Hong Kong Philosophy Café

         Kowloon Branch Topic

for 24th September 2002

 

The Philosophy of Coincidence  

 

Introduction

 

Key words: Mythology, Meaning, Jung, Synchronicity, Ambition, Probability, Chronology, Memory, ‘Cause and Effect,’  Atomism, Déjà vu, Peirce and Tychism, , Lacan and Encounters of the Real, Repetition, Pattern Recognition, Hermes the Trickster:Creation and Discipline.

 

I do not think it is an overstatement to state that I have never met anyone who has not experienced at least one meaningful coincidence. In this sense there is mystery in everybody’s life, however rational! It is therefore of great fascination to me how little coincidence is theorised. Hopefully, we can come up with some answers to that question at least !

 

I should like to start, however, by describing what I am not going to cover in this discussion (that is not to say that people can be constrained from feeling compelled to discuss the subject in these terms)  This discussion is not about Telepathy, ESP or Telekinesis. It will also not a celebration of mysticism, but it will touch on myth and the function it performs in our lives.

 

Furthermore Carl Jung is the most noteworthy philosopher / psychologist to theorise about coincidence and he coined a term specifically to deal with ‘meaningful coincidences.’ This term is Synchronicity. The title of this discussion has also intentionally avoided the use of  this term  in order to  avoid the notion that the discussion is wholly about Carl Jung and his work.

 

Customarily I like to begin these discussions with a definition of the key word at hand. This is then always used as a ‘point of departure’ for the discussion that follows and is never constraining.

 

Some Definitions (Websters Universal Dictionary)

 

 

Coincidence - is defined in the Websters Universal Dictionary as “the occurrence of an event at the same time as another without apparent connection.”

 

Synchronicity - on the other hand, as I have mentioned before, is a term coined by Jung and as such it is not defined in the dictionary, but it does carry with it the implication that certain coinciding events do have meaning because of an apparent connection.

 

Myth - Claude Levi Strauss  describes myth, in his 1963 book  “The Structural Study of Myth” as a narrative whose purpose is “to provide a logical model capable of overcoming any contradiction,” I prefer to use this definition rather than a dictionary one, since most often myth  is simply dismissed as ‘magic.’ Since there has never been a single myth which has succeeded in overcoming all contradictions (even science is having its problems) I would like to describe myth as ambition. I hope to explain why, at the end.

 

Components of Coincidence

 

Aside of personal relevance or coherence which I believe is the key component of the meaning content of a coincidence another common thread to the experience of coincidence as meaningful is the frequency  of occurrence.  That is to say if it occurs very frequently we might be inclined to accept it into our model of the world, as long as such an acceptance would be acceptable to others. Also there is a consideration as to the perception of the probability of it having happened ‘purely by chance’ (which actually relates to coherence, in the modern world).   

 

I have chosen here to abandon the notion of coincidence ‘without meaning’  since this would be antithetical to the scientific approach. Science purports  to explain all, therefore even a coincidence of low (personal) relevance should be considered statistically. To me however such an assertion renders science as one amongst other mythologies of the world. I hope to expand upon this later)

 

Question One : Is the notion of  Statistics to blame for the “under-theorisation” of the mystery of coincidence? Is  this an acknowledgment of a mythical status for Science using Levi Straus’ definition ?

 

What types of Coincidence are there ?

 

Again, with a view to stimulating discussion, rather than attempting a taxonomy, I have drawn out several schematics of coincidence below:-

 

Precognitive
 
One

 

SIGNIFYING THOUGHT or MEMORY
 
 


 

Chronological
 
 

 

 

 

 


Two

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Three

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Although there are three examples here, (and the third one is a little difficult to get your head around) there is only one question for me:-

 

Question Two : Is the “experience” of meaningful coincidence given meaning before or after the “occurrence?” Can ‘Déjà vu’ explain all coincidence?

 

“Cause and Effect” and Time 

 

I do not want to spend too much time on the latter entity as Alan Taylor will be discussing it in the Fringe Branch on 10th October 2002 in much more detail than I can, however I would like you to imagine time as a linear and infinite expansion of the notion of Cause and Effect as represented below:-

 

 

 

 


There is another consequence (effect ?) of the notion of ‘Cause and Effect’ and that is the notion that causes and effects can be isolated atomistically, such that:-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


It is not apparent to us in everyday life the extent to which this model impacts upon our lives and moreover the extent to which frontier science such as quantum / sub-atomic physics or the theory of relativity no longer holds to this model. Chaos Theory is a great example of a product of such science, but I do not have the time (!) now to go into that in too much detail.  Let us simply list here the names of  some scientists whose theories no longer hold to an atomistic notion of the universe:-. Godel, Heisenberg, Schrodinger, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli and latterly Capra and Bohm.  

 

Question Three: To what extent does the general notion of time and causality govern the way we think about coincidence ? Can we, like the frontier scientists, allow ourselves the luxury of  living in the real world and theorising in the fuzzy one?  We accept statistics after all ?

 

CS Peirce and Tychism

 

CS Peirce was an American Pragmatist Philosopher and Physicist whose work preceded that of Freud, Jung and Einstein

 

Peirce argued for most of his life on the impossibility of determinism, so it is quite ironic that his theory on the irreducible fallibility of enquiry or in other words the spontaneity of the universe (to which he gave the name Tychism (from the Greek for Chance)) should now be described as an objective theory of spontaneity !!. Whilst Peirce acknowledged that the universe displayed various degrees of habit,  he argues that it does not conform to any, even scientific, determinist laws.       

