By Ryan Smith
“Einstein … [has] already showed the success in physics of a method which does not proceed from a knowledge of what things are in and by themselves. Einstein has repeatedly shown us that the physicist must learn to swim in a boundless sea of ideas. … [Ideas] which cannot be deduced from [empirical material] by pure logic.” – Pauli: Writings on Physics and Philosophy, Springer 1994 ed. p. 108
Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) was an outstanding theoretical physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics. He made significant contributions to the scientific understanding of Quantum Theory, and he postulated the existence of the subatomic neutrino some 12 years before it was actually detected.
Pauli was also well-versed in philosophy and the history of science. His broad and integrative approach to knowledge made his interests compatible with C.G. Jung’s, and indeed the two were friends and carried on a lengthy correspondence of private letters, lasting from 1932 to 1958.
Though Pauli’s intellectual output in terms of the crossroads between physics, psychology, and philosophy was erratic, he nevertheless left several writings concerning the unresolved aspects of Quantum Theory that have now marred our understanding of physics for well over a century.
Quantum Phenomena Briefly Explained
Before we engage with Pauli’s proposition, here is a quick rundown of Quantum Theory. For the sake of illustration we allow ourselves some simplifications.
Suppose that you have an electron that’s moving around in a circle. At any given time when you observe (or measure) the electron, it will always be found to be located at one specific point, somewhere on the circle. But get this – as long as nobody is looking, observing, or measuring the state of the electron, it’s actually everywhere and nowhere on the circle at once. In this state, the electron is nothing tangible, but a wave of possibility rippling through every point on the circle at once. The ‘potentiality’ that the wave carries is the potential for the wave to collapse and become a definite particle, located at a definite point on the circle.
As long as the electron is in this wave form, it is impossible to guess where the electron will manifest on the circle – as said, until measured or observed, it is everywhere and nowhere at once. Until observed, it can only be conceptualized as a possibility wave and not a solid object. And because the wave is really nothing solid, we cannot trace its trajectory from past to future, or predict anything about its position at all.
To illustrate how this works, let’s use an analogy from classical physics: Traditional physics can easily explain why a coin toss comes up heads or tails, provided it has sufficient information on altitude, energy, winds, rotation, and other such physical factors. In principle, someone who had this information could predict whether a specific coin toss would come up heads or tails with perfect accuracy even before the coin had been tossed.
Now scale down – if we assume that we could conduct a coin toss on the quantum scale, we would be fundamentally unable to predict whether that coin toss would come up heads or tails. As long as we are not actually observing the coin, it is in multiple places at once – we would have to look to learn the result because when we look, the coin suddenly becomes heads or tails. There is no way we could calculate the result of the toss in advance, because the coin is both heads and tails at the same time until someone decides to look.
Quantum Theory was vastly controversial in Pauli’s own time. Einstein even went to his grave dissatisfied with the messiness, randomness, and apparent subjectivity of the theory. In Pauli’s time, physicists often spoke of “reality changing states” when measured or observed, but a more modern view of the same phenomena holds that reality doesn’t “change states” as much as it becomes fixed in the mind of the observer. By the time the observer has made the observation (or measurement) and understood it, the electron will be a wave of possibility again until the next observation occurs. And the next observation will have no causal relationship with the last.
Nowadays, most physicists agree that the nature of quantum phenomena is indeed dependent on the observer, but there is still no established answer as to why reality changes from wave to particle when measured.
Pauli’s Jungian Proposition
“Physicists who have lived through [the quantum revolution in physics] either evince a regressive longing for the old state of affairs or, or else they look for a development which will lead still further away from the old ‘classical ideal.’ … This second category of physicists, to which I belong, is thus inclined to regard the sphere of application of present-day atomic physics as limited.” – Pauli: Writings on Physics and Philosophy, Springer 1994 ed. p. 155
Besides his love of physics, Pauli had a life-long fascination with the thought of classical antiquity and the history of science. During his lifetime, Pauli saw the human understanding of physics transformed from a Newtonian conception of a classical universe of deterministic causal laws to a quantum universe of indeterminism and uncertainty.
According to Pauli, though our ideas of physics have changed, most physicists still have trouble jettisoning the vestiges of classical mechanics and the worldview of ‘strict’ science that they are taught to regard as the foundation of true science. They think that in order to be ‘scientific,’ they have to arrive at natural laws that in turn must be deterministic.
