One of the curious things about Jung's concept of "synchronicity" is, I think, nicely captured by your (to my mind, oxymoronic) phrase "but both, by some mysterious *acausal mechanism*, co-occurred". Talk of "mechanism" is after all typically talk of the processes by which something is brought about - and what does talk of cause-effect relations even mean if not: that? Jung describes it in terms of an "acausal connection", or in terms of "formal" (as opposed to efficient) causality, or as a "relation of meaning" - but we know too, by thinking on a million events in everyday life, that we can have non-causal relations (something is half the size of something else, or two metres to its left, or a darker shade of blue, or one utterance in French means the same as another in English, etc etc), even meaning-involving relations, which we wouldn't want to bring under the "synchronicity" concept. ... Another intriguing aspect of the concept is when Jung talks of certain inner-outer co-occurrences being "beyond the bounds of probability". The law of very large numbers will take care of many of these instances no doubt, thereby, in a way, bringing them back within the "bounds". But I've in mind something else now which is that what we ordinarily *mean* by talk of two such events occurring together being "beyond the bounds of probability" is that it is impossible to think that there's not a *causal* relation in play here. ... Thus in the end, it seems to me that Jung's concept is a peculiarly unstable idea, at times invoking the semantic content of our notions of causality, at other times disavowing it, all plugged into the (in itself rather delightful) sense of marvel or spookiness we feel when emotionally-charged archetypical matters coincidentally meet with a straightforward or as-it-were symbolic external registration.
Good point about mechanism. It certainly lays on an implication there doesn't it?
I remain ambivalent about the reality of synchronicity but what I've been thinking more about recently is what you are getting at in your last lines: "sense of marvel or spookiness we feel when emotionally-charged archetypical matters coincidentally meet with a straightforward or as-it-were symbolic external registration." I've been thinking that synchronicity is more about that phenomenological experience than any reality claim. That is to say, the experience of synchronicity is itself what is interesting and its power enhanced by believing it is real — much as the teachings of Jesus hold more sway for those who believe he literally rose from the dead and ascended from heaven or in a great example — the line at the start of the Coen Brothers' Fargo saying "this is a true story" enhancing the power of the movie even though it is in no way a true story. There is pragmatic power in belief in synchronicity. Even if it's not true it has a phenomenological reality that judging by it memetic stickiness is quite potent. I am still open to something being there but am unconvinced by what generally passes for synchronicity and as for Jung's higher bar, I must consider what your points leave of that more rigorous formulation
This all makes good sense to me. ... One further thought: striking moments ('epiphanies' if you like) can be handled quite differently, and this itself may make a significant difference. Take an event like: "the hawk suddenly appearing right above me and flying on a little ahead of me for a mile, just when I was walking along, feeling my life was directionless, etc etc" 1) A 'magical thinking type' reading of this would have the hawk as put there to teach me something. I may feel that meaning, the meanings of my own troubled life, and the meaning of its resolution, are now not hived away in my own mind, but abroad in the world. Here the hawk is like the stars above, livers and entrails, yarrow stalks, cards, tealeaves. People read meaning into these whilst experiencing themselves reading meaning out of them. This magical thinking involves a kind of collapse of mind into world, and finds its most pathological forms in schizophrenic delusions of reference. (Apophenia: not just seeing patterns that aren't really there, but seeing patterns that speak personally to me.) I suspect that this kind of 'meaning' can make the epiphany-haver feel very special, and that the mundane world is full of magical meaning, etc - and that it doesn't really lead to significant inner change. (But perhaps I'm wrong!) 2) An 'ethical' type reading of the epiphany. Here the hawk, which I don't take to be doing anything other than going about its own business, serves to pull me out of my self-involvement. (I'm thinking of Iris Murdoch's description of the kestrel in the Sovereignty of Good.) And so the aesthetic moment becomes an ethical one. It breaks into my narcissism (rather than splays it out onto the world - as perhaps we see in 1)). It humbles me. What are my insular problems really, when the majesty of nature, the life of quite other minds, the soaring perspective it occupies, etc., are now made so clear? My thought is that 2) may help to embed significant inner change.
