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skynelson — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 11:05:49 CST

Sky Nelson has worked on developing a theory on the physics of synchronicity, or the Science Behind the Science of Mind.

Technical audience: The first published paper is here (published in the Journal of Scientific Exploration, Summer 2011):

Retroactive Event Determination and the Interpretation of Macroscopic Quantum Superposition States in Consistent Histories and Relational Quantum Mechanics View (Popular version, see below)

Technical audience: The second published paper is here (in the proceedings for the AAAS Conference in San Diego, June 2011):

Retroactive Event Determination and its Relativistic Roots View

Popular audience: Click "Videos" tab above, or visit http://www.youtube.com/user/skynelson?feature=mhee
Popular audience: Ignite! presentation on Occupy and Synchronicity http://igniteshow.com/videos/why-synchronicity-key-transforming-our-society
Popular audience: Lay version of the first published paper above, Cliff Notes MQS states and Retroactive Event Determination View
Popular audience: Q&A regarding Retroactive Event Determination: http://www.scribd.com/doc/62030982/Questions-From-a-Reader-edition-1 View
Popular audience:More Q&A regarding the Fourier Realm:http://www.scribd.com/doc/65460303/Q-A-From-Reader-Edition-2 View
Popular audience: Why Synchronicity is a Key Ingredient in the Coming Transition View
Popular audience: Science of Mind Magazine, June 2009, 'When Fate Follows Free Will' View
Popular audience: New Thought Magazine featured an article by Sky titled "How I Use Physics to Pray" in the Fall 2009 issue. View
Poster presentation from the "Toward a Science of Consciousness Conference 2010" in Tucson Az. View
Please tell your stories of synchronicity and respond to others in the Discussion Forum.
Visit: Sky Nelson's Music Home Page
Sky's BLOG
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Sky is available to speak on the physics of synchronicity, the Science behind the Science of Mind, and his vision for the future. He is experienced at speaking with audiences of spiritual students, scientists, or the general public (see the Video tab or YouTube/skynelson). He is also a professional songwriter and performer, and often combines his positive music with his presentations on synchronicity. For more info, please explore these pages, as well as www.skynelson.com, and contact Sky directly. (theskyband [at] gmail [dot] com)

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:

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.
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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About Sky

skynelson — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 23:06:58 CST

Sky Nelson has received songwriting awards with West Coast Songwriter’s for Best Song and Best Performance, and from Indie International Song Contest for “Live in Love” and “We Are the Ones (We’ve Been Waiting For)”. His newest work, “The World Ocean”, (available at www.skynelson.com) is a prophetic singer-songwriter album inspired by dreams of giant tsunamis and rising water levels. It is written for a time of immense global change and overwhelming transitions.
Yet hearing the music is just the beginning of understanding Sky. Sky is a trained physicist and a dedicated social activist. All his talents come together in his vision for a planet living in alignment with itself.
Sky has developed a theory on the physics of meaningful coincidences or synchronicity. His theory has been presented over the past year at a number of conferences (Society for Scientific Exploration, Boulder CO; Toward a Science of Consciousness, Tucson, AZ; Science and Non-Duality conference, San Rafael, CA; Asilomar United Centers for Spiritual Living conference, CA), and is forthcoming for publication in the Journal for Scientific Exploration. The theory is based on understanding how quantum mechanics applies to our everyday world, and it brings up (and attempts to answer) several metaphysical questions. Sky has had two articles published in New Thought publications in 2009 on the physics of synchronicity. (www.expectingsynchronicity.com) His first research paper has been accepted for publication with the Journal for Scientific Exploration.

Sky strives to convey his understanding of the physical principles of synchronicity through his writing, and also to live and to practice them himself through his professional music career. After all, it is synchronicity which allows us to find ways through the obstacles and achieve our dreams. Sky’s hope is that it is possible to transform humanity’s worldview into an understanding of synchronicity which will allow us to resolve our problems and achieve our dreams as a civilization.
You can learn more about Sky and listen to his music at: www.skynelson.com

Sample Action-Synchronicity worksheet

skynelson — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:31:00 CST

Create some quiet space and use a meditative practice to think through a past synchronicity experience.
Once you have the event in your head, fill out the worksheet below.
Then copy what you entered for each numbered question into the Action-Opportunity Diagram.

