The Secret Science of Synchronicity Paper By Thomas McGrath Abstract Several metaphysical/philosophical concepts are developed as tools by which we may further understand the essence, structure, and events/symbols of "Complex" Synchronicity, and how these differ from "Chain of Events" Synchronicity. The first tool is the concept of Astronomical vs Cultural time. This tool is to be the basis of distinguishing Simple from Complex Synchronicity as Complex Synchronicities are chunks of time that have several coincidences in common with each other. We will also look at the nature of the perspective of the time being quantized. The next tool is a particular case study of two movies, The Matrix and Black Swan, that may be viewed as an example of a Complex Synchronicity in the collective conscious of popular culture (as opposed to Simple Synchronicity or a single coincidence). And the final tool is the concept of "Chain of Events" synchronicity as a separate concept from Simple or Complex synchronicities. This 3rd tool is developed using a mathematical metaphor of foreshadowing (an element of storytelling) in the seemingly random pattern of prime numbers. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish and develop these concepts and to lay a foundation for the further study of the concept of Synchronicity first illuminated by Carl Jung as an acausal connecting principle between coincidences. Part I (Complex Synchronicities) Introduction In his book "The Philosopher's Stone: Chaos, Synchronicity, and the Hidden Order of the World", author F. David Peat says the following of the development of perspective during the Renaissance... "In a sense, perspective makes a painting more "realistic." But it also imposes two new things: It makes space the dominant theme in a painting, and it distorts the forms and structures of objects in order to fit them into this dominant vision. For Perspective is indeed a distortion, it is a falsehood, a denial of the essential indwelling of each object in favor of a single-minded, obsessive vision... Because a single, unique vision of space has triumphed, there can be no sacred, no personal, no indwelling space of things; there is simply a mathematical gloss placed over all objects in more technical terms, the laws of projective geometry. A vase, a landscape, a human face, must all be stretched and compressed, distorted to fit the demands of perspective... The development of perspective allowed artists to unify a painting not through its symbolic elements, or use of shape and color, but through space itself, by presenting the scene from a single viewpoint... and so by focusing on spatial relationships and measurements and forcing nature to conform to an abstract plan, one begins to lose contact with the more subtle cues and promptings of the natural world." This was the first time I had heard something universally thought to be a positive development, perspective, characterized in a negative way. Not that perspective is in itself a negative development, but more that we as a society have given it an aura of perfection at the expense of other ways of representing nature. We have over-relied on one tool and it is apparent in the over-reliance of society on Cartesian/Newtonian science at the expense of spirituality, philosophy, and other such tools for understanding our situation and what to do next. But art is always pushing the boundaries of experience, and more recently than the Renaissance we have developed impressionism, expressionism, cubism, abstract art, and other forms of two dimensional representation. Also, more recently, we have developed a way to add another dimension onto a two dimensional surface. The dimension of time. Motion pictures have come to dominate culture since their introduction in the early 20th century, and much of what has been said of perspective can be said of the narrative structure of movies. So, if this newer technology distorts time to fit a narrative format, it would seem pertinent to further examine both time and it's distortion to better understand our reality and the narratives of our lives. Maybe insights can be gained from observing how we use a newer technology similar to those insights about perspective and how we collectively were influenced by its development. Maybe the invention of film marks a turning point, not backwards or forwards, but in a different direction all together from the fixed path our collective conscience went down with the introduction of perspective. The tool we overuse in this case is "narrative format" and it has been around as long as people have been telling stories. In fact, two dimensional art may be seen, in retrospect, as a flattening of the narrative format. Film brings this narrative format to new heights of immersive experience that almost certainly have lasting psychological effects on its audience. Especially more modern film with its quick pacing and shaky hand cam footage pulling you further into the story. Central to this narrative format is the concept of a protagonist or hero whom the story centers around. The perspective of the film is from the perspective of the protagonist. The time of the film is distorted so that we may experience