Experiment for Synchronicity

[sunspot]

I guess I am sort of considered a looney tune, which gives me the creative freedom to touch upon the unconventional. So I am going to discuss a simple experiment, which should allow many to experience synchronicity, in a semi-reproduceable way. The only real data is direct data. If one does not feel comfortable about this, don't do it. I also believe that females will be better at this then males, on the average, since they are often more in touch with their unconscious mind, i.e., intuition.

 

Here goes. What you will need is a dictionary. That's it. The object of the experiment is to think of a question, anything. Next, without looking, randomly open the dictionary and point. Somewhere around the point will be an answer to the question. If may be a word in the dictionary, or a word within the definition of a word or something close by. If one does this peridoically, the unconscious will provide synchronistic output.

 

One needs to take the output with a grain of salt. Do not confuse it with fortune telling or you will be in trouble, because it will be wrong as much as it is correct. Irregardless, logical answers will happen quite often. The dictionary was chosen because it has all the possible word answers, but they are scattered enough to be random or not. The brain's natural pattern making nature will be at work in this experiment with the pattern generator using words instead of images.

[Connor]

Once again, if anything occurs, I believe it can be explained by chance and our predisposition to recognize non-existant patterns.

 

This is far from an objective experiment.

[bascule]

I thought I experienced a significant coincidence on New Year's of 2005.

 

So I thought I'd try to see if it was repeatable, and changed all the variables going into it to create a control, except for the date, this time around, New Year's of 2006, because the new year's component was what I thought was significant. I was lead to believe this by the Global Consciousness Project, but when I looked through their data again, I found out they had misanalyzed it, and the variance "spike" which seemed to occur in each time zone around midnight did not exist. If anyone really cares I can go through my whole methodology and the gory details involved.

 

Anyway, the experiment failed. No repetition of the "significant" coincidence, and thus I was forced to conclude that what I experienced in 2005 was, well, just that, a coincidence, and nothing more. Whatever I had experienced in 2005 was likely a result of one of the variables I changed and had absolutely nothing to do with the date.

 

Hooray for science!

[Sisyphus]

What is this supposed to be testing? How often a random word in the dictionary could be interpretted as an answer to a random question? What would various results indicate?

[insane_alien]

Question: what mammal has a long neck? proper answer: giraffe

 

Answer: 1st, tool 2nd, fish, 3rd, germany.

 

yup so meaningful that one. lots of intricate patterns that really refer to the question and the nature of the universe

[reverse]

Q: what is an apple.

 

A: Jute , the fiber from an Indian plant used for making twine.

 

 

and I deliberately picked apple because of its many many connotations...none of which by the way are twine.

 

am I missing something?

[reverse]

Q: why the hell did I let Sunspot talk me into this "experiment".

 

A: Senora :A Spanish married woman.

 

ok, that's it.. I'm out!

[Ophiolite]

You aren't testing for synchronicity, sunspot, which is a valid scientific concept, but for coincidence. The hits will be dependent upon three things:

a) the number of possible answers, or near answers to the question.

b) the 'inventiveness' of the experimenter in finding correlations between selected 'points' and those answers.

c) chance

 

Which is where I came in.

[sunspot]

The experiment needs to be practiced to work because the unconscious needs to get used to the word matrix being used for its patterns. It seems more set up for visual repeating patterns. The exercise is like taking guitar lessons and trying to play Jimi Hendrix after two lessons and then concluding the guitar teacher s**ks. Maybe one needs more practice.

 

Like Ophiolite pointed out the probablity needs to be calculated to see where random ends. The technique will periodically work like a gambling winning streak, where many meaningful cooincidences occur close together. I am hoping at least a few will get to experience this, changing the way one looks at mind and matter. Over the long term, this may still remain within the realm of chance, but the clusters will add too many cooincidences in a compact space of time and appear to be more than by chance. If one winning streak is 1:10,000,000,000, it will take way less trials to get a winning streak.

 

Maybe the patterns are based on subjective interpretation, having to go out on the limb around the point, which indicates the unconscious playing a role in the game, which is the purpose of the exercise. Maybe the unconscious calculates the thickness of the dictionary and random is tilted in the favor of unconscious narrowing. But all these are indicative of meaningful cooincidences occuring via unconscious processes. Again, this is not suppose to be fortune telling or ESP, although these may work in a siimlar way; i.e., unconscious calculations popped into the head cooked without appearing consciously prepped.

[Connor]

Maybe the patterns are based on subjective interpretation, having to go out on the limb around the point, which indicates the unconscious playing a role in the game, which is the purpose of the exercise.

