World Kaleidoscope

Ðàçìåùåíî íà http://allbest.ru

WORLD KALEIDOSCOPE

Aleksandr Yeremenko

synchronicity jung theory archetypes

“... a vague but delightful intuitive sense of the causeless locations and combinations of events...”

C.G. Jung, Synchronicity: a causal unifying principle

1. Introduction: a story about a one-horned ram

In the biography of Pericles, Plutarch describes an interesting, most likely legendary, but possibly a true-life episode. One day, they brought a skull of a one-horned ram to Pericles. Lampon, the soothsayer, who was present at the time, said that the skull signified the individual rule in Athens. Whoever kept that skull at home would be the political leader of Athens.

At this time, Anaxagoras was also a guest of Pericles. He asked for an ax and cut through the skull. Then he showed those who were present that the ram's brain was collected in the frontal part, which formed a horn-like outgrowth. And then everyone admired Anaxagoras'insight. Then, when Pericles ostracized his main political rival Thucydides, the son of Melesius, and secured almost autocratic power in Athens for the next fourteen years, everyone admired Lampon's perspicacity. (Plutarch, 2006: 215).

Most interesting is Plutarch's commentary on the conflict between philosophical (natural science, essentially) and prophetic explanation: “In my opinion, both the physicist and the soothsayer could achieve their goal; one clearly understood the cause, the other - the effect; one had to consider why and how it had been done; the other had to predict what this phenomenon meant and what it was intended for. Those who regard the discovery of a cause as the destruction of a sign do not understand that by this reasoning, together with divine signs, they destroy artificial signs, what the essence of the sound of disks is, the light of lighthouses, the shadow of a sun clock, each of which, for a known reason and by its constitution, serves as a sign of something.” (Plutarch, 2006: 215).

Modern science undoubtedly shares Anaxagoras' point of view. However, it does not accept Plutarch's worldview pluralism. We will try to revive this pluralism and show that the natural causality of a particular phenomenon does not at all exclude the possibility that this phenomenon is a sign of some deep essence or event.

2. The phenomenon of synchronicity

In the late period of his creative work, C.G. Jung became interested in the phenomenon of synchronicity. An extensive lecture (Jung, 1997: 180-194) and a far more extensive monograph (Jung, 1997: 194-307) are devoted to the analysis of this phenomenon. C. Jung distinguishes between synchronism and synchronicity. The main criterion for synchronicity is the simultaneous occurrence of two or more events, connected not causally, but within the meaning. It should not be confused with synchronism, which means the simple simultaneity of two or more events (Jung, 1997: 217-218). “Therefore, synchronicity means the simultaneous flow of a certain mental state containing one or several external events, which look like semantic analogs of the momentary subjective state ...” (Jung, 1997: 218).

C. Jung gives many examples of synchronicity, the most known of which are likely to be the case of the scarab and the case of the birds. In the first case, the patient tells Jung about her dream in which she is given a golden scarab. At this very moment, they hear a light knock at the window of the room. Jung opens the window and catches a common chafer, which is a close analogue of the scarab. It should be noted that the chafer striving to get into the poorly lit room is by no means a rare insect for Europe (Jung, 1997: 214). In the second case, the wife of a patient tells Jung that at the time of the death of her mother and grandmother many birds gathered outside the window of their room. C. Jung discovers that the patient had heart disease symptoms and tells him to go to the cardiologist. On his way back home from the cardiologist, the patient loses consciousness and falls down. When he is brought home, his wife is in a state of anxiety as far as a flock of birds is landing on the roof of their house. Being in his own home, the patient dies. (Jung, 1997: 214-215).

Evidently, there are causal explanations in all these cases. Theoretically, it is possible to trace the causal chains that determine the patient's dream, the arrival of the scarab-like beetle, the death of the patient, and the arrival of the flock of birds. The coincidence of these events is unlikely and almost incredible.

According to C.G. Jung, synchronicity indicates the parallelism of time and sense between mental and psychophysical events. Some “meaningful coincidences” are so incredible that they cannot trace any mutual causal relationship between the parallel events in which these coincidences are manifested. Therefore, we have to recognize the commonality of sense as the only noticeable connection between them (Jung, 1997: 192). Jung's brief formulation of the essence of synchronicity is as follows: ``The principle of synchronicity states that `semantic coincidence' is caused by `simultaneity' and `sense'” (Jung 1997: 268). C. Jung believes that in addition to the causal relationship in nature, there is a certain factor of ordering events, and sense is this factor. For Jung, this is not an incredible hypothesis. He throws down a bold challenge to the stereotypes of modern rationalistic consciousness: “We must remember that the rationalist Western approach is not the only possible and all-encompassing one, but it is characterized by a bias that requires correction” (Jung 1997: 268).

