Modern physics is no less non-deterministic than the realm of fantasies and of archetypes. Although modern physics seems to have broken away from astrology and alchemy, its basis can still be found in the realm of the fantastic entities which compose the world. Particles are described as probabilistic wave-functions which themselves may be considered real entities according to some interpretations of quantum mechanics. While probabilities are not treated as a physical field particles seem to know beforehand the paths they have to follow. Thus the
while they are instantaneously interacting at a distance. The result is that the distribution or entity cannot be localized at a particular point in space and time without losing the whole picture of the entity. But all these entities and processes which constitute the physical phenomena cannot be realized without the observer who considers the phenomena. Therefore it makes sense to say that thought or consciousness are aspects which emerge together with the phenomena and build up during the physical processes.
Kepler and archetypes
Another essay by Wolfgang Pauli, which was also given as a lecture in 1948 at the Psychological Club of Zurich, and which can also be found in the aforementioned book ‘Atom and the
archetype,’ is titled ‘The influence of archetypal ideas in the scientific theories of Kepler.’ In that essay Pauli wonders about the relationship between objects and the theories of physics which describe the same objects. Presumably the notions related to the objects should correspond to the properties of the same objects only if there are some common factors which bridge the gap between perception and the real world. These common factors are the archetypes:
“In contrast to the purely empirical conception according to which natural laws can, with virtual certainty, be derived from the material of experience alone, many physicists have recently emphasized anew the fact that intuition and the direction of attention play a considerable role in the development of the concepts and ideas, generally far transcending mere experience, that are necessary for the erection of a system of natural laws (that is, a scientific theory). From the standpoint of this not purely empirical conception, which we also accept, there arises the question, what is the nature of the bridge between the sense perceptions and the concepts? It seems most satisfactory to introduce at this point the postulate of a cosmic order independent of our choice and distinct from the world of phenomena. Whether one speaks of the ‘participation of natural things in ideas’ or of a behavior of metaphysical things-those, that is, which are in themselves real, the relation between sense perception and idea remains predicated upon the fact that both the soul of the perceiver and that which is recognized by perception are subject to an order thought to be objective. Every partial recognition of this order in nature leads to the formulation of statements that, on the one hand, concern the world of phenomena and, on the
other transcend it by the ‘idealized’ use of general logical concepts. The process of understanding nature as well as the happiness that man feels in understanding- that is, in the conscious
realization or new knowledge- seems thus to be based on a correspondence, a ‘matching’ of inner images pre-existent in the human psyche with external objects and their behavior.”
The point made here is that we are able to perceive and understand the world because both physical objects and human perception are built upon the same principles. This may seem self- evident but it has deep implications as it is opposed to the interpretation of modern physics about the meaning of chance. In optics for example visual perception of an object is a collection of ‘bright spots’ on the retina, created by a random bombardment of light particles, hitting the object and coming back to our eyes. But if our eyes weren’t somehow tuned in with the light frequencies we wouldn’t be able to perceive anything. Not only we are fine- tuned with the light frequencies but also with all other forces which make up matter and energy as we know it. This cannot be due to mere chance unless we are composed of the same material as any other object. But if the mechanical properties of objects correspond to some inherent physical principles then the psychic properties or contents (perception of objects) may correspond to some pre-
established inner images or archetypes.
Kepler was perhaps the last of the ‘magicians- mathematicians,’ who lived during a period when the world was passing from alchemy to modern science. Although he deeply believed that planetary orbits were somehow guided by the shapes of the Platonic solids he finally stated his laws based on simple observation. We may say that the deepest aspects of universal harmony are so well- hidden that they even eluded Kepler’s genius. In the aforementioned essay Pauli says about Kepler:
“The next step in Kepler’s hierarchical arrangement of the cosmos involves the individual souls. What he understands by individual souls are not just human souls (anima hominis) but… the souls of the planets as well… Kepler feels bound to assign a soul to it (the Earth), the anima terrae (soul of the Earth). This anima terrae is also a formative power in the earth’s interior and in Kepler’s view is responsible for meteoric phenomena. For Kepler, the individual soul, as an image of God, is partly a point and partly a circle… Connected to this conception as both point and circle are Kepler’s special views on astrology. According to him, the justification for astrology lies in the ability of the individual soul to react to certain harmonious proportions that correspond to specific rational divisions of the circle. As with the perception of euphony in music, the soul is said to have a similar specific ability to react to the harmonious proportions of the angles that the rays of starlight, striking the earth, form with each other. Kepler seeks to link astrology to optical resonance effects, along the lines of scientific causal thinking. This
resonance is based on the fact that, according to him, the soul knows about the harmonious proportions, because, by virtue of its circular form, it is an image of God. In Kepler’s view, astrological effects are caused not by the celestial bodies but rather by the individual souls with their specifically selective ability to react to certain proportions. Since this power of reacting, on the one hand, receives influences from the corporeal world and, on the other hand, is based on the image relation to God, these individual souls (the anima terrae, and the anima hominis) become for Kepler essential exponents of cosmic harmony (harmonia mundi)…
At the end of the essay an attempt is made to bring this seventeenth- century problem into association with the generally felt wish today for a greater unification of our worldview. There is an initial proposal to recognize the significance of the scientific stage of knowledge for the
development of scientific ideas by supplementing the investigation of this scientific knowledge with an investigation directed inward. The former process is devoted to adapting our knowledge to external objects; the latter should bring to light the archetypal images used in the creation of our scientific concepts. Only by combining both these directions of research may complete understanding be obtained.”
