"Archetypes are forms without content" (Carl Jung).
"Science itself is based on archetypes" (Carl Friedrich von Weizsacker).
"All the most powerful ideas in history are based on archetypes" (Carl Jung).
The Jungian Theory of Archetypes
Archetypes and Collective Unconscious
The word "archetype" derives from the Greek "arche" (principle, origin, supreme source) and from "typos" (model, mold, form, shape, pattern, matrix). Archetype means, in general, original model or primordial, primordial or underlying form, from which something unfolds or manifests.
The concept of archetype has varied throughout history, but it was Jung who built a complete theory around this concept and on what he called the "collective unconscious".
For Jung, archetypes are energies, forces, patterns or dynamic primary forms, the universal abstract functional units emanating from the collective unconscious and manifesting in multiple forms. Archetypes are the essential and deepest structures within the hierarchy of the psyche, the universal patterns that shape our experience of the world.
The collective unconscious is the common psychic reservoir of all humanity, transcending all cultures. All of humanity is connected, at a deep level, through the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is structured in archetypes. They are like the "psychic DNA" of humanity. Archetypes are the deep psychic structures shared by all human beings.
The characteristics of the collective unconscious are as follows:
It exists a priori, it is absolute, transcendent, numinous and immanent.
It is the source of imagination and creativity.
Its contents are interconnected with each other.
Because it is unconscious, we cannot perceive it directly or voluntarily, nor can we subject it to rational analysis.
Although it is inaccessible, there are indications of its existence through its various manifestations in dreams, in myths, in religion, in literature, in art, etc. But its most primary manifestation is the symbol, through which the conscious can intuit the unconscious. The symbol refers to itself and appeals to our intuition.
In it there is no time dimension. Time, as we experience it, is a property of the superficial and conscious. At the level of the collective unconscious, past and future are connected in an eternal or timeless present.
It is the foundation of the personal unconscious, the unconscious corresponding to personal (particular) contents. The unconscious is not divided into two regions, but the unconscious is a continuum, with the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious at each end. The collective unconscious is the objective psyche. The personal unconscious is the subjective psyche.
The conscious, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious form the triad of the human psyche. The Self, our deep self, our true self, is anchored in our personal unconscious and connected to the collective unconscious. The Ego, the superficial self, is a mere reference point of our conscious.
Human consciousness is an emanation or manifestation of the collective unconscious. The person is but a mask the word "person" means "mask" that appears individuality.
The collective unconscious and the personal unconscious are never at rest. They are always busy restructuring their contents.
The characteristics of archetypes are as follows:
They are the structures of the collective unconscious. They are universal patterns that shape our experience of the world. They are the key to understanding the world.
They are universal, that is, they are common to all peoples, cultures and times.
They are timeless, like the collective unconscious.
They have an a priori existence, like the collective unconscious. Like instincts, archetypes are not acquired by experience, They are the original premises that determine everything. They are like the functional axioms of reality. Humans, therefore, are not born as a tabula rasa, they are born with archetypes.
They are different from instincts. Instincts manifest only as actions. Archetypes manifest as modes of understanding and meaning.
They arise from the collective unconscious, so they have a preconscious nature. They are hidden in the depths of the mind. They belong to the invisible psychic spectrum (unconscious). The visible psychic spectrum is consciousness.
They represent dynamic processes associated with recurring patterns of the psyche. And they are dynamic organizers of images and ideas.
They are an inexhaustible source of universal energy, always available to humans and nature.
They are independent, but interrelated to each other. There are basic or primary archetypes and secondary archetypes (derived from the primary ones). By combinatorics of the different archetypes the complexity of the psychic world is obtained. The whole psyche is a manifestation of the archetypes.
They are of a numinous, sacred and transcendental character and unknowable by the rational way. We can only approach their essence by the intuitive way, by means of universal symbols, by analogies and metaphors, by the common language of myths, etc.
The superficial is a manifestation or particularization of the archetypes. All existing things are manifestations of archetypes. For example, according to Jung, all German Nazism was a manifestation of the Teutonic God Wotan, a figure equivalent to Odin, the God of war in Norse mythology.
They are like molds, forms without content. When the mold is filled with conscious experience, the archetype manifests as a representative or evocative image of a symbolic type.
They are (unmanifest) possibilities that can manifest. They are unrepresentable, inexpressible, but we can visualize their effects, their manifestations, which are the archetypal images that reach our consciousness. Archetypes are not directly experienced but inferred from their manifestations, which share a common pattern. Although the manifestations of an archetype are apparently different, they share a common structure or pattern.
They are templates, forms or patterns, in finite number, that filter the infinite possibilities. They are the junction point between the unmanifest and the manifest.