Action-Opportunity Diagram Worksheet Title: Changing work methods for a committee
1) Original Need:
The FORTRAN 66 Standard Clarification Committee spent a week with a dozen people at a big table devising five single paragraph clarifications of the standard. It seemed glacially slow but then I discovered it was the eleventh meeting and the first clarifications issued. We spent most of our time locating all the places where some word was mentioned in the document, so we could be sure we covered all the cases for some concept. We needed an index into the standard itself, in ultimate detail, a concordance or a KWIC Key Word In Context index.

2) Synchro-tunity (Describe in a couple sentences): I was a system programmer helping people use the computer at UCSF. My supervisor, the director of the computer center, had just written a program to create KWIC indexes but I only had a printed copy of the FORTRAN standard. One of the people I had been helping came to thank me for that and offered to help me any time he could. He had been preparing to computer score a large set of answer sheets from a standardized test. I asked him if he happened to have a room full of idle keypunch operators. He said he did, so I gave him quickly scribbled instructions for how to key in the standard for the KWIC index program. After a few days, he returned to me with a full box of IBM cards containing the FORTRAN standard in the right format.

3) Actions toward fulfilling need:

a. See the problem of the committee in an actionable way.

b. Observe the opportunity to employ the KWIC index program.

c. Identify the possibility for getting the standard punched up in the needed format.

4) Follow-up Actions (after Synchro-tunity):

a. Come in on a Saturday to steal time to run the KWIC program on the FORTRAN standard.

b. Mail the output to the chairman of the Standard Clarification Committee

c. Recieve thanks. Then when the committee evolved into the FORTRAN 77 standard writing committee, they routinely made a concordance of each draft of that standard to assist their work in getting everything right.

5) Identify Need Met (same? Evolved? Simplified? One sentence):

Need for easy and quick lookup of key terms was well fulfilled by the concordance.

6) Obstacles (What were they? How did you overcome them?):

a. Getting the standard keyed in for the KWIC program was solved by a person I had previously helped do his job.

b. Getting the computer time to run the program was solved by stealing it.

c. Getting the result to the committee was solved by the USPS after some clerical work to wrap and address it.

7) “Precursor Events”:

a. The committee work showed up the problem.

b. The help I had given the test scoring guy made him offer to help me and his work gave him the resource to provide.

c. My readiness to ask for the right help gave me the chance to acquire the keypunching resource.

Now fill in this info in the A-O Diagram on the opposite page, using the corresponding numbers.

What is Synchronicity?

skynelson — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 13:27:48 CST

About Synchronicity:

The Miriam-Webster, online dictionary defines synchronicity as:
Synchronicity - The coincidental occurrence of events and especially psychic events (as similar thoughts in widely separated persons or a mental image of an unexpected event before it happens) that seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality -- used especially in the psychology of C. G. Jung

Our definition: For the sake of this process, we will define synchronicity slightly differently, but still in line with Jung's definition:
Synchronicity - A coincidental occurrence of events that seem related, are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality, but are related by an indirect cause and effect process, namely, the cause and effect of 'meaning'.

Abstract

skynelson — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 22:59:27 CDT

Retroactive Event Determination In Consistent Histories And Relational Quantum Mechanics, As Applied To Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment
Sky Nelson
Santa Rosa, Ca, USA
Contact: theskyband [at] gmail.com

Abstract:
We suggest a pair of postulates which unify two current models of quantum theory into a broader picture of reality. Relational Quantum Mechanics ([Rovelli] ) (RQM) and Consistent Histories ([Griffiths] ) (CH) are discussed and related to the postulates. By dropping the assumption that unobserved macroscopic events are “in a definite state” determined independent of an observer, we arrive at a surprising but consistent theory of quantum macroscopic reality (with fewer fundamental assumptions about everyday reality) that does not contradict experiment or everyday experience. As a result, a concept herein termed retroactive event determination is extended from a quantum principle (in CH) to a macroscopic principle.

