None of us feel too good when the Five of Cups, Lord of Disappointment, turns up in our readings. It almost always means that somebody somewhere is going to make us feel let down or sad about something. And often when that happens we can end up giving ourselves a hard time, and hurting ourselves unnecessarily.
But there’s one important thing to consider when we get disappointed – we feel that way because an expectation we had is not fulfilled, whether by ourselves or by somebody else. So if you get this card coming up often, it’s worth taking a good look at your expectations. Are they unrealistic? Are they geared to the abilities and characteristics of the person you hold them of? Or do you expect too much – this is an attitude we tend to apply most viciously to ourselves. Are you expecting more than you have a right to? Are you expecting things that the person in question -yourself or somebody else – is simply not able to provide? If the answer to any of the above is yes, then if you change your expectation, you’ll stop being disappointed.
When this card comes up, it warns us that either we have failed to resolved an old difficulty, or that – realistic or not – our expectations are about to be disappointed. Often this will happen in an emotional situation (because this is a Cup card) but can happen elsewhere in our lives too, because disappointment itself is an emotion and therefore belongs to Cups. Aside from locating where the problem lies, there’s rarely much that can be done except preparing ourselves to accept the inevitable consequence of being alive – into each life a little rain must fall etc.etc.
One thing that is always worth bearing in mind with a card like this is that the feelings which arise when it occurs often scare us into failing to take another risk, failing to make another effort, hiding away where we can’t be disappointed again. But then if we give in to those sort of feelings we’re expecting to be disappointed again, aren’t we? So maybe we need to think about the Nine of Wands when we see the Five of Cups, reminding ourselves of that inner reserve of strength and capability we can all release inside us!
Reelblack One Dec 15, 2018 How close were they? What did they miss? Discusses the physical, social, and economic forces which have contributed to world civilization. From the Internet Archive.
Amplified – Music & Pop C Mar 26, 2022 ALIVE INSIDE is a joyous cinematic exploration of music’s capacity to reawaken our souls and uncover the deepest parts of our humanity. Filmmaker Michael Rossato-Bennett chronicles the astonishing experiences of individuals around the country who have been revitalized through the simple experience of listening to music. His camera reveals the uniquely human connection we find in music and how its healing power can triumph where prescription medication falls short. Content licensed from MVD. Any queries, please contact us at: owned-enquiries@littledotstudios.com Want to watch more pop culture documentaries? Click here: https://bit.ly/3bYuq2i
“How many people does it take to change the world? Probably about 25.”
–Julian Gresser
New Thinking Allo Jun 11, 2023 Julian Gresser, MA, JD, has been an adviser to many companies and governments and has had an international law practice in Tokyo, Japan. He is also a practitioner of Zen Buddhism and qigong. He is the author of Environmental Law in Japan (1971), Partners in Prosperity: Strategic Industries for the U.S. and Japan (1985) Piloting Through Chaos (1995), Explorer’s Mind (2013), and Laughing Heart: A Field Guide to Exuberant Vitality for All Ages (2017). His newest book is How the Leopard Changed Its Spots: Evolutionary Values for an Age in Crisis. He is currently chairman of Alliances for Discovery and Big Heart Technologies. His website is http://justclick.earth/ Here he points out that we have within ourselves a vast potential, capable of addressing the many challenges facing humanity. He recommends, above all, approaching the complexities of life with an open heart. 00:00 Introduction 08:37 Age of crisis 16:21 Power of love 43:07 Social action 53:52 AI disruption 59:36 Conclusion Edited subtitles for this video are available in Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German, French, and Spanish. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in “parapsychology” ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. (Recorded on May 31, 2023)
Prompt ChatGPT or Google Bard “hardest unresolved problems in science” and you will see consciousness listed in the top 5.
Bardlisted it at #3 as following:
“The nature of consciousness: What is consciousness? How does it arise? These are questions that have been debated by philosophers and scientists for centuries, and there is still no consensus.”
There is scientific consensus on the neural correlates of consciousness, but there isn’t one on how (or if) the brain causes consciousness.
Founder of quantum mechanics and Nobel Prize winner (Physics) Max Planck stated [1]:
“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
Other than being so fundamental to our experience, one reason it is tricky to pin down consciousness is because it intersects many fields, including physics, biology, neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, computer science and others.
This is a very complex topic, and it would be impossible to cover it with sufficient depth in a medium-sized article. In addition, I don’t claim to be an expert in this subject. This post is a humble attempt to touch on the high-level generalized perspectives on consciousness, and trigger curiosity in the readers mind (or consciousness).
What is Consciousness?
First let’s define consciousness for the context of this post. In his seminal paper, “What Is It Like to Be a Bat”, American philosopher Thomas Nagelstated [2]:
“…consciousness has essential to it a subjective character, a what it is like aspect. He writes, “an organism has conscious mental states if and only if there is something that it is like to be that organism — something it is like for the organism.”….”