In the personal unconscious, archetypes appear projected as "complexes" (according to Jung's terminology). A complex is a group of thoughts, sensations, perceptions and memories structured around a central archetype that acts as an attractor of experiences and images.
They link or entangle the higher, abstract worlds with the real world of concrete objects.
They are intermediaries between the conscious and the unconscious. On the one hand, they put us in contact with the collective unconscious. And on the other, they put us in contact with its different manifestations. The whole psychic reality is connected through the archetypes.
The 3 levels of reality
They unite the opposites: the conscious with the unconscious, the manifest with the unmanifest, the static with the dynamic, the expressible with the inexpressible, the temporal with the timeless, the abstract with the concrete, the superior with the inferior, the relative and the absolute, etc.
They are usually bipolar or dual, that is, they almost always appear in pairs and are sometimes often described in terms of what they are and what they are not: male and female, heaven and earth, light and darkness, etc.
They are polyvalent. The same archetype can manifest in multiple ways, depending on circumstances or cultures, but they all share the common essence of the archetype.
They are relatively autonomous and can govern the individual, live and decide for him, since every external manifestation of the individual reflects the collective unconscious expressing itself through the archetypes.
The individuation process
Jung called "individuation process" the process by which an individual gets in touch with his deep essence, reconciling and harmonizing the realms of the conscious and the unconscious. Individuation means "becoming oneself" and is equivalent to self-realization. This process cannot be done by rational means, but through intuitive interpretation of symbols in dreams, fantasies, visions, etc., and through a technique that Jung called "active imagination", an active method oriented to establish a conscious dialogue with the images produced by the unconscious. Hermann Hesse said: "Every man has a genuine vocation: to find the way to himself".
Archetypes and Unus Mundus
Said Jung [1970], "It is not only possible but quite probable even that psyche and matter are two different aspects of one and the same thing". Jung, in postulating his theory of archetypes and the collective unconscious, already suggested that the collective unconscious could also be the origin of the manifestations of the physical world. But it was his fruitful collaboration with the physicist Wolfgang Pauli (one of the founders of quantum physics) that motivated Jung to definitely broaden his exclusively psychic vision with a unified vision of nature, in its double manifestation, physical and psychic: the physical and the psychic as complementary aspects of the same reality. It is his hypothesis of the Unus Mundus (Latin for "one world"), founded on the belief that the diversity of the world is an expression of the same underlying unity. "Without any doubt, empirical reality has a transcendental background" [Jung, 1970].
The Unus Mundus is the unified and transcendent reality that underlies behind the physical and the psychic, behind the apparent mind-matter duality.
Psyche and matter are not aspects of the Unus Mundus, but two manifestations of the Unus Mundus The Unus Mundus manifests itself as dual. Psyche and matter are complementary aspects of the same reality.
Psyche and matter are not independent, but interact with each other, but not directly, but indirectly through the Unus Mundus
Archetypes are the intermediaries between the unified, transcendental world of the Unus Mundus and its external manifestations. Archetypes are fundamental preconditions, constraints, or dynamic patterns that determine the form of psychic and physical phenomena.
The physical and the psychic are two manifestations of the Unus Mundus The same underlying principles (the archetypes) are the cause of the structure and phenomenology of mind and matter.
The Unus Mundus transcends mind-matter dualism and leads to a unified vision of inner and outer reality.
The phenomena of synchronicity between the physical and psychic worlds are due to the activity of the Unus Mundus Synchronicity is a special case of "general acausal order", a meaningful connection between internal (psychic) events and external (physical) events produced by the activity of the Unus Mundus
The term "Unus Mundus" is borrowed from the ancient medieval alchemists, specifically Gerardus Dorneus, the most important disciple of Paracelsus.
Primary archetypes
Jung postulated that there should be a set of primary or basic archetypes, some universal archetypal forms, which would be the building blocks of the unified reality of the Unus Mundus, the basic and primitive elements of reality, which would be both ontological and epistemological.
For Jung, the deep structure of the Unus Mundus (the primal archetypes) could be represented by mathematical symbols, as abstract forms without content. Mathematics reflects the order of the Unus Mundus This explains the mystery of why mathematics is so effective in describing the physical world. Mathematics is the key to understanding the physical and psychic world.
Jung and Pauli intuited that there is an essential and profound identity between the internal (psychic) and the external (physical), an essential idea grounded in that the primary archetypes are common to both realms.
In particular, Pauli argued that the model of the primary archetypes should be the guide of all science and the unifying principle of all sciences. He claimed that the application of this model would have profound implications, as they would be the primordial or primordial concepts for the grounding and unification of all sciences.
Jung and Pauli intended to unify the world by means of the primary archetypes. They sought the philosopher's stone, the alchemical quintessence. "Conquering" the primary archetypes would achieve full consciousness, wisdom, power, freedom, enlightenment and individuation. For this task, it was key to identify exactly which were the basic, primary or fundamental archetypes that structured the Unus Mundus But they did not have time to identify them, as their research coincided with the last years of their lives.
