This would be a service that is able to feign synchronistic events in the participant's life. So that when they order a blue shirt in the mail, and their father dies, the order will be mistaken and a black shirt will arrive on the day of the funeral. Of course, the mistake was only apparent as the Syncronicity Service will have been the actual culprit in replacing the order. But the user will never know. They won't be able to differentiate the far less common true synchronicities from the generated ones, so all instances will be considered true and meaningful, and the user will feel much more in tune with the Universe.-- daseva, Apr 15 2009 What precisely is the difference between a coincidence and a synchronicity? Or between synchronicity and synchrony?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 15 2009 Nothing for the latter. For the former, the difference is that the events must bear meaning with reference to the observer's life. So if I see you out at the grocery store, it's a coincidence, and there's no meaning. Now, if you are the doctor who worked on my brother's cauliflower ear and we meet next to the broccoli, then that's synchronistic.-- daseva, Apr 15 2009 Ah - so synchronicity is just a bigger version of a coincidence?-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 15 2009 A syncrhonistic experience require a fine awareness to one's entire self. This way, you process reality in terms of yourself and this enables you to pick out symbolic coincidence. It has been said that our entire realities bear symbolic reflection of our inner selves, but we tend not to pick up the vast majority of these connections. If you were to absorb anything in the right perspective, then the synchronicity would appear. In this way, madness becomes a much easier state to understand.-- daseva, Apr 15 2009 Ah - now everything makes scents.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 15 2009 I'll admit, the two are very similar. And synchronicity, as Jung saw it, was a universal law. An actually eminent behavior in a massively parallel universe. This part I find hard to agree with. I see the phenomenon as a sort of mental trick, but no universal intelligence is creating it. Indeed, Jung may say it's the involvement of the universal intelligence that separates synchronicity from coincidence.-- daseva, Apr 15 2009 For me synchronicity means a moment when all is aligned. Mind Body Spirit. And the physical world surrounding you.
The physical meets up with the spirit for a fleeting moment.
It must mean different things to different folks.-- blissmiss, Apr 15 2009 [bliss], a fine definition. Thank you for sharing that.-- daseva, Apr 15 2009 //I see the phenomenon as a sort of mental trick, but no universal intelligence is creating it.// Phew. Thank goodness. My list of loopy people was full.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Apr 15 2009 One of my very first ideas was called "Synchronicity". It was very controversial and had a lot of people digging deep and showing much emotion here. I kept a printed copy for a while but I no longer have it. It had to do with climbing a tree and eating an apple in my youth. It was the only time I have had synchronicity apparent in my life.
The fervor it caused got me very upset and I deleted my account. (for the first time.)-- blissmiss, Apr 15 2009 Many miles away
there's a shadow on the door
Of a cottage on the shore
Of a dark Scottish lake-- Dub, Apr 16 2009 This would be very hard to implement even for a black ops team with detailed knowledge of the targets future events because it would totally depend on the focus of the targets mind.
Although, it would be good for lovers to try and cement tiny moments for each other via intimate patterns of knowing.-- wjt, Apr 16 2009 I like candy-stripes.
This could get out of hand - for example, if I were to order a black shirt over the mail, would that present them with an opportunity to murder a member of my family?
Sure, it would make for a far more poetic and joined-up life, but I might start figuring it out, and in a rage, order all manner of symbolic ephemera such as...new brooms, clocks made from coins (time for (a) change), moss-covered stones, cats, canaries and magpies.
Mightn't it also cause a person to develop forms of OCD? If I made a point of touching my nose every time I thought of my long-lost love, and over time (through the actions of the SS) discovered that other things that reminded me of her occurred all synchronisitly clumped together with other symbolic cues, all reinforcing one another - my nose touching would in turn be reinforced - and not entirely in a healthy way.
I think I'd prefer to have my moments of synchronisity sneak up on me and take me by surprise - arranging for a daily diet of enforced spiritual awakening might cause me to take it for granted in the same way that a daily diet of bacon can cause someone to consider the benefits of muesli.
It's all a bit Truman Show.-- zen_tom, Apr 16 2009 Hmmm, yes, maybe it should be run by the State government - to keep the population happy, giving meaning to their lives etc.
It makes sense, since they know how to get access to all your intimate secrets already. And arranging simple things like swapping shirts in the post would be a snap for them too.-- VaquitaTim, Apr 16 2009 Yes, a lovely idea, but (a) how would it work? How would this shadowy agency discover the death of your father before you? And (b) actually bizarre 'synchronous' coincidences happen all the time and it would be extremely odd if they didn't. For example, I might read a book which has a character in it with the name of someone I was at school with, who I then meet the next day. I read a lot of books, so eventually I'm going to read one with the name of someone I once knew in it - likewise I see a lot of people in London, so some times I'm bound to meet someone who's name has come up recently. Human memory being what it is, I remember the coincidences and forget all the millions of near-coincidences.-- hippo, Apr 16 2009 You could do a notification service, like Yahoo does it for location (with FireEagle) Something that tells you, as you twitter about what is going on with you, who else it's going on with.-- theircompetitor, Apr 16 2009 random, halfbakery