What's a good book about coincidence?

October 23, 2023 7:15 AM

I've recently been experiencing many insignificant but ridiculously unlikely coincidences, and I'd like to read a book about the subject. Ideally the book would touch on probability theory and psychology, but a bit of mysticism is OK too.
posted by Beverley Westwood to Science & Nature (11 answers total)

Best answer: I suggest going right to the "source" and reading CG Jung's short book Synchronicity: an acausal connecting principle (link is to the Internet Archive). (Much of what others have written subsequently about the topic seems to have misinterpreted the key but subtle point that I think Jung was trying to make.)
posted by heatherlogan at 7:24 AM on October 23, 2023 [5 favorites]

I find synchronicity fascinating too, and here are 2 books I've read that are pretty good:
There Are No Accidents: Synchronicity and the Stories of Our Lives. This offers many real-life stories, which are so interesting, along with explanations of what true synchronicity is and why it's important, how to notice it more.
The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and Self
posted by j810c at 7:35 AM on October 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

The Odds of That is a 2002 NYT article about the probability side of things, kind-of.

It's interesting to me that many of the named math/stat people have some real name-recognition over 20 years later... Diaconis, Efron, Paulos. Tibshirani. But there's some citations in there that might guide you better than I can.
posted by adekllny at 7:55 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Best answer: David Aldous, a probability theorist, maintains a list of non-technical books relating to probability with short reviews, which should cover the math side of things. In particular, looking through it, you might like The Improbability Principle.
posted by madcaptenor at 8:10 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Not a book but one perspective based on some of the work I’ve done: there are times in our lives when our subconscious activity is more open and able to indicate its inner workings; what it is mulling over, worrying about, deciding, valuing etc. At certain times for some reason the subconscious is particularly able to access conscious mind to indicate what those things are. The way it communicates is through noticing similarities/symbols in the outer world. So it will notice repeat symbols out of the vast bombardment of sensory information and call it out as feeling important; or it will leave you with impressions that people / situations / items “feel like” something more archetypal than what they physically are; or it may engineer situations for you with other people to get its point across (I’m in that same situation again!)

So for me in times when the subconscious material is bubbling to light I try not to figure it out right away but stay open: what are you trying to tell me? The openness is enough. It will answer the question if you listen.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 8:10 AM on October 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

It is not mysticism, but more a literary exploration - Paul Auster wrote a book called The Red Notebook: True Stories exploring coincidences he documented happening to him and in the lives of people he knows, and how life can feel serendipitous and magical when they are perceived. He is an outstanding literary fiction writer, so the book is wonderful to read.
posted by lizard music at 8:56 AM on October 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

Not a book, but recommending this Radiolab podcast ep: https://radiolab.org/podcast/91684-stochasticity
posted by shocks connery at 10:16 AM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Innumeracy, by John Allen Paulos, is an excellent book on mathematics and has a chapter on probability and coincidences. I enjoyed the book very much when I read it.
posted by alex1965 at 11:01 AM on October 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

The Roots of Coincidence by Arthur Koestler
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/30674
posted by mmiddle at 2:19 PM on October 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe Note: book is more about receiving signs from dead people (which I certainly have never had happen to me, my dead don't care) but I remember it being surprisingly good on that particular topic. It's been awhile since I read it, though, so I might suggest flipping through it IRL and seeing if it's your jam before purchasing. And as mentioned above, pretty much any book by Robert Hopcke talks about this subject.
posted by jenfullmoon at 4:45 PM on October 23, 2023

200% of Nothing is a easy entry into the ways our statistical intuition can lead us astray. More for the statistics than the mysticism.
posted by chromecow at 12:23 AM on October 24, 2023