Jung’s Collective Unconscious and Synchronicity

Psychiatrist/psychoanalyst Carl Jung famously posits a “collective unconscious,” a hidden, quasi-nonphysical aspect of reality with which each individual human subconsciousness is in some sense connected. Prime features of the collective unconscious, according to Jung, are “archetypes” and “synchronicity:” archetypes are ancient primal symbols, themes and images that are apparently universal and recurring and can impact individual psyches; and synchronicity describes putative connections between physical and/or mental events that are acausal and seemingly random but appear to be meaningfully related.

The Concept of Synchronicity

Synchronicity is properly controversial, because, according to the laws of physics, there should be nothing of the sort. But if, perchance, synchronicity does exist and it does represent real phenomena—if synchronous events are not mere chance masquerading as meaning—then synchronicity would be a powerful probe of novel fundamental realities of mind and world, and it would, en passant, take down classic materialism.^[1]

Jung had been intrigued by the ancient Chinese oracle I Ching, whose 64 hexagram symbols generated divinations “made by seemingly random numerical happenings for which the I Ching text gives detailed situational analysis.” Years later, Jung introduced synchronicity "to describe circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection." Other definitions Jung used enriched synchronicity's non-normal vision of reality: "a hypothetical factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation," "an acausal connecting principle," "acausal parallelism," and the "meaningful coincidence of two or more events where something other than the probability of chance is involved” (“Synchronicity,” 2023).

Jung and Pauli’s Collaboration

Collaborating with physicist and Nobel laureate Wolfgang Pauli (Pauli Exclusion Principle), Jung further developed the radical concept. Pauli contributed his intimate understanding of the common sense-defying elements of quantum theory, such as complementarity, nonlocality, and the observer effect, and their work together yielded what is now called the “Pauli–Jung conjecture”—which stands for “a basic psychophysically neutral reality with its derivative mental and physical aspects and the nature of the correlations that connect these aspects.” Jung and Pauli "offered the radical and brilliant idea that the currency of these [synchronicity's] correlations is not (quantitative) statistics, as in quantum physics, but (qualitative) meaning” (Atmanspacher, 2020b; Atmanspacher & Fuchs, 2014).

For his part, Pauli said that synchronicities were "corrections to chance fluctuations by meaningful and purposeful coincidences of causally unconnected events," though he sought to move away from “coincidence” and towards a "correspondence," "connection," or "constellation" of discrete factors. Jung's and Pauli's position was that, “just as causal connections can provide a meaningful understanding of the psyche and the world, so too may acausal connections” (“Synchronicity,” 2023).

Synchronicity and Quantum Parallels

The speculative nexus between synchronicity and quantum physics turns on entanglement, where there is absolute correlation but absolutely no transference of information. Thus, quantum entanglement is said to be the physical phenomenon that most closely represents the concept of synchronicity. As Harald Atmanspacher puts it. “Inspired by and analogous to entanglement-induced nonlocal correlations in quantum physics, mind-matter entanglement is conceived as the hypothetical origin of mind-matter correlations. This exhibits the highly speculative picture of a fundamentally holistic, psychophysically neutral level of reality from which correlated mental and material domains emerge” (Atmanspacher, 2020a).

Atmanspacher probes for epistemic/ontic commonalities between synchronicity and entanglement. He highlights “local realism” of empirical facts obtained from classical measuring instruments and a “holistic realism” of entangled systems, arguing that “these domains are connected by the process of measurement, thus far conceived as independent of conscious observers. The corresponding picture on the mental side refers to a distinction between conscious and unconscious domains” (Atmanspacher, 2020a).

A further claim concerns Jung's “depth psychology” conceptions, where these two domains of local realism and holistic realism are connected by the emergence of conscious mental states from the unconscious, analogous apparently to physical measurement. Crucially, famously, “Jung's unconscious has a collective component, unseparated between individuals and populated by so-called archetypes.” These archetypes are said to be “constituting the psychophysically neutral level comprising both the collective unconscious and the holistic reality of quantum theory.” At the same time, Atmanspacher says, “they operate as ‘ordering factors’, being responsible for the arrangement of their psychical and physical manifestations in the epistemically distinguished domains of mind and matter” (Atmanspacher, 2020a).

So, here's the axial question: Does the “acausal connection principle” in synchronicity meaningfully parallel the “acausal correlation principle” in quantum entanglement? Is this apparent parallelism revelatory or shoehorn forced, unveiling profound new realities, or overthinking superficial similarities? Again, the axial question.

Why have I situated Jung's collective unconscious on this Landscape of Consciousness? The reason is somewhat indirect, because, if valid as stated, a literal collective unconscious would falsify many theories of consciousness, certainly defeat every strictly materialistic theory. Moreover, it would be consistent with diverse nonphysical theories: Dualism, Panpsychism, and Idealism. Idealism is most often associated with Jung's worldview.

While Jung is recognized as one of the most important psychologists in history, few scientists take his concept of the collective unconscious as literally true. However, Jung's highlighting (and coining) synchronicity does elicit from time to time far-reaching theories in both physics and consciousness regarding anomalous cognition and events.

Footnote

[1]. I [RLK] was introduced to synchronicity by Arthur Koestler's 1972 book, The Roots of Coincidence.