C. Jung makes bold to question the effectiveness of one of the “idols” of modern natural science - the statistical approach. In his opinion, if the connection between cause and effect is only statistical, then the principle of causality presupposes the existence of several factors necessary for explanation. The connection between events under certain circumstances is different from the causal nature and requires a different principle of explanation. In the macrophysical world, we cannot imagine the existence between events to be different from a causal relationship. But this does not mean that events between which there is such a connection do not exist. (Jung 1997: 198).

According to C.G. Jung, the “inexplicability” of synchronic events “stems not from the fact that their cause is unknown, but from the fact that the mind simply cannot imagine such a cause” (Jung, 1997: 305). This reason is a semantic coincidence. In such coincidences, space and time lose their sense and become relative, and the causality associated with them becomes unthinkable. Synchronic phenomena presuppose randomness as “an eternally existing universal factor, and in part, as the sum of countless individual acts of creation taking place in time” (Jung, 1997: 305).

These propositions seem to us theoretically profound and methodologically productive. We will return to them in the final part of our work when considering one of the options for our explanation of the phenomenon of synchronicity.

One of the keywords for describing the phenomenon of synchronicity is the word “coincidence.” The metaphysical meaning of this concept should be analyzed.

3. The metaphysical meaning of the concept of “coincidence”

If we consider the inner form of the word “coincide,” we can realize that it means “to fall together and agree in position.” But “to fall,” in this respect, should be understood not as a movement downward in space. Here, “to fall” rather means “to fall out,” i.e., to “coincide” is “to fall out together,” “to happen', “to turn out.”

But “to fall out” is a polysemantic word as, incidentally, almost all words of a natural language. On the one hand, “to fall out” is a synonym for “stand out for,” “differ from,” “be special in a number of similar ones.” “NN's creativity falls out of the poetics of symbolism.” “The point of view of NN falls out of classical rationalism,” etc. The second basic meaning of the word “fall out” is “to happen,” “to occur regardless of the will of the subject.” However, these connotations should be distinguished. “To fall out” is “to come about by chance”; “to take place independently of the will of the subject” does not have to happen by chance (although this can also occur). Here, one can be aware of the sense of objectivity, implacability, and, partly, undesirability. “it fell out that he had such destiny,” “it fell out that he got into all troubles.” It is doubtful whether it is possible to say: “it fell out that he had a good luck” - although if you use the seme of contingency, then you can express your idea in this manner. It would seem that destiny and contingency are incompatible. But this is not true. There can be no contingencies in an already realized, predetermined, present destiny. But let us consider the following picture of the world: initially, a subject can choose destiny (for example, as in the vision of Er in Plato's “Respublica”). There is another option: initially, destiny falls out like a lot, but after it has fallen out, it becomes given once and forever, irrevocable.

We can see that the meaning of contingency is strongest in the semantic field of the word “fall out.” That is, ultimately, “to fall out” means “to happen by chance.” Thus, the world in which events, fates, destinies, lots, etc., fall out is a world in which contingency either exists or (most likely) reigns.

Possibly, the most visible way of falling out is the roll of the dice. The world in which coincidences happen is, as it were, the world of a dice game: one gets 2, the other - 12. It resembles the famous fragment of Heraclitus.

Let us go back to coincidence. There is a seme of place in this word. That is, “coincide” means “to happen at the same place.” But here, certain difficulties await us. First of all, it is obvious that although the seme of time is not expressed in the morphological structure of the word “coincidently” it is extremely important in its semantics. At first glance, there is no doubt that “to coincide” means “to happen at the same time.” That is, to put it simply, we have before us a chronotope of an event: “to coincide” means “to happen at the same place and at the same time.”

This meaning will likely be the main one in the word “coincide.” And yet, it will not be the only one. First, there are some connotations that should be taken into consideration. Is chronotopicity a required attribute of coincident events? At first glance, yes, it is so, but looking closely, we can see that no, it is not. In particular, for Jung, chronotopicity of synchronicity is not necessary. He considers a number of events that occur at different times, but in his opinion, they fit into the phenomenon of synchronicity. Let us give two examples that are, in our opinion, the most striking. The first example is taken from the work of W. von Stolz on strange coincidences. A woman took a picture of her son and left the film in a photo studio in Strasbourg for development. The First World War began, and the woman, for various reasons, could not collect the film. In 1917, she bought a film in Frankfurt to take pictures of her daughter. When the film was developed, under her daughter's photograph, there was a photograph of her son taken three years before. The old film had not been developed and returned to the market (Jung, 1997: 208).

The second example comes from Flammarion's work, also devoted to strange coincidences. A certain Monsieur Fortibou treated a certain boy Deschamps to a piece of plum pie. It happened in Orleans. Ten years later, the young man Deschamps lived in Paris. In one of the restaurants, he saw there was plum cake on the menu and decided to order it. But it turned out that a certain Fortibou had just ordered the last piece of plum pie. The mature man Deschamps was invited to an evening where the plum pie was served. Deschamps noticed that only Monsieur Fortibu was missing. At that moment, a very old man entered the room. He turned out to be de Fortibou, who came there by mistake (Jung, 1997: 235).

