Against Synchronicity: Meaningful Coincidence as Cognitive Artifact

Jung's concept of synchronicity posits "meaningful coincidences" connected by significancerather than causation— an acausal connecting principle operating alongside physicalcausality. This paper argues that synchronicity is unnecessary and incoherent. It isunnecessary because the phenomena it purports to explain are fully accounted for by: (1)base rate neglect and confirmation bias in pattern detection; (2) the relational emergence ofmeaning, which creates apparent significance retroactively; (3) covariation within sharedaxiom systems mistaken for mysterious connection. It is incoherent because "acausalconnection" is a contradiction: connection implies relation; relation implies covariation;covariation is what we label "causation." Synchronicity attempts to have connection withoutthe relational structure that constitutes connection. The experiential phenomenon isreal—people do experience meaningful coincidences— but the ontological claim is false.There is no acausal connecting principle; there is pattern detection applied to noise, meaningretroactively projected onto coincidence, and the brain's compulsion to find significancewhere none exists.