Synchronicity

[starfoozle]

One day I'm going to have to write a paper or something on synchronicity. The roommate and I spent a great deal of time last night talking about "connections" -- otherwise unrelated events that all seem to relate back to a single source, or a series of meaningful coincidences -- and came to the conclusion that either we're both more attentive or

Comments

[vestigialwords]

I have to say no, not in the outside world, to be honest with you. However, that said, I think the perception of synchronicity can be so salient and obvious to us as humans that it doesn't really matter whether it's actually there or not. We (humans) have a tendency to filter out everything around us that isn't directly important to us at a certain time, which means that we miss a ton of information that's always there, just never perceived. Combine that with what seems like a compulsive need to categorize and organize events, and then all of a sudden, these random things happen, and we perceive it as meaningful, when, in reality, it could have happened to us tens or hundreds of times before, we just never noticed.

I don't mean to sound argumentative or judge-y, because I know disagreement can come off that way. Because I definitely think about these things all the time, especially when things like the scenerio you described happen to me. It's one of those things I kind of want to believe in because as a theory it's pretty damn cool, but I tend to come down on the skeptical side on most things. It's an interesting question, and like you said, either way, it makes for some great stories - and in fact, to a certain extent, I feel like some degree of it is necessary for constructed universes like in stories. :)

[starfoozle]

However, that said, I think the perception of synchronicity can be so salient and obvious to us as humans that it doesn't really matter whether it's actually there or not.

This. It's all a matter of interpretation, or lack thereof. I know the psychology behind the concept, and it's a really neat theory, but I definitely fluctuate between wanting to believe and laughing it off as reading way too much into things. Fascinating stuff, at any rate. :D