a character arc in two hours from the perspective of one or several protagonists and possibly also the antagonist. This is not to say that this format is not true to life, but rather that it is a distortion of space and time using one tool (narrative format) at the expense of others. In the following paper, we will examine in depth a positive use of this tool in allowing us to more easily study complex synchronicity, while also remaining aware that some of the questions we are investigating arise due to the incomplete nature of this representation of reality. Synchronicities could be the effects of applying retrospective narrative storytelling to the forward progression of life and noticing the symbolism and common themes manifest in real time. The Metaphysical Quantization of Time Time can be quantized both Astronomically and Culturally. Most of us naturally quantize time by day, week, month, and year. The day is simply when the sun comes up to when the sun goes down again. We go to sleep every night. It's hard to avoid noticing this. The week, for many, starts over after the events of the weekend mark a difference such that there is a cyclic effect. Months are noted every time we write down the date and have to change the number of the month. Bills are usually paid monthly. And years are celebrated with birthdays and holidays and by reference to the seasons. This Astronomical quantization of time is something we are so used to as it is both physically evident in daily lives as well as structurally and ceremonially ingrained as we become part of society. It is our sense of time that we live by. There are other ways to quantize time culturally. We can look at events such as storms, political terms of presidents or roman emperors, economic cycles of boom and bust, relationships, vacations, terms of service in the military, even reading a paper such as this from start to finish or watching a movie. Some of these are overtly used to quantize time in history books while some are intuitively used to quantize time in personal history. When we watch a movie we are seemingly transported to a different time as we lose track of Astronomical time. Both Astronomical and Cultural quantization of time are important concepts in understanding the metaphysical structure of reality, and the phenomenon of synchronicity can be one tool with which to examine extraordinary singularities within this structure. A synchronicity can be what occurs when elements of narrative format and the Cultural quantization of time and space (by which we remember events) are evident in the Astronomical quantization of time and space that is our dominant mode of living. This produces a cognitive dissonance that is all too often explained away as coincidence. Perhaps what is needed is a careful examination of a complex synchronicity to illuminate the extraordinary nature of these phenomena. A Case Study in Complex Synchronicity: The Matrix and Black Swan To better understand a complex synchronicity and how its essence, structure, and events/symbols correspond to cultural quantization of time, an example of the relationship between the movies The Matrix and Black Swan shall be examined in detail. It is assumed that the reader has seen both movies. Each movie is a quantized unit of time and the similarities between them are a good case study in complex synchronicity. First, we shall look at the elements of each movie that are pervasive and understood in this paper as parts of the "essence" of the movie. For example, the protagonists of each movie have similar sounding names Neo and Nina. Both names mean "new" or "young" which is symbolic of the position of each protagonist with respect to their future growth and development. Then we will look at the similarities in the "structure" of the narrative of each movie, for example both protagonists are introduced "waking up" which is symbolic of their soon to be experience of internal awakening. We also see each protagonist waking up literally several times throughout each respective movie to draw attention to this theme. Finally, we shall look at events and symbols which are similar in each narrative but do not happen in the same sequential order for each protagonist. If the earlier structural similarity can be seen as of the first degree, these may be seen as second degree structural synchronicities between the two movies, or "events/symbols". An example would be how each protagonist goes to a nightclub after being told they need to loosen up, when really they are actually still trying to pursue their drive by going to the nightclub. This results in each respective protagonist being late for work the next day. This may be compared to what we might usually notice as a synchronicity. All of this together, however, introduces us to the concept of a complex synchronicity with three levels: Essence, Structure, and (unstructured) Events/Symbols. In looking at the essence of each movie, the similarity in names for the protagonist has already been mentioned. Another similarity is the idea that there is a fictitious world and a real world. In The Matrix, the fictitious world is a computer program and the real world is when Neo has been unplugged. In