Acausality

From Jung's Synchronicity

In the first case it is hard to see how chemical processes can ever produce psychic processes, and in the second case one wonders how an immaterial psyche could ever set matter in motion.

Jung's argument is that causality is only one organizing principle in the universe, and that another is simultaneous manifestation of an idea in matter and consciousness. However, this notion of 'synchronicity' is broader, encompassing not just the mind-matter question, but also underlying the manifold strange coincidences of everyday life. The nicest example, which he gives in the book, and which is cited in the Wikipedia entry on Synchronicity that of Emile Dechamps and the plum pudding:

A well-known example of synchronicity is the true story of the French writer Émile Deschamps who in 1805 was treated to some plum pudding by the stranger Monsieur de Fortgibu. Ten years later, he encountered plum pudding on the menu of a Paris restaurant, and wanted to order some, but the waiter told him the last dish had already been served to another customer, who turned out to be de Fortgibu. Many years later in 1832 Émile Deschamps was at a diner, and was once again offered plum pudding. He recalled the earlier incident and told his friends that only de Fortgibu was missing to make the setting complete — and in the same instant the now senile de Fortgibu entered the room.

Unfortunately, Jung gets caught up presenting an absurd and poorly analyzed 'experiment' involving marriage relationships and astrological signs. However, I am sympathetic to the the crux of his argument, that our standard idea of 'causation' is insufficient to explain all observed phenomena. We conceive of causation as no more than touch - thing A must somehow contact thing B to exert an effect on it. Yet discovery of quantum entanglement, in which two particles widely separated in space affect each other's state instantaneously, compels us to reconsider our intuitive understanding of causality. Jung's appeal to 'synchronicity' has the feeling of an idea just out of reach, inaccessible without the right set of mental tools and metaphors to grasp.