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Coniunctio of Physis and Psyche

Pauli as impetus or exemplar for integration of science and faith

Mission: Impossible

• Your mission, if you choose to accept, is:

P/TOE Philosophy/Theology of Everything

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958)

Nobel Prize, Physics, 1945, exclusion principle

Close and extended relationships: Ernst Mach, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg, Arnold

Sommerfeld, Niels Bohr, Carl Jung

Young Pauli, Child Prodigy Physics is easy, women are hard

(1900-1958)

Picture available on line

Ernst Mach, godfather Anti-metaphysical positivist

Mach Society = Vienna Circle (1838-1916)

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Albert Einstein Physics and women are easy

(1879-1955)

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Werner Heisenberg, friend/schoolmate

Uncertainty principle

(1901-1976)

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Arnold Sommerfeld, super-physics teacher of Pauli, Heisenberg, et.al., “Hussar colonel”

84 Nobel nominations, most of any physicist (1868-1951)

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Niels Bohr “Pope” of Copenhagen

Complementarity philosophy (1885-1962)

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Carl Jung, Psychiatrist Women are easy, physics is hard

(1875-1961)

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• 2500 pages of publications

Two major articles (100 pages) on “philosophy”

“Science and Western Thought,” lecture in Mainz, 1955

“The Influence of Archetypal Representations on the Development of Kepler’s Scientific Theories,” part of Jung/Pauli book (1952), The Interpretation of Nature and Psyche

BUT 7500 Pages of Personal Correspondence

This tape will self-destruct in three seconds

Outline

• Alchemical objections to Kepler/classical physics

• Quantum contributions: paradox, com-plementarity, effect of observation, etc.

• From Trinitarian to Quaternarian (Pythagorean number mysticism)

24K

Platonian views lead to:

Good = rational = reality (Ideals, Forms)

Evil = irrational = matter

Avoid dualism by: Evil is lack of good, privatio boni, matter is lack of Ideals/Form.

Pauli saw this as wrong representation of both evil and matter.

Fludd’s objections

• Loss of anima mundi

• Loss of number mysticism

• Vulgar mathematics replaced pure math

• No successful vision of cosmic harmony

• Loss of spirit/purpose/teleology to causality

Pauli at 40, escapes to US for WWII (his wife’s favorite photo of him)

Picture available on line

Pauli’s crises, c.1929

• Brief marriage to dancer (left him for a

chemist (!?), a bull-fighter, OK, but chemist?)

• Father leaves mother for younger sculptress

• Mother commits suicide

• Pauli leaves Catholic Church (good? bad?)

Pauli, Critic and Jinx

• Jinx • Known for jinxing physics experiments, indeed all things mechanical, unintentionally, unconsciously.

• Scourge of God, des Gottes Geissel • Book review: “It was printed on fine paper.”

• About atheism: “There is no God, and Dirac is his prophet.”

• To a lecturer: “Yes, you made a sign error, an odd

number of times.”

Pauli, Physicist, 1900-1958

• By age 21, wrote standard “book” on Einstein’s relativity

• Pauli exclusion principle (1920s), principle of building atoms, Nobel Prize 1945

• Proposed “invisible” neutrino, 1932, unseen particle to maintain conservation principles

e- spin up

e- spin down

Classical vs. Quantum

Classical Mechanics (CM)

• Matter, as particles or a continuum of mass

• Mass particles are forever

• Causal continuous deter-mined motion in space and time

• Prediction perfect

Quantum Mechanics (QM)

• Matter and energy, act as particle/wave, continuous/ discontinuous combined

• Particle/waves are created, annihilated, and transformed

• STEPS (no handicap accessible ramps) require JUMPS

• Predict only the odds

CM vs QM, continued

CM

• WYSIWYG, epistemology = ontology

• Detached observer of external reality

• Reality is obvious, just masses that move

• God in complete control (or maybe not even there)

QM

• Epistemological agnosticism with ontological abstinence

• Observer has unpredictable effects, uncertainty

• Paradoxical, complemen-tary, contradictory. Is it real?

• Is God in control, or did he leave it to chance?