Black Swan, the fictitious world is the stage upon which a story is being told through dance. Both protagonists are chosen to be leaders by a mentor figure and they and their team wear special clothing to note their entrance into the fictitious world. Both wear loose fitting toned down clothing in the real world. Both protagonists are scene training for their respective fictitious worlds. In fact, the amount of choreography that goes into dance as well as martial arts is another similarity. Both protagonists are seen as exceptionally skilled in their respective art forms with something internal holding each of them back. Both movies are also concerned with their protagonists starting to get older as people aren't usually unplugged from the matrix after a certain age and ballerinas typically don't dance after their physical prime. While the essence of the movies may seem pretty standard, and as if a lot of movies could fit the mold, there are some extraordinary first and second degree structural differences/events. As mentioned earlier we are introduced to each protagonist when they are waking up. Throughout the movie they literally wake up several times. Both characters steal near the beginning of the story, which adds depth to each character through an act of breaking the normal rules. Also, Both Neo and Nina experience a fall during an audition type scene early on that leaves doubt in our minds that they may live up to greatness. Then at the end there is another fall for each protagonist. In fact both protagonists die in the end. Both protagonists are subject to betrayal by a hedonistic member of their team about halfway through each movie. To build the character of the betrayer, each is seen eating what is described as amazing food. Both protagonists have trouble getting through a door near the end. Both protagonists also end up achieving their respective greatness in the end. The structure of the character arc for each protagonist is in all of these ways essentially the same. The second degree structural differences aka "Events/Symbols" further illuminate the complexity of the synchronicity of these two movies. As mentioned above both protagonists go to a nightclub and are late for work the next day, however these are at different points in the structure of each story. Also, broken mirrors are used as a symbols of transition but at different points in the stories. Phones add an element of pressure in each story. Both characters have their bodies transform, Nina into a swan while Neo has his mouth disappear. Both characters receive a form of acupuncture/chiropractic type treatment at different points in their journey. They each face a challenge in an abandoned train station with one other person in it. Both characters fly in their fictitious worlds. Both protagonists are gossiped about behind their backs. Nina has the scratches on her back and Neo has plugs on his back where he used to be plugged into the matrix. Both protagonists take pills, Neo takes the blue pill and Nina takes ecstasy. Both protagonists also appear in a tub of water at some point. Conclusion Essence, Structure, and Events/Symbols are all integral to this complex synchronicity. What separates this from an ordinary synchronicity is that it is more easily examined due to its conceptual (Cultural) quantization of time. A movie is a complete concept that quantizes time efficiently through a narrative format. Cultural quantization of time in the real world using the narrative format can help us to understand the fabric of our reality with greater clarity and discover new principles as to how it is organized. We already do this to some extent intuitively when we tell stories, however, while we have observed synchronicitous events and symbols, we have yet to study the structure and essence of Cultural quantization of time in a greater sense with the newer analytical tools at our disposal. What we tend to study is in relation to astronomical quantization of time. Medical studies, for example, are conducted for two or three months from a single given time rather than from the beginning of a life changing event for each of the participants. Also, what we tend to notice from the standpoint of astronomical quantization of time are simple synchronicities or chains of events that are related. Complex synchronicities in art and life can point to essence, structure, and events/symbols to show how the unseen universe affects what we experience as well as how events in the fourth dimension of space and time may be related through a higher or parallel dimension such that they appear acausal. Study of these complex synchronicities can then be used to further understand Simple Synchronicity and Chain of Events Synchronicity as we develop other tools to study and relate our reality to each other. Part II (Chain of Events Synchronicities) Introduction See how these carbon based life forms formed in the sea, Randomly in the cosmos we grew from a seed, Seize the idea concede, In a continuation of character creed, To codefine all of creation, Or is this a chaotically clustered constellation? Cautiously celebrated "cross" contamination? Or collision carrying single cells in caved in comet