What is Synchronicity?
Synchronicity refers to a concept first introduced by Carl G. Jung, an analytical psychologist, “to describe circumstances that appear to be meaningfully related and yet lack a causal connection.”
In the contemporary study, Synchronicity experiences symbolize an individual’s subjective experience. These experiences are a coincidence between the outside world and events in one’s mind that may be unrelated yet have some other unknown connection. Jung stipulated that such experiences were a healthy function of the human mind. However, they can become harmful within psychosis.
Jung first coined the term in the late 1920s or the early 30s. He further developed this notion in collaboration with Wolfgang Pauli (physicist and Nobel laureate) through lengthy correspondences. Their work, ‘The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche,’ comprised one paper from the two thinkers. Their work together is now known as the Pauli–Jung conjecture.
During his career, Jung elaborated on various definitions of Synchronicity. He defined it as “a hypothetical factor which is equal in rank to causality as the principle of explanation,” “acausal parallelism,” “a distinguished connecting principle,” and the “meaningful coincidence of two or more events in time, where something other than the probability of chance is present.”
According to Pauli, synchronicities were “corrections to chance fluctuations made by meaningful and purposeful coincidences of causally unconnected occurrences.” Jung and Pauli’s view was that just as causal connections can provide a meaningful understanding of the world and an individual’s psyche; some acausal connections can do the same.
Applications of Synchronicity
A 2016 study analyzed therapists and found that Synchronicity experiences can also be helpful for therapy. Analytical psychologists stipulated that individuals must understand these experiences to “enhance their consciousness rather than merely building up their superstitiousness.” However, a major limitation to such an understanding is that the clients who have disclosed Synchronicity experiences in a clinical setting have often reported not being listened to, accepted, or understood. Furthermore, an overabundance of meaningful coincidences is an early stage characteristic of schizophrenic delusion.
Jung utilized the concept of Synchronicity for arguing the existence of the paranormal. In The Roots of Coincidence, his 1972 work, writer Arthur Koestler further explored this idea. Jung postulated that Synchronicity events are nothing but chance occurrences. From a statistical standpoint, they are meaningful but only in a way that they seem to validate paranormal ideas. Scientific skepticism has regarded them as pseudoscience. However, another notable factor is that Jung conducted no empirical studies of Synchronicity experiences to draw his conclusions.
An observer might subjectively experience a coincidence as meaningful, but this subjective experience alone cannot give any objective meaning to a coincidence. This explains that coincidences such as Synchronicity experiences are chance events that have been misinterpreted by spurious correlations, confirmation biases, or underestimated probability.
Analytical psychology
In analytical psychology, The recognition of meaningful coincidences is a phenomenon by which unconscious material is brought to the conscious mind’s attention. An individual’s response can generate a harmful or developmental product from such material. Jung proposed that the concept could also be utilized for psychiatric that is mainly for mitigating the adverse effects of over-rationalization.
Analytical psychology considers that the modern modes of thought have their foundation in the psyche’s primordial and pre-modern structures. Causal connections hence formed based on modern worldviews, are seen as chance. However, this chance-based interpretation interprets this category as intention.
According to Jung, Primordial modes of thought are necessary components of the modern psyche. These components participate in contemporary life to provide a meaningful interpretation of the world. The principle of Synchronicity attempts to offer a robust understanding of acasual connections. This principle of Synchronicity is placed as one of three conceptual elements in understanding the psyche -
-
Psychological Causality - This concept is understood in Freudian theory. Through this theory, repressed libidinal energy is discharged across the psyche. This discharge is a response to principles of cause and effect. Jung broadened this concept to a generalized mental point, ' specific to an individual’s psyche.'
-
Psychological Teleology - Through the understanding of this concept, self-actualization becomes an element of the psyche, just like potential.
-
Psychological Synchronicity - Also known as meaningful change, this concept represents the potential for self-actualization, either negated or enhanced.
Jung felt Synchronicity had the explanatory power toward archetypes and the collective unconscious. It described a universal governing dynamic highlighting the whole human experience and history—emotional, psychological, social, and spiritual.
The emergence of the synchronistic paradigm became a notable shift from Cartesian dualism toward an underlying philosophy of double-aspect theory. Many have argued that this shift was essential in bringing theoretical coherence to Jung’s earlier work.
Philosophy of science
Jung postulated that there was both a scientific and philosophical basis for Synchronicity. He identified that the nature of causality and acausality is complementary to Eastern sciences and proto-scientific disciplines. He stated that “the East has based much of its science on this irregularity. The East considers coincidences as a reliable basis of the world in the place of causality. While synchronism is the prejudice of the East, causality is the modern prejudice of the West.”