Consciousness is an internal and subjective first-person experience that has a qualitative characteristic. According to Nagel, any attempt to reduce it to objective/physical/materialistic characteristics would be leaving out the very definition of consciousness.
What is hard about Consciousness?
The term, Hard Problem of Consciousness was coined by Philosopher David Chalmers. It captures the how and why parts of our subjective conscious experience. He distinguishes it from the easy problem of consciousness, which can explain the physical systems that enable humans/animals to process information. According to him [3]:
“…even if we have solved all easy problems about the brain and experience, the hard problem will still persist”
Quantum Mechanics & Consciousness
Ever since I took a course in Quantum Computing in graduate school, I have been intrigued by the relationship between properties of matter at the quantum level and consciousness, and its implications for the overall nature of reality. I do want to clarify the course was mostly math and didn’t dwell on the ontology of reality or philosophy. But it’s not hard to see the connection.
A notable interpretation (Neumann-Wigner interpretation) of the famous double-slit quantum experiment [4–5] confirms that a conscious observer or measurement that is later observed (by a conscious observer) collapses a superposition (possibilities) into a particular state of the sub-atomic particle. In other words, a particle is rendered by the act of observation.
I cannot overstate the implications of this for science at the sub-atomic level, as science relies on objective measurement. But if consciousness and/or the act of measurement [6] in quantum mechanics itself influences the outcome of the measurement, then we have a major challenge.
If you are interested in learning more about the relationship between quantum mechanics and consciousness, check out the following posts on quantum mechanics linked below.
Historian and author of the best-seller book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari says people (including scientists) often conflate intelligence with consciousness. Consciousness is the ability to suffer, be happy, experience color, taste chocolate, etc. Intelligence, on the other hand, is the ability to solve problems without the subjective element.
Harari and AI pioneer and Turing Award laureate Yann LeCun recently debated on the impact of AI [7]. Harari stated that humans possess consciousness and intelligence and use both to solve problems, whereas AI only has intelligence. On the contrary, LeCun has stated that sentience (consciousness) is an emergent property of computational devices [8], and it is a matter of time before AI systems develop consciousness [7]. Based on his book, 21 lessons for the 21st Century, Harari is skeptical but open to the idea of consciousness arising from information/matter, whereas LeCun is more certain.
If you are interested in learning more about problems solved by AI, checkout the post linked below.
The mind-body dualism is the attempt to solve the relationship between mind (consciousness) and matter (body/brain). It states that mind (subjective experience) and matter (objective properties) are distinct and separate from each other. Essentially, one cannot be reduced and explained in terms of the other. French philosopher and scientist René Descartes supported dualism and linked mind with consciousness and distinguished it from the brain [9].
Non-Dualism
Non-duality considers consciousness to be fundamental and objective attributes to be derived from consciousness. Traditions in the East have a history in non-duality [10]. It has some overlaps with concepts in Idealism [11] in the West.
American cognitive psychologist Donald Hoffman supports the consciousness before matter view [12]:
“Consciousness didn’t emerge from a prior physical process of evolution. Consciousness is fundamental and so we have to rethink the whole history of the universe actually from this point of view, from The Big Bang up through evolution.”
Summary
The jury is still out on how/if the brain (physical matter) generates consciousness. To summarize the theories across the wide spectrum of disciplines from physics to philosophy, there are three camps of explanations.
Table 1: Summary of Philosophical views on ConsciousnessFigure 1: Simplified generalization of the three views on objectivity/subjectivity scale
“The physical space in which the world appears is an image in the mind of the great stillness in which the world and the space that contains it really arise.“
–Rupert Spira
Rupert Spira (born March 13, 1960) is an English spiritual teacher, philosopher and author of the Direct Path based in Oxford, UK. Wikipedia
In the vast tapestry of human existence, We often have to deal with the grave question of life’s purpose. Throughout the ages, philosophers, theologians, and scientists have embarked on a relentless quest to decipher the intricate enigma that lies at the core of our existence.
Amidst this intellectual odyssey, the concepts and theories of Carl Jung emerge as a guiding light, illuminating a path toward understanding the intricate web of interconnectedness that shapes our reality. One such concept, which stands as a testament to the profundity of Jung’s insights, is that of synchronicity.
“We often dream about people from whom we receive a letter by the next post. I have ascertained on several occasions that at the moment when the dream occurred the letter was already lying in the post-office of the addressee.” ― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
Synchronicity, a term coined by Jung, challenges the conventional boundaries of causality and rationality that dominate our perception of the world. It represents a profound and meaningful connection between seemingly unrelated events, unveiling the hidden patterns that permeate our lives.
Through the lens of synchronicity, Jung beckons us to expand our limited understanding of reality, to venture into the realm of the mysterious and the numinous, and to glimpse the deeper dimensions of existence.