But with the advent of quantum theory, physics can no longer be reduced to deterministic natural laws. Physicists have grudgingly had to concede that the observer of natural phenomena drastically alters the nature of these phenomena simply by looking at them. However, this concession has come at great pains to physicists, and many still hope for some return to the days of determinism. According to Pauli, Einstein once told him that just like the moon has a definite position whether we are looking or not, so it must be for the quantum realm. In other words, though the facts seem to suggest it, we cannot have this unscientific messiness of the observer altering the facts by way of his consciousness of them.
In Pauli’s view, there is a historical continuity and structure in science that keeps physicists thinking in terms of classical causal mechanics even though the scientific evidence keeps suggesting that we should abandon such modes of thinking. But since most physicists don’t understand philosophy, or are scared of seeming unscientific, they tend to stay close to outdated thought-forms where classical logic is still applied to quantum phenomena.
For example, even as physicists are forced to concede that the observer is not merely a spectator, but also an actor that actively influences phenomena, they soon rush to defend another old assumption, namely that the observer must then be universal, in the same way that an oxygen molecule, a watt of electricity, or a periodic element is universal.
Quantum theory tells us that our expectations matter. According to Pauli, when a person observes a phenomenon in the natural universe, that person will always have a subjective expectation of what the outcome of that phenomenon will be (even though the expectation may be unconscious). Furthermore, quantum observations must always be partial and exclude certain information from their results (indeed they must exclude certain types of information to get certain other types of information about the phenomena that are being investigated).
Whatever observations we make in quantum physics can therefore only be of a partial and singular nature and therefore all observations of quantum phenomena will always be irrational and unique.
Physicists acknowledge this impediment. But they get around it by repeating the same experiment numerous times and then establishing probabilities and average frequencies based on a series of events, instead of the singular event. Thus the inherently subjective nature of the singular and partial experience is made objective through the repetition of similar events.
Because the uniqueness of the singular event cannot be explained, averages and probabilities are inserted as universal laws concerning that event instead. And though Pauli does not deny that this is an elegant solution and that it has afforded good results in physics, he still feels compelled to point out that this attempt to establish deterministic and universal laws based on probabilities is a rather awkward approach. To Pauli, the circumstance that we have made a law out of probability bears witness to the fact that physics is still conducted according to outdated modes of thinking.
Classical Thought-forms: Rational but Wrong
According to Pauli, our inquiries into the secrets of nature have led us face to face with the subjective and the irrational as the co-determinants of objective reality. But rather than engage these findings head-on, physicists have tended to shy away from them, preferring to adhere to the familiar safety that comes from clinging to the familiar thought-forms of classical (but outdated) mechanics.
Pauli wants us to engage with the irrational and subjective, and he wonders whether psychological differences in the observer can also be shown to lead to variances in the observed quantum phenomena. Pauli notes that the idea of a ‘field’ in which quantum probabilities may arise resembles the Jungian idea of a trans-personal collective unconscious. Just like observation of quantum phenomena changes the status of those phenomena, so conscious observation of unconscious contents changes their nature so that these same psychic contents are now cognized differently from when they were wholly unconscious. Finally, both quantum phenomena and the probing of the unconscious replace the causal determinism of classical mechanics with a more general conception of amorphous, indeterminate connections between consciousness and nature.
According to Pauli, it is this psychologico-physical line of research that will lead us to an understanding of the individual quantum phenomena and not just abstracted averages. Pauli admits that he does not know the final answer, but he does perhaps know the way forward. As an intermediate means, Pauli proposes that Jung’s concept of archetypes may be used as a provisional mode of inquiry into the true nature of quantum phenomena.
To this end, Pauli traces the development of the archetype concept in Jung’s thought from its early meaning as simply ‘primordial images’ (in the sense that we have written about here) to the later Jungian meaning that conceives archetypes as organizers of psychic material that are themselves inconceivable.
