Synchronicity

1. We consider that the whole world comes about through the interactions of material things. All things are considered to consist of atoms, so that anything, from a grain of sand to a living organism, is a collection of atoms combined in a specific way.

2. If this is true then our own thought will somehow be the product of such interactions. Awareness may rise as a feedback process referring to those interactions. However, how come we are aware both of what we are observing and of the fact that we are observing at the same time, even if we ignore the underlying processes?

3. Such a coordination at a fundamental level between the physical world and perception suggests that there must be a deeper connection between the objects (the material world) and our own mind or soul (the spiritual or psychic world).

4. Here is one of Carl Jung’s examples: “On April 1949, l made a note in the morning of an inscription containing a figure that was half man and half fish. There was fish for lunch. Somebody mentioned the custom of making an ‘April fish’ of someone. In the afternoon, a former patient of mine, whom 1 had not seen for months, showed me some impressive pictures of fish. In the evening, l was shown a pie of embroidery with sea monsters and fishes in it. The next morning, l saw a former patient, who was visiting me for the first time in ten years. She had dreamed of a large fish the night before. A few months later, when I was using this series for larger work and had just finished writing it down, I walked over to a spot by the lake in front of the house, where l had already been several times that morning. This time a fish a foot long lay on the sea-wall. Since no one else was present, I have no idea how the fish could have got there…

5. When coincidences pile up in this way one cannot help being impressed by them-for the greater the number of terms in such a series, or the more unusual their character, the more improbable they become.”

6. He adds, “Instead of simultaneity we could also use the concept of a meaningful coincidence of two or more events, where something other than the probability of chance is involved.” [1]

7. What if finally it is the spiritual world what guides the material world, so that everything we know about reality comes about as the ubiquitous connection between things, established at a higher, fundamental level (meaningful coincidence)?

8. Jung groups the phenomena he mentions in three categories:

a) The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psychic state or content, where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not even conceivable.
b) The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding (more or less simultaneous) external event taking place outside the observer’s field of perception, i.e., at a distance, and only verifiable afterward.
c) The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding, not yet existent future event that is distant in time and can likewise only be verified afterward.

In groups b) and c) the coinciding events are not yet present in the observer’s field of perception, but have been anticipated in time in so far as they can only be verified afterward. For this reason he calls such events synchronistic, which is not to be confused with synchronous.

9. One aspect of synchronicity is that the ‘messages’ which make the connection possible are instantaneous, thus they seem to travel (much) faster than light. But either we use the notion of a ‘signal’ or not in order to explain any kind of interaction, synchronicity may offer the basis on which the material and spiritual phenomena can be brought together into a theory of everything (including the human mind).

10. In Jung’s words, “Causality is the way we explain the link between two successive events. Synchronicity designates the parallelism of time and meaning between psychic and psychophysical events, which scientific knowledge so far has been unable to reduce to a common principle.”

11. Such a parallelism or connection between the material world (spacetime) and the mental or psychic world (context or meaning) can be made by the archetypes. According to Jung, “The archetypes are formal factors responsible for the organization of unconscious psychic processes: they are ‘patterns of behavior.’ At the same time they have a ‘specific charge’ and develop numinous effects which express themselves as affects… it is the decisive factors in the conscious psyche, the archetypes, which constitute the structure of the collective unconscious. The latter represents a psyche that is identical in all individuals.” [2]

12. What if the whole world consists of archetypes, instead of particles? Then instead of mechanical processes the world would be composed of different archetypal actions or functions (archetypes). The advantage of the latter assumption is that consciousness could also be included into a true theory of everything.

13. If spacetime (a mechanical entity) is replaced by a universal medium (like the collective unconscious), which can also give rise to psychic or mental properties, then the archetypes can be the basic constituents of such a medium. For example the archetypes can be perceived as vibrators oscillating at different modes and intensities (in analogy to strings in string theory), serving thus as functions and producing actions.

14. On the other hand consciousness (or the soul) can be seen as a sphere whose vibrating boundary is fined tuned with the external vibrations (those of the archetypes), so that the experience of the world comes about as an interference pattern.

15. This can give us an idea about what a meaningful coincidence may be (in opposition to a mechanical interaction). But it also has the advantage of integrating physical phenomena with our own experience- it explains not only how the world we perceive comes about, but also why we perceive.

[1]: Excerpts from the essay ‘On Synchronicity,’ Carl Jung.

[2]: Excerpt from the book ‘Synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle,’ Carl Jung.

8/20/2018

Picture (cropped): From the cover of the book ‘Synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle,’ Carl Jung