What makes the described events synchronic? It is obviously not a chronotope, since they occurred at different times and at different places. The unity of the subject (subjects) makes them synchronic. We see unlikely coincidences of events occurring with actors that are either close or in some way related to each other. Thus, the unity (integrity) of the actors of events is an essential factor in determining synchronicity. The unity of the actors turns out to be a more significant factor than the unity of place and time.

Secondly, if we remember the meaning of compatibility, we will see that at least two phenomena are necessary for coincidence: something must coincide with something. But that's not all. Let us suppose that it is proved that events A and B, which occur at the same time at the same place, or events C and D, which occur at different times and at different places, but with the same actors, are links of the same causal chain. In the first case, at some point, a single causal chain, so to speak, bifurcates and causes the simultaneous occurrence of events A and B. In the second case, a single causal chain seems to be “hidden” in the stream of events, but it exercises its deterministic force even in this state. Are the first and second events the same in the strict sense of the word? No. they are not. To be congruent, it is necessary to be heterogeneous and come from different sources. Therefore, we have the following: a coincidence is two or more events in which the same actors participate, while these events originate from different causal chains. These events can occur both at the same time, at the same place, and at different times at different places.

But even in this case, coincidence still eludes us, and synchronicity eludes even more. In order for a match to take place, there must be a single semantic field. When Deschamps walked into a Parisian restaurant, there could be many visitors. The presence of these visitors is not a coincidence. A coincidence is the presence of Monsieur de Fortibou, a long-time and, most likely, an episodic acquaintance of Deschamps. There is nothing surprising in coincidences as such - they obey the laws of probability.

But synchronicity is not only surprising - it amazes us. Why? What exactly surprises us in cases with a photo of a son, the plum cake, and all other coincidences? It is their strangeness, bordering on improbability. If the film, which was re-bought by the woman, had captured someone else's son or, say, a giraffe from a zoo, this would surprise us to a lesser extent or not at all. If Monsieur Fortibou had ordered a roast in a Parisian restaurant, and pineapples in champagne were the highlight of the program at the party, Deschamps would have been somewhat surprised by chance encounters with an old acquaintance. Still, his surprise would not have been so strong. Synchronicity is a special case of coincidence. We can say that coincidence is, as it were, weak synchronicity, while synchronicity is an extremely strong coincidence, almost incredible. In this coincidence, there must be two or more independent causal chains, as well as the presence of some single sense. Thus, with all the other conditions listed above, it is the single sense that ultimately makes the events synchronistic.

Are all synchronistic events, so to speak, cases of the one-horned ram? Or only some of them? Or none of them? In other words, are all synchronistic events loaded with semiotics? Do they indicate something, signify or forebode something? If we take into account the decisive factor of meaning, then we will have to agree that all synchronistic events are “cases of one-horned ram,” but we do not always understand it.

4. Synchronicity and pre-established harmony

4.1. G. LeibnizS doctrine on pre-established harmony

When presenting his doctrine on synchronicity, C. Jung repeatedly refers to G. Leibniz's doctrine on pre-established harmony. Indeed, these theories have much in common. Preestablished harmony is the universal coherence of the monads, originally established by God. Since God created the best world, then in it, “all things are in perfect harmony with each other and breathe in complete harmony” (Leibniz, 1989: 475). Harmony is a kind of “conformity” due to which the connection of the future with the past and the present with the absent is realized (Leibniz, 1989: 69).

The ideal influence of one monad on another occurs through the agency of God. Each monad, as it were, “requires that God, establishing the order between other monads at the beginning of things, should also take it into consideration” (Leibniz, 1982: 422). Thus, each monad depends on all others, and all others depend on it (Leibniz, 1982: 422). If we accept this picture of the world, then the indicated universal interdependence of monads can be thought of as the basis of synchronicity.

To specify the picture of the interaction of monads, Leibniz depicts a space in which, so to speak, everything is “filled up.” In this filled space, every movement affects distant bodies, so that each body, to some degree, feels everything that happens; such a message occurs at any distance. Consequently, each body senses everything that takes place in the Universe (Leibniz, 1982: 424). Here, in essence, there is an anticipation of the mechanism for realizing synchronicity.

Pre-established harmony finds its expression in the “general economy of the world” (Leibniz, 1982: 146). Since God is the perfect being, he chose the best plan when creating the world. “He disposed of place, space, time in the most economical way; using the simplest means, he performed the greatest actions - the greatest power, the greatest knowledge, the greatest happiness and the greatest goodness in creations, which are only available to the universe” (Leibniz, 1982: 409). We will return to the principle of economy of the world when considering our key hypothesis, with the help of which we will try to explain the phenomenon of synchronicity.

