Synchronicity - What's your experience of it?

[yoshy]

does it read that way? it was more like 10 or 20 a day. As much as i wanted. (i was super stressed out at the time working with neglected kids..so my brain was in hyperalert mode as i mentioned earlier).

Yes that's how I read it, at least. But that's a common result of short comments - unless we write entire essays (which I certainly won't be doing lol), misunderstandings are just gonna happen. I'm sorry you were so stressed out at that time. I've been there, though my coping mechanism is retreating inward, and I hope you don't have to experience that again.

Your non-woo version is much more interesting to me from a psychological standpoint than the woo version.

 

[Todd Feinman]

What's the theoretical model to distinguish "synchronicity" and coincidence? A scientific approach would need to propose that to generate hypotheses to test.

A high level of symbolic overlap between the event and frame of reference and experiences of a person, within a given time frame. The events giving rise to the observed phenomenon and the observer's frame of reference will overlap occasionally. Could use / make an AI tool, but cataloging the observer's frame of reference and the multitude of external stimuli at a given time would seem to be impossible to do accurately. Precognition could be a meaningful form of synchronicity, or be related, but I don't need precognition to know not to open that topic!
<edit> Just now, word stimulus over and over again on TV, with regard to stimulus checks.

 

[deirdre]

Your non-woo version is much more interesting to me from a psychological standpoint than the woo version.

it's incredibly interesting. but like gravity i doubt there will ever be an understanding of why/how/what it is. and it doesnt help anything in anyway
(unless you give it meaning of course. it could be comforting like God letting you know He is there, but it could also be terrorizing too if you think it's Satan or the government doing some MKUltra type thing on you for example)

Precognition could be a meaningful form of synchronicity, or be related, but I don't need precognition to know not to open that topic!

I've thought that too.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Some ideas about precognition involve the mind sorting things out before cognition, or that mind functions further upstream in time from the present. If there were to be a synchronous event that in the future that had meaning it presented a danger to the observer's frame of reference, one would like to think there would / could be a precognitive episode.. See how well I tiptoed through that minefield?!
Past creates future creates past… Present.
Would magic rituals only work at particular times when they are a manifestation of a precognitive synchronous event?
Certainly people have tried to explore these possibilities in the past. Fun to think about.

 

[deirdre]

or that mind functions further upstream in time

i think spacetime says there is no upstream. or is that the 8th dimension? something in "Physics" speculates time happens all at once.

 

[Todd Feinman]

i think spacetime says there is no upstream. or is that the 8th dimension? something in "Physics" speculates time happens all at once.

I think mathematically it does, but we still experience the arrow of time and entropy. I'm not a math guy, though. There is no barrier to the future affecting the past on some levels, in theory.

 

[GM4AJK]

something in "Physics" speculates time happens all at once.

I thought the very definition of time was "that thing that stops everything happening all at once"

 

[Todd Feinman]

One could argue that AI already shows precognition by finding meaningful patterns of information that humans miss, in advance. But I think that idea had already been explored in science fiction

 

[deirdre]

I thought the very definition of time was "that thing that stops everything happening all at once"

it's certainly MY definition keep it simple, i say.

 

[yoshy]

i think spacetime says there is no upstream. or is that the 8th dimension? something in "Physics" speculates time happens all at once.

Second sentence is incorrect with current accepted physics. Time is a dimension (the fourth dimension), and the unique part is it flows in one direction. One of the canonical examples is you never see a broken egg put itself together. Time always flows in the same direction. And the predictions for time in General Relativity are currently experimentally validated.

 

[yoshy]

One could argue that AI already shows precognition by finding meaningful patterns of information that humans miss, in advance. But I think that idea had already been explored in science fiction

I work in AI/ML as a data scientist and actuary, and it is absolutely not precognition. AI is a complex statistical system, but nothing that goes near precognition. Using probability to predict the next best token is not precognition.

