How to explain synchronicity?

[Brian Wachter]

Cat food commercials are fairly frequent on television so the odds are good if you mention the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment a commercial for cat food could follow.

You need to look at the Law of Truly Large Numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_tr ... ge_numbers

But isn't Jung's concept about resonance with your inner narrative, not statistics?

[Jim Cross]

Cat food commercials are fairly frequent on television so the odds are good if you mention the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment a commercial for cat food could follow.

You need to look at the Law of Truly Large Numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_tr ... ge_numbers

But isn't Jung's concept about resonance with your inner narrative, not statistics?

These events are taking place independently from our inner resonance. It is the connection seeking brain that makes them seem meaningful. It will try to find meaning even when there is none. It is on a larger scale what goes on in conspiracy thinking. Statistics keeps the overloading of meaning and significance in check. It keeps the connection making honest. Some people want to ignore that and can find meaning everywhere and in everything. To me that is crazy.

[Brian Wachter]

These events are taking place independently from our inner resonance. It is the connection seeking brain that makes them seem meaningful. It will try to find meaning even when there is none. It is on a larger scale what goes on in conspiracy thinking. Statistics keeps the overloading of meaning and significance in check. It keeps the connection making honest. Some people want to ignore that and can find meaning everywhere and in everything. To me that is crazy.

It seems you are positing a sort of subject/object split. Inner resonance is the whole point of looking at synchronicity. Otherwise you might as well be discussing the lottery and as far as I know, gambling doesn't have a big place in Jungian psychology. The context within which synchronicity looks at events is one's psychic factors. Period.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Speaking of synchronicity, as I'm reading this thread, this video just popped up in the youtube feed (yeah Jim, I know, mere random coincidence) ...

[Jim Cross]

These events are taking place independently from our inner resonance. It is the connection seeking brain that makes them seem meaningful. It will try to find meaning even when there is none. It is on a larger scale what goes on in conspiracy thinking. Statistics keeps the overloading of meaning and significance in check. It keeps the connection making honest. Some people want to ignore that and can find meaning everywhere and in everything. To me that is crazy.

It seems you are positing a sort of subject/object split. Inner resonance is the whole point of looking at synchronicity. Otherwise you might as well be discussing the lottery and as far as I know, gambling doesn't have a big place in Jungian psychology. The context within which synchronicity looks at events is one's psychic factors. Period.

What was the psychic factor in the cat food commercial? Did you feel an inner resonance with turkey liver pate?

[Jim Cross]

Speaking of synchronicity, as I'm reading this thread, a 'bell' notification of this video just popped up in the youtube feed (yeah Jim, I know, mere random coincidence) ...

Let me guess. You have either customized your feed or youtube has customized it for you based on your prior viewing.

I happen to be looking for spotting scopes and have done some Google searches. It must be synchronicity that now suddenly ads for spotting scopes keep appearing on random pages I go to.

[AshvinP]

These events are taking place independently from our inner resonance. It is the connection seeking brain that makes them seem meaningful. It will try to find meaning even when there is none. It is on a larger scale what goes on in conspiracy thinking. Statistics keeps the overloading of meaning and significance in check. It keeps the connection making honest. Some people want to ignore that and can find meaning everywhere and in everything. To me that is crazy.

It seems you are positing a sort of subject/object split. Inner resonance is the whole point of looking at synchronicity. Otherwise you might as well be discussing the lottery and as far as I know, gambling doesn't have a big place in Jungian psychology. The context within which synchronicity looks at events is one's psychic factors. Period.

"The obvious is the hardest thing of all to point out to someone who has genuinely lost sight of it" (Barfield). The fallacy of subject-object and mind-matter divides is obvious to us, but to modern man who has genuinely lost sight of it, "synchronicity" and "inner resonance" will sound like the craziest of notions. Finding "meaning everywhere and in everything" is even crazier. But if we ask Jim to tell us one experience he has ever had which lacked meaning, he will come up with zero such experiences. Going from that obvious fact to the idea that meaning is fundamental will still be crazy, though, because modern man has simply lost all connection to his thoughtful imagination. At the end of the day, the only way forward is through voluntary experience and thought - we can point people in a certain direction but we can never force them to walk.

[Soul_of_Shu]

Let me guess. You have either customized your feed or youtube has customized it for you based on your prior viewing.

I happen to be looking for spotting scopes and have done some Google searches. It must be synchronicity that now suddenly ads for spotting scopes keep appearing on random pages I go to.

IMV, not really comparable at all, and in any case, all being completely unfalsifiable, as usual, we're never going to be convinced by each other's take on it, so it no longer seems worth the bother trying to make the case that Jung's approach to this was hardly poorly thought through, such that he was merely fooling himself. Clearly you feel differently ... so be it

[Jim Cross]

Let me guess. You have either customized your feed or youtube has customized it for you based on your prior viewing.

I happen to be looking for spotting scopes and have done some Google searches. It must be synchronicity that now suddenly ads for spotting scopes keep appearing on random pages I go to.

IMV, not really comparable at all, and in any case, all being completely unfalsifiable, as usual, we're never going to be convinced by each other's take on it, so it no longer seems worth the bother trying to make the case that Jung's approach to this was hardly poorly thought through, such that he was merely fooling himself. Clearly you feel differently ... so be it

Yep. I think Jung was fooling himself.

If you had happened to be doing any Jung or synchronicity searches recently, it wouldn't be surprising to find a "feed" knows about your search history and might "suggest" something.

The problem with so many of these synchronicity events is the many different types of events can meet the same criteria.

Take the Schrodinger's cat example. Among the various events which could be regarded as synchronous could have been:

1- Cat food commercial
2- Pet flea/tick commercial
3- ASPCA commercial
4- Ads for any number of companies with "quantum" in their name
5- Ads for Science or Discovery channel relating to QM
6- A cat meowing in the background of a story about something else (I thought one of my cats was meowing while watching Katla last night)
7- A Breaking Bad allusion to Heisenberg

Or

[Soul_of_Shu]

Yep. I think Jung was fooling himself.

Hey, participants here can go with Jung, or go with Jim ... so I'm not overly worried about it.