The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #69964   Message #1192707
Posted By: Wolfgang
24-May-04 - 10:12 AM
Thread Name: BS: Are there really Angels?
Subject: RE: BS: Are there really Angels?
there are no coincidences whatsoever
I have a lot of experience with coincidence.

As several have tried to point out, some uses here of the word 'coincidence' are extremely nonstandard which makes discussion difficult.

C. G. Jung ("Synchronicity: An acausal principle") has used the term 'synchronicity' for meaningful coincidences. Though synchronicity is just Greek for coincidence, Jung's use is now standard:

...synchronicity as the simultaneous occurrence of a psychological event (e.g. a dream, vision, fantasy or idea) with one (or more) external events in life, which appear to be meaningfully connected.

Deplorably, in the last years, some have dropped the 'meaningful' before 'coincidences' and use the word coincidences alone in a way others have used synchronicity. The misunderstandings in several posts here can be traced to this lack of differentiation in terminology.

While I scratch my nose, a Siberian worker has died from pneumonia, a Peruvian woman has creamed in labour, an Ethiopian child has died etc. That's coincidence in the original meaning and not even Jung would call that a meaningful coincidence.

There once was a song by an Austrian songwriter (A. Brauer) telling how many people died all over the world while he was having his breakfast. A whole big town it was while he was manging his Kipferl.

Wolfgang