Under the early Jungian view, then, archetypes are simply primordial images or themes. Loki and Prometheus are both expressions of the trickster archetype. Images or themes that recall this archetype are the archetype itself. That is the early Jungian view. But under the late Jungian view, the archetypes are now organizers of psychic images and are no longer the images themselves. Under the late Jungian meaning of archetypes, we can perceive the images that the archetypes organize for us according to certain patterns, but the archetypes themselves are inconceivable and irrepresentable to consciousness. Thus the late Jungian view that the archetypes-in-themselves are irrepresentable to consciousness is somewhat analogous to the way that quantum phenomena are irrepresentable to consciousness in their unobserved form.
This, then, is Pauli’s way forward: Given that there is something about our powers of observation that causes quantum phenomena to change, and given that we have hitherto attempted to find answers as to why that is by examining the phenomena themselves without reaching a satisfactory resolution, it is now high time that we shift our focus of inquiry away from the physical phenomena and on to the psychological consciousness that perceives them. To this end we should both probe consciousness as well as seek to integrate the psychological idea of the unconscious more prominently into the mainstream of physics proper.
Pauli’s challenge to Quantum Theory thus falls in two parts:
- What is it about conscious observation that causes quantum phenomena to change states?
- Are there any meaningful patterns or correlations between the specific observer’s psychological disposition and expectations and the outcome of the quantum phenomena he perceives? More specifically, can psychological differences between one observer and another be shown to meaningfully influence the outcome of quantum phenomena?
Certainly, if there is something about consciousness that ‘arranges’ our experience of the world for us, indeed, causing reality itself to change by being so arranged, it should be of the utmost importance for scientists to find out what it is.
APPENDIX 1: Similarity between the Jung-Pauli Conjecture and Kantian Thought
By now the reader will possibly have noticed that the Jung-Pauli proposition bears some resemblance to the epistemology and metaphysics of Immanuel Kant.
Indeed, the fundamental insight of Quantum Theory – that the world exists differently when observed than when not observed – seems to fit Kant’s distinction between phenomenological reality and the things-in-themselves like no other.
As the American philosopher Kelley L. Ross has pointed out, quantum phenomena are neatly conformable to the Kantian idea that reality as experienced by us is qualitatively different from reality as it appears apart from our cognition. According to Kant, reality as we perceive it is not reality in itself, but rather reality as it appears to us when synthesized with human consciousness (or in the Kantian parlance: Synthesized according to the categories of the understanding).
According to Kant, human consciousness requires that reality consists of discrete and actual objects rendered in space and time. So even if reality was actually not spatial or temporal at all, there could still be something about our consciousness that breaks reality down around us, causing it to conform to space and time and causing each of us to experience the cosmos in terms of classical mechanics. It would appear that the gist of Kant’s theory is very close indeed to what we can observe about the nature of quantum phenomena.
There are, however, also a number of things about the Kantian theory that would have to undergo modification in order to fit with Quantum Theory. First, Kant did not regard the things-in-themselves as containing the sum of all possible outcomes in the phenomenological world. Another modification would be that Kant did not think that our consciousness of the world would be able to alter the things-in-themselves. He would have to revise his theory to allow for this also.
That said, Kant’s idea that space and time do not exist from the point of view of the things-in-themselves seems to be confirmed by modern physics. Under the Theory of Relativity, time stands still when we reach the speed of light, and under Quantum Theory, unobserved reality isn’t bound by the usual spatial constrictions.
Now, if all of this seems to bear a certain resemblance to the Jungian notion of the Collective Unconscious that is because Jung was also influenced by Kant. As Jung pointed out, his Collective Unconscious belongs amongst the Kantian things-in-themselves.
However, Kant was a firm rationalist who was strictly concerned with what he could logically allow himself to say. The way Kant saw it, if he simply gave himself license to say whatever he believed to be true, independently of whether he could furnish impartial proof for it or not, how could he ever expect us to believe him? Indeed, to the epistemologically fastidious Kant, asserting one’s personal musings as true without evidence would be “loathsome.”
Indeed, where the irrational and anguished elements of human existence were beneath the notice of the rationalistic Kant, Jung followed Schopenhauer in believing that we can get knowledge of the thing-in-itself by examining our own psychology and emotions. But be that as it may, the fact remains that under the Kantian system of thought there is no impartially valid justification for postulating claims about the thing-in-itself the way Jung did.