At its essence, synchronicity suggests that events can unfold in a manner that transcends linear cause-and-effect relationships. Instead, it proposes that meaningful coincidences, where outer events and inner states align in a striking manner, carry profound messages and symbolic significance.
This concept challenges the reductionist paradigm that seeks to reduce the complexity of existence to mere mechanical processes. In doing so, synchronicity offers us an alternative lens through which we can perceive the underlying unity and interconnectedness of all things.
By acknowledging the significance of synchronicity in our lives, we open ourselves to a world brimming with hidden wisdom and profound insights. It invites us to pay attention to the subtleties and patterns that unfold around us, urging us to delve deeper into the tapestry of our experiences.
“We put thirty spokes together and call it a wheel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the wheel depends. We turn clay to make a vessel; But it is on the space where there is nothing that the utility of the vessel depends. We pierce doors and windows to make a house; And it is on these spaces where there is nothing that the utility of the house depends. Therefore just as we take advantage of what is, we should recognize the utility of what is not.” ― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
Synchronicity nudges us to explore the interplay between our inner states of mind, emotions, and thoughts, and the outer events that shape our reality. It prompts us to question the boundaries of rationality and embrace the riddles that remain unsolved.
Moreover, understanding and embracing the concept of synchronicity can infuse our lives with a profound sense of meaning and purpose. In a world often dominated by materialistic pursuits and superficial achievements, the recognition of synchronistic occurrences provides a reminder that we are not isolated individuals navigating a random and chaotic universe.
Instead, it unveils a reality where every encounter, every experience, and every moment carries with it the potential for deeper understanding and personal growth.
“I do believe in an everyday sort of magic — the inexplicable connectedness we sometimes experience with places, people, works of art and the like; the eerie appropriateness of moments of synchronicity; the whispered voice, the hidden presence, when we think we’re alone.” ― Charles de Lint
Synchronicity grants us access to a realm where the mundane and the extraordinary converge, inviting us to embark on a journey of self-discovery and spiritual awakening. It encourages us to look beyond the surface-level explanations of events and seek the hidden connections that bind the fabric of our lives.
Through this exploration, we can uncover the threads of meaning that weave through our personal narratives, allowing us to navigate the challenges and uncertainties of life with a renewed sense of purpose and direction.
Have you ever experienced a seemingly random event that, upon reflection, held deep meaning and relevance to your life? The phenomenon of synchronicity crosses the intersection between science and spirituality., suggesting that our lives are intricately connected through meaningful patterns and coincidences.
In this blog post, we’ll delve into Carl Jung’s pioneering philosophy on synchronicity and explore how it can empower us to lead happier, more fulfilling lives.
Key Takeaways
Synchronicity, defined as a noncausal principle connecting individuals and their environment through meaningful patterns, was first introduced by Swiss psychologist Carl Jung.
Jung believed that synchronistic events often occur when they are most needed and serve as guiding lights on our life’s journey. He also saw synchronicity as a way for the universe to communicate with us, providing evidence of spiritual dimensions beyond physical reality.
By paying attention to coincidences that seem too perfect or uncanny, cultivating an open mind and attitude towards synchronistic events, and developing intuition and self-awareness, individuals can use the theory of synchronicity to create personal growth.
Ultimately, embracing the concept of synchronicity can lead to a happier and more fulfilled life by helping us find purpose and meaning in our experiences.
Carl Jung’s Philosophy On Synchronicity
Carl Jung’s philosophy on synchronicity involves defining it as a noncausal principle connecting individuals and their environment through meaningful patterns, which he supported with the hypothesis of an intersubjective or philosophically objective unity in diversity.
“Because the eye gazes but can catch no glimpse of it, It is called elusive. Because the ear listens but cannot hear it, It is called the rarefied. Because the hand feels for it but cannot find it, It is called the infinitesimal. … These are called the shapeless shapes, Forms without form, Vague semblances. Go towards them, and you can see no front; Go after them, and you see no rear.” ― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
To better understand synchronicity, consider this famous example from Jung’s own life: One day while discussing a difficult case with a patient who dreamt of receiving a golden scarab beetle as a gift from her deceased husband, there suddenly appeared at his window — out of nowhere — a real-life golden-green beetle akin to the one mentioned in her dream.
This fortuitous event helped unlock crucial insights into the patient’s unconsciousness and significantly aided her therapy process.
Connecting Synchronicity With Spirituality
Carl Jung believed that synchronicity not only had a psychological component but also a spiritual one. He saw synchronicity as a way for the universe to communicate with us, and through it, we could gain insights into the deeper meaning of our lives.
“This experience punctured the desired hole in her rationalism and broke the ice of her intellectual resistance.” ― C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
One example of the connection between spirituality and synchronicity is when individuals experience meaningful coincidences during times of personal crisis or transformation.
