078 - Jung's Synchronicity: Demonstrating the Mental/Physical Unity of the Cosmos

Hegel famously said  in his Phenomenology of Spirit, "Everything turns on grasping and expressing the True, not as Substance, but equally as Subject." (Miiler trans., ¶17).  That the true - truth - is equally substance and subject.  

He makes this explicitly clear in the following statement, “What seems to take place outside it, to be an activity directed against it, is its own doing, its own activity; and substance shows that it is in reality subject” (Ibid, ¶37).

Meaningful coincidences, Jung's synchronicity, are a demonstration of this truth.  And the mediation of the mental and material takes place in the immediacy of the present moment.  As Hegel said, "There is nothing, nothing in heaven, or in nature or in mind or anywhere else which does not equally contain both immediacy and mediation" (Science of Logic, Miller trans., pg. 68).

Episode 78 explores this important notion.

Transcript

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Hello, I'm Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist episode 78. Welcome back. The purpose of this podcast is to explore philosophy psychology self-help and modern science. With a special emphasis on the great 19th century philosopher, George William Friedrich Hagle. And this episode, I will be discussing the fascinating concept of synchronicity. Once again. And note that we've covered this several times here before, particularly in episode 30 and 52, if you want to go back and refresh. Uh, your memory on, on what we've covered previously. But the reason I'm talking about it again is I believe I have some important new insights on this subject, which I want to share. Just to refresh your memory. Synchronicity is a term coined by Carl Young. To describe meaningful coincidences that occur with no physical causation. From a materialistic standpoint, they are a causal, but from a psychological standpoint, they are very meaningful. Now we all have these experiences. To some extent at sometime. At times in our lives and, and what I'm going to be asserting is that synchronicity is indeed. A real thing. It's not just a statistical fluke. And I intend to show in more detail in this episode, how it actually works. Now I'm well aware and. Empirical science would say, oh, this is just a nice story. And things like, uh, meaningful consequences are bound to happen every once in a while, just given the billions of events that occur each day in every minute. Now. Of course. Given the pure materialism of much of modern science today, it's synchronicity is not accepted. Um, that's because many scientists today, the current paradigm is at the bottom level. Only in there things exist only matter exists. And they only moved by being influenced by some other material force. Or object. Now. As I've covered your off and this paradigm. Is contradicted by several empirical observations of quantum physics. Demonstrated the non-local effects of subatomic particles and the, that the definite location of these particles can only be ascertained when measured or observed. And these quantum physics findings are an anomaly as we covered her. So often. Because, Traditional science. The current paradigm views mind is psyche. Isn't it. Piffen. and in a manner. And, somehow mind arises from matter by someone on, on, on, on process, but it is matter based matter is all there is. According to that belief. But my take is, this is a very limiting worldview and only takes into account about half. Of what is going on here. Part of my reasoning, that it is true comes in part from Hegel's philosophy where substances indeed, subject. That mind and matter are two aspects of the same thing. And what is interesting here is that. In the universe. It is not only matter in blind forces that act on manner, but mine does as well. And not only on the individual level. Such as when I want to move my arm, but on the macro holistic level, in addition, and this is what's going on with synchronicity. In fact, I believe it is. Synchronistic events in our lives that actually demonstrate this unity of the mental in the material universe. That's my conclusion anyway. And it's not just that they're forged together, but they are complimentary aspects of a single absolute reality. And this single absolute reality cannot be reached either through the mind. Avenue or the matter have notes inaccessible. Through empirical research or from pure thought alone. Do you use a visual analogy? It is the circle that surrounds the yin yang symbol. And here we can see. The N or the yang, but we can not get to the circle from either the Inn or the yang alone. And this is a key part of Hagle system where he repeatedly points out identity and differences. And importantly as well, this corresponds to the complimentary principle and quantum physics was just, I said, one cannot know position and momentum at the same time of a sub atomic particle, same thing. We w we can't describe a particle by wave. At the same time we describe it as a particle. You choose one or the other. You can have both. And I contend that synchronicity is a manifestation of this fact in our universe now. I aware of. Very much aware. I, Did a lot of work in statistics in my business career, there are of course, random coincidence that occurred that we notice. Um, if you flip a coin 10 times in a row and it comes up 10 times head that may not be a synchronistic event. on the other hand have me be, but that, that can happen. There's a, you can figure out the formula for the chances that that would happen. But synchronistic events are different. They, they attach a meaning to the, to the coincidence. And they, they demonstrate that the material universe and the mind are part of one and the same thing. And. How this works is it's more than just our individual consciousnesses we've current before. The lower ego and our persona there. Deeper layers of consciousness and it goes deeper until we reach a collective unconscious. Which we all share. And we covered how this works specifically in episode 49, 1 of the most popular the podcast. And. It's this broader collective unconscious that they can have influence