craters, To come to this climate and cast out in chorus cry to cause or to cater to Collectively conscious civilization. To court us like a corpus colossus in caliber with the continuum At the core of all that corrects, Cooperates and collects, Is this checkers or chess? In this case I must confess, I cannot corroborate of course the course to the coast with the cast... This short poem demonstrates the playfulness of the chain of synchronicity like pattern of C words, though it can be frightening in real life when one first notices the patterns. It certainly was for me. I was not aware of the concept of "synchronicity" by Carl Jung as an acausal connecting principle. I began noticing patterns in my surroundings and thought I was living in The Matrix or The Truman Show or something like that. For me, having a label such as "synchronicity" to place on these patterns, and the understanding that they happened to other people too, took some of the fear of the unknown away. But, as I began to do more research into synchronicity as a concept, I found that the acknowledgement of these patterns, coincidences and chains of events, was all I could really find. A post online said that they were perhaps the "footprints of a higher dimension." That was the extent of the information I found about what causes these patterns. I began to wonder if maybe this was not unlike the retrograde motion of Mars that puzzled astronomers so, and that Johannes Kepler investigated with his massive data sets to ultimately figure out that the planets moved in elliptical orbits due to universal gravitation. Is this that type of situation? To better understand Chain of Events Synchronicity in an ever changing real world, perhaps it would be helpful to have a metaphor. In this case, the prime numbers (the holy grail of pattern detection) will be examined to better understand how the aspects of the narrative structure may fit onto a seemingly random situation. Could the prime numbers tell us anything about the nature of reality? Philosophy of Number: The Shadows of Prime Numbers (A Mathematical Metaphor) Prime numbers are the elemental building blocks that determine the composite numbers, and they famously divide the number line into random increments in a fashion that has baffled mathematicians for centuries. There is an interesting related phenomenon, however, that we can understand. You can categorize sets of multiple primes within the boundaries of two smaller consecutive primes squared, thereby projecting these smaller primes onto larger segments of numbers farther down the number line in a meaningful way. I am calling this effect a shadow. Take all of the primes between 25 and 49 as an example. 29, 31, 37, 41, 43, and 47. Their pattern may not be known, but these are the gaps in the unique shadow produced by projecting 5 squared and 7 squared in which all of the composite numbers in between are uniquely generated from all of the preceding primes up to and including the smaller of the two primes we are squaring to produce the entire space of the shadow. In the case of the shadow between 25 and 49, every composite number can be produced by the formulas 2x, 3x, and 5x with x being all positive integers extending out to infinity. The second we reach 49, we need to use a higher layer of composite numbers to begin producing some of the composites which appear. So, we add a 7x to our list of composite numbers by smallest factor, but we never need to do this until we reach the square of the next prime number at which point the previous shadow changes to a unique new shadow. We can generate all of the composite numbers from 49 up to 121 with the formula layers so far introduced including 7x, but when we get to 121 (11 squared) we need to begin including 11x in our smallest prime factors list to cover all of the composite numbers in the shadow. So the squares of prime numbers present us with real boundaries that extend up the number line, covering larger increments that each contain more prime numbers. By looking at just the composite numbers, we simplify the primes to the gaps between these numbers, the light in the shadows, with these shadow numbers generated from much simpler elements. In this way, the numbers can be thought of as unfolding in groups of numbers which are then projected to the unfolding of larger groups of numbers. These groups are bounded by the squares of each consecutive prime, and their makeup is foreshadowed much earlier than when they appear. This diagram is of 2x projected out, 3x and 5x must be imagined in similar fashion to see the prime numbers as all that is left over... Conclusion Chain of Events Synchronicity may be a different kind of synchronicity. Rather than mapping one domain to another like with Complex Synchronicity, they are projections across time from earlier points in time, bounded by the projectors and continuously changing as the projectors change. This may be of a different nature than that of Complex Synchronicity or they may be of one nature. Further study is needed. This draft was finished on June 11, 2018 but was developed from work over the past several years. To contact the author, please email: secretscienceofsynchronicity@gmail.com