 

He felt that nature’s spontaneity evolved by habits and that even if science was able to produce accurate conceptions of things at a certain point, this did not ensure that they always remained accurate.

 

Lacan, Anamorphosis, Eutychic and Dutychic Experience 

 

Interestingly in his 1966 book “The Four Fundamental Concepts  of Psycho-Analysis” in two chapters entitled ‘Tuche and the Automaton’ (reminiscent of our discussion on Freedom at the Fringe Branch in August) and another entitled “Anamorphosis” Lacan also uses the term tychic,  as an adjective to describe the trauma of experience with the real. Eutychia is positive trauma whilst dutychia is negative.  

 

This is interesting for two reasons  I think that Lacan is saying that a certain tolerance of mystery is healthy talking about a fundamental healthy need to accommodate the mystery and spontaneity of chance and how such can be productive in the psyche.

 

Lacan spends some time in these chapters as well talking about repetition. A comforting encounter with the real tychic ( dynamic) can occur if the experiences can we weave into a narrative of repetition. This in fact like a new chronology.

It is also interesting however that this is mentioned together with Anamorphosis. This word basically means ‘formed again’ Lacan’s use of the terms tychism and anamorphosis in the same breath I take as indicative of the mode in which we can edify  psyche out of an otherwise acausal universe. (See The Ambasssadors by Holbein)

 

Anamorphosis normally refers to the juxtaposition of alternative perspectives or at least a perspective which accommodates or indeed requires alternative perspectives albeit it is never specified whether this is a symbiotic or a parasitic relationship. By juxtaposing Peirce and Lacan here I would suggest that it is a symbiotic function and indeed a perspective which accommodates alternatives is the more likely to survive.

 

So Lacan here gives us the notion that aberrations may be the hub of a future norm and there may be no such thing as the accident.

 

Jung and Synchronicity

 

Jung intimates an ex-stasis wherein coincidences can be experienced. He coined the terms collective unconscious (a kind of ex-static community) to describe the immanence in which thoughts form. He described these thoughts or  behaviors as  archetypes (Peirce's habits ?) and he says that synchronicity occurs when these archetypes are allowed to come to the fore, normally in spontaneous moments, when we are less focused on the lived world  (remember Lacan's encounters ? ) Synchronistic coincidences are from the Jungian perspective, boundary events.

 

However, Jung’s conception of  ‘unus mundus’ implies that this collective unconscious is all part of an alternative certain background reality which sounds too much to me like fate. He counted Schopenhauer's thought on destiny as one of the greatest influences on his thoughts on Synchronicity.  Furthermore he talks about, I believe an Aristotelian association, called the soul-atom which has all the reductive and certain promise of the system coincidence liberates us from. He describes synchronous events as acausal (without cause)

 

It is here that  Jung and I part company. I am more inclined to believe that the experience of coincidences is rooted in ones consciousness and its ambitions, since it is only in relation to consciousness that it can be experienced.

 

Question Four – Do you agree that even if a coincidence was pre-conscious it has to be experienced consciously and that, when this is done, it is subject to ones conscious ambitions and models of order?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hermes the Trickster

 

In the book “Science, Synchronicity and the Trickster,” Allan Combs and Mark Holland, writing in 1990, place a lot on the Greek myth of Hermes who is described as a god of play, of transformation, creativity and mischief, boundaries. Hermes guides us to sleep  and back and to death.  He is the perfect culprit for a messenger between the conscious and unconscious. 

 

 Although they do not quote Lacan, they  also describe positive and negative consequences of encounters with him in which fecund moments occur or in which one feels disciplined by invisible forces. These forces seem to be strongest when we are egotistical, selfish or self-conscious (see Ironic by Alanis Morrissette).

 

Observations

 

It seems that:-

 

·      Coincidence could be under-theorised because it is the only thing that keeps the myth of certainty, stable. 

 

·      In order to experience any coincidence as meaningful it has to be thought. It is nearly impossible and maybe un-necessary to work out which proceeded which. When the coincidence is experienced as thought, it is being experienced consciously, and one’s conscious values such as tolerance for uncertainty come into play.

 

·      Encounters with the dynamic are made more bearable if there is some pattern to them, so we pattern them. Traditional Chronology ignores the pattern in encounters with the dynamic. Pattern Recognition is  a way in which we can see things in a new chronology

 

·      Coincidence is experienced more often if we are taken by surprise by new events in consciousness, such as shocks, travel or loosing oneself in thought or meditation.

 

·      It is healthy for ones consciousness to experience coincidences. The story we tell ourselves about the meaning of the event actually speaks to us about who we are and what our ambitions are in the conscious world.  It does not help to try and over-ride these events, but it does help to explain them to oneself.

 

·      This narrative capability is essential for development of the psyche and gives us back some of the poetry, which science and rationality has taken away.

 

 

 

·      In some circumstances we get the sensation that we were complicit in our  failure in an assertive rather than an accidental manner. Could this be a health check, or an attempt to precipitate a change in, our consciousness. I think that Coincidence and to some extent accidents can be thought of in this way (note the anamorphosic event with the vase in the Matrix and the lyrics to the Alanis Morrissette song). Coincidence is like pinching yourself to see if you are awake. Introducing mystery to  prove that the conventional consciousness is still working

 

·      Soul-Atoms is only one way to be and even atoms now need irrational rules to describe them. Encounters with the dynamic can be experienced positively if we look for patterns in them, and occasionally when we are on the wrong track encounters with the dynamic will remind us to slow down.

 

 

 

 

Guy