on material events. Now I realize this is a very big statement of that. I'm well aware. And also this does not imply pure telekinesis where an individual mind can move matter on demand such as. Making a spoon bend just by thinking about it. There was like a URI Geller back in the sixties and seventies. You had a magic trick that he claimed he was able to do that. That's not what I'm talking about here. When I'm talking about his mind, working together with matter. On a collective basis. And then what's going on with synchronicity. Let me explain how it works. I contend that there is a psychic component to all matter that can harmonize on a macro level. With the matter it is part of to produce meaningful results to an observing mind in the world. That the mind and matter are harmonizing. If you will. And again, this is not mine controlling matters and telekinesis, but the structure of the universe. That appears to us, which shows us that it understands what is meaningful to us. This is what's going on. Now we may not always understand what it means like in a dream dreams can be very insightful and tell us a lot, but oftentimes they're tough to figure out. but w what w what we do know when we experience synchronicity is that the meaningful coincidence is clear right before our eyes. Now. Let me relate to you. Three examples. Two of them are personal and one is from the world of entertainment regarding synchronicity. The first personal one is as follows. If, you know, my name is Gregory Nowak. What you may not know is that I had a long career in marketing research. Uh, doing, doing surveys. For corporations. And I was president of my own marketing research company for 23 years before retiring. And I grew up in town. Uh, Brighton New York and the U S which is a suburb of Rochester, New York. And. One day while I was still working. When I still had my company, I was looking for a particular new service to support my business. And I called a very large marketing research firm in Rochester because they thought they could help me. I was surprised to see that they're actually located in Brighton, the town where I grew up. And when I called them and I said, who I was Gregory Nowak the person on the phone, thought I was joking. I. I said, what do you mean? I'm not joking. I'm Gregory Novick. What's so funny about that. Person on the phone and said, well, that's the same name of the president of our company. Our company's president is Gregory Nowak. Now they perhaps thought I was playing a joke. But it turned out. It wasn't a joke. I wasn't joking in that the president of their company was Gregory Nowak. They had a different Gregory Nowak is president of their marketing research company. And that company happened to be located in my hometown. To Gregory. Novak's both presidents of marketing research companies. And the company of, one of them is the hometown or the other that is synchronicity, but it gets better. I've looked up this other Gregory Nowak on the company's website and find his bio. It was about my age and he was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in the U S and guess what? And you probably did. That's where I was born as well. Now just a random coincidence or something more going on here. My name is not the most common of names. And what are the chances that to Gregory Novak's born in Johnstown PA would end up both as president of marketing research firms. With a strong connection to the same suburban town. It is statistically possible. Of course. That it could happen by random, but what synchronicity shows. Is that. This was a very meaningful coincidence for me. And that's what synchronicity is. Now there was another example. There was a dinner party that my wife and I held many years ago, and we invited two couples over to the house for dinner and they didn't know each other. And we knew they didn't know each other. I want a couple was a neighbor and the other were parents of one of my children's friends. And it's always nice to introduce people together. At a dinner party, we felt so they both came, they were introduced, things were proceeding smoothly. And then I went out to the deck to let up the grill. And one of the men came out and said, you're not going to believe this, but I nearly came to blows with that other guy here today. I see. What do you mean? He said, no, we were both driving in town and our cars almost hit each other at an intersection. We were both yelling at each other and we got out of our cars. We raised our fists. We didn't come to blows, but there was a lot of yelling and cursing. I was stunned. All I could say was, wow. I'm sorry about that, but you seem to be getting along. Now. Okay. And my friends. Yeah. Yeah. He won't bring it up. Don't worry. So. And then lo and behold, 10 minutes later, the other friend. Male approached me privately and said the same thing. And he said he would also behave properly for the rest of the evening and I'd bring it up and no one did. And they acted like nothing happened. Earlier that afternoon. Now, this is a remarkable case of synchronicity for me, and I'm sure for them could imagine. And in fact. My wife went through the whole evening and did not know a thing. And it wasn't until I told her afterwards what had happened. So. That's an interesting thing. It just goes to show, be careful, you know, who you're getting. It almost fights with, now there's one pretty famous story of synchronicity. I previously told this back in episode 52, but let me share it again because it's so remarkable. The actor, Anthony Hopkins was hired to play a role in a movie based on a certain book. And needed a copy of the book. He was living in the outskirts of London at the time and took the train into the city to find and buy it. This is obviously before Amazon, once there, he could not find his book anywhere and decided to return home while waiting for the train. He saw a discarded book on a bench and glanced at it, and lo and behold, it was the book he was looking for. That alone would qualify as a major synchronistic event. But as usual, there's more, the story gets better. And glancing through the book. He knows there were handwritten notes in the margin describing