Emergent mess of probabilities there will always be uncanny

[Gwilim]

Are coincidences meaningful?

Part of me thinks I should know better, that in an emergent mess of probabilities there will always be uncanny coincidences.

But they still seem to me to be the best chance at finding meaning in this far end of the probabilty curve we call earthly life.

 

[Hurkyl]

No; otherwise, it wouldn't be a coincidence.

 

[wittgenstein]

Just a speculation. Cause and effect understood in the context of Einstein's space-time block universe is only a pattern.* Imagine a line that wanders back and forth. Point A in the drawing cannot be said to cause point B. Imagine that a line of cause and effect is seen from looking at space-time from another angle. What was labeled " cause and effect" can just as easily be labeled synchronicity. Cause and effect is just as weird and mysterious as synchronicity. There is only one mystery. Why is the universe ( Einstein's block space-time universe) full of patterns?


* The concept " cause and effect" erroneously implies that time moves. That the present moment moves towards the future.

 

[Sorry!]

Just a speculation. Cause and effect understood in the context of Einstein's space-time block universe is only a pattern.* Imagine a line that wanders back and forth. Point A in the drawing cannot be said to cause point B. Imagine that a line of cause and effect is seen from looking at space-time from another angle. What was labeled " cause and effect" can just as easily be labeled synchronicity. Cause and effect is just as weird and mysterious as synchronicity. There is only one mystery. Why is the universe ( Einstein's block space-time universe) full of patterns?


* The concept " cause and effect" erroneously implies that time moves. That the present moment is constantly changing

How can the present 'move'? No idea.

 

[Gwilim]

So cause and effect is simply a convenient assumption?

Makes you wonder, you know

 

[wittgenstein]

Exactly! Unfortunetly the idea that time moves is the " common sense " view.

 

[wittgenstein]

Hume can explain this better than I . See the last paragraph of this site. I will do better ( as regards to finding a better site)but I am off to work now.
http://academics.vmi.edu/psy_dr/Hume%20on%20induction%20and%20causation.htm

 

[wittgenstein]

In the final weeks of his life, Albert Einstein learned of the death of his old physicist friend Michele Besso from his Zurich student days six decades before. "He has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me," Einstein wrote to the Besso family. "That means nothing. For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubborn illusion."
FROM
http://www.nysun.com/arts/einstein-enigma/54106/

Shows the consequences of believing that time flows, our fear of death.

 

[wittgenstein]

It appears that, in single instances of the operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating the operations of mind on body- where we observe the motion of the latter to follow upon the volition of the former, but are not able to observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all nature, anyone instance of connexion which is conceivable by us. All events seem entirely loose and separate. One event follows another; but we never can observe any tie between them. They seemed conjoined, but never connected. And as we can have no idea of any thing which never appeared to our outward sense or inward sentiment, the necessary conclusion seems to be that we have no idea of connexion or force at all, and that these words are absolutely without meaning, when employed either in philosophical reasonings or common life. (David Hume, 1737)

 

[JoeDawg]

(David Hume, 1737)

Hume died long before the term 'synchronicity' was even coined. And Jung gave it a decidedly metaphysical meaning, with his collective unconscious. As a radical empiricist, I don't think Hume would support that. Hume was referring to causation from an epistemological point of view. He wasn't denying causation, or talking metaphysics.

 

[wittgenstein]

Yes, Hume never talked about synchronicity. I fail to see how that fact is related to what we are talking about. It would be like saying that the person that came up with the liar's paradox did not anticipate Godel's incompleteness theorem. So what? Yes, Godel used the liar paradox but the fact that its inventor did not anticipate Godel does not make Godel's reasoning invalid.
As for Hume, I purposely used the term "labeled". In other words "cause and effect" are simply the wrong label to apply. Hume would not deny connections ( and this is pure Hume) he would deny NECESSARY connections.

 

[wittgenstein]

Yes, I agree Hume was not talking metaphysics. That is the reason I used the word "labeled." In other words he was talking epistemology, the way we intellectually organize reality.

 

[wittgenstein]

How can a radical empiricist believe in necessary connections?

 

[wittgenstein]

By the way, I can tell that you are very intelligent and I am not insulting your intelligence. I must also make my point for other readers. So let me say this, I am not saying that Einstein used Hume to form his ideas, he may have I have no idea. But that is unrelated to what we are talking about.

 

[wittgenstein]

Perhaps this will make the idea clearer. "Cause and effect" are like mathematical points. Very useful assumptions but mathematical points do not exist. How can anything that has zero volume exist?

 

[WaveJumper]

Perhaps this will make the idea clearer. "Cause and effect" are like mathematical points. Very useful assumptions but mathematical points do not exist. How can anything that has zero volume exist?

Morpheus: "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."

 

[wittgenstein]

Just a speculation... Replace "matrix" with "context" and see what happens!

