Abstract: A scientific outlook requires that we accept metaphysical postulates insufficient for creating a full-fledged worldview. Ultimate truth must be sought within.
Keywords: pseudoscience, David Bohm, Niels Bohr, Copenhagen model, guidance field, teleology.
Although we have today gone beyond Immanuel Kant (1724-1804, Encyc., here), he once outlined the metaphysical postulates that we must
keep to if we don’t want to overstep the boundaries of the scientific paradigm.
Contrary to this, the phenomenon of “New Age” fuses foreign
metaphysical categories with the traditional. It has been
surmised that late physicist David Bohm
(cf. Pratt, 1993, here)
belongs to this ilk. No doubt, he is brilliant (if only
Bohr had had his lucidity of style), but I’m going to argue that he and certain
other physicists make the Hegelian mistake of projecting their own unconscious
onto the outer world. This leads to an overestimation of the scientific project
and elicits mytho-scientific notions.
Giambattista Vico
(1668-1744, Encyc., here) heroically but unsuccessfully tried to counter the development
during the rise of science (Age of Enlightenment). As he saw it, Descartes
and Newton, et al., only picked the raisins out of the cake. They, at least publicly,
merely focused on the quantifiable part of reality, which is the minor part. Vico wanted to raise
myth and culture to its proper place and thereby counter the overestimation of
the scientific paradigm.
It is rather chocking the way
things went. Simply because
scientists had grasped the motion of inanimate bodies, many intellectuals thought that virtually everything, including society, could be understood and delineated logically and mathematically. This amounted to an overestimation of the findings of Newton and Laplace. For the first time mankind
could exactly predict a tiny part of reality. Learned people became so exhilarated so they
thought that it opens the door to the explanation of everything. All the subjective ideas of the soul could
safely be forgotten. So this is the direction where
cerebral energy still goes: only that which is quantifiable is
worthy of intellectual interest.
A good example of scientific overextension is Bohm’s “guidance
field”, which is akin to the Aristotelian teleological concept (Wiki, here). However,
teleology is not in keeping with the scientific paradigm. Nor does cosmic
non-locality conform with accepted scientific principles. Allegedly, even if physicists should
perform their experiments in underground shelters, God’s finger would still poke
in and apply rotation to the particles. It doesn’t really matter if you call
this “God’s finger” or “guidance field”; no matter how
sophisticated names are given to such non-local forces, they are unacceptable
to scientists as they really belong to an archaic paradigm, namely pantheism.
Such notions derive from an age when the human unconscious permeated the outer
world. Science rose only when we learned to separate the mythological from the
empirical.
When studying thinkers such as David Bohm, one must learn to do the
same, that is, to separate their mythological conceptions from those who accord with the
scientific paradigm. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake, likewise,
postulates a universal “morphogenetic field”; a guidance
field in the biological realm (Encyc., here). It seems that thinkers of this ilk remain unaware of the unconscious.
Because of this their conceptions become a mishmash of unconscious projections
and science. Wolfgang Pauli (Encyc., here)
once discussed with a young physicist (Bohm, perhaps?). Physicist X remarked: “But,
surely, Pauli, you don’t think what I’ve said is completely wrong?” to
which Pauli replied, “No, I think what you said is not even wrong” (Wiki, here).
From a scientific perspective, mytho-scientific ideas are “not even wrong” as they cannot be falsified. This was probably why Niels Bohr (Encyc., here) remained
completely distant when he met Bohm. There simply wasn’t anything to say,
because his ideas aren’t even wrong.
In fact, Bohm could be right. Perhaps God’s finger steers every
particle. Perhaps an “implicate order” exists in nature and not in the
human unconscious, which is the supposition of modern psychology. Bohm’s ideas are not
necessarily wrong simply because he refuses to keep to the limited metaphysics
approved by antiquated philosophers such as Kant. Yet, although his ideas could be valuable to a religionist, they have no value to a
scientist. Science must, as far as possible, keep to the principle of
locality and must try and explain things from prior and local conditions.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that science will ever be able to fully explain
the workings of nature. Maybe there is a God involved, too. Perhaps, in the end,
we have to concede that the rest is taken care of by a universal spirit. But
before we resort to the final asylum ignorantiae we must sternly keep to the
scientific paradigm.
It is imperative to separate science from unconscious
projections. Wolfgang Pauli; did just this. C.G. Jung (Encyc., here) writes
that he was “chock-full of archaic material” when he first entered
Jung’s office. In the subsequent analysis his unconscious gushed forth with
remarkable revelations, accounted for in “Psychology and Alchemy”, part II (Jung, 1980). Pauli was on the brink of a breakdown and had no
other choice than to confront the reality of the unconscious. So he learnt
something which Bohm wasn’t aware of, namely that there exists another reality than
the outer world. This explains why he spoke of “the reality of the symbol”.
As long as we remain unaware of inner reality, it is bound to be projected.
Due to this realization, Pauli could detach his scientific thinking thoroughly
from unconscious mythological symbols, and become known as “the conscience
of physics”.
Accordingly, Niels Bohr refused to go
into metaphysics. He was quite content with classical metaphysical notions
belonging to Newtonian physics. Simply apply the principle of complementarity,
and we may still keep to classical categories. In this sense he was on a
peaceful footing with Kant. Bohr said that we simply have to accept two
fundamental facts of nature: the quantum of action and the phenomenon of mind.
These two phenomena are presented to us as irrational, irreducible factors. We
simply have to accept them as fundamental facts of nature. If we refrain from
asking where these derive from, and proceed to develop our scientific
understanding, while recognizing these contingent factors as an incontestable
groundwork, then we can avoid going astray in metaphysics. I think this was
Bohr’s position.
Can we accept the orthodox quantum theory, i.e. the Copenhagen model (cf. Best, here)
without becoming dissatisfied with its insufficient metaphysics? My answer is, yes,
but only as long as we follow Pauli’s example of accepting the reality of the
unconscious. The psychological effect is that we lose the impetus
of projecting the unconscious on the outer world. As a consequence, the unconscious no longer comes to expression as preposterous metaphysical conceptions. We may go inwards when reaching for the
ultimate truth. Since scientific reality is ultimately dependent on inner categories,
science cannot account for fundamental truth. In this way we may continue in the footsteps
of Bohr and remain content with the realization that there may be no
rational answer to metaphysical questions, since these are answered only in the inner world.
© Mats Winther, 2001.
References
Best, B. ‘The Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics’. (here)
‘Bohr, Niels Henrik David’. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
‘De Broglie–Bohm theory’. Wikipedia article. (here)
‘Formative causation’. Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
‘Jung, Carl Gustav’. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
Jung, C.G. (1980). Psychology and Alchemy. Bollingen Series. Princeton University Press.
‘Kant, Immanuel’. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
‘Not even wrong’. Wikipedia article. (here)
‘Pauli, Wolfgang’. Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
Pratt, D. (1993). ‘David Bohm and the Implicate Order’. (here)
‘Vico, Giovanni Battista’. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. Encyclopedia.com. (here)
See also:
Winther, M. (2001). ‘The Morphic Deception’. (here)