Discussion Link

skynelson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:26:34 CDT

Please visit and add comments to our discussion board at:
www.skynelson.com/discussion.cfm

Interesting Links

skynelson — Sun, 31 May 2009 20:48:06 CDT

Two slit experiment with electrons: This is a link to a simple and informative 1 minute video by Akiro Tonomura for those not familiar with the profound mystery of the two slit experiment. http://www.hqrd.hitachi.co.jp/rd/moviee/doubleslite-n.wmv This video shows how electrons, shot one at a time through a pair of tiny slits, land on a screen in a pattern that appears random...at first. Thinking in terms of classical physics, one would expect that particles flying through hole would land randomly on the screen behind, like baseballs from a pitching machine. By the end of the video, we see that the pattern is instead the familiar pattern of wave interference. The individual electrons are behaving like waves, and essentially 'interfering with themselves' as they pass through both slits simultaneously. A completely satisfying description of this behavior does not yet exist, and lies at the heart of the quantum mystery. It is the focus of these papers.

Thoughts on modern science...

skynelson — Tue, 12 May 2009 14:23:17 CDT

Advanced physics has come to the disconcerting realization that our methods of inquiry shape the answers we get. As such, the scientific method, as it is currently understood, has its own self-defined limitations.

A scientific test relies on running an experiment again and again under nearly identical conditions, and testing all possible outcomes based on adjusting a controlled variable. Yet the types of simple daily situations we describe in synchronicity cannot be repeated. In life, we cannot truthfully say 'if only this or that had been different, everything would have turned out differently', because we cannot repeat 'experience', with the exact same conditions, to test it.

The photograph of me here was taken shortly before Barack Obama arrived to speak at the University of Reno campus. At the end of his speech, as he came around to shake hands of people along the front edge, I handed him a copy of the music video for my song "We Are the Ones (We've Been Waiting for)". I called out "Barack, Barack, here's a video to motivate the volunteers!", to which he replied "OK" and took it from my hands (see an incredibly lucky video of the experience here!). From beginning to end, from sitting at home pondering how I might get the video in the hands of the campaign, to ending up in Reno two weeks later as a volunteer, to Senator Obama (by random chance) visiting Reno that same weekend, to me being in the front row, this experience was an experience in learning about expecting synchronicity. Of course I cannot repeat the experience, so I cannot prove it, but if I had not had faith in synchronicity at this point in time, you can be sure I would not have met Barack Obama. The theories on this site are an attempt to explain reality as I experience it, through the language that I know, physics.

Experience, and the coincidences that happen on a daily basis, cannot be exactly repeated in order to be tested.

As a man of science, with an avid dislike for pseudo-science, I submit these ideas from a deep conviction that science can explain, literally, everything. In order to do so, it must be willing to question its own processes, and pay attention to the confounding answers of its own experiments. The assumptions of tomorrow's science will be unrecognizable to us today, and our current assumptions about the nature of reality will seem childish in retrospect.

Action-Synchronicity Diagram

skynelson — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:43:11 CST

The Action-Synchronicity Diagram is a simple tool used to analyze past experiences in order to better understand the nature of synchronicity in our lives. It is easy to learn how to use, and flexible to be able to describe any type of experience that you may consider synchronicity. I developed this particular tool because it helped me to visualize how synchronicity seemed to work, and then come to count on it more often.

Start by filling out the Action-Synchronicity Worksheet. Then use that information to fill out this Action-Synchronicity Diagram.

Action-Synchronicity Worksheet

Nitpicker — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:16:59 CST

Create some quiet space and use a meditative practice to think through a past synchronicity experience.
Once you have the event in your head, fill out the worksheet below.
Then copy what you entered for each numbered question into the Action-Opportunity Diagram.

Action-Opportunity Diagram Worksheet Title: _____________________________________________________

1) Original Need:
________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________

2) Synchro-tunity (Describe in a couple sentences): ____________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________________________

3) Actions toward fulfilling need:

a. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

b. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

c. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

4) Follow-up Actions (after Synchro-tunity):

a. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

b. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

c. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

5) Identify Need Met (same? Evolved? Simplified? One sentence):

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

6) Obstacles (What were they? How did you overcome them?):

a. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

b. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

c. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

7) “Precursor Events”:

a. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

b. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

c. ___________________________________________________________________________________________

Now fill in this info in the A-O Diagram on the opposite page, using the corresponding numbers.