 

[JoeDawg]

Yes, Hume never talked about synchronicity.

Synchronicity presupposes an underlying metaphysical framework which is separate from observation.

Hume was an empiricist, he was objecting to current 'understanding' of causation. He would not have embraced Jung's collective unconscious.

Equivocating the value of synchronicity with causation is not something Hume would do.

 

[wittgenstein]

I am confused. Why do you believe that I said that Hume would embrace Jung's collective unconscious ?

 

[JoeDawg]

I believe I stated that already, synchronicity is a metaphysical framework separate from observation. As such, Hume would have no use for it.

 

[wittgenstein]

"a metaphysical framework separate from observation"
JoeDawg
And you call youself a radical empiricist?

 

[wittgenstein]

So you believe in necessary connection?

 

[JoeDawg]

So you believe in necessary connection?

I think Hume would find neuroscience fascinating and would probably revise some of what he said based on modern science. But in terms of causation, no I don't think there is a necessary connection between two events. But that's epistemology, not metaphysics. Synchronicity was a metaphysical concept, that relies on 'meaningful groupings', not observation.

It really has nothing to do with what Hume was saying.

 

[wittgenstein]

I apologize. It is my fault that I was misunderstood. My wife kept telling me, " we got to go! We got to go!"Anyway that is an explanation not an excuse. I should have just deleted my post because it makes no sense without further explanation.
My point that I failed to make was that there isn't any metaphysics in my posts. I have offered no explanations ,metaphysical or otherwise. I have only given observations, that space-time is patterned.


"But in terms of causation, no I don't think there is a necessary connection between two events."
JoeDawg

But cause and effect implies a necessary connection.

 

[wittgenstein]

"Synchronicity presupposes an underlying metaphysical framework which is separate from observation."

JoeDawg
I disagree. Synchronicity is the state or fact of being synchronous or simultaneous. The word describes the phenomenon not the explanation. In other words, the word describes an observation not an explanation. One doesn't have to accept Jung's explanation to use the word. It seems obvious to me that I have not been using "synchronicity" in the Jungian sense.

 

[JoeDawg]

But cause and effect implies a necessary connection.

Yes, which is why from Hume's perspective its problematic. This is not the same problem however that synchronicity has.

 

[JoeDawg]

It seems obvious to me that I have not been using "synchronicity" in the Jungian sense.

Then you have a lot of work ahead of you in redefining the word.

 

[wittgenstein]

I'm confused by your opinion on a minor point. Are you saying that the word "synchronicity" can only be used with reference to an explanation and never used as only a description of a phenomenon? I have taken no position as to whether synchronicity is coincidence or has a more detailed explanation.* I am only saying that it is a phenomenon, patterns exist in nature. Hume would say that there is no empirical evidence for "cause and effect." ** Einstein's space-time would seem to agree with this. I have not raised synchronicity, I have lowered " cause and effect". As I said, " there is only one mystery, why is Einstein's space-time patterned?" True, one can say that I have raised synchronicity by lowering " cause and effect", however there is a subtle difference. I have lowered " cause and effect" by denying necessary connections.
* I have not even taken a position as to whether the patterns are in our minds ( like the faces we see in the random designs in wallpaper) or are out there in nature. I have never raised the issue of the difference between epistemology and metaphysics. I am using metaphysics in its philosophical sense not in its new age weirdness sense.
** See post immediately below.

 

[wittgenstein]

Without the principle of necessary connections " cause and effect" becomes a mere noticeable regularity, a pattern.

 

[wittgenstein]

As my name suggests my view of natural law is Wittgensteinian. Laws describe they do not explain or compel. Laws of nature are not abstract ghosts that come down from some Platonic realm and cause things to happen.
Anyway, the idea that occurred to me and inspired my entry into this thread is the question, " What happens to our understanding of cause and effect when seen in the context of Einstein's space-time block universe?"

 

[wittgenstein]

I realize that I am getting off topic, but this thread reminds me of a quote from Stephen Hawking, “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?” Anyway, I would be glad to go wherever this train of thought leads. However, I will get back on topic. Perhaps, I will start a thread of my own! I'm new at this!

 

[AltScience]

Are coincidences meaningful?

Meaningful is the tricky word in this question.

From Wikipedia:
A non-linguistic meaning is an actual or possible derivation from sentence, which is not associated with signs that have any original or primary intent of communication.

One would have to judge the value of the "derivation" they obtain from the coincidence.

Synchronicity (FNORD) in my personal research is often a way to derive new avenues of speculation. I also tend to pay attention to trains of thought that seem to involve a high occurance of synchronicity.

Since the imagination plays an important role in relating ideas to one another an openess to the idea of Synchronicity may aid the reseacher but if not taken with a grain of salt it may derail the reseacher as well.

When, in my opinion, you become obsessed with a lucky object based on coincidences is a simple example of a valueless "derivation" associated with signs.