 

[deirdre]

Second sentence is incorrect with current accepted physics. Time is a dimension (the fourth dimension), and the unique part is it flows in one direction. One of the canonical examples is you never see a broken egg put itself together. Time always flows in the same direction. And the predictions for time in General Relativity are currently experimentally validated.

im not saying spacetime is the 8th dimension. i was saying that maybe i am thinking of the 8th dimension, not the 4th.

on a seperate topic... i was watching a video recently that there are 4d computer games and that is spatially the 4th dimension. so now im totally confused about the dimensions sequence.

 

[yoshy]

im not saying spacetime is the 8th dimension. i was saying that maybe i am thinking of the 8th dimension, not the 4th.

i was watching a video recently that there are 4d computer games and that is spatially the 4th dimension. so now im confused about the dimensions sequence.

I love those videos. Look up "hyperbolic space video games" to continue the mind trip.

To clarify, our universe is currently accepted to be 4D: 3 spatial dimensions, 1 time. And they are connected. The faster you move in a spatial dimension, the slower you move in the time dimension.

String theory has multiple versions with extra spatial dimensions but they are "curled up" to the size of elementary strings. One of the string theories goes up to 26 dimensions I think

 

[deirdre]

The faster you move in a spatial dimension, the slower you move in the time dimension.

i think the DMV disproves that.

 

[Todd Feinman]

I work in AI/ML as a data scientist and actuary, and it is absolutely not precognition. AI is a complex statistical system, but nothing that goes near precognition. Using probability to predict the next best token is not precognition.

But you can have it look at a particular data set, perhaps for structural stability of a dam or something, and it can see patterns in the data that humans miss, correct?
So a mundane explanation for precognition is that people aren't consciously aware of subtle cues in the environment, but then get out together to create the illusion of precognition, which is how it is usually explained away.
But I suppose other more spectacular claimed examples couldn't be explained that way.

 

[NoParty]

I work in AI/ML as a data scientist and actuary, and it is absolutely not precognition. AI is a complex statistical system, but nothing that goes near precognition. Using probability to predict the next best token is not precognition.

This 2002 documentary actually does an excellent job of explaining exactly how precognition really works:

 

[Mendel]

What's the theoretical model to distinguish "synchronicity" and coincidence? A scientific approach would need to propose that to generate hypotheses to test.

I'd expect synchronicity to be defined as "you'll know it when you see it". Basically, the same way UFOs are identified.

 

[yoshy]

This 2002 documentary actually does an excellent job of explaining exactly how precognition really works:View attachment 88517

I like that movie and will die on that hill

 

[yoshy]

But you can have it look at a particular data set, perhaps for structural stability of a dam or something, and it can see patterns in the data that humans miss, correct?

Yes, every statistical model does that. Linear regression, especially with an interaction term, does that. ML/AI are used precisely because they can pick up 1000 5 level interactions in an hour, and those models are built in such a way as to generalize better. I don't even know how long it take me to pick one highly predictive 5-level interaction. And you can do that easily with a random forest and gradient boosted machine. A GBM for example is just a a few hundred or few thousand discussion trees that can so far deep on interactions, it would take a human 1,000 to understand one.

GenAI operates on the same principles. It is matrix operations with some particular structure added to those operations to allow the model to have "memory". That's really it. It's matrix multiplications all the way down. The genius of things like ChatGPT is from the people who found those efficient structures to hold relationships to generalize and predict better. There is no magic gnome in the black box.

So a mundane explanation for precognition is that people aren't consciously aware of subtle cues in the environment, but then get out together to create the illusion of precognition, which is how it is usually explained away.
But I suppose other more spectacular claimed examples couldn't be explained that way.

Yep and naturally, I prefer the mundane explanation until I see an experiment, INDEPENDENTLY VERIFIED, by others. Caps aren't aimed at you haha; I've just believers post "studies" from the Magic Believers Guild.

