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So according to Robert Anton Wilson in Cosmic Trigger 1:
'Many other scientists have agreed with Carl Jung's opinion that the number of startling coincidences in "the Net" increases sharply around anybody who becomes involved in depth psychology or in any investigation that extends the perimeter of consciousness.'

Has anybody else noticed this? Or disagree with it?

As is to be expected, the movie that led me to the quoted book was The Number 23, the one with with Jim Carrey going nutso about a prime number consisting of two sequential digits. I'll spare you a list of chromosomes, the tilt of the earth's axis, etc. Suffice to say that the word Blasphemy is used 23 times in the bible.
Obviously 23 isn't the only number. I recently read about the 69 enigma (23x3?) and most 23 Enigma videos on youtube have a smart ass comment about the '5 enigma' (2+3?) or something. An article I read earlier on in my synchroncity experiences talked about the sequence 2:22:22. From my own personal experiences I'll quote 919, 616, 17, and 420.

Anyway, my friend Wikipedia says: 'Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance...The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality.'

So what do you think is the mechanism behind synchronicities? And why are numerical synchronicities so attractive? Or, is synchronicity even a real concept? etc.

Post your own experiences, if you want.

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Originally Posted by Oll Dellblad:
So according to Robert Anton Wilson in Cosmic Trigger 1:
'Many other scientists have agreed with Carl Jung's opinion that the number of startling coincidences in "the Net" increases sharply around anybody who becomes involved in depth psychology or in any investigation that extends the perimeter of consciousness.'

Has anybody else noticed this? Or disagree with it?

As is to be expected, the movie that led me to the quoted book was The Number 23, the one with with Jim Carrey going nutso about a prime number consisting of two sequential digits. I'll spare you a list of chromosomes, the tilt of the earth's axis, etc. Suffice to say that the word Blasphemy is used 23 times in the bible.
Obviously 23 isn't the only number. I recently read about the 69 enigma (23x3?) and most 23 Enigma videos on youtube have a smart ass comment about the '5 enigma' (2+3?) or something. An article I read earlier on in my synchroncity experiences talked about the sequence 2:22:22. From my own personal experiences I'll quote 919, 616, 17, and 420.

Anyway, my friend Wikipedia says: 'Synchronicity is the experience of two or more events that are apparently causally unrelated occurring together in a meaningful manner. To count as synchronicity, the events should be unlikely to occur together by chance...The concept does not question, or compete with, the notion of causality.'

So what do you think is the mechanism behind synchronicities? And why are numerical synchronicities so attractive? Or, is synchronicity even a real concept? etc.

Post your own experiences, if you want.

I think we inherently possess a sense that 'all is connected' and this has implications for spirituality.  It is true that all is connected, though I think we have a tendency to connect things in unusual ways which are true in a psychological sense because we ascribe meaning to them, but are not necessarily true in a purely physical sense.  

Perhaps 'synchronicity' can be the term for psychological connectedness of events, and 'causality' the term for physical connectedness?

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Originally Posted by Noah Harvey:
I think we inherently possess a sense that 'all is connected' and this has implications for spirituality.  It is true that all is connected, though I think we have a tendency to connect things in unusual ways which are true in a psychological sense because we ascribe meaning to them, but are not necessarily true in a purely physical sense.

Its interesting that we have this urge or however you'd call it. Is there an evolutionary advantage to it? There's nothing in regular, waking life to suggest that everything is interconnected (without self-reflection, meditation, extraterrestrial circuit activation, etc.). Sometimes I get the vibe that the common perception of people who talk about this sort of thing is that they're 'baked as ****'.

Anyway, this seems like a very good to categorize things. Everything is connected, synchronicity and causality are just two sides of the same coin. Well, that was a bit of an oversimplification. But ....... it brings me back to the randomness thread: If everything is potentially interconnected, whether on a physical or a psychological plane, how can randomness exist?
Or maybe we can define randomness as that which exists outside 'The Net'.

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Originally Posted by Oll Dellblad:

Originally Posted by Noah Harvey:
I think we inherently possess a sense that 'all is connected' and this has implications for spirituality.  It is true that all is connected, though I think we have a tendency to connect things in unusual ways which are true in a psychological sense because we ascribe meaning to them, but are not necessarily true in a purely physical sense.

Its interesting that we have this urge or however you'd call it. Is there an evolutionary advantage to it? There's nothing in regular, waking life to suggest that everything is interconnected (without self-reflection, meditation, extraterrestrial circuit activation, etc.). Sometimes I get the vibe that the common perception of people who talk about this sort of thing is that they're 'baked as ****'.

Anyway, this seems like a very good to categorize things. Everything is connected, synchronicity and causality are just two sides of the same coin. Well, that was a bit of an oversimplification. But ....... it brings me back to the randomness thread: If everything is potentially interconnected, whether on a physical or a psychological plane, how can randomness exist?
Or maybe we can define randomness as that which exists outside 'The Net'.

It really doesn't take any stretch to follow the train of thought that there is a word for the sum total of all things in existence.  

Some call it the 'universe' or 'god' or 'the tao' or whatever, but its almost as if the concept comes built in.  Perhaps it can be thought of more as a FEELING of wholeness rather than as something conceptual.  

Where it seems we get tripped up is that the 'whole' on one level of analysis can be seen as a part, looking down from a higher level.

So we may not be taking about the same 'whole' when we are tripping about the interconnectedness of 'things.'

As to whether there is a survival value, most certainly. It seems that belief, in general, is a dominant strategy in the evolution of our species.  

We lock on to patterns so strongly, because if we identify a pattern that doesn't really exist but we think it does, we just end up being silly and superstitious.  

But if we latch on to a pattern that IS truly a good one (like that every time I hear that sound, it means someone is about to get eaten)  then we gain MUCH more of an advantage believing in it than sticking around to take the skeptical approach.