The poor sort of memory

I'm not sure that anyone here will know what I mean by the word "synchronicity". I suppose a technical definition would be "causal linking between casual events", but most people probably won't really understand that either. In layman's terms, synchronicity is the recognition or observation of a pattern linking events or behaviors that cannot by other methods be linked. It's "coincidence" taken to extreme levels. Synchronicity is, in essence, strictly a function of pattern recognition, and as such is highly dependent upon the observational and creative capabilities of the individual doing the observation. While such events have long been attributed to non-material causes (for example, to the ancient Greeks, Hermes is the embodiment of synchronicity), it is more reasonable to attribute them to the human addiction for causation.

If you've ever played the game "six degrees of Kevin Bacon", you probably have an intuitive understanding of both the appearance and probable cause of synchronicity: what can seem like a magical coincidence is actually a carefully manufactured chain. Synchronicity simply takes place at a lower level of consciousness, but the principle is still the same: we can link any two activities, events, or observations, if only we try hard enough to create such a link. This is the fundamental reason why people often require reminding that "correlation does not imply causation."

Nevertheless, one must actively remind one's self that it's an assumed and not existant phenomenon... especially when it seems to appear in overwhelming magnitude.

Some background is probably required.

I've long been interested in linguistics and semantics; as someone who doesn't think in verbal structures, I've spent a considerable amount of effort in trying to get the closest possible approximation of my thoughts into language. To that end, I've read millions of pages of books - from scientific theory to poetry - and developed a far larger linguistic foundation than most people I know, not just in words but in understanding of connotation and denotation as well as an awareness of both the limits and impositions of language. As I mentioned recently on Out Not Up, language itself has restrictions on what it can represent, often in ways of which speakers aren't aware but which can have major impacts on society. For instance, our tendancy to conflate observation with inherent property can be directly associated with our linguistic tendancy to speak of something as something else, not merely appearing to be something else; we state that so-and-so is a bad man when what we usually mean is that he appears to be a bad man from our perspective.

This ties, in a synchronistic fashion, to Robert Anton Wilson via a friend named Peter. Peter loaned me his copy of The Illuminatus! Trilogy while we were - well, I guess "dating" isn't really accurate, but that's probably descriptive enough - and I fell in love with the material almost immediately. I had my own synchronistic event during the first reading: I was, at the same time, reading a book about asian philosophy. In the philosophy book, I came across the Buddhist koan of "what is the Buddha? Three chin of flax," one afternoon; later that evening, while reading Illuminatus!, a main character brings up the phrase "What is the Buddha? Five pounds of flax."

R.A. Wilson also introduced me to the phrase "the map is not the territory", a concept I immediately latched onto as a concise description of the kinds of linguistic/semantic problem I often experienced. Of course, in researching Dr. Kodish's books (which will arrive this afternoon and probably be read by Saturday evening), I had to delve into Korzybski, whom Wilson mentions periodically but I'd never researched. It turns out that Korzybski originated the phrase "the map is not the territory" in his works on general semantics, which relates to exactly the kind of discrepancies and problems inherent in langauge and thought that I'd always experienced. Oh well, better I come late to the party than never.

The rabbit hole goes deeper, however. "The map" is also a phrase that, in my lexicon, prominantly relates to a series of talks/essays by a man named Alan Carter and called The Programmer's Stone. One of the main focuses of The Programmer's Stone is the notion of two types of learning referred to as packing and mapping. Packing refers to rote memorization and recitation of facts or data; mapping, in contrast, is forming an understanding of the relationships between facts or data. Carter's contention is that most people simply memorize most of the time and never really understand how what they're memorizing fits in with what they already know; this is why they can quite easily have contradictory ideas and yet never realize the contradiction. Programmers, however, are inherently "mappers", because the key to programming is an very deep understanding of the relationships between data points or processes. In this case, Carter is definitely using the general semantics concept of the map as something more utilitarian than representational: it's a functional abstraction of the "real" concepts or facts that can be used to gain further understanding of those concepts or facts.

Carter observed that the ability of individuals to form maps - deeper levels of understanding - seems to be inversely related to stress. As conjectured, this likely has evolutionary origins: deeper understanding often comes from reflection and daydreaming; stress, on the other hand, is generally a motivator for fast action or response to external stimuli (such as a tiger trying to hunt you down). So, the two would reasonably be exclusive: the same stimuli that would cause stress should also reduce the tendancy for quiet reflection. Biology is notoriously efficient about many things, so it makes sense that both of these factors seem to be controlled by the neurotransmitter dopamine.

I've got my own history with dopamine: it's been hypothesized and seemingly proven that "ADHD" is "caused" by abnormal dopamine levels in the brain - too low of production in some cases, or in others due to the apparent reduction in reaction to it due to a mutation in dopamine receptors. According to a doctor I used to see, I'm likely in the latter half, which means that most of the currrent ADHD drugs would be contraindicated for me. I certainly fit Carter's profile of a "mapper" as well as the novelty-seeking (but not risk-taking, which is different) behavior associated with low-dopamine individuals. I'm also one of the least stressed people most of my friends know, as any of them could tell you.

Which brings us full-circle: stress inducing mental conditions that prevent an individual from being aware of the general semantic differences between "map" and "territory", equating the two and thus preventing "deep understanding" typical of "mapper" behavior. Likewise, "mapping" capability hampered by linguist problems resolved through understanding general semantics.

The synchronistic factor comes in when one friend brings up the topic of stress-addiction on facebook yesterday, another sends me an article on dopamine levels in relation to novelty-seeking (without knowing of my interest in the subject; he just thought it was a "cool study"), my coworker having issues with understanding a concept due to semantic limitations (and who only managed to get it when I helped him see those limitations), and the seemingly random discovery of Korzybski through a follower on this blog that I simply hadn't noticed until yesterday (and who has a recommendation from R.A. Wilson himself).

Which only goes to prove my tendancy towards "mapping", since only someone ADHD could build that kind of crazy framework of semi-associated concepts (no Hermes required)... as well as proving your patience for reading through the whole nonsense.

Perhaps we ought to start a new game: six degrees of Alfred Korzybski.