The Pauli-Jung Conjecture

In this context, the Pauli-Jung conjecture is a form of dual aspect monism with antecedents in Spinoza and 19th-century German nature philosophy stating that the mental or psychological and the material or physical are aspects of one underlying reality which itself is psychophysically neutral. Jung and the alchemists referred to this as the unus mundus, from which mind and matter are derived. In physics, this entails the concept of the participatory rather than the detached observer, and meaning replaces causation as the connecting principle, which Jung elaborated in his concept of synchronicity. These essays are derived from a conference covering many aspects of the topic, including history of ideas, quantum theory, symbolism, the nature of synchronicity and even business leadership. Joe Cambray writes about the influence of German romantic science on both Jung and Pauli, tracing this back to Spinoza via Goethe and especially Schelling.

Apart from one mention in an essay on hidden variables, the work of David Bohm is conspicuously absent, which is surprising given that his implicate and explicate order is an exact reflection of the psychophysical conjecture, as is his explanation of the relationship between mind and matter. He too was trying to find a new language as well as new concepts. Four essays discuss synchronicities as psychophysical correlations and member Roderick Main contributes some interesting reflections on the impact of scientific rationalism on meaning. There is a fascinating quotation from Jung himself remarking that his terms synchronicity cannot be accepted because it shakes the security of our scientific foundations 'as if this were not exactly the goal I am aiming at' (his italics) - adding meaning as a fundamental category alongside space, time and causality. There is also an interesting article on synchronicity in psychotherapy, which formed the context of Jung's famous experience with the scarab beetle. Overall, the volume is a useful contribution to current debates on the mind-matter issue.