A striking case of synchronicity
- Thread starter Magical Realist
- Start date
Amazing, just as I read your post, I was thinking this is all a load of bull shit!
I mean come on, what are the odds!
In a Kantian or even platonic context, there should always be natural explanations found (even if having to appeal to statistics / probability) since any noumenal "provenances" for happenings / situations would still be converted into either a concrete or an abstract physics member of the former's arrangements. [As represented in extrospective perceptions / reflective thought; or the sensible world.] But let's explore the possibility of synchronicity qualifying for "natural" instead of a speculative denizen of the transcendent side.
Is there room for conceiving an extra system of events connected by "meaning" or whatever alternative, that can co-habit with or supervene over the traditional conception of the world being a succession of events / effects and an interdependent maze of causal relationships? Difficult to imagine such ever being accepted by science unless principles could be found for it that yield accurate forecasts or whatever. Nevertheless, what would have opened-up if the era of positivism had fully succeeded in banishing causality along with the rest of what it declared "metaphysical" mumbo-jumbo?
Karl Pearson's historic rejection of causation (an applicable quote at bottom) almost seems to imply the consequence of making the pattern of events / effects that has been transpiring for billions of years into nothing more than an extremely long-lived sequence of orderly coincidences falling out of probability. [Akin to immortal monkeys eventually typing out Hamlet over the course of infinity, without the aid of creative or rule-following intellect.] Accordingly, it would also require the vast majority of existence to lack this "mere appearance" of causal-organization enabled by principled forces. So as to allow this otherwise extremely unlikely possibility of a lengthy, unbroken pattern of a "developing universe". In essence, "chance" or "accidental illusion of orderly agencies at work" [like paredolia affairs] would not be confined anymore to just "content of the moment" or happening over short spans, but could also rarely involve huge tracts of time and space (like the duration of a cosmos).
IF the above was the case, then our conceiving of this "apparently"-regulated structure of unfolding change as the "handiwork of causation" would be erroneous. Yet still a practical conception, which likewise might open the doors to multiple ways of interpreting / understanding its patterns [equally untrue yet providing useful purposes]. One of those contenders might be synchronicity. But again, that bugbear of "what use is it, is there a formulation that could yield predictive results, etc" returns...
Judea Pearl: These investigations, drove Galton to consider various ways of measuring how properties of one class of individuals or objects are related to those of another class. [...] Here we have, for the first time, an objective measure of how two variables are "related" to each other, based strictly on the data, clear of human judgment or opinion.
Galton's discovery dazzled one of his students, Karl Pearson, now considered the founder of modern statistics. Pearson was 30 years old at the time, an accomplished physicist and philosopher about to turn lawyer, and this is how he describes, 45 years later, his initial reaction to Galton's discovery: "I felt like a buccaneer of Drake's days -... I interpreted that sentence of Galton to mean that there was a category broader than causation, namely correlation, of which causation was only the limit, and that this new conception of correlation brought psychology, anthropology, medicine, and sociology in large parts into the field of mathematical treatment."
Pearson categorically denies the need for an independent concept of causal relation beyond correlation. He held this view throughout his life and, accordingly, did not mention causation in ANY of his technical papers. His crusade against animistic concepts such as "will" and "force" was so fierce and his rejection of determinism so absolute that he EXTERMINATED causation from statistics before it had a chance to take root.
It took another 25 years and another strong-willed person, Sir Ronald Fisher, for statisticians to formulate the randomized experiment - the only scientifically proven method of testing causal relations from data, and which is, to this day, the one and only causal concept permitted in mainstream statistics.
Galton's discovery dazzled one of his students, Karl Pearson, now considered the founder of modern statistics. Pearson was 30 years old at the time, an accomplished physicist and philosopher about to turn lawyer, and this is how he describes, 45 years later, his initial reaction to Galton's discovery: "I felt like a buccaneer of Drake's days -... I interpreted that sentence of Galton to mean that there was a category broader than causation, namely correlation, of which causation was only the limit, and that this new conception of correlation brought psychology, anthropology, medicine, and sociology in large parts into the field of mathematical treatment."
Pearson categorically denies the need for an independent concept of causal relation beyond correlation. He held this view throughout his life and, accordingly, did not mention causation in ANY of his technical papers. His crusade against animistic concepts such as "will" and "force" was so fierce and his rejection of determinism so absolute that he EXTERMINATED causation from statistics before it had a chance to take root.
It took another 25 years and another strong-willed person, Sir Ronald Fisher, for statisticians to formulate the randomized experiment - the only scientifically proven method of testing causal relations from data, and which is, to this day, the one and only causal concept permitted in mainstream statistics.
Since the story is not verifiable, it is not evidence of anything.
I don't want to scare you guys, but when I saw the link, for some reason I got this vivd image of bovine excrement....!
This is starting to get creepy - oooooowwww..
Beaconator
Valued Senior Member
I guess you guys like shrooms "cause" that is about the only "random" thing on cow "shyt"
I am not going to open up the link, but i always love how people whom have had nout strange in there lifes always want to ridicule.
