In essence, there are “two different psychic states” to borrow from Carl Jung, which function and occur both simultaneously and synchronistically, one of which appears “normal” and “probable” with an explainable cause, whereas the other is “critical” and “subjective” and “cannot be derived causally from the first.” Thus, there is always something “unexpected” or subjective which is directly connected with “ordinary” and “objective” external events and an “ordinary” psychic state. The question, then, of what is “normal” and what is “subjective” will be a question which no one can ever give a comprehensive or valid answer for.
Moreover, the conventional assumption or belief is that consciousness and thus the content from the unconscious which seeps into consciousness is separate from space and time. But as certain intellectuals and scientists have contended, consciousness cannot be separate from space and time because time is not real. As J.M.E. McTaggart wrote:
“It seems highly paradoxical to assert that time is unreal, and that all statements which involve its reality are erroneous. Such an assertion involves a departure from the natural position of mankind which is far greater than that involved in the assertion of the unreality of space or the unreality of matter. For in each man’s experience there is a part – his own states as known to him by introspection – which does not even appear to be spatial or material. But we have no experience which does not appear to be temporal. Even our judgments that time is unreal appear to be themselves in time.”
McTaggart concluded: “I believe that nothing that exists can be temporal, and that therefore time is unreal.” For one instance to be present at one point and yet past and future at another point means that time is an illusion. In short, there is an unreality of space, matter, and time which is “singularly persistent” in the thought systems of the past but is now being corroborated by modern science. And when we are reckoning with an unreality of space, matter, and time, then the causal principle of mechanistic and surface explanations and theories of modern science have to be seen in a different light.
Carl Jung argued that all occurrences and phenomena can fall under one of the three following categories:
- The coincidence of a psychic state in the observer with a simultaneous, objective, external event that corresponds to the psychic state or content…where there is no evidence of a causal connection between the psychic state and the external event, and where, considering the psychic relativity of space and time, such a connection is not even conceivable
- The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding (more or less simultaneous) external event taking place outside the observer’s field of perception, i.e., at a distance and only verifiable afterward
- The coincidence of a psychic state with a corresponding, not yet existent future event that is distant in time and can likewise only be verified afterward
In short, the line between what is normal and probable and what is psychical and subjective is essentially blurred. As Jung wrote: “Synchronistic phenomena prove the simultaneous occurrence of meaningful equivalences in heterogeneous, causally unrelated processes; in other words, they prove that a content perceived by an observer can, at the same time, be represented by an outside event, without any causal connection.” Jung added: “From this it follows either that the psyche cannot be localized in space, or that space is relative to the psyche. The same applies to the temporal determination of the psyche and the psychic relativity of time. I do not need to emphasize that the verification of these findings must have far-reaching consequences.”
The key, one must point out, is the notion of interdependence between the human psyche and the external world, which in turn rules out mechanistic and linear explanations for worldly phenomena. As Paul Levy wrote: “In a synchronicity, there is a peculiar interdependence of external events with the subjective, psychological state of the observer. Synchronistic experiences reflect back the fact that the human mind does not exist in isolation from the world, nor is it just aware of the world, but is somehow linked to the world in ways few of us are aware of.”
Levy added: “In synchronistic phenomena, mind and matter reciprocally inform and reflect each other, as if inseparably interconnected at their core. The mental and physical dimensions are two interconnected aspects, like the form and content of something, only separable in thought, not in reality. The factor that connects the inner and outer realities is ‘meaning.’”
In short, we can explain everything if we can decipher the meaning behind everything. As Paul Halpern wrote: “Science functions by looking for actual, meaningful, reproducible connections – not just coincidences. To correctly anticipate the future, we develop models that distinguish genuine relationships from spurious correlations.” And in the bigger scheme of things, science is just one out of a number of tools or instruments at our disposal in order to decipher the meaning and thus the explanation behind everything.
Adam A. Azim 