It seems that these moments provide comfort, insight, and inspiration. For instance, if someone lost their job unexpectedly and then happens to meet an old friend who offers them an exciting new job opportunity in another field — this synchronous event provides hope and encouragement amidst what may seem like chaos.
Carl Jung’s Contribution To The Synchronicity Theory
Carl Jung’s contribution to the synchronicity theory is significant. He laid out the idea of meaningful and noncausal patterns that connect individuals with their environment, leading to a sense of unity in diversity.
According to Jung, these patterns occur outside of cause-and-effect relationships and are therefore inexplicable by current scientific understanding.
“Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history.” ― Carl Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle
Jung believed that synchronicity was more than just coincidence; it held key insights into our lives and provided evidence of spiritual dimensions beyond physical reality.
He wrote extensively about synchronistic experiences in his own life as well as those reported by his patients, providing examples for his theoretical work on this topic.
With the help of Nobel laureate W. Pauli, he developed a hypothetical principle of synchronicity that bridged psychology, biology, physics, and philosophy through an intersubjective connection between individuals and their environment.
Examples Of Synchronicity
Examples of synchronicity include meaningful coincidences, unexplained patterns and encounters, and even some personal experiences that Carl Jung himself described as synchronistic.
Meaningful Coincidences In Life
One of the most fascinating aspects of synchronicity is the presence of meaningful coincidences in our lives. These are events that seem too improbable to be mere chance, yet they hold significant meaning for us.
For example, meeting someone who shares your name and interests on a random flight or running into an old friend while traveling abroad.
“I asked the universe for serendipity and you walked through my door.” ― Nikki Rowe
The concept of synchronicity suggests that everything in the universe is interconnected, and these occurrences serve as symbols or messages from a higher power guiding us toward our destiny.
For instance, finding a job opportunity at the exact moment when you were feeling uncertain about your future career path could be seen as a sign to pursue that opportunity.
Unexplained Patterns And Encounters
Synchronicity often manifests itself through unexplained patterns and encounters. These experiences can be considered coincidences, but they hold deeper meaning that goes beyond chance occurrences.
Examples of unexplained patterns include repeatedly encountering the same number or symbol in different places, or hearing a particular song playing at unexpected times and locations.
I would now like to propose that instead of “causality” we have “(relatively) constant connection through effect,” and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or “meaning.” ― Carl Jung
In one of Carl Jung’s famous synchronistic experiences, he received a gift from a student was an ancient Chinese oracle book known as the I Ching. As he opened the book randomly to try it out, he found answers that were surprisingly accurate to his life events and decisions at that time.
Carl Jung’s Own Synchronistic Experiences
Carl Jung had several synchronistic experiences in his life that led him to develop and believe in the concept of synchronicity. In one instance, he was treating a patient who was stuck in her therapy and unable to progress.
During their session, she spoke about a dream where someone gave her a golden scarab, which is rare in Switzerland. At that moment, there was a tapping on the window behind Jung’s back, and when he turned around, he saw a golden-green colored scarab beetle knocking against the glass.
“Modern physics, having advanced into another world beyond conceivability, cannot dispense with the concept of a space-time continuum. Insofar as psychology penetrates into the unconscious, it probably has no alternative but to acknowledge the “indistinctness” or the impossibility of distinguishing between time and space, as well as their psychic relativity. The world of classical physics has not ceased to exist, and by the same token, the world of consciousness has not lost its validity against the unconscious… “Causality” is a psychologem (and originally a magic virtus) that formulates the connection between events and illustrates them as cause and effect. Another (incommensurable) approach that does the same thing in a different way is synchronicity. Both are identical in the higher sense of the term “connection” or “attachment.” But on the empirical and practical level (i.e., in the real world), they are incommensurable and antithetical, like space and time. I would now like to propose that instead of “causality” we have “(relatively) constant connection through effect,” and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or “meaning.” ― Carl Jung
He caught it and handed it over to his patient with the explanation that this could be an important symbol for her.
Another example would be when Jung dreamed about finding a piece of jewelry made from gold with seven different pieces shaped like fish or loaves stacked up as if they were superimposed on each other shimmering like jewels. It wasn’t until years later during World War I after discovering accidentally such artifacts at Lake Constance (Germany) did bring illumination as these items reflected much symbolism such as Christian und Supernal Fishes (loaves).
These powerful moments showed how meaningful coincidences can guide us toward insight and growth through archetypal symbols we encounter throughout our lives.
Applying Synchronicity For Personal Growth
By developing intuition and self-awareness, cultivating an open mind and attitude, and finding meaning and purpose in life through synchronicity, individuals can use the theory of synchronicity to create personal growth.
Developing Intuition And Self-Awareness
One of the most significant benefits of embracing synchronicity is its potential for developing intuition and self-awareness. When you start to pay attention to the meaningful patterns in your life, you become more attuned to your inner voice and instincts.
