Effect without Cause

I believe in that voodoo mumbo jumbo Jung philosophy known as synchronicity.
 

M.W. calls it "the coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality."

 

I'll just take "the coincidental...similar thoughts in widely separated persons...that seem related".

You know, when you start thinking about something in the morning like... well... let's say the stickiness of a frog's tongue. And then you head to work and walk in and within a few minutes some dude is verbally pondering the stickiness of a frog's tongue. Later that night you get home and your daughter is working on a paper for biology that deals with, you guessed it, the stickiness of a frog's tongue.

 

Now there are often possible and plausible explanations for this. Maybe the night before there was a program on Discovery Channel that talked about frog spit that you watched for five minutes, your coworker saw a promo for and the teacher watched the whole damn thing, deciding to turn it into a lesson at school. You see, it seems mysterious, but it's not.

 

But sometimes the mystery cannot be solved (other than to call it something obtuse like common brain patterning) and we must assume that our little minds can't explain every single causality in the universe. Because we can't.

 

I think maybe Sting said it best:

 

"A connecting principle

Linked to the invisible

Almost imperceptible

Something inexpressible

Science insusceptible

Logic so inflexible

Causally connectable

Yet nothing is invincible"

To me it's like an ocean beach hit over and over again by massive waves. Our minds are the beach, or rather the sand on the beach. I think synchronous thoughts are like these waves as they come rushing in hard and cover everything, soak through completely and then slowly recede. We're not consciously looking for these ideas. It's more like they come to us. They happen to us.

 

I told you it was mumbo jumbo.

 

But if these common thoughts do exist, then what is the source? Where do they start? Are they born out of a single person, or are they the result of subtly linked minds working in tandem in some way, creating inspiration or idea when enough lines of thought cross simultaneously?

I don't know. What do you think? I think I get a C- as far as explaining this one.

 

Does this ever happen to you with your friends or partner or children? What about on a bigger level, like nationally or even internationally? Do you remember a time when you thought something and then noticed others thinking the same thing at the same time?

 

How often does this occur unnoticed because nobody compares notes?

 

Something to think about, anyway.

 

Thanks for reading.

 

Off to ponder.

 

Casey

 

Comments

  1. Brian Miller15/12/12 12:46

    alright, about to admit to something that may be a little creepy in light of yesterday, but i knew the VT shooting was happening before it ever made the news...not specifically what it was...i had this horrible feeling that morning of something impending...i actually left work because of it and started driving...when i heard it on the radio i was already on my way there...and spent the next 3 days loving on the kids....true story...so kinda up your alley of thought today but...

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