09 July 2023

On Synchronicity

"All the events in a man's life would accordingly stand in two fundamentally different kinds of connection: firstly, in the objective, causal connection of the natural process; secondly, in a subjective connection which exists only in relation to the individual who experiences it, and which is thus as subjective as his own dreams [...]" (Arthur Schopenhauer, "Parerga and Paralipomena", 1851)

“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. 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.” (Carl G Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle, 1952)

"Cellular automata are mathematical models for complex natural systems containing large numbers of simple identical components with local interactions. They consist of a lattice of sites, each with a finite set of possible values. The value of the sites evolve synchronously in discrete time steps according to identical rules. The value of a particular site is determined by the previous values of a neighbourhood of sites around it." (Stephen Wolfram, "Nonlinear Phenomena, Universality and complexity in cellular automata", Physica 10D, 1984)

"A depressing corollary of the butterfly effect (or so it was widely believed) was that two chaotic systems could never synchronize with each other. Even if you took great pains to start them the same way, there would always be some infinitesimal difference in their initial states. Normally that small discrepancy would remain small for a long time, but in a chaotic system, the error cascades and feeds on itself so swiftly that the systems diverge almost immediately, destroying the synchronization. Unfortunately, it seemed, two of the most vibrant branches of nonlinear science - chaos and sync - could never be married. They were fundamentally incompatible." (Steven Strogatz, "Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order", 2003)

"The best case that can be made for human sync to the environment (outside of circadian entrainment) has to do with the possibility that electrical rhythms in our brains can be influenced by external signals." (Steven Strogatz, "Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order", 2003)

"This synergistic character of nonlinear systems is precisely what makes them so difficult to analyze. They can't be taken apart. The whole system has to be examined all at once, as a coherent entity. As we've seen earlier, this necessity for global thinking is the greatest challenge in understanding how large systems of oscillators can spontaneously synchronize themselves. More generally, all problems about self-organization are fundamentally nonlinear. So the study of sync has always been entwined with the study of nonlinearity." (Steven Strogatz, "Sync: The Emerging Science of Spontaneous Order", 2003)

"There is no linear additive process that, if all the parts are taken together, can be understood to create the total system that occurs at the moment of self-organization; it is not a quantity that comes into being. It is not predictable in its shape or subsequent behavior or its subsequent qualities. There is a nonlinear quality that comes into being at the moment of synchronicity." (Stephen H Buhner, "Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth", 2014)

"The most amazing thing about social insect colonies is that there's no individual in charge. If you look at a single ant, you may have the impression that it is behaving, if not randomly, at least not in synchrony with the rest of the colony. You feel that it is doing its own things without paying too much attention to what the others are doing." (Eric Bonabeau)

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