I would now like to propose that instead of “causality” we have “(relatively) constant connection through effect,” and instead of synchronicity we have (relatively) constant connection through contingency, equivalence, or “meaning.” ― Carl Jung
By cultivating an open mind and attitude towards synchronistic events, you can learn to trust yourself more fully. Paying attention to coincidences that seem too perfect or uncanny can help guide decisions and give insights into what your soul truly desires.
Jung believed that individual growth occurs by being mindful at every moment in time without letting past events influence current activities; this involves paying close attention to coincidences as they occur and examining them for meaning instead of ignoring them as mere chance occurrences.
Cultivating An Open Mind And Attitude
In order to fully embrace the concept of synchronicity, it is important to cultivate an open mind and attitude. This means being receptive to new ideas and perspectives, approaching situations with curiosity rather than judgment, and acknowledging that there may be more at play in life than what can be seen on the surface.
“Do not cling to the shore, but set sail for exotic lands and places no longer found on maps. Walk on hallowed grounds. Blaze new trails. The term synchronicity was coined in the 1950s by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, to describe uncanny coincidences that seem to be meaningful. The Greek roots are syn-, “together,” and khronos, “time.” Synchronicity is the effector of Gnosis. Explore the Bogomils and the Cathars not just through books but, if at all possible, by visiting their lands, cemeteries and descendants. Finally, explore the most contemporary manifestations of Gnosticism: the writings of C.G. Jung, Jorge Luis Borges, Aleister Crowley, René Guénon, Hermann Hesse, Philip K. Dick, and Albert Camus. Gradually, you will begin to understand the various thought currents and systems existing in Gnosticism, and you will have begun to understand what does and does not appeal to you in Gnostic thought.” ― Laurence Galian, Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!
One example of cultivating an open mind and attitude is through practicing mindfulness meditation. By calming the mind and concentrating on the current moment without judgment or anticipation, individuals can become more attuned to the subtle signs of synchronicity in their lives.
Additionally, embracing diversity in all its forms — whether it be different cultural traditions or differing opinions — can help expand one’s perspective and foster greater unity between individuals.
Finding Meaning And Purpose In Life Through Synchronicity
Synchronicity can be a powerful tool in discovering meaning and purpose in life. When we begin to pay attention to the meaningful coincidences happening around us, we start to see patterns that lead us toward our goals and desires.
“New points of view are not, as a rule, discovered in territory that is already known, but in out-of-the way places that may even be avoided because of their bad name. Carl Jung, Synchronicity: An Acausual Connecting Principle” ― Marc MacYoung
Additionally, synchronicity helps us tune into our intuition and become more self-aware. As we cultivate an open mind and attitude towards these experiences, we become more receptive to the messages of the universe.
This heightened awareness allows us to make better decisions, overcome obstacles with greater ease, and ultimately achieve a sense of fulfillment in our lives.
By embracing synchronicity through Carl Jung’s philosophy, we can tap into a new level of consciousness that provides deeper meaning and understanding about ourselves and the world around us.
Practical Applications Of Synchronicity In Daily Life
Use synchronicity to make better decisions and choices, strengthen relationships, overcome obstacles, find opportunities, and align with the flow of life.
Making Better Decisions And Choices
By embracing synchronicity, we can make better decisions and choices in our lives. When we are open to the signs that the universe presents to us, we become more aware of opportunities that align with our desires and goals.
For example, imagine being presented with two job offers at the same time. One seems like a safe choice while the other is riskier but more aligned with your passions.
“Synchronicity could be understood as an ordering system by means of which “similar” things coincide, without there being any apparent cause.” ― Carl Jung
Additionally, when faced with tough decisions or obstacles in life, seeking guidance through synchronicity can provide answers and solutions beyond what our minds could conceive on their own.
Carl Jung himself experienced profound moments of synchronicity which helped him come up with his theories and ideas.
Strengthening Relationships
Synchronicity can also have a positive impact on our relationships. When we are open to the universe’s messages and allow synchronicities to guide us, we may find ourselves meeting new people or having chance encounters with those who hold significant meaning in our lives.
“Jung never tired of saying this. After the past is explored, additional inquiry into yesterday does not lead to further healing. A change of attitude into the present does, and this change of attitude is exactly the business of a synchronicity.” ― Gary Bobroff, Knowledge In A Nutshell Carl Jung
For example, you may randomly cross paths with someone who shares your interests and values, leading to a conversation that sparks a lifelong friendship or even romance. Or perhaps you keep seeing the same person at various events and gatherings before finally striking up a conversation that leads to an important business partnership.
Overcoming Obstacles And Finding Opportunities
Synchronicity offers a unique and powerful way to overcome obstacles and find opportunities in life. By paying attention to meaningful coincidences and patterns, we can gain insights into our challenges and discover new paths forward.