 

[Giddierone]

What's the theoretical model to distinguish "synchronicity" and coincidence? A scientific approach would need to propose that to generate hypotheses to test.

I think those writing about synchronicity see it as related but distinct from coincidence. Like coincidence +, in that for it to be a synchronicity it must have an emotional resonance where it feels like the external world is communicating with a latent feeling or thought which momentarily appears like a profound connection. So, yeah, creating a test using a data set of otherwise hidden unconscious thoughts/associations doesn't seem like the easiest thing to study…

 

[JMartJr]

I like that movie and will die on that hill

I hope that is not a display of precognition!

 

[yoshy]

I think those writing about synchronicity see it as related but distinct from coincidence. Like coincidence +, in that for it to be a synchronicity it must have an emotional resonance where it feels like the external world is communicating with a latent feeling or thought which momentarily appears like a profound connection. So, yeah, creating a test using a data set of otherwise hidden unconscious thoughts/associations doesn't seem like the easiest thing to study…

The version I know of from Reddit HighStrangeness is the total woo, something actually in control version. So I'm enjoying learning the different definitions. Agree on your conclusion.

 

[yoshy]

I hope that is not a display of precognition!

I am indeed psychic. Please give me money

 

[deirdre]

something actually in control version

something sentient you mean?

Most people do find comfort in the idea of "something else", a "higher power". i mean the idea that we are born to trudge through life and laugh a bit and cry a bit and hate a bit and love a bit.. and have to style our hair 25,000x and make dinner 30,000x and then just have it all washed away into forgotten meaninglessness when we die, is kinda a bummer.

(disclaimer: the people we affect positively do go on and hopefully pass those traits on to other generations.

Spoiler

Of course the negative ones get passed on too but im trying to keep things happy.

)


https://genius.com/The-police-synchronicity-i-lyrics

 

[Ann K]

i think you actually DO understand what i'm saying, you just don't realize it.

No, I don't, because you said you "did it" yourself, but at no time in your post did you explain what it was that you actually "did".

 

[Ann K]

Most people do find comfort in the idea of "something else", a "higher power".

That's purely an opinion of yours. I find the notion of a capricious deity that can break the physical laws of nature at will to be a singularly repellent one. And many people may "believe" in it without actually finding any comfort; after all, one doesn't make a conscious decision to believe or disbelieve something, one merely becomes convinced. The fear inherent in religion is damaging to many, and to society as a whole.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Death and oblivion are actually a gift. A way out, perhaps. Imagine if you could never die, it would be terrible. You would very soon go insane, and that would just be the beginning. Our minds aren't meant to last forever. When you become very old, you might describe each additional day as a gift, if life is reasonably good; if it is not good, death might be the better alternative.
"You" don't really exist; nothing has self-nature, and it is the end of the illusion at death, in my opinion. I hate it when those I love die, and I have to keep on going. Those people really are part of you, and part of you dies when they do.

 

[NoParty]

I find the notion of a capricious deity that can break the physical laws of nature at will to be a singularly repellent one.

Your comment reminded me of Louis C.K.'s take on Mark 11:12-25...
aka: Jesus Kills a Fig Tree & Brags About it (lots of versions on YouTube...pretty damned funny).

 

[FatPhil]

I thought the very definition of time was "that thing that stops everything happening all at once"

No, it's the ordinate with the time-like property in the differential equations (so it behaves as if it's a spacial dimension that's undergone a Wick rotation, and thus is effectively imaginary, as per Hawking's formulation). It just so happens that everything we encounter day-to-day has only one such ordinate, but hypothetically (mathematically, so we're outside the Popper-approved bounds of science here) there can be more (e.g. Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology model).

 

[GM4AJK]

No, it's the ordinate with the time-like property in the differential equations (so it behaves as if it's a spacial dimension that's undergone a Wick rotation, and thus is effectively imaginary, as per Hawking's formulation). It just so happens that everything we encounter day-to-day has only one such ordinate, but hypothetically (mathematically, so we're outside the Popper-approved bounds of science here) there can be more (e.g. Penrose's conformal cyclic cosmology model).

