Layman's version: What's the theory?
The ideas presented here, for the most part, are in line with some very mainstream quantum mechanics interpretations (relational quantum mechanics, and consistent histories). Some pieces however would not be considered mainstream.

Werner Heisenberg and other early quantum physicists realized in the 1920’s that before they are observed, microscopic things (like atoms) cannot be said to exist in a single definite state. When we measure the atom in some way, somehow the measurements themselves determine which one (and only one) of the possible states the atom will be found in. It goes from being ‘wave-like’ to being ‘particle-like’, from a bunch of possibilities to just one reality.

I suggest an approach for extending this idea to everyday events in your life in order to explain synchronicity. Any event you haven’t observed is still undetermined. It has many possible outcomes. Only when you actually witness an event (either directly, or by inference, word of mouth, etc.) does it become fixed.

The key is to step back from the idea of time as being rigid. When you run into a friend who tells you, say, about a job opportunity that is perfect for you, you might feel it was predetermined. Imagine, instead, at the moment synchronicity occurs, certain related events you haven’t yet observed also fall into place. Just before that moment, events in your friend’s day are still undetermined. The moment you meet him or her, the steps leading your friend to you fall into place, retroactively. Events you haven’t observed in your friend’s recent past haven’t actually happened until you meet.

The present moment is therefore not a single rigid instant that’s the same for everybody. In the present, the things you choose can affect somebody else’s past.

This reasoning is derived from two basic postulates or premises:

1. Any unobserved event is undetermined. What is determined or not determined at a given space-time coordinate is based on the perspective of the observer.
2. No definite objective overview of reality exists. Instead, the meeting of shared subjective realities are what we call “measurements”. These are instances where two separate entities must agree on common observables. These are the only events that can be considered definite or concrete, and they are only definite and concrete for the observers involved.

From these ideas follows the notion of Retroactive Event Determination, used here to explain synchronicity (and shown in the Action-Synchronicity diagram). Events in a particular history do not take definite form until after the fact, when you make an observation that requires them to fall into place in a certain way.

What this may lead to is the idea that "fate follows free will". Events around you, in the past as well as the present, fall into place around your actions. Multiple meaningful futures may be available to ‘collapse into being’ based on the actions you take. We have the first move with our free will, but it is suggested that fate always has the second. It may make that second move in accord with the meaning we brought to the first.

In describing atoms, physicist Henry Stapp says it is meaningless to peer “behind the scenes” and find out what is “really happening.” There is only whatever reality can be discovered through the act of observation. According to Heisenberg, “The term “happens” is restricted to the observation”. He is saying what has not been witnessed has not actually happened. We don’t usually apply this logic to humans. The standard understanding is that this logic refers only to things like atoms, but my approach is an attempt to help us describe synchronicity too.

Interestingly, one of the outstanding problems in quantum theory is trying to understand why the quantum world has this funny behavior and the macroscopic, everyday world does not. The approach I have taken shows that indeed, there is no difference between MICROscopic and MACROscopic. The same laws apply to both, and the result is "Retroactive Event Determination" and synchronicity.

Please download the papers linked above for a more detailed technical explanation.





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