Post 8 – “Towards an enantiodromic approach to the universe. Jung, Pauli, and beyond …”
Authored by Alain Negre
Access the Synopsis: Towards an enantiodromic approach to the universe. Jung, Pauli, and beyond
When light and matter are decoupled, the multiple appears. The opacity that encompassed the entire universe allows multiple germs to emerge. These are the potential sentient beings to come.
The multiplicity of stars: The “Westerlund 2” star cluster is found in the Carina constellation in the Milky Way. (© Hubble Space Telescope / NASA / ESA)
Material inhomogeneities and the elusive fate of the universe: the vertical axis
In IV, the small black circle, i.e. Yin, is immersed in the white background Yang. It represents the tiny-density inhomogeneities of the order of one hundred thousandths that existed just before matter/light decoupling (380,000 years).
These areas, gravitationally a little more attractive than the neighboring ones, will be able to grow and, through a collapse mechanism, will generate multiple structures such as galaxy clusters, galaxies, stars, and planets in what is – from this point forward – a transparent universe.
Hierarchically formed in IV from small-density fluctuations, these multiple structures will turn into black holes – or else “food” for black holes – which will eventually evaporate in X. In the meantime, however, we must not forget the role of one of these structures, a tiny planet that will serve as a substrate for life and consciousness in VII.
In X, a small white (Yang) circle on a black (Yin) background represents both the “final” and the “initial” phase of the immaterial universe. This absence of matter is due to the particles’ mass which, in fact, is negligible compared with the radiation density in the Planck’s conditions of origin – or of contraction in the case of a bouncing model. This almost complete absence of matter also holds at the traverse between two aeons, an immaterial border of pure geometry, which follows the very long evaporation of black holes of an accelerated expanding universe.
This small white Yang circle could reflect an “informational inhomogeneity” in relation to the uniform background of a universe à la Tipler, where life and consciousness would have survived, embedded and encoded in a plasma of electrons and positrons – the sole survivors of a hypothetical proton decay. As an “information seed” of a new phase of universe, this inhomogeneity could inhabit the quantum fluctuations of the vacuum.
In universes with inflation, these quantum fluctuations are stretched during the short phase of the accelerated expansion. Their amplitudes calculated for the end of this period perfectly correspond to the characteristics of the inhomogeneities observed in the cosmic background. Thus, galaxies and large structures would originate in quantum vacuum fluctuations which, during inflation, would have transited from their virtual state to their actual state.
Enantiodromic link between events IV and X. The Self and the ego
© Arvae – Light on the unconscious (https://arvae.jimdofree.com )
In psychology, Jung explains, “the self exists from the very beginning, but is latent, that is, unconscious.” [1] In contrast, the ego is only a complex, an event “split up into partial aspects” [2], which develops through conflicts between the outer world and the inner world of the individual. Basically, as Cazenave translates, “it is made of odds and ends.” [3] A dialectic thus emerges between the ego (which would be born in IV) and the Self (which would be born in X – while still being already there, in the unconscious).
Reflections of the ego in cosmology
In cosmology, the “ego-centers” of future stars emerge in the same way, through collapsing clouds of gas and dust around germs which are matter overdensities that appear from the post-decoupling universe.
Just like “odds and ends” egos, they must become stronger and anchor themselves in the universe that has become conscious in order to receive and reflect the Self. Note that a fine tuning of the constants of physics is necessary for the existence of the stellar age during which the galactic stars shine with their purest “egos”, encouraged by John Lennon: “On and on and on, Well we all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun” [4].
Reflections of the Self in Cosmology
Is there a reflection of the Self in cosmology? As a leading edge in physics, cosmology finds in the primordial universe the conceptual laboratory in which theories of unification and differentiation of the four forces can be tested. Inspired by a desire for the One, these theories of everything are only very pale reflections of the Self as most have no regard for conscious egos that would be present within the universe. Now, the Self needs the ego in order to incarnate and actualize in time and space.
In Frank Tipler’s Final Anthropic Principle hypothesis, intelligent beings do exist (whose soul is a program that runs on a computer called the brain). They evolve – in a closed contracting universe – towards a more and more “conscious” state which is the final singularity called “Omega point”.