For example, if you’re struggling with a difficult decision, synchronistic events may point you toward the best choice or reveal unexpected solutions.
“That’s the kind of question that got Carl Jung thinking about synchronicity (universal resonance) which is a little bit like Sheldrake’s morphogenetic field and also, coincidentally, a little bit like the non-local effect in quantum mechanics.” ― Robert Anton Wilson, The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science
One of the keys to utilizing synchronicity for overcoming obstacles is cultivating an open mind and attitude. When we are receptive to the signs around us, we become more attuned to the subtle messages from the universe.
This requires developing intuition and self-awareness through practices like meditation, journaling, or mindfulness exercises.
Ultimately, embracing synchronicity as a tool for personal growth empowers us with greater clarity of purpose and deeper insight into ourselves.
“Where love rules, there is no will to power; and where power predominates, love is lacking. The one is the shadow of the other. — Carl Gustav Jung PART 1 RUSTLING WILLOWS Incredible coincidences without apparent cause are called synchronicities.” ― Dean Koontz, The Big Dark Sky
Final Thoughts
In conclusion, Carl Jung’s philosophy on synchronicity provides a unique perspective on the idea of meaningful coincidences and how they can be used to find purpose and meaning in life.
By embracing the concept of synchronicity, we can develop our intuition, cultivate an open mind, and make better decisions in daily life.
Examples from Jung’s own experiences show that synchronicity is not just a theoretical concept but something that can be applied practically. Whether you’re an aspiring psychologist or simply interested in exploring new ways of thinking about the world around us, Carl Jung’s work on synchronicity is definitely worth exploring further.
By transcending the confines of causality and rationality, synchronicity invites us to embrace the interconnectedness of all things and explore the hidden patterns that shape our reality.
Through this understanding, we can embark on a transformative journey of self-discovery and spiritual growth, enabling us to find purpose and meaning amidst the complexities of life.
So let us open our minds and hearts to the marvels of synchronicity, for it holds the key to unlocking the profound beauty and significance that lie at the heart of our existence.
Master the art of living from one of the world’s most revered spiritual leaders.
Thich Nhat Hanh, the world’s most renowned Zen master, turns his mindful attention to the most important subject of all – the art of living.
The bestselling author of The Miracle of Mindfulness presents, for the first time, seven transformative meditations that open up new perspectives on our lives, our relationships and our interconnectedness with the world around us. He reveals an art of living in mindfulness that helps us answer life’s deepest questions, experience the happiness and freedom we desire and face ageing and dying with curiosity and joy instead of fear.
Stimulating and inspiring, this book teaches us the importance of looking inside ourselves and developing compassion, before we can turn to our relationships at home and in the wider world. Full of remarkable stories from Thich Nhat Hanh’s own experiences and mindful practices for engaging with life, this will be a book that will help us generate happiness, understanding and love so we can live deeply in each moment of our life, right where we are.
New experiments show that the brain distinguishes between perceived and imagined mental images by checking whether they cross a “reality threshold.”
We rarely mistake the images running through our imaginations as perceptions of reality, although the same areas of the brain process both.Señor Salme for Quanta Magazine
Those aren’t just lyrics from the Queen song “Bohemian Rhapsody.” They’re also the questions that the brain must constantly answer while processing streams of visual signals from the eyes and purely mental pictures bubbling out of the imagination. Brain scan studies have repeatedly found that seeing something and imagining it evoke highly similar patterns of neural activity. Yet for most of us, the subjective experiences they produce are very different.
“I can look outside my window right now, and if I want to, I can imagine a unicorn walking down the street,” said Thomas Naselaris, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota. The street would seem real and the unicorn would not. “It’s very clear to me,” he said. The knowledge that unicorns are mythical barely plays into that: A simple imaginary white horse would seem just as unreal.
So “why are we not constantly hallucinating?” asked Nadine Dijkstra, a postdoctoral fellow at University College London. A study she led, recently published in Nature Communications, provides an intriguing answer: The brain evaluates the images it is processing against a “reality threshold.” If the signal passes the threshold, the brain thinks it’s real; if it doesn’t, the brain thinks it’s imagined.
They’ve done a great job, in my opinion, of taking an issue that philosophers have been debating about for centuries and defining models with predictable outcomes and testing them.
Thomas Naselaris, University of Minnesota
Such a system works well most of the time because imagined signals are typically weak. But if an imagined signal is strong enough to cross the threshold, the brain takes it for reality.
Although the brain is very competent at assessing the images in our minds, it appears that “this kind of reality checking is a serious struggle,” said Lars Muckli, a professor of visual and cognitive neurosciences at the University of Glasgow. The new findings raise questions about whether variations or alterations in this system could lead to hallucinations, invasive thoughts or even dreaming.