Ιερό γάμο της φύσης και της ψυχής

Ph

ysis

Psyche

Ιερό γάμο της φύσης και της ψυχής

Physis

Psy

che

Complementarity in Theology 1. Ontological paradox: tri-unity in the being of God. 2. Cosmological paradox: God as separate from but completely involved with his creation; transcendence /immanence. 3. Epistemological paradox: knowledge of God coming through revelation. 4. Anthropological paradox: man as free yet predestined. 5. Christological paradox: divine/human nature of Christ. 6. Soteriological paradox: salvation showing God’s mercy/judgment. 7. Eschatological paradox: limitless love/eternal punishment. 8. Genealogical paradox: origin in natural processes/origins in God

Paradox in Christian Teaching

• The blessed poor • First shall be last, last/first • Love your haters • Leader as servant • Blessing of giving • Die to live • Present but ever coming kingdom • God is near/far • Strength in weakness

Particle/Wave analogies in Christian Experience

• Creation in moment/continuing creation (evolution)

• Spiritual birth/spiritual growth (sanctification)

• Wedding/marriage

• Special revelation/general revelation

• Healing in moment/health

• Baptism in Spirit/walk in Spirit

• Gifts of Spirit/fruits of Spirit

• Pastor-priest-missionary/priesthood of all believers

• Epiphany/practicing the presence of God

• Outward sacramental rites/ inward reality

Potential becomes actual

• Atom level

• Mankind level

• God level

• Chance

• Free will

• Grace

Quaternity of Quantum Mechanics Momentum-energy conservation

Space-time continuity and symmetry

Position (x)

Time (t)

Momentum (p)

Energy (E)

(∆𝑥)(∆𝑝) ≥ ℎ/4𝜋

(∆𝑡)(∆𝐸) ≥ ℎ/4𝜋

𝐸𝑖 =𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡

𝑝𝑖 =𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑡

Psychology

Timeless collective

unconscious

Self-awareness,

time

The combined complementarities of physics and psychology form a quaternity:

Physics Indestructible energy and

momentum

Definite spatio-temporal

process

Proposed combined quaternity

Energy-momentum

conservation

Meaningless determined

causality Meaningful unique

synchronicity

Space-time

continuum

Pauli’s Strengths/Contributions

• Consistent and sustained principle of complementarity

• Willingness to look at spirit, magic, mysticism, religion, etc.

• Insistence on will, life, the effect of a person • Trying to see wholeness in world with a deeper

reality which bridged psycho-physical parallelism • Chance, choice, grace, will as room for

God/Nature to work without breaking physical law

Pauli Contributions, continued

• Continuous creation with creation of particles, jumps in going from potentia to occasion, development of history, becoming

• Insistence on evil as something more than privation boni (lack of good). Will can be evil but it is redeemable. Christianity (esp. Protestantism) as “little lamb’s tail,” unwilling to see active evil.

• Teleology, part of life, thus part of reality, including inanimate nature

• Sees danger in separation of science and religion, in rational and irrational

A Sufficiently Representative Stack of Books

Jung, C. G., and Wolfgang Pauli. 2012. The Interpretation of Nature and the psyche. Bronx, N.Y.: Ishi Press

Pauli, Wolfgang, C. G. Jung, Carl Alfred Meier, C. P. Enz, M. Fierz, David Roscoe, and Beverley Zabriskie. 2014. Atom and archetype: the Pauli/Jung letters, 1932-1958. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Laurikainen, Kalervo Vihtori. 1988. Beyond the atom: the philosophical thought of Wolfgang Pauli. Berlin: Springer-Verl.

Laurikainen, Kalervo Vihtori. 1997. The message of the atoms: essays on Wolfgang Pauli and the unspeakable. Berlin: Springer. http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3094390.

My related publications

• Faries, Dillard W. “A Personal God, Chance, and Randomness in Quantum Physics.” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 66(1) (March 2014) 13–22.

• Faries, Dillard, forthcoming book, Amazing Grace of Quantum Physics (suggested title), Wipf and Stock, 2018 (suggested publication date)