Jung also tried to look into modern physics to understand the nature of Synchronicity. He worked in close contact with Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli with Albert Einstein close consultation. The idea of Synchronicity added to modern physics' idea that under certain conditions, the laws governing the interactions of space and time become limited. They can no longer be used to understand the principle of causality.
A further conclusion has been drawn that since Jung considered only the narrow definition of causality, that is, only the efficient cause, his notion of acausality is also narrow and limited. This limited definition does not apply to final and formal causes as understood in Aristotelian or Thomist systems. Either the final causality is inherent in the concept of Synchronicity (as it concludes with individuation), or Synchronicity is a replacement for final causality. However, such conclusions are limited because such finalism or teleology is known to exist outside the domain of modern science.
Jung’s theory and its philosophical worldview implicated not only mainstream scientific thoughts but also esoteric ones, mainly those against the mainstream. Synchronicity (German: Synchronisation) is a term that was first used by analytical psychologist Carl G. Jung “to describe situations that seem to be connected but aren’t.” It’s common for people to think that things that happen in their mind and in the real world happen at the same time even though they aren’t linked by causality. This is called a “synchronicity experience.” Jung thought this was a good, even necessary, part of the human mind, but it can be bad when people are in psychosis. Jung came up with the idea of synchronicity as a way to connect these seemingly-meaningful coincidences to each other through a non-causal principle that is both intersubjective and philosophically objective. Mainstream science usually thinks that such a hypothetical principle doesn’t exist, or that it would be outside of the scope of science to look into it at all. As time went on, Jung and Wolfgang Pauli kept in touch, and they came up with a 1952 book called The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche (German: Naturerklärung und Psyche) that had one paper from each. This book is called The Interpretation of Nature and the Psyche because it had one paper from each of them. Their work together led to what is now called the Pauli–Jung conjecture, which is what they came up with. Over the course of his career, Jung came up with many different definitions of synchronicity. He called it “a hypothetical factor that could be used to explain things in the same way that causality is used.” He also called it “acausal parallelism,” “acausal connecting principle,” and “acausal parallelism.” It was Pauli’s idea that synchronicities were “corrections to chance fluctuations by meaningful and purposeful coincidences of causally unconnected events.” He also said that he wanted to move the concept away from coincidence and instead use words like “correspondence, connection, or constellation.” People like Jung and Pauli thought that, like causal connections, acausal connections could help us understand the world and our own minds. A 2016 study found that two thirds of the therapists who were asked said that synchronicity experiences could be good for therapy. In the same way, analytical psychologists say that people must come to understand the “compensatory” meaning of these experiences in order to “enhance consciousness rather than just build up superstitiousness.” However, clients who talk about synchronicity in a clinical setting often say that they don’t get listened to, aren’t accepted, or aren’t understood. Furthermore, the first stages of schizophrenic delusion are marked by a lot of meaningful coincidences. A lot of scientists, especially those who are studying coincidences, think that the way people think about coincidence is because of noisey chance events in the world that are misinterpreted by people’s brains into unsubstantiated, even paranormal, beliefs in their minds, according to M. K. Johansen and M. Osman in their paper. Counselors and psychoanalysts were less likely to agree that chance coincidence was a good explanation for synchronicity than psychologists were. They were more likely to agree that a need for unconscious material to be expressed could be a reason for synchronicity in the clinical setting. Jung used the idea of synchronicity to show that the paranormal is real. Arthur Koestler also looked into this idea in his 1972 book, The Roots of Coincidence. The New Age movement also took it up. Magical thinking thinks that things that aren’t linked by cause and effect have some kind of supernatural connection. The synchronicity principle thinks that things that aren’t linked by cause and effect may have some kind of noncausal connection that we don’t know about. Because this isn’t something that can be proven or disproved, it doesn’t fall under the umbrella of empirical research. Scientific scepticism thinks it’s not true. A statistical point of view doesn’t make sense of synchronicity events, according to Jung. They make sense, however, because they may seem to back up paranormal ideas. In fact, Jung didn’t do any research on synchronicity experiences based on things like mental states and scientific data to make his conclusions. However, some research has been done in this area since then (see , below). While one person may think a coincidence is important, this alone does not prove that the coincidence has any real-world significance. Several statistical laws, like Littlewood’s law and the law of truly large numbers, show that things that aren’t expected can happen more often than people think. People who have synchronicity experiences or other types of coincidences can use these to show that they were misinterpreted because of confirmation bias, spurious correlations, or underestimation of probability.