An essential aspect of pre-established harmony is the presence of metaphysical communication between the soul and the body, thanks to which the soul is capable of spontaneous actions (Leibniz, 1989: 165-166). The soul is essentially related to all things in the world; due to the variety of its modifications, “the soul (...) must be likened to the universe” (Leibniz, 1982: 334). As a result, so to speak, of the entire filling of the Universe, there is a universal interaction of all things. Harmony should be understood not only as the physical interaction of bodies but also as a correspondence between the perceptions of the monad and the movements of bodies (Leibniz, 1982: 405). This implies an unexpected but profound comparison of a monad with a mirror: “(...) every monad is a living mirror, endowed with internal action, reproducing the universe from its point of view and ordered in the same way as the universe itself” (Leibniz, 1982: 405). The world is, so to speak, a repeated reproduction of itself “in numerous mirrors, each of which reflects it in its own way” (Leibniz, 1982: 541). The reflective powers of the monad determine the potentially infinite cognitive faculties of the soul. “Every soul knows the infinite, knows everything, but knows it vaguely” (Leibniz, 1982: 410). These vague perceptions are the consequences of the impressions that the entire Universe as a whole produces on the soul (Leibniz, 1982: 410).

From this point of view, cases of synchronicity are phenomena that allow us to even vaguely realize the pre-established harmony. These are, as it were, indications of preestablished harmony. When C. Jung insists on the psychic nature of synchronicity, when he tries to explain synchronicity by referring to the theory of archetypes (see below), he, in essence, implicitly relies on Leibniz' metaphor of the mirror monad.

Describing the pre-established harmony, G. Leibniz resorts to a variety of explicit and implicit metaphors. In the context of the connection between the phenomenon of synchronicity and the theory of pre-established harmony, the metaphor of “collusion” is of particular interest. “What is so wonderful about everything going as it should, everything is done with strict precision?” - Leibniz exclaims. - “As long as we assume that this `everything' is the realization of a perfect design, all things are, as it were, in collusion with each other and they are led by one hand” (Leibniz, 1982: 332-333).

So, things “collude” with each other, and the events of such collusion are acts of synchronicity. Above, we analyzed the concept of coincidence. The collusion metaphor prompts us to analyze the metaphysical implications of the concepts of “concordance” and “correspondence.”

4.2. Concordance and correspondence It should be clarified that it is hardly possible to match the Russian words “ñîãëàñîâàííîñòü” and “ñîîòâåòñòâèå” with their English equivalents. In the Russian word “ñîãëàñîâàííîñòü,” ñî- is the prefix and ãëàñ is the root. Ñî- has the meaning of compatibility, ãëàñ is an archaic form of the word “ãîëîñ.” Thus, “ñîãëàñîâàííîñòü” means “joint voices.” In the Russian word “ñîîòâåòñòâèå,” there is the same prefix ñî- and the root îòâåò, which denotes “answer.” Thus, “ñîîòâåòñòâèå” means “joint responses.” The internal form of the corresponding English words turns out to be different.

Along with “coincidence,” important semantic shades of synchronicity are “concordance” and “correspondence.” Describing the pre-established harmony, G. Leibniz often uses these and synonymous words. Collusion is a special case of agreement with implicit negative connotations. As a rule, they agree about something reprehensible, often about a crime.

“Concordance” (its Russian approximate equivalent “Co-raac-OBaHHOcrb”) means the unity of voices, the joint voting on any issue. “Correspond” (its Russian approximate equivalent “Co-OTBeT-cTBOBarb”) means answering together, responding in unison, responding in a similar way. This is so if you take the internal form of the word. In a broader sense, to correspond means to be similar, to be convenient for solving a given problem, to be, as it were, “fitted” to each other. Correspondence is a necessary sign of truth (truth as the correspondence of a statement to the current circumstances).

In the concepts of concordance and correspondence, there is a dialogical picture of the world and not only of the social one. It is implicitly assumed that a person and the world seem to communicate with each other: a person asks - the world answers, the world asks - a person answers. If a person and the world answer, so to speak, “in the wrong,” then they correspond to each other; there is a consistency of their answers.

Pre-established harmony is the initial concordance of the soul and body, the concordance of all monads with each other, their correspondence to each other, and to the Creator's plan. Concordance is the coincidence of the “voices” of the subject and the object during their interaction; conformity - the coincidence of their “answers.” Synchronicity is a special case of concordance and correspondence, and, therefore, a special case of pre-established harmony. Ultimately, synchronicity is a clear manifestation of a usually hidden harmony; these are cases of a vivid, visible, obvious correspondence-agreement of a single, so to speak, “friendly” nature of various phenomena, the pile-up of which seems chaotic to a flat- rationalistic consciousness.

5. C.G. Jung's explanation of synchronicity under the effect of the theory of archetypes

C. Jung tries to explain the phenomenon of synchronicity by means of his theory of archetypes. In his opinion, synchronicity consists of two factors: 1) an unconscious image penetrates into consciousness either directly or indirectly (in the form of dreams, premonitions, etc.); 2) the objective situation coincides with this content (Jung, 1997: 224). Thus, in the final analysis, synchronicity is the coincidence of the external with the internal, the phenomena of the physical world with the phenomena of the psychic world. In this case, the psychic world has priority: it is the objective situation that coincides with the psychic image, but not vice versa.