“They’ve done a great job, in my opinion, of taking an issue that philosophers have been debating about for centuries and defining models with predictable outcomes and testing them,” Naselaris said.
When Perceptions and Imagination Mix
Dijkstra’s study of imagined images was born in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, when quarantines and lockdowns interrupted her scheduled work. Bored, she started going through the scientific literature on imagination — and then spent hours combing papers for historical accounts of how scientists tested such an abstract concept. That’s how she came upon a 1910 study conducted by the psychologist Mary Cheves West Perky.
Perky asked participants to picture fruits while staring at a blank wall. As they did so, she secretly projected extremely faint images of those fruits — so faint as to be barely visible — on the wall and asked the participants if they saw anything. None of them thought they saw anything real, although they commented on how vivid their imagined image seemed. “If I hadn’t known I was imagining, I would have thought it real,” one participant said.
A 1910 study by the psychologist Mary Cheves West Perky found that when our perceptions match what we are imagining, we assume that their inputs are imaginary.Source: https://doi.org/10.2307/1413350
Perky’s conclusion was that when our perception of something matches what we know we are imagining, we will assume it is imaginary. It eventually came to be known in psychology as the Perky effect. “It’s a huge classic,” said Bence Nanay, a professor of philosophical psychology at the University of Antwerp. It became kind of a “compulsory thing when you write about imagery to say your two cents about the Perky experiment.”
In the 1970s, the psychology researcher Sydney Joelson Segal revived interest in Perky’s work by updating and modifying the experiment. In one follow-up study, Segal asked participants to imagine something, such as the New York City skyline, while he projected something else faintly onto the wall — such as a tomato. What the participants saw was a mix of the imagined image and the real one, such as the New York City skyline at sunset. Segal’s findings suggested that perception and imagination can sometimes “quite literally mix,” Nanay said.
Not all studies that aimed to replicate Perky’s findings succeeded. Some of them involved repeated trials for the participants, which muddied the results: Once people know what you’re trying to test, they tend to change their answers to what they think is correct, Naselaris said.
So Dijkstra, under the direction of Steve Fleming, a metacognition expert at University College London, set up a modern version of the experiment that avoided the problem. In their study, participants never had a chance to edit their answers because they were tested only once. The work modeled and examined the Perky effect and two other competing hypotheses for how the brain tells reality and imagination apart.
Evaluation Networks
One of those alternative hypotheses says that the brain uses the same networks for reality and imagination, but that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans don’t have high enough resolution for neuroscientists to discern the differences in how the networks are used. One of Muckli’s studies, for example, suggests that in the brain’s visual cortex, which processes images, imaginary experiences are coded in a more superficial layer than real experiences are.
Nadine Dijkstra, a postdoctoral researcher at University College London, led the new study that probed how brains distinguish between what is really perceived and what is imagined.Courtesy of Nadine Dijkstra
With functional brain imaging, “we’re squinting our eyes,” Muckli said. Within each equivalent of a pixel in a brain scan, there are about 1,000 neurons, and we can’t see what each one is doing.
The other hypothesis, suggested by studies led by Joel Pearson at the University of New South Wales, is that the same pathways in the brain code for both imagination and perception, but imagination is just a weaker form of perception.
During the pandemic lockdown, Dijkstra and Fleming recruited for an online study. Four hundred participants were told to look at a series of static-filled images and imagine diagonal lines tilting through them to the right or left. Between each trial, they were asked to rate how vivid the imagery was on a scale of 1 to 5. What the participants did not know was that in the last trial, the researchers slowly raised the intensity of a faint projected image of diagonal lines — tilted either in the direction the participants were told to imagine or in the opposite direction. The researchers then asked the participants if what they saw was real or imagined.
Vivid imagery is more like perception, but whether faint perception is more like imagery is less clear.
Nadine Dijkstra, University College London
Dijkstra expected that she would find the Perky effect — that when the imagined image matched the projected one, the participants would see the projection as the product of their imagination. Instead, the participants were much more likely to think the image was really there.
Yet there was at least an echo of the Perky effect in those results: Participants who thought the image was there saw it more vividly than the participants who thought it was all their imagination.
In a second experiment, Dijkstra and her team didn’t present an image during the last trial. But the result was the same: The people who rated what they were seeing as more vivid were also more likely to rate it as real.
The observations suggest that imagery in our mind’s eye and real perceived images in the world do get mixed together, Dijkstra said. “When this mixed signal is strong or vivid enough, we think it reflects reality.” It’s likely that there’s some threshold above which visual signals feel real to the brain and below which they feel imagined, she thinks. But there could also be a more gradual continuum.
To learn what’s happening within a brain trying to distinguish reality from imagination, the researchers reanalyzed brain scans from a previous study in which 35 participants vividly imagined and perceived various images, from watering cans to roosters.
