"Synchronicity reveals the meaningful connections between the subjective and the objective world" (Carl G. Jung).
"Synchronicity...means a 'meaningful coincidence' of external and internal events that are not
causally connected. The emphasis is on the word 'significant'" (Marie Louise von Franz).
Synchronicity
Synchronicity is a concept proposed by Jung to explain the meaningful connections between mind and matter. Synchronicity is the meaningful co-occurrence of a subjective experience and a physical event in a way that transcends the law of causality. It is the dual empirical manifestation of the Unus Mundus, the deeper realm where space and time are transcended.
According to Jung, when the archetypes of the Unus Mundus −the underlying unified reality from which everything− emerges operate in the realm of the psychic, they manifest as dynamic patterns of images and ideas. When they operate in the realm of the physical, they manifest as patterns of the structure and phenomena of matter and energy. When the same archetypes operate simultaneously in both realms, they give rise to the phenomena Jung called "synchronistic."
When the deeper levels of the unconscious are activated, then synchronistic phenomena appear, connecting the inner and outer worlds through meaning. Acausal laws connect all things in the universe synchronistically. For Jung, synchronicity is "A coincidence in time of two or more casually unrelated events having the same or similar significance" and also "It is the interaction, beyond time and space, of all phenomena, whether physical or psychic."
Jung's main purpose in proposing the concept of synchronicity was the union of Psyche and Physis, between mind and matter, but he did not fully achieve it. For Jung, synchronistic phenomena unite mind and matter in such a way that they interpenetrate, as in the yin-yang symbol. Mind and matter are two aspects of the same profound reality.
A distinction must be made between synchronism (coincidence in time of two events) and synchronicity (coincidence in time of two or more causally unrelated events that share the same meaning). Synchronicity is a unifying principle of nature, which is hidden, but manifests itself in significant coincidences of particular events. Synchronicity is timeless. Synchronicity occurs in time.
According to Jung, 3 conditions must be fulfilled for synchronicity to exist between two events:
Any assumption of a causal relationship between the two events is absurd or inconceivable.
The two events share a common meaning, which could be expressed symbolically.
One event contains an internally perceived component, and the other event an externally perceived component.
According to these criteria: 1) A synchronistic phenomenon is of a psycho-physical type; 2) It is inexplicable from an exclusively physical or exclusively psychic point of view; 3) The events need not necessarily be simultaneous.
Actually, acausality must be understood in the sense that the physical and psychic aspects are not cause and effect of each other, but are both manifestations of the archetypes of the Unus Mundus, the realm that transcends space and time. The union of the polar opposites (physical and psychic) is a manifestation of deep consciousness.
Synchronicity refers us to the Unus Mundus, a plane of reality of transcendental type, a hidden and deep dimension where everything is interconnected. It is from this deep level that the two poles of reality (the physical and the psychic) manifest. Synchronicities are creative, discontinuous acts of the Unus Mundus.
The Unus Mundus is the matrix or universal archetype, the foundation of everything, a place without a place, a world without a world, the void, the engine of all meaningful coincidences, of synchronicity. Synchronicity is the manifestation of a profound union between mind and matter, between the objective and the subjective, between the conscious and the unconscious. With synchronicity, Jung explains the seemingly inexplicable: that everything has its source in the deep, that it manifests in the dual realms of the physical and the psychic.
Since psyche and matter are two complementary aspects of the same reality governed by archetypes, this implied that archetypes are elements of a realm beyond matter and psyche. Jung qualified archetypes as "psychoids" to refer to this characteristic. According to Pauli, this conception refers to Platonic ideas.
Jung compared his theory of synchronicity to the Tao of ancient Chinese wisdom: the source, principle and origin of all coherence, intelligence, creativity, order, harmony, purpose and meaning in the universe, where everything is connected and where time and space do not exist.
Jung also refers to the I Ching, the ancient Chinese oracle, in which the practical aspect of synchronicity is used, as there is a simultaneous connection between the psychic state of the querent and the appearance of images (the hexagrams). For Jung, the I Ching is a system that attempts to make the archetypes conscious. The procedure of coin tossing is considered essentially a means of generating synchronistic phenomena. The hexagram obtained from chance is both an objective physical event and at the same time a subjective event of profound significance, provided the individual performs the procedure with the proper attitude. The objective and subjective aspects are not separate categories of experience; they are united.
Synchronicity refers from the superficial to the profound, which is where meaning resides. Synchronicity is not the bridge between mind and material, but is only the synchronistic manifestation of archetypes.
A synchronicity opens the consciousness because it unites the opposites (the physical and the psychic) even if it is of a particular and circumstantial type, because it refers or evokes the universal synchronicity, where everything is connected.
Jung collaborated with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli in the elaboration of the concept of synchronicity. Both understood that psyche and matter were only two manifestations of a deep and transcendent world, the Unus Mundus. The foundation of the physical world and the psychic world is neither physical nor psychic.
MENTAL and Universal Synchronicity
The Jungian synchronistic phenomena are episodic, local, discontinuous and temporal, although they allow us to intuit that there are universal or global patterns (the archetypes) that manifest themselves in the mind and in nature. In contrast to this conception, MENTAL proposes a universal synchronicity, in such a way that there is always a permanent connection between the deep and the superficial. Synchronism is horizontal. Synchronicity is vertical. This synchronistic relationship is reflected in:
The union of opposites or duals: ontology and epistemology, mind and nature, space and time, syntax and semantics, lexical and structural semantics, etc.
The primal archetypes themselves connect the fundamental opposites, which are the superficial and the deep. Synchronicity is universal consciousness.
The dissolution of boundaries. Everything is the same thing: mathematics, operating systems, artificial intelligence, programming languages, cybernetics, etc. are different manifestations of the same thing: the primary archetypes of abstract character.
MENTAL represents the true universal synchronicity. Everything is synchronized from the deep. In MENTAL, in addition to synchronicity (at the deep level), synchronicity exists at the surface level. This is realized by generic expressions. For example,
(k = 7)
ao = ⟨k+3⟩
a // ev. 10
(k = 17)
a // ev. 20
Addenda
Synchronicity in Pauli
Pauli himself was a "victim" of synchronicity. All his life he was preoccupied with the question of the fine structure constant of the universe (α), a fundamental dimensionless constant of quantum physics, which is approximately 1/137. Pauli believed that understanding this prime number was crucial to physics. The number 137 is also the number of the Hebrew word "Kabbalah". Well, Pauli died in room 137 of a Zurich hospital. Sir Arthur Eddington believed that the number 137 has mystical properties.
The constant α was introduced in physics by Arnold Sommerfeld. It is called "the cosmic number" [Miller, 2009]. Its value is not accidental, but is a law of nature, an archetypal number. If α had been a little larger, we would not be able to distinguish matter from vacuum.
It is also said that Pauli's mere presence in a laboratory caused equipment failures. This was known as the "Pauli effect". Pauli himself regarded these phenomena as possible synchronistic manifestations of a deep conflict between his rational and non-rational sides.
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