Back Transdisciplinarity and the Unity of Knowledge: Beyond the Science and Religion Dialogue


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Hans von Baeyer
Wolfgang Pauli’s Journey Inward


Abstract

This is the story of the attempt by Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) to reconcile physics with religion.  In his twenties Pauli proposed two radical ideas that solved the problem of the structure of the atom earned him a Nobel Prize. Their significance in the present context derives from their novelty:  Since they departed so dramatically from the conventional wisdom of the time, seemingly emerging from nowhere, they raised the question of their origin.

Around age thirty Pauli suffered a psychic crisis for which he sought help from Carl Jung.  The brief but successful therapy introduced Pauli to the emotional side of his personality, which he had hitherto suppressed in favor of his intellect.  It also initiated a lifelong collaboration with Jung.  The analysis of his dreams suggested to Pauli that a source of new concepts in physics might be found in the irrational side of his mind -- irrational, in this context, meaning beyond reason but not contrary to it.

In order to test his hypothesis Pauli studied the works of the Johannes Kepler, who combined a modern approach to science with strong religious beliefs.  Pauli concluded that Kepler’s heliocentric hypothesis was not based on observational evidence at all, but on the mystical identification of the Sun with God, a conviction that led naturally to the assignment of the Sun to a central place in the universe.  This reading corroborated Pauli’s belief that dream images and other irrational mental processes contribute substantially to the formation of new scientific concepts.  He thought that he had found the bridge from the irrational world of myths and dreams to the rational, scientific point of view in the concept of symbol, a term that also plays a central role in Jung’s psychology. 

Pauli saw the history of Western thought as a dialectic between two points of view -- the rational and the mystical.   He suggested that until the seventeenth century these were balanced, but with the enlightenment the harmony was upset and the purely rational view prevailed.  In this imbalance Pauli found many of the ills of modern society.  He longed for the return to a more wholesome relationship between science and religion, which he believed to be the true destiny of humanity. To this end he envisioned a new, all-encompassing view of nature that would include rational and irrational modes of perception in equal measure.

By the time of Pauli’s premature death had not yet embarked upon the formulation of his unification.  However, from his correspondence, which has been edited and published in German, we can glimpse some of the elements of the project.   He explicitly rejected two extremes -- the complete separation of science from religion, and total immersion in the mystical experience of oneness with the universe.   During his lifetime, Pauli’s fervent quest for spiritual wholeness was unknown to the public and ignored by his colleagues. Today, with the debate between science and religion once more in full cry, Pauli’s visionary pursuit speaks to us with renewed relevance.

Biography
Born in Berlin in 1938, von Baeyer was raised in Germany, Switzerland, and Canada before earning his BA from Columbia University (1958) and his PhD from Vanderbilt University (1964).   After a postdoctoral appointment at McGill University he joined the College of William and Mary in Virginia where he rose from assistant professor to Chancellor Professor, specializing in various aspects of mathematical physics.  His administrative duties included the departmental chairmanship and the directorship of the predecessor of the Jefferson Lab, an important nuclear accelerator.

The second half of his career was devoted to popularization of physics.  He has written about a hundred articles and six widely translated books, including  “Information: The New Language of Science” (Harvard, 2003) and “Petites leçons de physique dans les jardins de Paris” (Dunod, 2009).  He has won numerous teaching and writing honors, among them a National Magazine Award and two writing awards from the American Institute of Physics. He is a fellow of the American Physical Society.  A Unitarian Universalist, von Baeyer has written and lectured on the relationship between science and religion.  He has four children and three grandchildren, and with his wife, a medieval archeologist, divides his time between Virginia and Paris


 

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