some of the characters reaction. And he took it to the movie set when filming began, brought the copy of the said during the production, the director told Hopkins. He, he was missing his book that he had lended to a friend and the friend had lost it now. It doesn't have the book. It's hard to find. So he saw Hopkins had a copy. He said, I wonder if I could. Use your copy while we're doing the filming. I've considered, of course. And he handed it to the director. The director looked at it and to his astonishment, it was the very same book that director had lend to his friend that his friend had lost. And he knew it because it was his very notes in the margins. And that synchronicity. Now here's an important thing about this. Hagle famously said that absolutely. Everything is both immediate and mediated. This includes God and anything else. And my contention is that it is in the immediacy of the moment. That there is a mediation of mind in nature. And in this immediacy of the moment they come together as one. It is not a link. But a unity, one thing. And in this immediate moment, mind and matter are one it's like the present now. Moment. meaning is contained in the immediate moment, the melding of minded manner. And also what everything else is going on around us. And it, it's not just as our individual mind and the R. The material. World that's surrounding us. But through us, our minds are connected in the collective unconscious, and also our physical surroundings are also not isolated from the rest of the world. So each moment is a connection to the, all we experienced it individually, but it is connected to the whole. Now we discussed a similar concept regarding the present moment in episode 71 on Berkson or a perception of things brings a unity to mind in nature. And we need our memory within the mind to make a meaningful understanding of what we are perceiving in the moment. So in the immediate moment, mind meets matter. Through memory and through perception. Young with synchronicity takes a position endorsed by Plato, Hagle, and many others. That mind is just as fundamental as manner. And that there's a unity beneath them, both. And this is a very far cry from the naturalistic materialistic. Paradigm that's currently involved in the scientific community. So to summarize. Th this synchronicity is a startling different position than current traditional science. where it contends that. The only the laws of nature are operating. And that the mind can only observe and operate within those laws. And there's nowhere. I believe that this unity, the synchronicity, the unity of mind, and in matters made more clear than in the ancient Chinese texts. The chain. So I want to briefly get into this. I know we've talked about this before, but. So fascinating. Young felt that the teaching was a very important example of synchronicity. Even wrote the introduction to the premier version of the itching, which is the Wilhem Baines version. And interestingly 17th century mathematician and philosopher, Godfried lagged, knits. Was also taken by the chain and felt a, demonstrated his theory of pre-established harmony of the mind in a manner. The chain goes way back. It's also called the book of changes. It goes back to 1000 BC. He approximately. It was originally a fortune telling method, but it evolved over the centuries to become a major cosmological texts with philosophical commentaries. And here's how it works. First. someone should have a meaningful situation. They need help with it should just not be a quick question. Like, well, what should I wear today? I'll ask the aging now. It should be an important issue that one has explored different possible answers. Four has done much pondering and one feels that they could benefit from some outside help. It's almost like. Something you would go to seek. A therapist for now. With the question firmly in mind. When one's in the proper state of mind alone, clear headed and not rushed. The teaching reading is produced. This is accomplished by the throwing some 50 arrow sticks on the ground or the simple manner of throwing three coins on the ground. The arrow stick method, a series of steps are taken to produce six lines as they are called using the coins method. A much simpler approach. One would throw the three coins. A total of six times and record how they came up heads or tails each time. So there'll be a total of six lines. Now for each throw of three coins, you could have either three tails and no heads, two tails, and one head, one tail and two heads. Or no tails and three heads. So they're four different possibilities for each line. Once thrown a simple calculation then is done. Heads represent a value of two tales of value of three. You had the three together and you ended up with a total of either 6, 7, 8, or nine. If the total is six or eight and even number it's considered a divided line, a yin line. If the total is an odd number seven or nine. The line is considered a solid line or a yang line. And further. Each line can be moving. Uh, moving align or not. If the line total six, three heads or nine, three tails. It's considered a moving line. And I'll explain what this means in a second. And gang seven and eight are considered non-moving lines. Being a moving line means that it's in the process of changing into its opposite. So six will change into a nine and a nine will change into a six. But you don't get to that point of the change until you've done the initial hexagram rating. So the first row. Is the bottom line. The first. You know, three coin throw is the bottom line and you work your way up. The last throw, being the six line at the top. And if there are any moving lines within the six, you make note of it for, uh, a second reading, which will be done after you've analyzed the first. So with four possibilities for each line in six total lines, this results in four to the bar of six. Or 4,096 different possible readings. And each reading is a story in itself. There are pictorial images representing the situation as well as a detailed description of what is occurring. And advice is given on how to best handle the situation and special attention is given to the moving lines as the