APPENDIX 2: The Einstein-Pauli Opposition as Viewed through Jungian Typology
“Physicists consider their science as being in the course of a development. The problem is therefore never whether or not the present theories will remain as they are, but merely in which direction they will change.” – Pauli: Writings on Physics and Philosophy, Springer 1994 ed. p. 127
“There is such a thing as the real state of a physical system, which exists objectively, independent of observation and measurement. … I am not ashamed to make ‘the real state of the system’ the central concept of my approach.” – Einstein, in Louis de Broglie – Physicien et Penseur, Albin Michel 1953 ed. p. 6
“[Einstein] clearly states his motive for his attitude: his view is that it is only a theory of this kind [i.e. one that denies the influence of the observer] that can in principle guarantee … an objective reality valid for all. … I myself … conjecture that the observer in present-day physics is still too completely detached and that physics will depart still further from the classical example.” – Pauli: Writings on Physics and Philosophy, Springer 1994 ed. p. 132
As we saw above, Pauli regarded his fellow physicists as intellectual serfs who were fettered by the historical continuity and structure of science. In his view, it was this clinging to old conceptions that kept them thinking in terms of classical mechanics when most of the breakthroughs in physics had actually come from form of thinking that did not adhere to these schemata, that is, in ways that ignored the traditional suppositions embedded in classical physics.
A mirror image of Pauli’s attitude in this respect is the physics of Albert Einstein. Einstein was never quite satisfied with the messy, strange, and indeterministic state of Quantum Theory and he therefore kept hoping that “God did not play dice.” He desperately wanted to find some way to rid Quantum Theory of its “concessions to randomness” so that physics might again be made to conform to deterministic causal laws (as opposed to the indeterminate randomness that presently characterizes it). The result was that the older Einstein withdrew into himself to craft a series of papers, all exhibiting the same brilliance and mathematical beauty of his earlier works, but no longer in direct contact with the empirical data gained about nature. Simply stated, Einstein secluded himself in an ivory tower of beautiful internal ideas where his preferred metaphysics of philosophical realism and deterministic causal laws still made sense. But in doing so, he turned his back on the real world.
Thus Einstein and Pauli present us with a pair of opposites regarding the possible direction of the future of physics: On the one hand, the Paulian alternative of trying on every possible and impossible thought-form in order to advance the cause of physics, merrily scraping even the most central tenets of ‘logic’ and ‘science’ along the way if that is what it takes. On the other, the Einsteinian notion that anything that appears random and dependent upon the observer is simply a sign that we have not yet understood the true nature of the phenomena we are dealing with.
As we have seen, Pauli’s idea that the unconscious could be involved in causing the nature of quantum phenomena to change when observed is ultimately a proposal that relies on an irrational cause (in the sense that the unconscious does not conform to rationality). The fact that physicists are unable to unify the various theories in their field into one coherent model of physics is therefore less of a problem for Pauli because the irrational does not have to be consistent.
But to Einstein, the world must be equally ‘real’ whether we are looking or not. It must have a law-governed structure that can be lucidly analyzed by logic and the singular phenomenon is only of value insofar as it can be analyzed to reveal these eternal laws. Where Pauli is comfortable with the irrational, Einstein demands that the world be rational. Unlike Pauli’s appeal to the unconscious, Einstein’s insistence on ‘logical laws’ demands not only consistency but also, in turn, a Unified Theory of Everything.
In Psychological Types §508, Jung says that the philosophical affinities evidenced in Pauli’s view, namely that concrete and singular observations are determinants of what is real, corresponds to extroversion. As for Einstein, Jung would say that Einstein’s view that reality has a ‘true state’ that is not influenced by the specific observation of it corresponds to introversion.
However, Jung also says in Psychological Types §55 that we cannot determine the actual type on the basis of philosophical affinities alone (an admonition with which we agree). Jungian typology is a system that aims to classify psychological tendencies in the individual, not specific actions, behaviors, or beliefs that he may hold.
And turning our gaze to Einstein, we see that his preference for crafting elegant mathematical theories that coerce the messy facts of outer experience into agreement with the beautiful inner idea represents Ti with its emphasis on inner consistency and its tendency to withdraw from those aspects of the world which it cannot understand through its own inner ideas.
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For even more about Pauli and his Jungian proposition, see also Dr. Kelley L. Ross’ Criticism of Pauli’s Proposition.