This process could be something like ‘constructive contemplation;’ in other words a ‘thought experiment’ or process which combines rationalism and intuition. It has to do with a certain amount of balance between religious blind faith and scientific absolute opinion. An example is offered by Pauli in the previous essay where it is mentioned that Kepler believed that meteors were attracted towards the Earth by its soul (the anima terrae). According to such a belief someone might also deduce that rain falls when the human soul (the anima hominis) is sad. Although it literarily doesn’t rain no matter how hard we cry, and meteors do not hit the Earth when God is angry, premonitions are not to be excluded, at least not before their deepest nature has been explored. God- in the form of a universal spirit or consciousness- may warn us about things to come and creatures in nature are thought to be able to respond to phenomena which are about to take place. Some animals are believed to predict the weather (see, e.g., the groundhog day) and some people have claimed to have predicted major events (I am aware, e.g., of the story of Edgar Cayce). Even machines have been reported to be able to predict important events. An example of this may be offered by the Global Consciousness Project:
“The behavior of our network of random sources is correlated with interconnected human consciousness on a global scale. Coherent consciousness creates order in the world. Subtle interactions link us to each other and to the Earth.
When human consciousness becomes coherent, the behavior of random systems may change. Random number generators (RNGs) based on quantum tunneling produce completely
unpredictable sequences of zeroes and ones. But when a great event synchronizes the feelings of millions of people, our network of RNGs becomes subtly structured. We calculate one in a trillion odds that the effect is due to chance. The evidence suggests an emerging noosphere or the unifying field of consciousness described by sages in all cultures.”
[http://teilhard.global-mind.org/]
The previous site claims that random number generators (machines which generate numbers in random) started to produce meaningful sequences of numbers before the 9/11 attack. Even so nobody knew what the event would be. The machines can even make false predictions. But what is a meaningful sequence of numbers and how could we make a random generator produce such a sequence which could be interpreted as a physical event beyond any doubt? In what way could we decipher planetary motions so that we would be certain about our destinies? Perhaps there is a fundamentally wrong idea we have about the meaning of probability. This is what follows next.
What is probability?
I have already mentioned something about the notion of probability. In fact in modern physics phenomena and the behavior of objects are treated as a set of events which can be described by a probability distribution. Thus the distribution expresses the form of an entity in the context of which everything participates.
As far as groundhogs are concerned, as Wikipedia explains, according to Groundhog Day organizers, the rodents’ forecasts are accurate 75% to 90% of the time. However, a Canadian study for 13 cities in the past 30 to 40 years found that the weather patterns predicted on Groundhog Day were only 37% accurate over that time period. According to the StormFax Weather Almanac and records kept since 1887, Punxsutawney Phil’s weather predictions have
been correct 39% of the time. The National Climatic Data Center has described the forecasts as ‘on average, inaccurate’ and stated that ‘[t]he groundhog has shown no talent for predicting the arrival of spring, especially in recent years.’
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day]
But why ‘especially in recent years?’ Has the predictive power of the animal changed? Have weather patterns changed? Or is it that the way we measure probability has changed? But what is probability? Basically if we say that an event has 10% probability to occur it means that the event will take place 10 out of 100 consecutive times under the same conditions. But if the event doesn’t happen today the probability doesn’t increase for tomorrow (as conditions never stay the same). In other words probabilities are assumed to have no memory. But for the wrong reason. Let’s take for example the toss of a coin. For a fair coin the probability of taking either heads or tails is 50%. In other words the events are independent from each other. However the
fundamental law of statistics- that of large numbers- says that the result will be 50% for either heads or tails if we toss the coin a sufficient number of times. Therefore if we initially take a lot of ‘heads’ the result will have to ‘normalize’ to ‘tales’ at the end. But how does the set knows that it has to normalize if it has no memory of the past tosses? It is this aspect of wholeness, that the distribution somehow has the knowledge of its overall form, what normalizes the final outcome. So even if the separate results do not interact with each other they are all connected with the result of their sum. This is similar to falling objects. Although there’s no interaction between them they all fall to the ground at the same time because they are all connected with the force of gravity.
