Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science

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sciborg2

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« on: May 09, 2019, 01:41:15 pm »
Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter in the context of contemporary science

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Pauli’s thoughts on topics beyond physics are likely to be appreciated as inspiring sources for the present and future development of Western science and culture. In recent years many of his ideas, expressed in his letters,5provoked an increasing interest in the communities of philosophers, psychologists, and natural scientists. Pauli understood that physics necessarily gives an incomplete view of nature, and he was looking for an extended scientific framework. However, the fact that the often colloquial and speculative style of his letters is in striking contrast to his careful and refined publications should advise us to act with caution. His accounts are extremely stimulating, but they should be considered as first groping attempts rather than definitive proposals.

In this contribution, we will give an overview of Pauli’s extra physical interests. He himself reviewed the main body of his corresponding views in three publications, the Kepler article (Pauli 1952), the paper on Jung’s ideas of the unconscious (Pauli 1954b), and the contribution to a conference at Mainz (Pauli1956b). But his extensive correspondence provides a much more comprehensive source of material in this respect. Pauli’s interest in Jung’s depth psychology was mainly focused on its structural, conceptual aspects. Therefore, we will not enter into the discussion of questions of psychological therapy as they maybe recognized in parts of the Pauli-Jung dialog.6Pauli’s scientific work in the narrow sense and its impact on specific problems of contemporary theoreticalphysics7will be addressed only insofar as they arise in the context of more general issues

The following sections 2, 3 and 4 provide the basis for a detailed under-standing of Pauli’s ideas on mind and matter. Section 2 is devoted to the basic importance that Pauli ascribed to symmetry principles and to symmetry breaking. Section 3 addresses the role of symbols (in the Jungian sense) in theory formation. In section 4 we introduce Pauli’s ideas, based on those of Bohr,concerning a generalized notion of complementarity. In section 5, we present the key issue of Pauli’s extraphysical interests: the psychophysical problem of how relations between mind and matter can be reasonably circumscribed and conceived. Section 6 extends this theme into the significance of concepts of time for the psychophysical problem. Section 7 gives some material concerning Pauli’s ideas on biological evolution and the nature of mutations. We conclude this overview in section 8.

H

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« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2019, 02:00:30 pm »
42 pages?  Going to have to find some time to really sit and read this one, thanks.
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sciborg2

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« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2019, 03:24:18 pm »
42 pages?  Going to have to find some time to really sit and read this one, thanks.

I think you'll like it H. You [might] want to start with Section 3 then work your back around...
« Last Edit: May 09, 2019, 03:39:22 pm by sciborg2 »

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« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2019, 04:46:08 pm »
42 pages?  Going to have to find some time to really sit and read this one, thanks.

I think you'll like it H. You [might] want to start with Section 3 then work your back around...

Hmm, well, when one invokes Jung, one has my attention.

This part is an interesting notion:

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All animals know how to interpret and react on signals. Cassirer characterizes human beings by their unique ability to use symbolic forms. A symbol cultivates ideas and concepts. Symbols are the vehicles of meaning (Langer 1978, p. 52).

In a sense, this might be a sort of Heglian notion as well, because I believe I recall hearing that Hegel regarded the "unit of thought" to be "concept" not so much "proposition" as with Kant.
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« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2019, 05:29:09 pm »
Reading more, I think it's clear that Pauli had at least read Hegel.  Anyway, moving on in the pdf, I really like this part:

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Pauli’s suggestion to consider mind and matter as complementary aspects of the same reality has sometimes been misunderstood in the sense that conscious human observers need to be included as an essential new feature of quantum mechanics. Pauli clarified this misrepresentation succinctly:

“Once the physical observer has chosen his experimental arrangement, he has no further influence on the result which is objectively registered and generally accessible. Subjective properties of the observer or his psychological state are as irrelevant in the quantum mechanical laws of nature as in classical physics.”

That makes a ton of sense to me, that they would be "complementary" but not dependent.  Also, it would seem to me sort of self-evident that in setting up the experiment, the experimenter is enforcing a certain conceptual frame in what is to be (or even could be) observed, by virtue of the scope of the experiment.  This is part of why I do imagine there being a very real limit to "science."

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If one takes the idea of a symmetry breaking seriously for the relation between mind and matter, the starting point for advancements in its understanding has to be the relationship between parts and wholes.

This makes me wonder about sort of categorizing Mind as something that can imagine (rightly or not) itself as something apart from Matter.

That is to say, something that can direct itself, rather than only be directed?
« Last Edit: May 09, 2019, 05:49:13 pm by H »
I am a warrior of ages, Anasurimbor. . . ages. I have dipped my nimil in a thousand hearts. I have ridden both against and for the No-God in the great wars that authored this wilderness. I have scaled the ramparts of great Golgotterath, watched the hearts of High Kings break for fury. -Cet'ingira