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Comment by kitchi | Hacker News Reader

In spiritual/mystical literature there are many references to enlightenment being the realization that all consciousness is connected.

In the light of this research I wonder if what they are talking about is synchronicity. Perhaps meditation enhances the brains ability to synchronize quickly, leading to that feeling?

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Exactly. The claim is that brains are more like antennas than they are producers of thoughts.

An example of modern spirituality subscribing to that idea is Martinus:

Summary of a section of Book of Life:

> The brain and nervous system as an antenna system for "electric" waves. "Electric" waves as the basis for the individual's experience of life. The brain and nervous system as the individual's gateway into the spiritual world. Special centres or complexes in the brain and nervous system for the various spiritual functions. Disharmony in the brain and nervous system as identical with "insanity", "mental deficiency" and "paralysis"

https://www.martinus.dk/en/ttt/index.php?bog=51&stk=224

but every antenna is a transmitter? so the implied directionality isn't there.

You're right, the directionality is missing. The implicit direction is receiving.

If you took two computers and ran the same program and observed the same values in the same registers on both machines would you say that the machines are connected and experiencing synchronicity or just responding similarly to the same inputs?

In that case you could probably argue both, in that they are synchronized by the operator’s intention, the identical nature of the programs being run, as well as each computer’s ability to identically do so and output the same values.

Synchronicity could be just that. Two systems responding to inputs in similar/identical ways, because they evolved to do so or were made to do so. Both functions of the overarching nature of cause and effect.

It gets more interesting when you let those two computers talk to each other and each becomes an input for the other. Interference and synchronization abounds.

If two computers modify their initially different programs to match inputs and outputs - I would say it is synchronicity. The key difference with just two running copies of the same program is the ability to observe behavior of each other and modify it accordingly.

Two people interacting don't entirely have "the same input" though, do they? But we have neurons that try to mimic the feelings and thoughts of those around us, to give us empathy and help us communicate. These might somehow simulate having the same inputs, leading to synchronicity?

Seeing as all that writing is based on pure made up stuff and there is no "universal energy flowing through us all". I would be more apt to write it off as a coincidence rather than anything spiritual or woo woo. It makes sense that there's a chance that if you're both talking about the same thing, in agreement, enjoying a moment, etc that brains could start reacting similarly. Thus, become somewhat synchronized, since brains are still brains and essentially work the same way in almost everyone.

Fascinating thought.

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