Acausal Training Phenomena

[Guest guest]

Here is a news report which makes one wonder about the periodic occurrence of

coincidences in different walks of life:

<Twin brothers, and Walshe, who were born 7 minutes apart in

Perth, Australia, both died at exactly the same age of 63 of heart attacks, 7

minutes apart.> (The Week, UK, 13 May 2000).

This is precisely the sort of happening which led the renowned psychologist,

Carl Jung, to write extensively about what he called " synchronicity " or

meaningful coincidences which occur without evidence of any causal

relationship. In Jung's own words, synchronicity is 'an acausal connecting

principle'.

For more information about the concept of sychronicity, see these websites:

<http://www.crystalinks.com/synchronicity.html>

<http://www.friesian.com/jung.htm>

<http://www.energy-enigma.com/para.htm>

For a skeptical View of Synchronicity, see:

<http://wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us/~btcarrol/skeptic/jung.html>

<http://wheel.dcn.davis.ca.us/~btcarrol/skeptic/apophenia.html>

Whatever one may think about this controversial topic, many of us have

experienced apparent links between things and events that reveal no logical

or provable causal relationship.

Without drawing too heavily on the accuracy or unprovability of Jung's idea,

let us consider the possibility that some changes in sporting performance or

state of injury rehabilitation may have little or nothing to do with one's

method of training or therapy at some instant. Of course, the existence of a

training or treatment after-effect can confound or complicate our attempts to

prove direct causal relationships, but let us examine if others have also

noticed that performance or progress sometimes may not relate directly to

one's chosen method of training or rehabilitation over a given period. Over

to you!

Dr Mel C Siff

Denver, USA

mcsiff@...