a person that believes an event to be synchronistic, an attempt to label it as a coincidence is belittling because it ignores or places no value on the personal experience.

I have no comment on the supernatural, because, well, that's what supernatural is, beyond explanation, right?

So, anyone have a thought or two on how the Celestine Prophesy might be an attempt to parse the difference between synchronicity and coincidence?

Back to the discussion? With a twist?

And then, between the time I started this post and losing my sign-in...it's split again...blah. I do appreciate what Dancing David's note.
 
Aurelian said:
So, boiling this down, there is a book (NYT Bestseller?) out there that actively links (confuses?) synchronicity and coincidence and "belief".
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It's not just one book. These ideas are much older than that. It predates Jung also. Its roots go back into western occultism and alchemy (and by that I mean the mystical practice of alchemy, NOT the physical attempt to transmute lead into gold or to concoct a potion for immortality).

What I've taken away from the discussion is that an event may be seen as synchronistic by a person who is in tune with the many significant layers and meanings of the event - and many of those may be deeply personal. The event can be labeled as a coincidence by any observer, or even a participant that does not assign or notice any significance to the event beyond it happening, including not assigning significance to the event's timing. If a person that believes an event to be synchronistic, an attempt to label it as a coincidence is belittling because it ignores or places no value on the personal experience.

I have no comment on the supernatural, because, well, that's what supernatural is, beyond explanation, right?

So, anyone have a thought or two on how the Celestine Prophesy might be an attempt to parse the difference between synchronicity and coincidence?

Back to the discussion? With a twist?

And then, between the time I started this post and losing my sign-in...it's split again...blah. I do appreciate what Dancing David's note.
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I've not actually read the Celestine Prophecy, so I can't say.
 
UndercoverElephant said:
When one billiard ball hits another, we can see the connection between cause and effect. All of empirical causality works like this. Quantum entanglement does not, and neither does synchronicity.
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What about electrostatic repulsion or gravitational attraction? Are you saying that causation is mysterious unless it involves direct physical contact?

Or is there no problem because gravitational and electromagnetic fields are real entities, as real as physical objects? Then why aren't quantum wave functions equally real?
 
chriswl said:
What about electrostatic repulsion or gravitational attraction? Are you saying that causation is mysterious unless it involves direct physical contact?

Or is there no problem because gravitational and electromagnetic fields are real entities, as real as physical objects?
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Gravity is mysterious, but not as mysterious as the other things being discussed. There is nothing mysterious about electrostatic repulsion.

Perhaps I can rephrase it.

If we were to have a complete empirical/physical description of the Universe, then we will have a complete description of all the physical things you've mentioned. We will be able to see how the causes are connected to the effects. With synchronicity, even if we had a complete physical description, we'd still have no explanation as to how cause is connected to effect. It would still look like random co-incidence from a purely empirical view. The mechanism is entirely hidden from us. This is the literal meaning of the word "occult".

Then why aren't quantum wave functions equally real?
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Wave functions are never observed. All we ever observe is particles.
 
UCE said:
They are based upon cause and effect. The only difference is that we cannot see connection because it is non-local. We cannot see how observing one particle in an entangled pair causes a change in the state of the other - we just know that it does.
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Does the observed particle cause the other particle's state to collapse?

~~ Paul
 
Paul C. Anagnostopoulos said:
Hammy, calm down. When I say something is supernatural, of course I'm willing to discover later that it was naturalistic all along. It just sounds supernatural now.
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I'm calm, thanks.

Sounds supernatural, not naturalistic, woo-woo, whatever you'd like to call it. Explicitly so.
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I see. That sounds to me more like a pejorative and highly prejudicial statement than a skeptical discussion point.
 
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