Arthur I. Miller Explores the Lives, Friendship, and Collaborations of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung

 

Deciphering the Cosmic Number: The Strange Friendship of Wolfgang Pauli and Carl Jung - Arthur I. Miller (2009)

 

             Singular minds are drawn to other singular minds.  Original thinkers are few and far between, so running across another one and connecting with them is a big deal.  This is what occurred between two of the giants of modern thought.  Wolfgang Pauli was a genius physicist, capable of the deepest thoughts about the quantum world, its laws, and the complex mathematics inherent in that abstract, chaotic, and bizarre microscopic world.  Carl Jung was a genius scientist who discovered the concept of synchronicity, postulated the idea of the archetypes found in our collective human unconscious, and, along with Sigmund Freud, pioneered psychotherapy as a means to heal minds.  In a very real sense, these were two humans who probed fields of thought so new, so removed from the everyday existence we all take for granted, that the difficulties, rigors, and mental requirements of their truly original thought must have been enormous.

            What brought these two minds together was their openness to new ideas found outside their respective fields of study.  It is this curiosity and ability to think critically about one's own deeply held beliefs, allowing for new concepts to shape one's thoughts, that allowed a connection between these men.  Wolfgang Pauli was a hardcore physicist of the highest caliber.  His exploration of the universe sought to understand the true workings of the quantum realm and the mathematics involved within.  Because he had an open mind, he also sought wisdom and inspiration from the esoteric and occult knowledge existing outside of mainstream academic science.  Carl Jung was concerned with a different truth not found in empiricism or mathematical formulas.  His search for knowledge sprang from a desire to analyze, and then understand, the deep currents of thought all humans carry with them, just below the surface of our consciousness.  He searched through ancient myths, esoteric wisdom, and mystical writings for signs of the collective unconscious he was certain existed within the human mind.  When this research petered out, Jung was wise enough and brave enough to seek help and guidance outside the field of psychology, reaching out to physicist such as Pauli to try and understand how the quantum nature of our brain structure affects the wholeness of our mind, and whether or not that allows us a peek into our collective unconscious.  This wonderful book by Arthur I. Miller details the relationship between these two men, the paths that took them there, and the aftermath of their acquaintance.

            In the first few years after Jung and Freud opened up the inner world of the mind for study and therapy, the biggest and brightest in Europe sought out Carl Jung for individual sessions.  Many of them, as modern therapists know, concerned somewhat simple problems, with somewhat simple answers.  Jung sought deeper issues, and more primal knowledge about the human mind and its subconscious workings.  Being a smart person, he understood that the answers he sought may be found within fields of knowledge unknown to him, such as the seemingly inscrutable quantum world whose discoveries were touted on the front of major newspapers and magazines of the era, even though most people couldn't begin to understand it.  It is this that intrigued him when Wolfgang Pauli, a preeminent physicist, sought Jung's counsel to help him understand the odd dreams he experienced.  Pauli, a man of pure theoretical science, a man whose caustic and razor-sharp wit was reserved for those foolish enough to propose unrigorous ideas which he could destroy easily, was also a man who delved so far into the quantum world that it affected his thoughts and dreams, leading him to accept the possibility that wisdom and knowledge may be found in places not accepted by the rigors of the scientific method, such as dreams, myth, and, at the time, the psychological study of the mind and its processes.  Carl Jung was the perfect person with which to discuss these ideas.

            Arthur I. Miller details the scientific path taken by Pauli as he rose to prominence in the rarefied world of theoretical quantum physics, and the route his life took during those years, seeking new appointments, working hard on research, and living life in a world between two wars.  The life of a physicist is not an easy one, even one as blindingly intelligent as Pauli.  For every great achievement, there are countless dead-ends, errors, or disappointments when experiments contradict hypothesis.  The great scientists are capable of discarding anything deemed false, even if it is a deeply held personal belief, and it shatters them sometimes.  It was in the middle of the suffering brought about by an intractable physics problem that he began to experience dreams unlike anything before.  These dreams were the foundation for the many sessions and interactions he had with Carl Jung.

            Dr. Jung considered the dream-state as one in which our unconscious could rise up and "speak" to our conscious selves.  The problem lay in deciphering what the never-literal images in a dream could mean.  Jung based his analysis on knowledge of the individual involved.  Often, Pauli would share a dream of his with Jung only for Jung to immediately head to his vast library, pull out a weighty tome, and find eerily similar imagery within the books as what was described by his patient in his dreams.  These images, many of them hundreds of years old, arose from our collective unconscious, per Jung's analysis, and connected all of humanity.  One of the images that resonated with Pauli was that of a mandala, an Eastern symbol used to describe the whole of existence usually composed of a circle inscribed within a square. Through many sessions and discussions, Jung helps Pauli understand the workings of his inner mind, and how his subconscious communicates with his consciousness.  For his part, Pauli explained and discussed the interesting philosophical implications of quantum theory, ideas which would foster new thoughts in Jung, even if those thoughts were not rigorously scientific in nature (meaning verifiable by experimentation.)

            Miller provides us with a fabulous telling of each great man's life, their troubles with love, their professional lives, the repressive governments they found themselves needing to escape, and much more.  All the while, he focuses on the interplay between these great minds, and how they both affected each other.  They were two very different men, from very different backgrounds, but their fertile minds attracted each to the other. I have always believed in the confluence of wisdom, in the magic inherently arising from the combination of two disparate fields which allow for true human innovation.  It is in the liminal spaces between our knowledge, in the vast gaps between our small islands of understanding, that new discoveries are found and new probabilities for human growth arise.  Our world can survive with just science, or with just art, but survival is the baseline, and we should never be satisfied with the bare minimum for us or others.  We humans cannot thrive without endless combinations and iterations of our knowledge.  We are a thinking, dancing animal, and contain multitudes.  Our potential as a species is unlimited only when we allow the free and open exchange of information between our wildly different people and minds.  My dormmate Chukume Godson said it best one night, after he and I rigged up a tool to get a car unstuck from some train tracks in downtown Houston.  "With an Engineer and an Artist you can accomplish anything!" he exclaimed after we succeeded.  We are far more together than apart, which is the very basis for our entire human civilization.  This was a wonderful book.  Highly recommended.

(This book can be purchased here: https://arthurimiller.com/books/deciphering-the-cosmic-number/ )