That's the very scientific definition. My definition was more about "human feels" based on a layman's version of listening to scicom. But based on your definition, what is left unanswered is "why now?" If it's all "one block," what decides this moment as the one we experience?

Or, to put the question in my limited way of understanding, if the Block Universe were a vinyl long play record, what's the stylus that chooses this moment we live in?

 

[Giddierone]

Those people really are part of you, and part of you dies when they do.

Or how about, part of them which you communicate to others (while you're still alive) enriches you and continues to "live"?

 

[FatPhil]

That's the very scientific definition. My definition was more about "human feels" based on a layman's version of listening to scicom. But based on your definition, what is left unanswered is "why now?" If it's all "one block," what decides this moment as the one we experience?

Or, to put the question in my limited way of understanding, if the Block Universe were a vinyl long play record, what's the stylus that chooses this moment we live in?

Special Relativity says there is none. There is a here-and-now, but you only asked for a now.
So, addressing the obvious follow-up question: what selects the here-and-now? Alas that's just the ultimate crystalisation of the anthropic principle - you've selected the only one you could have.

 

[Ann K]

Death and oblivion are actually a gift. A way out, perhaps. Imagine if you could never die, it would be terrible. You would very soon go insane, and that would just be the beginning. Our minds aren't meant to last forever. When you become very old, you might describe each additional day as a gift, if life is reasonably good; if it is not good, death might be the better alternative.
"You" don't really exist; nothing has self-nature, and it is the end of the illusion at death, in my opinion. I hate it when those I love die, and I have to keep on going. Those people really are part of you, and part of you dies when they do.

Thank you. I lost a nephew yesterday, a man younger than my children, so the subject is much on my mind right now. And at my age, my own death is looming, and the same is true for most of my circle of friends. I'm not afraid of being dead, although I don't look forward to pain or disability.

 

[GM4AJK]

Alas that's just the ultimate crystalisation of the anthropic principle - you've selected the only one you could have.

Yeah, I knew that one. Don't you too feel that's an entirely unsatisfying answer?

 

[deirdre]

I find the notion of a capricious deity that can break the physical laws of nature at will to be a singularly repellent one.

I'm aware. to be fair, you find lots of things repellent.

one doesn't make a conscious decision to believe or disbelieve something, one merely becomes convinced.

really? i made a conscious decision to believe (in alot of things). and i'm still not convinced of most of them.

Spoiler

"Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a man needs to believe in the most.
That people are basically good. That honor, courage and virtue mean everything.
That power and money, money and power mean nothing; that Good always triumphs over Evil; and I want you to remember this: That Love, true Love never dies.
Doesn't matter if any of this is true or not. You see a man should believe in these things because these are the things worth believing in."
-uncle hub

 

[JMartJr]

Thank you. I lost a nephew yesterday, a man younger than my children, so the subject is much on my mind right now.

I am sorry for that. It is hard when somebody young passes away. You and your family are in my thoughts today.

And at my age, my own death is looming, and the same is true for most of my circle of friends. I'm not afraid of being dead, although I don't look forward to pain or disability.

Yeah, for those of us with "more yesterdays than tomorrows," it's a topic that merits a bit of thought. As I have crossed the threshold where I now attend more funerals than weddings, it has become something I am certainly more aware of!

I agree with you, I am not afraid of being dead, though I suspect for different reasons. I will strive not to get preachy here, nor to proselytize, but I come from a position of believing in the "sure and certain hope" of something more to come, something good. But as there will be plenty of "time" for that, and there are still a number of things I want to do BEFORE dying (that seems the best time frame for things like visiting Antarctica, for example) I am not in any hurry and hope to live on for a good time yet. (And, like you and I think most everybody, the physical and mental impact of entropy catching up with us is something I don't like at all!)