C. Jung emphasizes that “there can be no question of a causal explanation of synchronicity” (Jung, 1997: 301). Synchronicity rests on archetypes as psychoid factors. In this case, archetypes are found not only in the mental sphere but also in equivalent physical processes. Moreover, this is exactly equivalence, but not causality. “In the categories of causality, archetypal equivalences are random; that is, there is no regular connection between them and causal processes” (Jung, 1997: 301).

According to C. Jung, it follows from synchronicity that the soul (psyche) is located outside space, or that space is related to the psyche (Jung, 1997: 192).

On the one hand, Jung categorically rejects the causal explanation of synchronicity; on the other hand, he sometimes admits something like Freudian slips. In the subconscious, there are psychic images that are, as it were, inexplicable knowledge. This knowledge either does not have any cognizable basis, or there are causal relationships between it and the archetypal content of the unconscious. These images are in a semantic connection with objective events without having a cognizable causal connection with them (Jung, 1997: 223). So, causal relationships of objective occurrences with archetypal content are unknowable, but do they exist, anyway? In the philosophy of I. Kant, things in themselves are unknowable, but they still exist. One can see inconsistency in this, or one can see the balanced thinking of the German classic. So, what is the essence of synchronicity: in coincidence as such, or in our, albeit inexplicable, knowledge? The question is complicated by the fact that psychic content must be present in the phenomenon of synchronicity. Synchronicity is the coincidence of a physical event with a certain psychic content; without a conscious subject, there will be no synchronicity.

C. Jung examines the famous case that allegedly occurred on July 19, 1759, when the Swedish scientist and mystic E. Swedenborg, while in Gothenburg, “saw” a fire that was taking place in Stockholm at the same time. “In a sense, the Stockholm fire was also blazing in Swedenborg. For the unconscious psyche, space and time are relative; that is, knowledge finds itself in the space-time continuum, in which space is no longer space, and time is no longer time. Therefore, if the unconscious can develop its potential in the direction of consciousness, then the possibility of perception (or `knowledge') of parallel events arises” (Jung, 1997: 261).

Far from denying the archetypal aspect of synchronicity, we still do not consider an explanation through the theory of archetypes to be entirely satisfactory. The essence of synchronicity is not in our knowledge of parallel events but in the very coincidence of parallel events. Let us emphasize again that the psychic element, undoubtedly, must be present. Without it, the phenomenon of synchronicity will not take place. When we say that the essence of synchronicity is coincidence itself, we mean the following. The scarab beetle flies into Jung's office while the patient tells the psychiatrist about the gold scarab she had dreamed of. The golden scarab is a psychic image. Thus, the real event coincides with the psychic image.

Moreover, Jung is aware of this image because the patient had told him about it. That is, the real event coincides with the fixed, known, spoken psychic image. Without this articulation, synchronicity would not have taken place. At least it would not have happened for Jung. But even for the patient, it most likely would not have taken place since it is unlikely that the patient was so well-read in entomology that she had information about the scarabaeoid beetle. And yet, ultimately, synchronicity is the mere fact of coincidence. It is the fact of this coincidence that is the most surprising aspect of this situation. It is definitely a coincidence as such that is the essence of synchronicity.

The same is true for all other cases. For example, in the cases of Deschamps and Monsieur de Fortibou, synchronicity exists only for Deschamps, since he knows about the plum cake from his childhood. It would seem that this is a clear argument regarding the psychic essence of synchronicity. Without this knowledge, synchronicity will not take place. But it is not the knowledge that turns out to be surprising and significant, but the coincidence itself: during Deschamps's life (or at least several times), the plum pie turns out to be associated with Fortibou. The decisive factor in synchronicity is not the physical event or the mental image, but the coincidence of the event and the image.

Opposing any causal explanation of synchronicity, C.G. Jung seeks to understand it as a manifestation of some kind of world order. Synchronicity is a special example of acausal ordering, “... synchronicity in the narrow sense is just a separate example of general acausal ordering, namely, the equivalence of mental and physical processes” (Jung, 1997: 303). Jung believes that the archetype explanation is the best, “since only the archetype is an introspectively recognizable form of a priori psychic ordering” (Jung, 1997: 303). “This form of ordering differs from the ordering of natural numbers or discontinuities in physics in that the latter exists eternally and regularly recurs, while the forms of psychic ordering are acts of creation in time” (Jung, 1997: 303). Although I am somewhat skeptical about explaining synchronicity through the archetype theory, the explanation through order seems to me theoretically deep and methodologically effective. I find it especially fruitful to distinguish between eternal orderliness and orderliness as a consequence of creative acts in time. I use this idea in my hypotheses about the nature of synchronicity.

