Synchronicity

[Epictetus]

Greetings friends. Here I would like to discuss the concept of synchronicity with you. Here is what Wiki has to say:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchronicity. Forgive my lowbrow habit of quoting Wiki, but it's really the best I can do.
Am I forgiven? Yes? Then here is my favorite part from the article:

The French writer Émile Deschamps claims in his memoirs that, in 1805, he was treated to some plum pudding by a stranger named Monsieur de Fontgibu. Ten years later, the writer encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him that the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fontgibu. Many years later, in 1832, Deschamps was at a dinner and once again ordered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fontgibu was missing to make the setting complete — and in the same instant, the now senile de Fontgibu entered the room.[14]

In his book Synchronicity (1952), Jung tells the following story as an example of a synchronistic event:

A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream, I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from the outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to a golden scarab one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetonia aurata), which, contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt the urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since. [15]

The comic strip character Dennis the Menace featuring a young boy in a red-and-black-striped shirt debuted on March 12, 1951, in 16 newspapers in the United States. Three days later in the UK, a character called Dennis the Menace, wearing a red-and-black-striped jumper, made his debut in children's comic The Beano. Both creators have denied any causal connection.

Jung wrote, after describing some examples, "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 its character, the more improbable it becomes.

[Buddha12]

Another term used is coincidence which means almost the same thing. Just because some strange things happen doesn't mean that they are somehow meant to be or destined to happen but just occur out of happen chance.

[DaveC426913]

Nothing wrong with quoting wiki, but that's all you did. You haven't followed up with anything to say.

But I'll add this: in a world with 7 billion people, and an exponential number of interactions between them and their environment, by far the most astonishing thing that could ever happen is if there were no coincidences.

It would be like being at a rock concert with 100,000 people and discovering that no two people standing next to reach other shared a birthday. Now that would be incredible!

[scheherazade]

Observably, we are a species that utilizes pattern recognition for much of our thought processes. Subconsciously, our brain processes the input of our senses, constantly aligning and realigning them with the data we have already experienced.

Whenever there is a correlation between bits of information, it is 'flagged' and brought to the attention of our consciousness for further evaluation.

Sometimes these correlations, or synchronicity are important to our future deliberations.

At other times, they are but interesting coincidences.

That being said, those of perspicacious nature will observe that there are a rather astounding number of coincidence or synchronicity in their lives.

Given that all things are connected at the fundamental level of energy, this should really not be that surprising.

Here I am, right on cue....

[gibbsonine]

Yes there are indeed an astounding number of coincidences. Further inspection reveals patterns of synchronicities. This is what stimulated my 50 year research of this intellectually challenging and emotionally stirring topic. Whereas Jung concluded that science will never be able to adequately account for the entire process leading to the production of synchronicities my conclusion is that they can. Utilizing a method I refer to as contextual analysis it is seen that most synchronicities are by products of a person's idiosyncratic creative process. Synchronicities begin with a person having a seemingly un resolvable problem. It the person's attitude to the stuckness is unwavering determination to struggle with struggle this initiates the person's creative process. The end of this process takes the form of a synchronicity (meaningful coincidence) which has to be decoded as if it was a waking dream. If further interested you might wish to look at my book: DEMYSTIFYING MEANINGFUL COINCIDENCES (SYNCHRONICITIES): THe Evolving Self, The Personal Unconscious, and The Creative Process.

[Rav]

But I'll add this: in a world with 7 billion people, and an exponential number of interactions between them and their environment, by far the most astonishing thing that could ever happen is if there were no coincidences.

Further to that, with this many people in the world, it's pretty much inevitable that we'll find many examples of people who have experienced unbelievable sequences of coincidences. It's for much the same reason that if everyone in the entire world started flipping coins right now, there would very likely be at least a few who land 20 heads in a row. There's nothing unexpected about that, but any person who happened to pull it off would almost certainly feel as if something truly special had just occurred.

ETA: Some time ago I saw an hilarious card trick on TV. Viewers were simply told to pick a card in their heads, after which the guy performing the trick pulled a random card out of the deck and held it up to the camera. It didn't turn out to be the card that I picked, but he went on to explain that the trick is totally worth it for the one viewer who just completely freaked out.

[DaveC426913]

ETA: Some time ago I saw an hilarious card trick on TV. Viewers were simply told to pick a card in their heads, after which the guy performing the trick pulled a random card out of the deck and held it up to the camera. It didn't turn out to be the card that I picked, but he went on to explain that the trick is totally worth it for the one viewer who just completely freaked out.

There's an XKCD for that!

http://xkcd.com/628/