But as my ol' kite flying mentor puts it, "Everything always comes out alright in the end. So if everything is not alright, it's not the end yet!"

The fear inherent in religion is damaging to many, and to society as a whole.

That made me do a double take. I absolutely understand where you are coming from on that, but my own experience has been so positive and joyful (other than having to go to Sunday School as a kid, which I did not want to do at all!) that I was taken aback a bit, even though it is not a new-to-me nor unexplored concept.

If it were me (and it was not, it was you, and I am not here to tell you what YOU should think, just what I think!) I'd rephrase the first bit as I think the fear and use of it by organized religions in some times and places is inherent in the organization and the people, not necessarily in the religion. The message I have received from my faith has been "Be not afraid, I bring you Good News of glad tidings!" rather than fear. Obviously that is not always the message delivered, which is tragic. But like witnesses to anything else, witnesses to faith are human, and often get the important bits wrong.

And that is about as far as I guess I want to or ought to go -- I am not here to evangelize the skeptics of MetaBunk!

PS: While I have never found the views of Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Cicero and the Stoic philosophers to be particularly consoling, many others have, and they are in any case at least interesting and it might be worth dipping a toe into their writing on the subject if you have not already. I do like a line from Cicero,

"The life of the dead is placed on the memories of the living. The love you gave in life keeps people alive beyond their time."

I am reminded of the concept, expressed by several folks, that life is like a stone tossed into a pond -- it happens, you make a splash and then it is over... but the ripples keep spreading, all across the pond. I like the idea of living life so that our ripples keep spreading for a long time.

 

[Todd Feinman]

Thank you. I lost a nephew yesterday, a man younger than my children, so the subject is much on my mind right now. And at my age, my own death is looming, and the same is true for most of my circle of friends. I'm not afraid of being dead, although I don't look forward to pain or disability.

I totally understand. It's on my mind a lot of the time as I get older, too, and my friends die along the way. Such a deal! My Dad's mom who was almost 103, died just last week, and my Dad got back from NY a couple of days ago, having lost his father previously. I'm very sorry to hear about your nephew. I try to tell myself that the individuals I have lost have completed their time on Earth, and I still have to complete mine, to do some kind of good here. Helps a little bit.
I'm an only child, and I hate losing people, but that kind of thing is inevitable. I can't feel great joy anymore without an equal fear and pain of loss. Makes love hurt. If you are a sensitive person or highly empathic, it is like a form of torture, making it hard to find the joy in life. Thank god for rosy retrospection; if you can muster it.
There is a lot of mortality in the winter, and this has been a long one..
It is difficult to lose someone you would give your life for, like a brother or sister in combat, but you are even prevented from helping in that way…

I've always loved this poem by Tagore:

Unending Love

I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times...
In life after life, in age after age, forever.
My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs,
That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms,
In life after life, in age after age, forever.

Whenever I hear old chronicles of love, it's age old pain,
It's ancient tale of being apart or together.
As I stare on and on into the past, in the end you emerge,
Clad in the light of a pole-star, piercing the darkness of time.
You become an image of what is remembered forever.

You and I have floated here on the stream that brings from the fount.
At the heart of time, love of one for another.
We have played along side millions of lovers,
Shared in the same shy sweetness of meeting,
the distressful tears of farewell,
Old love but in shapes that renew and renew forever.

Today it is heaped at your feet, it has found its end in you
The love of all man's days both past and forever:
Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life.
The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours -
And the songs of every poet past and forever.

Rabindranath Tagore, Selected Poems

And this:
Chuang-tzu's wife died. When Hui-tzu came to offer his condolences, he found him pounding on a tub and singing… Chuang-tzu said, 'The same process that brought her to birth, in time brought her to death, as naturally as fall turns into winter and spring into summer... if I went around wailing and pounding my chest, it would only show that I didn't understand the first thing about reality.'"

— Chuang Tzu​