6. The explanations for synchronicity

Below I will offer my three hypotheses to explain the phenomenon of synchronicity. Although these are different hypotheses, they are complementary. In my opinion, the third of the proposed hypotheses has the greatest explanatory power.

6.1. Eventhemes as storage of virtual events.

I introduced the concept of “eventheme” into scientific usage in a number of articles and developed it in sufficient detail in the monograph “History as Eventfulness” (Yeremenko, 2005). An eventheme is an abstract possibility of sporadic events. An eventheme is a virtual cell filled with real events in history. An eventheme is a timeless eidos of events that allows single events to unfold in historical time. An eventheme is the unity of emptiness and fullness. On the one hand, it is a kind of emptiness filled with isolated events. On the other hand, the events that have already taken place fill this void, so it is a partly filled void, and it becomes more and more filled in the course of world history. After the historical event is laid down in the eventheme, it becomes irreversible.

An event is, for example, the first speech of Cicero against Catilina, the Battle of Waterloo, and the invention of the steam engine. An eventheme is, for example, a public speech, a battle, an invention.

Is an event necessarily a certain “point” act of the historical process? Not necessarily. There may be long-term events. The line between an event and a process is conditional. Can the conspiracy of Catilina as a whole or the Napoleonic Wars, in general, be considered a single event? Yes, they can. But these are chains of events. The wholeness is given to the event by a kind of historical entelechy. If a chain of events leads to a single result, then in this sense, it can be considered a single event. Also, the qualification of a given happening as an event or as a process (chain of events) partly depends on the steadiness of our gaze. If so to speak, we cast a steady glance at the era, and then the Napoleonic Wars will turn out to be a single event for us. If we look more closely at these wars, they will turn out to be a multi- branched chain of events, consisting of elements like the Battle of Waterloo. By the way, with sufficient intentness of the gaze, even a point event reveals, so to speak, a “loose” structure. For example, in the Battle of Waterloo, we find a struggle for the farms of Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte, the appearance of Blucher's army, an attack by the Imperial Guard, and other elements.

Similar questions may arise regarding eventhemes. For example, what exactly should be considered an eventheme: a public speech, or a speech of the prosecution, or a speech before the legislative body, or a speech before the Roman Senate? The degree of abstractness can be different, and a hierarchy of eventhemes is possible. But the speech against Catilina delivered by Cicero on November 8, 63 B.C., in no case can be considered an eventheme.

It seems that it has been said enough about the difference between an event and an eventheme. It is important to emphasize that an eventheme is a kind of “space” (in the sense of “container”) of both already occurred and possible virtual events. Here, doubleness is especially important.

First, when a single event occurs, does it, so to speak, “flow into” the emptiness of the eventheme or “fall out” of this emptiness? It flows into and falls out. It flows into the eventheme, since it is carried out by the efforts of the actors. But it falls out of the eventheme, since it turns out to be possible in principle. If a certain event is impossible in principle, then no efforts of any actors will bring it to fruition in real history. Sometimes, at the same time at the same place, events of different eventhemes may occur, having some semantic similarity. This will be synchronicity here and now.

Secondly, is it possible to assume that future single events exist in a virtual form in the structure of the eventheme? Generally speaking, with enough imagination, one can assume anything. Initially, my theory of the eventheme did not contain such an assumption. Moreover, it was rejected. But if we accept this assumption, we can, in turn, assume the following: some people can see virtual future events in the structure of the eventheme. Such a vision would be a synchronic coincidence facing the future.

Sometimes in C. Jung's interpretation of synchronicity, one can see a kind of anticipation of the eventheme approach. Considering cases of synchronicity of mental images with future events, Jung notes: “They are clearly not synchronous, but synchronistic, since they are felt as mental images in the present as if an objective event already exists” (Jung, 1997: 221). These cases quite organically fit into the theory of the eventheme: in the eventheme, future events are, as it were, “packed.” They exist there in a virtual modus, and their implementation is, as it were, “crystallization” of the real from the virtual due to the activity of actors. But some subjects are able to “crystallize” these events in advance in the form of mental images.

According to C. Jung, “we are not able to imagine any space where future events are objectively present...” (Jung, 1997: 222). If we still manage to imagine such a space, then it will be eventhemes.

Thus, at the same time or at different times with the same actors, events that have semantic similarities but belong to different eventhemes can occur. Since they are the consequences of different event chains, the connection between these events is acausal. These are synchronistic events.

6.2. The world as a plot. Synchronistic events as copyright marks

If we resort to one of the most famous metaphors of world culture - “the world is a work of art” to explain the phenomenon of synchronicity, then everything fits together.

When Shakespeare, out of the mouth of Jacques in the comedy As You Like It, says: “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players” - he expresses a maxim that is quite banal for his contemporaries. The identification of the world with a literary work has various options: “the world is a play,” “the world is a novel,” “the world is a poem,” “the world is a book,” “the world is a text,” etc. In this case, the world can become a metaphor, not necessarily through comparisons with a literary work. In the medieval worldview or in the philosophy of H. Skovoroda, the Bible is a “symbolic world,” i.e., the World is, in a sense, the Bible.

