PDXFonz
I’m listening
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Most of us have had things happen to us which could be considered 'coincidental', something we cannot quite explain. I've had some occurrences over the last couple of months and have spent some time thinking about each incident and attempting to compare the similarities and differences. I'm not necessarily religious, if I had to define my relationship with religion I would have to say that I am agnostic. Instead I find myself looking towards psychology and philosophy when trying to come to some understanding of reality.
I've noticed that sometimes these random occurrences will feel different than others. I was thinking of a way to explain it and reflected on the times my father and I would skip rocks down by the river. We would start by picking up rocks of different shapes and sizes, and we would then compete to see who could skip them the furthest. Eventually I learned what shape of rock I was able to skip the furthest, and would try to find rocks that fit this description (flat, smooth, rounded, etc...). I would never find two rocks which were exactly identical to eachother, and the splashing of the water would match. No mater how similar each rock was, the water would splash different each time. There's so much going on which determines how the water splashes - The angle at which the rock hits the water, the movement of the tide, the speed of the projectile, the shape of the projectile, etc...
I started to think about the "You cannot step into the same river twice" quote by Heraclitus, and then thought the same is true about skipping rocks. You could swim into the water and retrieve the rock, but you would be hard pressed to recreate the way the water splashes when the rock hits it's surface. This is how I have started to feel about 'coincidences', if life is a river constantly flowing, then why do these rocks seem to create the same splash?
Now there are a few possible explanations, the most obvious is that I am looking for these coincidences, and that they are something called 'frequency illusion'. Have you ever bought a new car and suddenly you see that make/model behind/in front/next to you at stop lights? A family member of mine swore they saw more pregnant women when they were pregnant. There are many more examples of when we are looking for something, it becomes more apparent and therefor we notice it more. Esentially frequency illusion says that I am looking for these 'things' and therefor they seem like a coincidence.
While it is certainly possible for that to be the case, I also feel like I am able to discern some differences in these situations. For instance I will have a word on my mind, and all the sudden it seems to pop up often EX: Sommelier, and that stupid out of context sonic commercial(I don't hate commercials because they suck, I hate them because somebody gets paid to write this nonsense). Sometimes this hits me as a nothing more than a "haha that is random", but sometimes I can't help but think "what are the odds". The most recent would be when I recognizes somebodies face, but couldn't put a name to it. I thought about this for a while, and came to the conclusion that the closest I could come up with was a childhood friends father whom I had not seen for some 12+ years. I knew it wasn't him so I went about my day as I normally would, until I ended up at the grocery store... Low and behold there was my friends father, lookig at me as if I was supposed to recognize him. It was almost frightening, what are the odds that today is the day I come across him? Perhaps I had seen him at the grocery store many times over the year, but since he was on my mind I finally noticed him.
Long story short I feel like there have to be forces at work which we do not, possibly cannot understand, be they the work of science, of a god/gods, or rooted in psychology.
TLDR; I'm curious what you guys think of 'coincidence', or 'synchronicity' if you are Jungian. Do you have any interesting examples to share?
I've noticed that sometimes these random occurrences will feel different than others. I was thinking of a way to explain it and reflected on the times my father and I would skip rocks down by the river. We would start by picking up rocks of different shapes and sizes, and we would then compete to see who could skip them the furthest. Eventually I learned what shape of rock I was able to skip the furthest, and would try to find rocks that fit this description (flat, smooth, rounded, etc...). I would never find two rocks which were exactly identical to eachother, and the splashing of the water would match. No mater how similar each rock was, the water would splash different each time. There's so much going on which determines how the water splashes - The angle at which the rock hits the water, the movement of the tide, the speed of the projectile, the shape of the projectile, etc...
I started to think about the "You cannot step into the same river twice" quote by Heraclitus, and then thought the same is true about skipping rocks. You could swim into the water and retrieve the rock, but you would be hard pressed to recreate the way the water splashes when the rock hits it's surface. This is how I have started to feel about 'coincidences', if life is a river constantly flowing, then why do these rocks seem to create the same splash?
Now there are a few possible explanations, the most obvious is that I am looking for these coincidences, and that they are something called 'frequency illusion'. Have you ever bought a new car and suddenly you see that make/model behind/in front/next to you at stop lights? A family member of mine swore they saw more pregnant women when they were pregnant. There are many more examples of when we are looking for something, it becomes more apparent and therefor we notice it more. Esentially frequency illusion says that I am looking for these 'things' and therefor they seem like a coincidence.
While it is certainly possible for that to be the case, I also feel like I am able to discern some differences in these situations. For instance I will have a word on my mind, and all the sudden it seems to pop up often EX: Sommelier, and that stupid out of context sonic commercial(I don't hate commercials because they suck, I hate them because somebody gets paid to write this nonsense). Sometimes this hits me as a nothing more than a "haha that is random", but sometimes I can't help but think "what are the odds". The most recent would be when I recognizes somebodies face, but couldn't put a name to it. I thought about this for a while, and came to the conclusion that the closest I could come up with was a childhood friends father whom I had not seen for some 12+ years. I knew it wasn't him so I went about my day as I normally would, until I ended up at the grocery store... Low and behold there was my friends father, lookig at me as if I was supposed to recognize him. It was almost frightening, what are the odds that today is the day I come across him? Perhaps I had seen him at the grocery store many times over the year, but since he was on my mind I finally noticed him.
Long story short I feel like there have to be forces at work which we do not, possibly cannot understand, be they the work of science, of a god/gods, or rooted in psychology.
TLDR; I'm curious what you guys think of 'coincidence', or 'synchronicity' if you are Jungian. Do you have any interesting examples to share?
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