EINSTEIN’S BRAIN, QUANTUM MIND 12.9.08
Keywords: Einstein, Quantum, Richard Feynman, Wolfgang Pauli, Pauli exclusion principle, Cognitive Behavior Therapy, CBT, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, REBT, Sigmund Freud, C.G. Jung, Bohr, Heisenberg, John Boccio, Swarthmore College, creativity, intuition, synchronicity, chromodynamic, supersymmetry, quantum loop gravity, string theory.
For some time I have been querying myself: how can individual ego be of a different spacetime than other egos? Conversely: how can individual mind be connected to other minds?
Lately, these questions have been sharpened by my study of physics. It strikes me (Aha!) that ego exists in a macro universe ruled by Einstein’s general law of relativity but mind exists in a quantum universe of entanglement which allows us to speak with one another.
Why differentiate? A couple of days ago in a seminar the issue of Alzheimer’s Disease was discussed from a number of different perspectives, one of which was the brain and the other being the mind. In a conversation I had with the presenter I broached the subject of how we each of us have a different spacetime frame from everyone else, that we carry this frame around with us, and that this accounts for our having such an individualized perspective. On the connectivity side, we each of us can speak with one another, share dreams, and even communicate across space and time at superluminous, faster than light (FTL) speeds that can be accounted for by invoking quantum entanglement as a connectivity principle. Why not call this Einstein’s Brain, Quantum Mind?
True, the present-day order of physics continues to grapple with the discontinuity between the macro and the micro universe. Different hypotheses are salient and a few (million) more are receding. Why review string theory and super symmetry here? Or even lapse into quantum loop gravity for that matter? Let’s keep it simple for the rest of us psychologists—we have a brain that exists in the macro universe which is receptive to quantum connectivity.
Many psychologists revere determinism. That would be the causal universe of Freud. This trends toward CBT and REBT—Cognitive Behavior Therapy and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy; note the emphasis on behavior. Behavior occurs in this world, not the next. The next world has always reminded me of heaven and hell, the afterlife, Buddhism and karma and reincarnation, the transmigration of souls. Yet afterlife might be reframed to include the multiverse, multidimensional strata and substrata, and quantum foam.
That which can be explained can be determined, and that which cannot—well the Feynmanian wave has not yet collapsed. Feynman utilized equations that ascribed to non-determinate infinite probability. Well, not strictly infinite probability, merely the construct that a quantum particle follows every line of probability and every path it might take prior to popping into existence when the wave of probability collapses. The collapsing wave is a good metaphor for decision-making. Of all the decisions one might make, the one we make occurs when the wave collapses, or, when we collapse the wave. If one wants to believe in the principle of free will, and desires to make free will one of the considerations of what it takes to be human, this also satisfies this condition. So quantum, Feynmanian probability makes us human and the seat of consciousness.
That skews us to the quantum mind side of things, but it also brings us into “reality.” Reality might be a construct that we can refer to as “existence” while the quantum mind appears to inhabit “preexistence.” Potential, preexist, probability—all describe quantum mind. It is the opposite of rational, logical, causal, and determinist. Wait, could that be the sound of Jung’s synchronicity?
Jung and quantum mind—well let’s think. Synchronicity was developed by Jung in collaboration with Wolfgang Pauli. Pauli suggested that, to quote Wikipedia: “The Pauli exclusion principle is a quantum mechanical principle formulated by Wolfgang Pauli in 1925. It states that no two identical fermions may occupy the same quantum state simultaneously. A more rigorous statement of this principle is that, for two identical fermions, the total wave function is anti-symmetric. For electrons in a single atom, it states that no two electrons can have the same four quantum numbers, that is, if n, l, and ml are the same, ms must be different such that the electrons have opposite spins.” This is a basic concept in quantum chromomechanics. Let us ask what this might have to do with Jung. Pauli and Jung were in deep discussions for many years during one of the most fertile periods of Pauli’s and Jung’s theoretical development. That is, Pauli was developing the exclusion principle and Jung the principle of synchronicity. They write to each other for many years and a convergence of physics and psychology emerges.