If we refer to the reflections of G. Leibniz, we will find the following interesting illustration of pre-established harmony. It sometimes happens in life that a very gifted person succeeds less than a mediocre one. Why does it happen so? “It can therefore be said that people are also chosen and distributed not so much because of their superiority, but because of the conformity in which they are with the plan of God, just as they use the worst stone in building or sorting because they find that it is precisely such a stone that can fill that or another emptiness” (Leibniz, 1989: 193). Like the worst stone, which, so to speak, completely fits into the structure of the building, and that is why the builder is selected, the worst person is chosen who fits into the structure of the historical situation, and the best is rejected because he does not fit. The metaphor of “being inscribed” again draws us to the metaphor of the world as a literary text.

One of the hallmarks of the writer's skill is the ability to scatter the original author's signs over the plot: various coincidences, correspondences, omens. In The Master and Margarita, Annushka spills butter at the right time in the right place. In The Idiot, at the first meeting with Nastasya Filippovna, Myshkin thought that he had earlier seen her in a dream; and Nastasya Filippovna had a similar feeling. In Anna Karenina, in an episode of Vronsky's acquaintance with Anna, a railway watchman is accidentally crushed by a steam locomotive. One of the most striking scenes in the novel is the declaration of love when Levin and Kitty guess the meaning of the phrases from the first letters of the words.

William Shakespeare's plays are full of diverse, often fatal coincidences / noncoincidences. Let us consider Romeo and Juliet. Lorenzo promises to inform Romeo of the situation in Verona through his servant. When Lorenzo arranges the imaginary death of Juliet, he sends his brother Giovanni to Mantua. Balthazar, Romeo's servant, sees Juliet's funeral. Since he does not know anything about Lorenzo's plan, he arbitrarily decides to notify Romeo about this event. At the same time, Giovanni is not released from Verona under the pretext of quarantine because of the imaginary plague. Thus, Romeo receives false news of Juliet's death and decides to commit suicide at her grave. When Lorenzo finds out that Giovanni failed to inform Romeo of the essence of what is happening, he hurries to the crypt where Juliet is buried.

On the same night, Paris appears to the crypt to shower the deceased bride with flowers. Soon Romeo appears. In the duel, Romeo kills Paris. Romeo is convinced that Juliet is dead - and he takes poison. Then Lorenzo appears and sees: Paris and Romeo are dead. Juliet awakens. The monk tries to take her out of the crypt, but this does not work, and Lorenzo leaves. Juliet sees her dead husband and stabs herself with a dagger.

At this point, firstly, the sequence of events that could be different is important. First, Paris comes to the crypt, then Romeo, then Romeo kills Paris, then he kills himself, then Lorenzo comes, then Juliet awakens, then she kills herself. Lorenzo could have appeared before Paris and Romeo, Juliet could have woken up during a duel between Paris and Romeo, she could have woken up before the duel, Paris could have killed Romeo, etc., etc. - there are many options.

Secondly, the chain of unfortunate inconsistencies, mistakes, misunderstandings of the meaning of events is important. Balthazar might not have seen Juliet's funeral. The pharmacist might not have sold the poison to Romeo or fooled him by giving him some harmless powder. Friar Giovanni might not have been detained in Verona, and he would have given Romeo a letter from Lorenzo in time, etc. We can say that it is not coincidences, but discrepancies, that lead to a tragic outcome. That is right. But at this point, one should correctly understand the nature of literary and artistic reality. In everyday life events, coincidence is a special case of noncoincidence; in the events of a work of art, non-coincidence is a special case of coincidence.

Trying to convince Juliet to leave the crypt, Lorenzo says, “Another force, greater than mine, Warned us.” Ultimately, everything is God's will. The demiurge of Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare - it is his will that creates a chain of inconsistencies and brings the heroes to their fateful place in just such a sequence.

We see a very diverse and sophisticated system of coincidences in Doctor Zhivago. With all the undoubted merits of the style, ideological and figurative wealth, deep and subtle psychologism of Boris Pasternak's novel, I was most struck by its plot. Pasternak constructed the plot of Doctor Zhivago as a complex aesthetically adjusted system of coincidences, correspondences, anticipations and premonitions (Polivanov, 2021).

The candle that Yuri Zhivago sees in the window of a house in Kamergersky Lane; a candle burns in the room where Lara is meeting with Pasha Antipov. The train, from which Yuri's father threw himself out, stopped in the wrong place. Misha Gordon is on the train. At the same time, Yuri wanders around the outskirts of the Kologrivov estate and descends into a ravine. He prays for the repose of his deceased mother. It occurs to him that he should also pray for his father, but he decides to postpone the prayer until next time. “Not yet. There's no need to hurry, he would think” (Pasternak, 2016: 15). At this time, his father dies on the railroad embankment.