In keeping with other studies, they found that the activity patterns in the visual cortex in the two scenarios were very similar. “Vivid imagery is more like perception, but whether faint perception is more like imagery is less clear,” Dijkstra said. There were hints that looking at a faint image could produce a pattern similar to that of imagination, but the differences weren’t significant and need to be examined further.
Scans of brain function show that imagined and perceived images trigger similar patterns of activity, but the signals are weaker for the imagined ones (at left).Courtesy of Nadine Dijkstra
Introduction
What is clear is that the brain must be able to accurately regulate how strong a mental image is to avoid confusion between fantasy and reality. “The brain has this really careful balancing act that it has to perform,” Naselaris said. “In some sense it is going to interpret mental imagery as literally as it does visual imagery.”
They found that the strength of the signal might be read or regulated in the frontal cortex, which analyzes emotions and memories (among its other duties). But it’s not yet clear what determines the vividness of a mental image or the difference between the strength of the imagery signal and the reality threshold. It could be a neurotransmitter, changes to neuronal connections or something totally different, Naselaris said.
It could even be a different, unidentified subset of neurons that sets the reality threshold and dictates whether a signal should be diverted into a pathway for imagined images or a pathway for genuinely perceived ones — a finding that would tie the first and third hypotheses together neatly, Muckli said.
Even though the findings are different from his own results, which support the first hypothesis, Muckli likes their line of reasoning. It’s an “exciting paper,” he said. It’s an “intriguing conclusion.”
But imagination is a process that involves much more than just looking at a few lines on a noisy background, said Peter Tse, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Dartmouth College. Imagination, he said, is the capacity to look at what’s in your cupboard and decide what to make for dinner, or (if you’re the Wright brothers) to take a propeller, stick it on a wing and imagine it flying.
The differences between Perky’s findings and Dijkstra’s could be entirely due to differences in their procedures. But they also hint at another possibility: that we could be perceiving the world differently than our ancestors did.
Her study didn’t focus on belief in an image’s reality but was more about the “feeling” of reality, Dijkstra said. The authors speculate that because projected images, video and other representations of reality are commonplace in the 21st century, our brains may have learned to evaluate reality slightly differently than people did just a century ago.
Even though participants in this experiment “were not expecting to see something, it’s still more expected than if you’re in 1910 and you’ve never seen a projector in your life,” Dijkstra said. The reality threshold today is therefore likely much lower than in the past, so it may take an imagined image that’s much more vivid to pass the threshold and confuse the brain.
A Basis for Hallucinations
The findings open up questions about whether the mechanism could be relevant to a wide range of conditions in which the distinction between imagination and perception dissolves. Dijkstra speculates, for example, that when people start to drift off to sleep and reality begins blending with the dream world, their reality threshold might be dipping. In conditions like schizophrenia, where there is a “general breakdown of reality,” there could be a calibration issue, Dijkstra said.
“In psychosis, it could be either that their imagery is so good that it just hits that threshold, or it could be that their threshold is off,” said Karolina Lempert, an assistant professor of psychology at Adelphi University who was not involved in the study. Some studies have found that in people who hallucinate, there’s a sort of sensory hyperactivity, which suggests that the image signal is increased. But more research is needed to establish the mechanism by which hallucinations emerge, she added. “After all, most people who experience vivid imagery do not hallucinate.”
Nanay thinks it would be interesting to study the reality thresholds of people who have hyperphantasia, an extremely vivid imagination that they often confuse with reality. Similarly, there are situations in which people suffer from very strong imagined experiences that they know are not real, as when hallucinating on drugs or in lucid dreams. In conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, people often “start seeing things that they didn’t want to,” and it feels more real than it should, Dijkstra said.
Some of these problems may involve failures in brain mechanisms that normally help make these distinctions. Dijkstra thinks it might be fruitful to look at the reality thresholds of people who have aphantasia, the inability to consciously imagine mental images.
The mechanisms by which the brain distinguishes what’s real from what’s imaginary could also be related to how it distinguishes between real and fake (inauthentic) images. In a world where simulations are getting closer to reality, distinguishing between real and fake images is going to get increasingly challenging, Lempert said. “I think that maybe it’s a more important question than ever.”
Dijkstra and her team are now working to adapt their experiment to work in a brain scanner. “Now that lockdown is over, I want to look at brains again,” she said.
She eventually hopes to figure out if they can manipulate this system to make imagination feel more real. For example, virtual reality and neural implants are now being investigated for medical treatments, such as to help blind people see again. The ability to make experiences feel more or less real, she said, could be really important for such applications.
It’s not outlandish, given that reality is a construct of the brain.
“Underneath our skull, everything is made up,” Muckli said. “We entirely construct the world, in its richness and detail and color and sound and content and excitement. … It is created by our neurons.”
That means one person’s reality is going to be different from another person’s, Dijkstra said: “The line between imagination and reality is just not so solid.”
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