Anyone familiar with the term “synchronicity”? It’s when you experience a coincidence that is too meaningful or unusual to be chance alone.
For example, you’re browsing through the dictionary, looking for a word. Along the way, you happen upon a different word, one that you realized you never knew the meaning to. You tuck that new knowledge away, satyisfied that your vocabulary has just expanded by a notch. Now, fast forward two hours. You’re watching a TV show, reading a book, talking onthe phone, whatever. You hear the new word you casually learned earlier in the day! Sounds like simple coincidence, but then what if you hear it AGAIN later in the day, in an unrelated conversation?
I usually don’t experience unusual coincidences very often, but when I get together with this one friend I’ve known for a long time (we’re both believers in paranormal-type stuff), we tend to see “synchronicities” VERY frequently. Strange.
This question seems more appropriate in GD or MPSIMS, but…
I think what you are describing is simply a case of the human mind constructing patterns of knowlege. An incredible amount of sensory imformation constantly bombards us. Most of this goes into short-term memory and is discarded. However, if something “matches,” we take note of it.
As an example, I am currently doing some research that involves cement and concrete. This involved getting every book and paper I could find on the subject. Now, I am constantly noticing subtle differences in concrete sidewalks, foundations, etc. A month ago, I didn’t consciously note any of this.
Regarding your specific example, you might have heard that new word previously on occasion, and your brain “filed” it under “words that I should know the definition of but don’t really know what they mean.” For most people, this is a large category. The category of “words that I just learned the definitions of” is undoubtedly far smaller, and thus you sit up and notice when you come across such words shortly thereafter.
In any event, I don’t think you need resort to paranormal explanations.
Ok, so my new word example was kinda weak, I agree. But I’ve been through weirder stuff…like my friend and I will be thinking about old times in school, and we’ll say something about an old classmate we haven’t seen in awhile. Then lo and behold, who should call on the phone, but the very same person we just talked about. And he hasn’t called us in AGES.
I just take comfort assuming that when something that has a 1 in a gazillion chance of happening actually happens, there’s something more than pure luck going on.
I don’t have a fancy answer, and I don’t know where this message "should " be posted, but I think it’s a matter of God, or the “supernatural” not wishing to remain annonymous - he’s cluing you in to the direction you should strike out towards.
All of the coincidences that happen to us stand out in our minds because they are unusual.
Both of the examples you cite fall into this category as well. What about all the sessions Jung had with patients that did not involve an unusual coincidence? The many, many uninteresting sessions wouldn’t be mentioned in a book.
In your example of discussing an old classmate, I’m sure you’ve had many discussions about “old times” in which an unusual coincidence did not occur. Because of this, they do not stand out in your mind.
Finally, just because a given coincidence has a very small chance of occurring, I would still not find it surprising that a coincidence about something might not occur much more frequently.
In other words, if you were to say to your friend during the conversation, “wouldn’t it be interesting if Bob called us on the phone right now,” and Bob actually called, that would be quite unusual, because you have specified in advance exactly what kind of chance event you are looking for. It is kind of “cheating” to look at a random chance event after the fact and say it is this incredible coincidence, when many things could have fit the bill. This could have included: a phone call soliciting money from your old school (right after you were discussing old times at that school!).
I had to look at the title bar to my browser to make sure that I’m still in The Straight Dope Message Board.
Last night, I was sitting around, and suddenly, for no apparent reason, I thought of my grandmother, and hoped she was OK. A few seconds later the phone rang. It was a wrong number.
These kinds of things happen a thousand times every day. It would be quite extraordinary if a few coincidences didn’t happen with some of them. We take notice of the coincidences, and discard the rest. So later, it might seem like they’re more common than they should be, but that’s just our recall bias at work.
I used to work in a grocery store, stocking shelves. The nice suburban housewives who worked the register loved to share stories of crazy customers. Helped lighten the day. Each and every one of these stories would begin, “Is there a full moon tonight? Because I just had a wacko…” Being the literal-minded teen I was, I would check the calendar and say “nope, it was yesterday,” and they would say “close enough, because here’s what happened.” Or I would say “nope, it’s the new moon,” and they would say “well, maybe that’s it, because here’s what happened…” Or I would say “Nope, we’re half-way between first quarter and gibbous” and they would pause a moment, shake their heads, and say “Whatever. Let me tell you what happened.” About once every 29.5 times the wacko did indeed walk into our store on the day of a full moon. But ALL incidents of wacky behavior HAD to be realted to the phase of the moon somehow. We just changed the definition to fit the observation – a pretty good working definition of synchronicity.