Jung had previously entered the world of physics in his article “On Psychic Energy” so he was predisposed to consider psyche from the standpoint of physics. This attitude bore more fruit when he and Pauli synchronistically came into a relationship through the medium of another Jungian analyst. Much of this relationship is well known and does not need further adumbration. The point—Jung and Pauli share the concept of quantum mind. Synchronicity, an acausal connecting principle, falls into the category of arational, acausal, wholistic, and intuitive. Intuition, something I explored more fully in “Intuition and Creativity,” bespeaks a high correlation with creativity. What if creativity/intuition bespeaks a high correlation with the collapsing wave? Reality is created by the willful collapsing of the wave by the creative psyche.
The artist, to paraphrase, creates reality. There might be somewhat of a crossover between creation and procreation, especially if one views the works of Apolinaire, the cubist theoretician and poet from a slightly less than askance perspective, which throws a bit of light on the atmosphere in which Freud and Jung developed. Nonetheless, the act of creation brings new life into the world. What if that life exists in potentia in another world? That might fit the definition I am proposing of creativity and the collapsing wave.
We are skimming here, which might be taken as surreal or superficial, yet Apolinaire, Freud, Picasso, Jung, and Pauli all have something in common—the act of creation. My approach is to add Einstein so as to throw a light on psyche which coexists in both “our” world and the netherworld.
Einstein places us in a causal universe of laws which ensconce the ego as a relative frame to other egos. It is the ultimate act of individuality to have an ego. All reality is viewed from within the frame of the ego and all other reality, and other egos remain relative to that ego. “I” carry around with “me” a frame of reality. Out of that frame comes a light cone of probable action. Action occurs at or slower than the speed of light. “My” light cone differs from all others. We don’t notice the difference between “our” and “other” lightcones because we humans share a virtually identical light cone; we live on the planet Earth. Yet this explanatory principle of physics also accounts for the individuality of the ego and how ego relates causally and rationally to other egos in a deterministic universe.
I would never deny the existence of a deterministic universe—I just don’t exclude the possibility of other acausal non-deterministic ones. This is where I require a quantum universe. We don’t necessarily require a multiverse, which quantum physics cannot exclude logically. We just don’t have to have such a messy concept which makes it possible to conceive of every possible wave collapsing to form a different pathway and thereby a different set of probability resulting in an infinite number of universes—the multiverse. To keep it simple, we only need potential action, not reified infinite action, to account for what I am referring to as the quantum mind.
The quantum mind, as differentiated from the mind of Einstein, is a mind of relationship, rather than a mind of relativity. Quantum mind relates everything. Einstein relates everything relatively. Quantum mind considers the alternatives while Einstein’s brain considers the macrouniverse that we all believe we live in. There are many who consider this world of Einstein to be limited. However, psychology has had difficulty bringing them into the fold. To consider these perspectives valid, I am invoking quantum mind.
Quantum mind does not require acceptance of every different perspective, no matter how we think it might be difficult to apprehend, prove, or suggest. Quantum mind provides a perspective upon which to rest our perception of these hypothetical constructs. They might exist in a quantum universe and if so would follow extremely explicit mathematical constructs. Quantum physics does not accept any deviance from its mathematical constructs. There is no discussion here. To include what many would consider far out in the big tent of quantum mind requires subservience to what many believe to be laws of physics. In other words, by extrapolating into questionable reality, different ideas can be put up against the hard facts of mathematical quantum mechanics or chromodynamic constructs.
I am not the one to do this. I am no quantum mathematician—just ask Dr. John Boccio who taught the class at the Lifelong Learning Center of Swarthmore College in Einstein and also a course in quantum physics to us amateurs. But I took away from Dr. Boccio the ideas generated in the magic era of Bohr, Pauli, and Heisenberg. They are mighty and clear. To bring into their purview psychological ideas, you have to work mighty hard. That is why I have been so possessed. What-if questions bombard me. Analytical psychology accepts the need for non-specific solutions. Freudian psychology pins everything down. Both have a place in psychology. Their children propagate into the future. It is time for some accounting for both sides now.