Therefore we may say that probabilities have memory which is related to the Form of the
distribution as a Whole even if the separate events of the distribution have no knowledge of each other. Perhaps this is why in the case of the Groundhog Day the organizers of the event have different results than other independent investigators. Each one is part of the distribution
ignoring the overall result. This also shows that all probability distributions are inhomogeneous. In other words some events should be expected to occur more often than others. For example it doesn’t rain with the same frequency in the Sahara desert compared to North America. Nor does everyone have the same chance to win money. People with more money are supposed to make
even more in the same sense that an object which gains mass increases its attractive force. Therefore we may talk about an ‘acceleration factor’ which makes the field of probabilities non- uniform. This factor also explains why partial results ‘hurry’ or have ‘bias’ toward the overall result in the same way that droplets of water become organized to form a cloud.
Therefore probabilities not only have ‘memories’ but also ‘preferences.’ As with any ‘field’ they have certain aspects which control the way they ‘behave’ or propagate. This is the same as when we talk about ‘chance.’ In fact chance is not ‘random’ but meaningful. When we say that
somebody is lucky we don’t mean that he has equal probabilities to win but that he usually wins. In other words we imply that there is a certain influence or predisposition which helps him win under certain conditions. When the conditions are met we have a ‘meaningful coincidence’ between the individual and the event, both of which are aspects of the same distribution or, to put it in the language of archetypes, they both express the same archetype. Therefore it is some archetype of ‘Destiny’ what acts upon the distribution, attributes relative weights, and shows the direction according to certain conditions. I would also say that presumably the whole distribution describes the Form. In other words the Form provides the overall shape of the distribution while the separate parts can be perceived as the archetypes which cause the events. These events are the manifestations of what we call ‘chance’ or ‘Destiny.’
- We may define probability as the meaningful coincidence of events which, despite the fact that can be independent, are still connected with each other by the overall form of the distribution.
Thus probability distributions in physics may describe not one particle but a collection of particles (or a collection of things which compose the ‘particle’). This is perhaps why during interactions the shape of the distribution or the wave-function does not change. While particles come and go the property (e.g. charge) is conserved. Accordingly we may say that the Form is conserved in a similar way that energy is. But while energy is a formless notion, the Form is accompanied by shape and content. By perceiving the overall shape we may predict what the separate parts may be. However in this case the parts will not be ‘particles’ (which are composed of properties) but properties (the actions of archetypes) which are spread across the whole
distribution. This could explain, among other things, why particles have multiple roles (the electron, for example, causes both the electric and the magnetic field), or why some particles come in groups (particle-antiparticle pairs, or quark triplets). It may also explain quantum entanglement and non-locality, about which we will talk later on. In an analogous case it is as if we described the world not by acknowledging different species but by grouping together the aspects of species (different kinds of hands, of feet, of heads, of eyes, and so on). These aspects or actions could then be identified with the archetypes. Therefore we may say that,
- The Form is a collection of actions which are spread all along the distribution but which can be localized as archetypes.
This is similar to how our mind works. Different ‘basic objects’ are located at different parts of the brain while they recombine each time a memory emerges. For example a ‘tree,’ a ‘sea coast,’ a ‘friend,’ together perhaps with a sensation of ‘heat,’ may come together to remind us of some vacation. But the parts which constitute this event are not located at the same place in our brain. Similarly the aspects which make us ingenious are recollected from different parts of the brain or psyche so that our intelligence can be expressed. However these aspects existed in our mind in the first place. If we add to these aspects which compose our intelligence predictability then we may come even closer to the deepest nature of probabilities. For example how come that we are able to determine with extraordinary accuracy in some cases the possible outcome of events? Is it because events are predetermined independently of our own will or is it that somehow our mind is fine-tuned with our own destiny? The most plausible answer is that our own minds are also part of the events we try to describe or predict by the probability distribution. If we identify ‘predictability’ with another archetype as we did with ‘destiny,’ then we may say that these two archetypes combine in order to determine the shape of things to come- the overall Form.
Bell’s inequalities
The aforementioned probability distribution has indeed the form of a wave-function in such a sense that we may say that a system (or any physical entity) can be described, equivalently, with the help either of a wave-function or of a probability distribution. This comes as a consequence of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics (the basic rules of quantum mechanics,
as they were set at Copenhagen, almost a century ago). Two of those basic assumptions are as follows:
- The wave-function (representing a physical system) is indivisible. - The system is in a super-position of states before it is measured.
Thus we may say that the more we concentrate on some part of the system under observation, the