Martin Gardner’s “Fads and Fallacies In The Name Of Science” has a lot to say about how ESP “researchers” often unconsciously bias themselves towards achieving the results they hope to find.
Around the same time, I was a big fan of the MASH TV show. I was frequently quoting, or at least remembering, lines from the series. It has just become available in syndication, and I was watching 3 episodes a night – I think it was 5:00, 5:30, and 10:00. Anyway, I became convinced that I had MASH ESP – for frequently I would be watching an episode and lo and behold, a line I had quoted JUST THAT DAY appeared in the show! Either I was truly psychic, or I had subconsciously memorized the series in order and was anticipating the next episode. I decided to do an empirical test. I kept a note pad handy, and whenever I thought of a MAS*H line during the day, I would write it down. I quickly learned three things: 1) I was rather obsessed with the show. It was not unusual for me to remember lines 12, 15, even 20 times a day. 2) A line remembered during the day was repeated during the evening broadcast maybe once a week – a concidence which stood out in my memory precisely because it was so rare, and not because it was by any means “foretold.” 3) The odds of such a coincidence were three times higher on evenings when I saw all three episodes than they were on evenings when I saw only one.
Well Jung states that syncronicity is only meaningful coincindences. For instance the quote of MASH episode is not meaningful to your life nor is the fact that the woman still held the old belief that the phases of the moon cause insanity.
The idea that ‘Well it sticks out because it means something’ is correct because Jung only calls the meaningful coincendence syncronicity.
The friend calling after speaking about him is not very meaniful nor is the dictionary story, unless the friend had some important information or the news story really impacted your life.
Also there is usually symbolism involved. (the scarab beetle)
An example by Jung is that you order a blue shirt from a catalogue but when it arrives a black shirt comes. Then on the same day someone close to you dies. Only the symbolic connection of the color black with death and the death occuring on the same day makes this a syncronistic event.
What’s the fun in life if you can’t a little mystery and magic in the world? Why does everything have to have a concrete, rational explanation when we grow up?
What’s the fun in life if you don’t have a clue what’s going on around you? The same things happen, whether you explain them correctly or not. Explain them correctly, though, and things become interesting.
Remember, folks, we’re fighting ignorance here. Saying that it’s fun to not know something doesn’t do anything to fight ignorance.
This sentence struck me funny. I think everyone can honestly make the quoted statement above. It would be much more unusual (read: a contradiction of terms) if unusual things usually happened to you.
Hehe, guess my fingers got ahead of my mind there.
Chronos, I’m not saying that I enjoy being ignorant. I’m just saying that the world seems a painfully drab place if EVERYTHING can be explained in terms of “X + Y = Z”. What if we knew the secrets behind every little mystery in the universe? What sort of questions would we occupy ourselves with then? I think the thrill is in the chase, if you don’t mind the metaphor.
(The article was noted in the link that beatle provided.)
Raziel, I don’t think you need to worry about scientists running out of questions. Since the beginning of a rational, scientific approach to explaining the world around us (starting with Galileo?), every triumph of understanding has been followed with still more questions. Physicists thought they had the Universe figured out late in the 19th century, only to discover entirely new frontiers to study (beginning with quantum mechanics and relativity).
To me, the world would be a painfully drab (and boring) place if EVERYTHING was explained by “it’s a mystery…” Indeed, the thrill is in the chase. Why shy away from it?
Um… I know I may get shit for this, but the word synchronicity does NOT apply here.
Synchronous events occur at the exact same moment in time. What is being talked about here is a sense of “deja vu”, or other similar concepts…pre-destination, etc.
How can you have the feeling that you knew a secondary event was going to take place based on the primary event, if they are occurring in perfect sychronicity? You can’t.
Fascinating thread, really. I’m just fighting this little bit of ignorance.
We now return you to the thoughtfully wrought thread, already in progress
IMO, once we are able to answer every single little question, life will be so amazing in and of itself that we can keep ourselves plenty occupied. Besides, there are some questions which can never be answered… for example, “Where is the exact position of that electron right now?”