most pointed direction. Now after you've fully analyzed the situation, the first tech hexagram and figuring out what you needed to do based on the advice it gives you. You see if there are any moving lines when you create a second hexagram by changing the moving line into its opposite into a yang and vice versa. The second hack is a gram represents. The result of the action you plan to take as a result of the Hexagram so it's sort of a look into the future. Um, here's the situation. Here's what you're going to do. And if you do this, here's what you can expect. Now, what is intrigued people about the teaching is the wisdom that's contained in these writings. And it's quite an astounding, philosophical track in my view. Confucius. And studied it. Dow ism has strong roots in the itching. In fact, Confucius said to have said that if he had another 50 years to live, he would spend a day doing nothing other than studying the Ching. And as I said, it's not just an open Q and a process, which spits out a reading. It's a person should have a clear question in mind, meditate on it all and give it much thought before consulting the chain, then they will get a rich reading. And what happens is with this deep thinking about the question at the time that the coins are thrown, this connects the physical act with the question itself. It unites the. Mind with matter. And the actual. How the coins fall down is, uh, is the perfect. Moment of that meeting. And that's what's really going on here. Now it's important to have an open-mind. When consulting the etching in a negative mind or closed mind. Eh, thinking it's a joke. It's that? It w it won't work properly. And again, it doesn't give precise answers. It gives presents pictures and stories. And it puts you into the story and the situation presented to allow you to see what needs to be done. It does give some recommendations, but it's very, it's very rich in terms of the stories. And, uh, you can see how the advice will fit into your situation. And see the parallels. let me quote here young from the is forward to the Wilhelm Bain's translation of the Ching. Let me quote him. It's pretty interesting. Quote. While the Western mind carefully sifts ways selects, classifies, isolates. The Chinese picture of the moment encompasses everything down to the main newness nonsensical detail. Because all of the ingredients make up the observed moment. The ancient Chinese mind contemplates the cosmos in a way comparable to that of the modern physicist who cannot deny that his model of the world is a decidedly psychophysical structure. The micro physical event includes the observer. Just as much as the reality underlying the chain comprises subjective eye psychic conditions in the totality of the momentary situation and quote. And that describes it in a nutshell. So young is saying that every specific moment, not only is causal relations, but meaning relations as well. And he compares us to the findings of quantum physics. you know, in other words, in. The thinking that's going on in our mind at this specific moment, we throw the eating coins will result in the coins producing Xact right. Reading for that situation. Why? Because they occurred at the same moment, mind and matter, meet. They are part of the same psychophysical moment. And so it was the question. I've been consulting the Ching on and off my entire adult life. And I find it extremely helpful to me in. Particularly when I was sitting out in the world. After I graduated from college, I highly recommend it. And I can honestly say I've never had a bad or meaningless experience. With it. now. If Youngs. Pointing out with quantum physics. This is collapsing. Of the probability waving in quantum physics also has a correspondence here. w when mine meets matter, Also the non-local spooky action at a distance of. Atomic particles when measures, same thing. And so clearly the link is there. And synchronicity though shows that on the macro level, not just on the subatomic particle level. And again for more in quantum physics, please go back to episode 28, where we get into all this in detail. So. To summarize. Young believe that the mental and the material arises two complimentary aspects of one underlying psychophysical reality. This reality also lies beyond the bounds of empirical research in the material world. And just an interesting point. Finally, analytic philosopher, Bertrand Russell held a somewhat similar position. Believe it or not with this theory, which is now deemed Roselli in Mona's. and of course, this is a notion I've been harping on here in many episodes because it's central. To Hazel's project. So, what does this all mean for us? Well, I do believe that synchronistic events can serve as a guide to us. And it's important to take notice of them. It can be a heads up in certain situations. They can also point to new avenues of thinking. Uh, they can open one up to bigger patterns that might be playing out in a person's life. It can lead to personal growth and to better understanding of ourselves and our place in the world. Lastly, they can remind one, to keep an open mind about possibilities that might be out there. It and w which is why it's so important for our own self fulfillment and in achieving our goals in life. So. That is a wrap for this episode. I know we've covered a very interesting topic here. I look forward to your comments. Thanks so much for listening once again and again, I apologize for the extra time between this and the previous episode. It was the holidays. And I really wanted to wrap my mind around this, to get it right for this episode. So. I appreciate your patience. And, thank you for continuing to listen to the cunning of Geist. As always, please, I recommend that you like and follow the podcast Facebook page at cutting of Geist. I post there almost every day in between episodes. Listeners can comment and ask questions. When we get, get into good discussions there. Don't forget to tell your like-minded friends about the cunning of guys, and please share these episodes on your own social media accounts. So in closing, let me once again, end by saying I'm Gregory Nowak. This is the cunning of Geist. See you next time.