Late replying to this but love this second thought. I think it's a completely different animal to the synchronicity idea which is by and large magical thinking. I am deeply sympathetic to your ethical/aesthetic epiphany though. Those are moments that I have experienced and treasure. In times of trouble I find the vastness of the firmament consoling in its awe — the connection takes me out of the pettiness. I think it's important to have that decentring and I feel we need that in our world but it keeps us so locked in. This has me thinking of McGilchrist's spiel about the right hemisphere in this light vs. the left-hemisphere lock in
One of the curious things about Jung's concept of "synchronicity" is, I think, nicely captured by your (to my mind, oxymoronic) phrase "but both, by some mysterious *acausal mechanism*, co-occurred". Talk of "mechanism" is after all typically talk of the processes by which something is brought about - and what does talk of cause-effect relations even mean if not: that? Jung describes it in terms of an "acausal connection", or in terms of "formal" (as opposed to efficient) causality, or as a "relation of meaning" - but we know too, by thinking on a million events in everyday life, that we can have non-causal relations (something is half the size of something else, or two metres to its left, or a darker shade of blue, or one utterance in French means the same as another in English, etc etc), even meaning-involving relations, which we wouldn't want to bring under the "synchronicity" concept. ... Another intriguing aspect of the concept is when Jung talks of certain inner-outer co-occurrences being "beyond the bounds of probability". The law of very large numbers will take care of many of these instances no doubt, thereby, in a way, bringing them back within the "bounds". But I've in mind something else now which is that what we ordinarily *mean* by talk of two such events occurring together being "beyond the bounds of probability" is that it is impossible to think that there's not a *causal* relation in play here. ... Thus in the end, it seems to me that Jung's concept is a peculiarly unstable idea, at times invoking the semantic content of our notions of causality, at other times disavowing it, all plugged into the (in itself rather delightful) sense of marvel or spookiness we feel when emotionally-charged archetypical matters coincidentally meet with a straightforward or as-it-were symbolic external registration.
Good point about mechanism. It certainly lays on an implication there doesn't it?
I remain ambivalent about the reality of synchronicity but what I've been thinking more about recently is what you are getting at in your last lines: "sense of marvel or spookiness we feel when emotionally-charged archetypical matters coincidentally meet with a straightforward or as-it-were symbolic external registration." I've been thinking that synchronicity is more about that phenomenological experience than any reality claim. That is to say, the experience of synchronicity is itself what is interesting and its power enhanced by believing it is real — much as the teachings of Jesus hold more sway for those who believe he literally rose from the dead and ascended from heaven or in a great example — the line at the start of the Coen Brothers' Fargo saying "this is a true story" enhancing the power of the movie even though it is in no way a true story. There is pragmatic power in belief in synchronicity. Even if it's not true it has a phenomenological reality that judging by it memetic stickiness is quite potent. I am still open to something being there but am unconvinced by what generally passes for synchronicity and as for Jung's higher bar, I must consider what your points leave of that more rigorous formulation
This all makes good sense to me. ... One further thought: striking moments ('epiphanies' if you like) can be handled quite differently, and this itself may make a significant difference. Take an event like: "the hawk suddenly appearing right above me and flying on a little ahead of me for a mile, just when I was walking along, feeling my life was directionless, etc etc" 1) A 'magical thinking type' reading of this would have the hawk as put there to teach me something. I may feel that meaning, the meanings of my own troubled life, and the meaning of its resolution, are now not hived away in my own mind, but abroad in the world. Here the hawk is like the stars above, livers and entrails, yarrow stalks, cards, tealeaves. People read meaning into these whilst experiencing themselves reading meaning out of them. This magical thinking involves a kind of collapse of mind into world, and finds its most pathological forms in schizophrenic delusions of reference. (Apophenia: not just seeing patterns that aren't really there, but seeing patterns that speak personally to me.) I suspect that this kind of 'meaning' can make the epiphany-haver feel very special, and that the mundane world is full of magical meaning, etc - and that it doesn't really lead to significant inner change. (But perhaps I'm wrong!) 2) An 'ethical' type reading of the epiphany. Here the hawk, which I don't take to be doing anything other than going about its own business, serves to pull me out of my self-involvement. (I'm thinking of Iris Murdoch's description of the kestrel in the Sovereignty of Good.) And so the aesthetic moment becomes an ethical one. It breaks into my narcissism (rather than splays it out onto the world - as perhaps we see in 1)). It humbles me. What are my insular problems really, when the majesty of nature, the life of quite other minds, the soaring perspective it occupies, etc., are now made so clear? My thought is that 2) may help to embed significant inner change.
Late replying to this but love this second thought. I think it's a completely different animal to the synchronicity idea which is by and large magical thinking. I am deeply sympathetic to your ethical/aesthetic epiphany though. Those are moments that I have experienced and treasure. In times of trouble I find the vastness of the firmament consoling in its awe — the connection takes me out of the pettiness. I think it's important to have that decentring and I feel we need that in our world but it keeps us so locked in. This has me thinking of McGilchrist's spiel about the right hemisphere in this light vs. the left-hemisphere lock in