Discussion Forum (2)

Synchronicities

A popular notion in New Age and other circles is that of synchronicities or meaningful coincidences. We have probably have all had the occasion at some point in our lives of having an experience that was very meaningful to us but defied normal probabilites of occurring. We therefore conclude that these experiences were meant to happen in some deterministic sense and that they are part of the meaningful unfolding of our lives. But isn't there an alternative and more plausible explanation for our seemingly synchronistic experiences. Quite often these experiences occur when we are in a heightened state of awareness when everything that occurs to us seems full of meaning. When a low probability event happens as they sometimes do (after all, occasionally when we roll dice we do come up with snake eyes) at a time when our awareness is heightened, we attribute some external source of meaning to these events. However, it is we who attach meaning to these events rather than them being meaningful in themselves.