I just keep my mouth shut.
Personal experiences should be personal, and not really told as its a waste of time telling someone about them. There is no such thing as a coincidence, that just moron word for people whom cannot understand something.
If the universe is based on maths, how can there be chaos, lol. Everything must happen for a reason, no matter how harsh it may seem to you or others.
The ptb believe they are special as they use there gift for there advantage, while getting you lot to scoff at such things. You can bet virtually every single sports person is superstitious. So all you people laughing, are also laughing at the people you look upto.
I just keep my mouth shut.
Personal experiences should be personal, and not really told as its a waste of time telling someone about them. There is no such thing as a coincidence, that just moron word for people whom cannot understand something.
If the universe is based on maths, how can there be chaos, lol. Everything must happen for a reason, no matter how harsh it may seem to you or others.
The ptb believe they are special as they use there gift for there advantage, while getting you lot to scoff at such things. You can bet virtually every single sports person is superstitious. So all you people laughing, are also laughing at the people you look upto.
Goldfinger said, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action." He understood the meaning of evidence.
Very good, Bob. I love Goldfinger. But riddle me this: who said, 'There are no coincidences in murder'? I really don't know. Was it Colombo? Hercule Poirot? Sherlock Holmes? Barnaby Jones?
True, but he was quoting someone else “Mr Bond, they have a saying in Chicago: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it's enemy action'.”
I Googled me this and I found references to the TV show Castle and a true-crime writer named M. William Phelps. It's probably one of those generic quotes that goes way back. I wouldn't be surprised if Shakespeare used it.
(I seem to remember Jed Clampett saying, "When he tells you 'howdy' he's told you everything he knows," but I can't confirm that either.)
Which just shows why Jed got to become Barnaby - what with intuitive detecting skills like that!
Getting back to Goldfinger, I recently wrote a song about him. Please see post #8 of the Origin of Fossil Fuel thread
The Canadian comedy team of Wayne and Shuster had a sketch called The Unholy Goalie in which a hockey player makes a Faustian deal with the devil. The theme song was "Goaltender".
It may be on You Tube.
Of course, there are coincidences, regardless what the causes may or may not be. It is a word as sensible as any, meaning 2 or more incidents which are or seem to be connected. What you do or do not make of coincidences is another matter.
Certainly there are PURE coincidences. And anyone that claims otherwise is a PURE nut!! An idiot. Just because my father, my mother-in-law and another friend share the same birthday is an absolute random coincidence. And because that date has special meaning to hundreds of other people also means nothing. The date? 9/11.
(I'd really like for andy1033 explain THAT one!!!)
Dutch cyclist Maarten de Jonge cheats death twice after changing flights from both Malaysia Airlines MH17 and MH370
I don't think that survivors should brag about their luck. It doesn't mean they're special.
Luck is mere luck.—Dennett
Apophenia
I don't think that survivors should brag about their luck. It doesn't mean they're special.
Luck is mere luck.—Dennett
Apophenia
There is a basis for synchronicity that is connected to the unconscious mind.
As an analogy, say you were walking in the forest, looking for wild fruits in the trees. You are with a small child. You tell the child, "pick up that stick over there". He does not know why you want him to do this, but he does it anyway, and uses the stick to walk and play with. Later you come to a tree and need a stick to hit the fruit off the tree. To the child, this may seem like a meaningful coincidence, that he just so happened to have the very stick that works perfectly. But in reality you anticipated the future, even though he did not see it. In the case of synchronicity, the unconscious will anticipate that which may not be conscious to the ego, such that steps appear missing to the ego and it looks like a coincidence.
If we did not have a logical model for gravity, such as defined by Newton's gravity equation, gravity would appear more random since cause and effect don't appear to exist in any logic correlation that is known. Just because it appears random, does not mean it is random. All it means is one is not aware of the logic like before Newton and gravity. If you throw the ball and hit the target this would be a meaningful coincidence, since everyone know gravity works by the laws of random (in the example). The unconscious mind processes data differently and often has better correlations.
As an analogy, say you were walking in the forest, looking for wild fruits in the trees. You are with a small child. You tell the child, "pick up that stick over there". He does not know why you want him to do this, but he does it anyway, and uses the stick to walk and play with. Later you come to a tree and need a stick to hit the fruit off the tree. To the child, this may seem like a meaningful coincidence, that he just so happened to have the very stick that works perfectly. But in reality you anticipated the future, even though he did not see it. In the case of synchronicity, the unconscious will anticipate that which may not be conscious to the ego, such that steps appear missing to the ego and it looks like a coincidence.
If we did not have a logical model for gravity, such as defined by Newton's gravity equation, gravity would appear more random since cause and effect don't appear to exist in any logic correlation that is known. Just because it appears random, does not mean it is random. All it means is one is not aware of the logic like before Newton and gravity. If you throw the ball and hit the target this would be a meaningful coincidence, since everyone know gravity works by the laws of random (in the example). The unconscious mind processes data differently and often has better correlations.