 

Soif the answer makes no sense, that means the unconscious is working? Does that mean the unconscious isn't working if the answer makes sense? Or does it just mean you'll think it works no matter what happens?

 

The exercise is like taking guitar lessons and trying to play Jimi Hendrix after two lessons and then concluding the guitar teacher s**ks. Maybe one needs more practice.

 

I guess I'll give up the guitar and start practising this.

[sunspot]

I wish i could demonstrate it for ya'll. If one goes to a museum and looks at abstract paintings or even impressionists art one will get a subjective reaction from the unconscious. One may extrapolate what they are feeling. If one is not good at putting their feelings or intuition into words, these subjective things become very hard to explain. With practice one begins to be able to recognize similar pattern of feeling in similar situations until one has a reference for explanation.

 

Alternately, if one starts at abstract, goes to impressionist and then to realists type painting, it get harder and harder to see unconscious type pattern formations, due to the hard line and reality patterns. One would have to stare at the photo of the forest much longer before they start seeing patterns, if at all. The dictionary is very realistic and not a good vehicle for patterns. It will take longer for them to develop. Once it does develop it become a bizzare party trick.

 

In one of the other forums I discussed 3-D thought organization which is cause, affect and something else to create three dimensions. The something else integrates a range of cause and affect into something more than the sun of its parts. I was hoping the dictionary would allow one to experience this something else.

[lrokwild]

This sounds a lot like introspective psychology. Ask people to look inward and report, document, and/or chart the contents of their consciousness to another person (most likely a psychologist) and have them try to come up with patterns, or underlying "rules of behavior". Then if you analyzed these findings pyschodyanmically you might be able to pick out parts of the subconscious mind and how it is influencing the conscious..... this is what psychoanalytical psychology has been trying to do for years and years.

 

I think your subconscious will be forming the words on the page into some sort of an association of a logical answer to the question. Basically, your pointing to a random spot in the dictionary, in the minds eye, on any one page the dictionary can have plenty of logical answers to the question you ask yourself. This test is merely showing that our brains, when already predisposed to form an answer of something... will most definitely interpret anything it sees with a very objectionable lens. The brain knows it needs to come to a conclusion; it is now going to be able to interpret things to its advantage. This test would need to be done on someone that had no idea.

 

My suggestion would be to go and come up with a series of little tests you could do on someone and throw this new and slightly modified one in the mix.

 

Tell someone to think of a question that he or she does not know the answer to. (weather or not the person believes there is an answer to the question or not will also greatly affect his or her interpretation of what ever they see)

 

Then do the point to a "random" page in the dictionary and to a "random" place on the page and then tell them to look at what they pointed to... and what surrounds it.. and report what they think about it... what type of thoughts are going through their head... and ultimately figure out if they can make a connection with the words they have pointed to and the answer to their question without ever suggesting it in the first place.

 

Whether of not the person has looked in a dictionary before or not would influence your findings as well.... because then any subconscious memories of it would not exist for them.

 

Even then... I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish... besides being able to be in touch with our subconscious mind.

[reverse]

Well, Sunspot my friend….

 

When I hear or see something,

I am fully aware of all the conscious and subconscious meanings,

and what’s more…. can rate them with percentage objectivity… (if I bother to).

 

In other words…I know when I’m reading too much into whats between the lines.

 

[sunspot]

What gave me this idea was the ancient chinese oracle called the I Ching. With this, one throws three similar coins six times. The head/tail combinations of each throw set up a hexagram. One then looks up the hexagram in a book of 64 possiblities an it is suppose to tells one's fortune. The fortune is usually more about the state of mind one. It is sort of a combination of random toss and synchronicity. I was trying to cut out the middle man.

 

In my experience the more rational my mindset the less it works. While during creative times when things are a little more irrational and less rational the more it works. It must be function of how much unconscious is conscious.

[Connor]

yeah... or when you're being "creative" you tend to see links between random crap.

[bascule]

Divination is...

 

 

...numerology.

 

Although I like a lot of what Taoism has to say.

[insane_alien]

so basically your saying that if your not getting answers that go with the question, your subconcious isn't working yet.

 

sounds like selective data to me. sort of like "Hey lets take these 3 guys with beards and ignore the other 480million guys without beards and conclude that everybody has a beard."

[sunspot]

It is sort of like shopping for clothes. I hate to shop, but if I have too I go after that things that quickly catch my eye. This is selective picking but has a certain emotional valence. After a while, this becomes the cue.

[Connor]

and what does that have anything to do with anything?

 

do you want shopping advice?