During the war, Yuri Zhivago takes Mikhail Gordon with him to the field hospital. They watch a scene in which an officer has an argument with a doctor. The nurse is also watching this scene. This is Lara Antipova. At this time, a seriously wounded man is brought in and dies on a stretcher. The deceased is a Tatar Gimazetdin, who was a janitor in the courtyard of the house where the teenager Pasha Antipov lived. The swearing officer is his son Galiullin, who served in the same unit with Antipov and watched as Pavel came under shelling during the attack. Subsequently, Galiullin takes part in hostilities in the Yuryatin area as an officer in Kolchak's army (Pasternak, 2016: 105-109).

Yuri cannot decide whose vaguely familiar female voice he hears in his dream. Subsequently, when Yuri sees Lara in the reading room of Yuryatin's library, he realizes that the voice from his winter dream was the voice of Antipova (Pasternak, 2016: 261).

Yuri Zhivago is on a tram. He sees an old gray-haired lady in a hat made of light straw, in an old-fashioned dress, pulled into a corset, walking parallel along the street. The tram moves slowly, constantly stops to fix faults, and then overtakes the woman, then she overtakes it. This is Mademoiselle Fleury, the governess of Countess Zhabrinskaya, in whose house in Meliuzeevo there was the hospital, in which both Lara Antipova and Yuri Zhivago find themselves. She is sure that there is a love affair between Lara and Yuri. Now, many years later, Mademoiselle Fleury is on her way to the Swiss embassy to get her exit visa.

Yuri Andreevich recalls school problems about trains, then: “He thought about several beings developing side by side, moving at different speeds one next to the other, and about when someone's fate overtakes the fate of another in life, and who is worried about whom. Something like the principle of relativity presented itself to him on the ranks of life, but finally getting confused, he abandoned these associations as well” (Pasternak, 2016: 435-436).

On a crowded tram, Yuri Zhivago has a heart attack. He barely gets out of the tram, falls to the sidewalk and dies. Mademoiselle Fleury approaches, looks at the deceased, and moves on. “And she went ahead, overtaking the tram for the tenth time, and without knowing it, she overtook Zhivago and outlived him” (Pasternak, 2016: 437).

A visible symbol of synchronicity in Doctor Zhivago is a faulty clock that suddenly, inexplicably, “wakes up” and starts running. Yuri Zhivago visits a patient in a house near Tverskaya Zastava. The patient's husband tells Yuri about a strange case: the old chimes, which they bought as antiques, had not been in use for several years. And suddenly they started by themselves, rang the minuet and stopped. The wife took this as a sign of her last hour. On examination, the wife is found to have typhus.

Tonya informs her husband about an amazing incident at home: yesterday, the alarm clock broke. Yuri's father-in-law tried to fix it but failed. And suddenly, an hour ago (Yuri was examining the patient at about this time), the alarm clock rang by itself. “This is my typhoid hour has struck,” Yuri Andreevich joked and told his family about the patient with the chimes” (Pasternak, 2016: 184). After a while, Yuri falls ill with typhus.

Lara arrives in Moscow and accidentally comes to be in Kamergersky Lane. She enters the apartment she once rented and sees the coffin with Yuri's body. From Evgraf Zhivago, she learns that Antipov-Strelnikov had a long conversation with Yuri before his suicide. “What an amazing coincidence!” - Lara exclaims (Pasternak, 2016: 441).

She also remembers the conversation with Pasha in this very room and cannot remember anything except the candle on the windowsill. She does not know that driving along Kamergersky, Yuri saw this candle, and it was then that the first lines of his first poem sounded in his mind: “A candle was burning on the table, a candle was burning” (Pasternak, 2016: 443).

Lara reflects on her love with Yuri: “They loved each other because everyone around them wanted so: the earth below them, the sky above their heads, the clouds and trees. (...) Never, never, even in moments of the most granted, unconscious happiness the highest and most exciting did not leave them: the enjoyment of the general modeling of the world, the feeling of their belonging to the whole picture, the feeling of belonging to the beauty of the whole spectacle, to the entire universe” (Pasternak, 2016: 445).

Yuri Zhivago writes in his diary: “Perhaps the contents of each biography, along with the characters encountered in it, also requires the participation of a secret unknown force, an almost symbolic person who comes to help without being called upon” (Pasternak, 2016: 258). Yuri thinks that this is his half-brother Evgraf. But we know that Boris Pasternak is the real secret helper.

B. Pasternak ends the scene in the field hospital in a forest glade with the following comment: “... they were all together, they were all nearby, and some did not recognize each other, others never knew, and one remained unidentified forever, the other began to wait for detection until the next chance to come, until the next meeting” (Pasternak, 2016: 109).

Here we have a picture of implicit, latent synchronicity. The fact that the characters, partly familiar, partly unfamiliar with each other, found themselves at the same time in a forest glade is accidental. Moreover, even the characters that had come across (Yuri and Lara) do not recognize each other. They do not know that their thoughts and actions will influence each other's destinies.