This is a very rudimentary reflection of the Self, having nothing to do with “egos” except at the end, more exactly between 10^-10^10 and 10^-10^123 second before the Omega point is reached. Like the Christian myth, using only an infinitesimally small amount of its total computing resources, it simulates all the lives of all beings that have existed in the universe and extends them into a virtual paradise. [5]
Closer to the Jungian Self-ego dialectic is the feedback loop already mentioned in John Wheeler’s participatory universe. This loop gives the ego (the human observer, center of consciousness) not only an active role but the main role. The Self, the center of the unconscious, is here the uncertain universe of the past, which only actualizes when conscious entities begin to observe it. They reflect it by dragging it away from its unconsciousness and its virtual nature.
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of stardust. We are a way in which the universe knows itself.” Carl Sagan [6]
View from the “Las Campanas” observatory, Chile, on the night of December 13-14, 2013. All shooting stars seem to diverge from a single point in the sky called radiant, located in the Gemini constellation. Nearby is the planet Jupiter. [7]
Between Self and ego, the eternal radiance of the Absolute I
The dialectic between the ego and the Self may be represented in various ways: Yin and Yang poles, focus points of the ellipse or of conic sections [8], etc.
The Self, comparable to the image of God, to the neoplatonist One, or to the hindu Atman, is a borderline concept which can only be described in terms of antinomies. Any representation constitutes only a partial vision of it, such as the traditional “circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere”.
An illustration of the cosmological circulation of the ego around the Self (or the Self around the ego) could be the upward and downward double spiral movement representing the already mentioned processes of evolution, devolution, and evolution.
On the left, the conical spiral of Pappus, mathematician of Alexandria (4th century AD) © Robert Ferréol. On the right, the spherical model.
In the interweaving of these processes, the 4 × 3 symbolic structure, isomorphic to Yin-Yang and the zodiac, would occupy the equatorial plane of a sphere whose “void” in the center could represent another locus of the Self. At the center of all opposites, this absolute or transcendental “I” falls under the “neither/nor” level of reality.
One of its reflections in the whirlwind of existence could be that mysterious unity of the universe revealed by contemporary experiments set off by the 1935 EPR article, which show an endless correlation of all spacetime events.
Psyche-matter reflections and the archetype of the number
In the immobile center of opposites, an immobile and eternal time dwells. This may emerge into the linear and arrowed sensible time of the conscious ego.
Sometimes, irregular and unpredictable material events reflect the psyche of the conscious ego. These are auspicious moments, meaningful coincidences that are unique acts of creation asking the question of the existence of a meaning.
In the unconscious, or in the psychophysical field postulated by Jung and Pauli, matter continually reflects the psyche and vice versa.
The reverse reflection (the psyche reflecting matter) is perceived by the conscious ego in flashes of its intuition. These are the source of religious conceptions, of traditional and scientific knowledge, which all appear to be dominated by the dynamic ordering principle of the number.
It is a pity that physics deprives itself of the qualitative aspect of the number on which its entire quantitative mathematical edifice is founded. This lack of interest is compounded by lack of consideration for works on the invention of concepts – such as Pauli’s Hintergrundphysik or “background physics”. This reluctance to question the foundations of the discipline and to think about the potential unity of the world is most certainly the cause of the stagnation of current theories.
In its efforts to explain reality, science advances step by step, sometimes by great leaps but these remain tiny compared with the unknowable One from which everything proceeds. The relations between the One and the multiple, the Self and the ego, are only touched on in an infinitesimal way by various holographic theories of contemporary cosmology.
These theories reflect the connections that ancient traditional knowledge perceived between microcosm and macrocosm, individual souls and the universal soul, etc. They remind us that the roots of science are metaphysical and that the scientific process and the mystical traditions speak of the same reality. There is the possibility of mutual enrichment provided we do not forget the distinctions between levels of reality.
“Man is a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extract from all the stars and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence” Paracelsus, Philosophia Sagax, 1571.
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References
[1] and [2] Jung, Psychology and Alchemy, CW 12, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, para. 105.
[3] Michel Cazenave, Jung revisité, 2 vol., Paris, Medicis Entrelacs, 2012.
[4] John Lennon, « Instant Karma! (We All Shine On) » EMI, credited to Lennon/Ono with the Plastic Ono Band [Recorded 27 January 1970]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLy2SaSQAtA
[5] Frank Tipler, The Physics of Immortality, New-York, NY, Doubleday, 1994. http://scilib-physics.narod.ru/Immortality/Tipler.htm (p. 225.)
[6] Ann Druyan Cosmos: Possible Worlds, National Geographic Partners, LLC.
[7] Yuri Beletsky (Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Institution for Science)
[8] Michel Cazenave, La science et les figures de l’âme [Science and figures of the soul] Paris, Editions du Rocher, 1996, p. 240.
