Testing the Unknown: Is it possible to test coincidence?

Believers in fate or coincidence are, in some respect, not so far off in their thinking according to New Age spirituality. Recently the idea of “synchronicity” that is the co-occurence of two seemingly random events at one point in time, has become both a buzzword and topic of debate. While some would describe these mystical events as momentary magic and coincidence, or point to probability as the culprit, my question lies in the ability to measure the link between two events (or thought and action), and whether it is even possible. Regardless of statistical, scientific or observational nature, how would we go about testing the concept of unknown/seen variables?

The notion of coincidence is not a new one; classic thought experiments like Schroedinger’s cat, the superposition principle, particle-wave theory and the strange and unique ability of birds to flock together so impeccably seem to touch common grounds- or rather no ground at all. It is argued that synchronicity events happen on a “non-local” or spiritual level- a realm completely unseen much like psychological variables or mental states that we attempt to measure. While a statistician would argue for the co-occurence of two events of as mere products of probability, others have suggested energy (i.e our thoughts) emanate from our minds and attract other like energy- as the saying goes “like attracts like”. From a psychological standpoint, it would first be important to consider the relationship between the variables and the observable events and the framework in which it is explored. Let’s use the example of thinking of someone you rarely see and out the blue you cross paths with them- depending on whether we fit this into a reflective, formative or network model would already have profound changes. A Reflective model would assume the thought caused the action, formative would say the action(s) was happening and caused you to think of it and network would say both the thought and the action interacted with each other in some dimension of time and space.

That said, the factors accounting for variance and random chance are also extremely large. Could it simply be that this person walks in this location often and you’ve never seen them there before? Could it be that we happened to just be paying attention this one time? There is also the question of measuring the two variables; what makes one thought more powerful than another? What intention did the person having the thought have or why did they think of it? Also despite flaws at the basic level of defining the constructs, some researchers even claim to find correlations between two such undefinable events. A study by Sheldrake claimed that dogs are able to predict their owner’s intentions (how is this measured?) and anticipate their owner’s spontaneous return from a trip. How can we claim a causal, albeit correlational, link between two things when it is nearly impossible to define them?

Notwithstanding the apparent difficulty of measuring the unknown, yet fascinating field of research, I continue to believe there is a very profound relationship between our thoughts and our experiences-To be able to accurately test the magic in the everyday would be magic itself.

Reference: Sheldrake study taken from Chopra, D. “Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence”.

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