Jung and Pauli sought for the psychophysical world what the philosophers had attempted with the categories, the primary or supreme concepts of reality.
The "neutral" language suggested by Pauli
Given the universal character of archetypes, Pauli suggested that a unified language could be constructed −which he termed "neutral"− that would serve to unify physics and psychology, i.e., to represent both physical and psychic processes. This standard language, based on an invariant set of primary archetypes constructed from abstract symbolic representations of a mathematical type, would serve as the foundation of a post-Cartesian science that integrated and harmonized rational and intuitive aspects.
For Jung, number is a primary archetype, for playing an essential role in connecting the inner world with the outer world and should be part of that universal language.
For Pauli, this language should also include the primary mathematical intuitions, which manifest themselves in arithmetic (the discrete infinite, the infinite series of natural numbers) and in geometry (the idea of the continuum). Both concepts, the discrete infinite and the continuous, would be primary archetypes because we have to resort to intuition, because they cannot be represented nor can we perceive them directly by reason. And it should also include the primary archetype of symmetry.
Numbers as archetypes
Late in his life, Jung became interested in natural numbers: "I have a clear feeling that number is a key to mystery, since it is something that is as much discovered as invented. It is quantity as well as meaning" [Jung, 2004]. He concluded that number was the manifestation of an archetype of primary order: "Number could be the most primitive element of order in the human mind... so we can define number psychologically as an archetype of order that has become conscious" [Jung, 2004]. Jung held the conviction that the number-archetype was one of the primary archetypes of the Unus Mundus and that it is reflected in the structure and processes of mind and matter. Jung also suggested that imaginary numbers unified the inner and outer worlds, the conscious and the unconscious.
Jung considered the principle of quaternity especially important. Jung described the human psyche by 4 functions: perceiving, intuiting, feeling and reflecting. This principle is also reflected in structures such as mandalas, squares and crosses. And the center within a quaternary Jung interpreted as the quintessence. In the mandalas appear the geometric forms of the square and the circle, which represent the union of opposites. Jung interpreted quaternary structures as symbols of wholeness. For Jung, mandalas are archetypal images of the collective unconscious.
The square (the geometric 4, or spatial manifestation of quaternity) refers to itself, like all symbols and like self-consciousness, but in this case in a literal sense, for a square is potentially fractal because it can divide into 4 squares, and these in turn divide as well, and so on ad infinitum.
For René Guénon, the quaternary is represented by a square (if its static state is considered) or by a cross (if its dynamic state is considered).
Tetraktys
For the Pythagoreans, the Tetraktys (based on the number 4) was a sacred symbol. The quaternity has a 3+1 type structure, where the 1 is a complement to 3 homogeneous elements and which produces the closure of the totality. For example, in the theory of relativity, there are 3 dimensions of space and the fourth element is time, to create the space-time totality.
For Plato, "the ternary is the idea number and the quaternary is the realization of the idea". That is to say, the 3 is on a higher level than the 4. This is an earthly, material number (for example, the 4 elements and the 4 cardinal points). For Hindu philosophy, 4 reflects the idea of totality.
Jung and Pauli often argued about the principle of quaternity compared to that of trinity. Jung believed that the quaternary order has more value than the ternary. Pauli agreed with Jung that the quaternary played an essential role in reality. but he also believed in the archetypal power of the ternary, of the trinity. In fact, he studied the possible influence of this archetype on Kepler, the founder of modern astronomy, in formulating his 3 laws of planetary motion, in an essay entitled "The Influence of Archetypal Ideas on Kepler's Scientific Theories".
What we do know is that the number 3 is the number of consciousness because it symbolizes the union and harmonization of opposites. Thus, synchronicity has a ternary structure, since it is formed by the archetype (deep) and its two manifestations (physical and psychic). The 3 symbolizes the higher synthesis of mind and matter. The ternary is located vertically, while the quaternary is arranged horizontally, in the manifested world. The ternary is an active, intuitive, creative and spiritual principle, while the quaternary is a passive, rational and material principle.
Marie Louise von Franz's investigations of the natural numbers
Two years before his death, Jung commissioned his disciple and collaborator Marie-Louise von Franz to study the archetypal aspects of the natural numbers. The result was the 1970 publication of "Number and Time: Reflections Directed Toward the Unification of Depth Psychology and Physics." Thanks to von Franz we have, in summary, the following theory:
The number is a manifestation (conscious) of the number-archetype (unconscious).
Natural numbers are basic building blocks of the Unus Mundus, manifesting on a physical and psychic level. "In the last analysis, the mystery of the Unus Mundus lies in the nature of number" [von Franz, 1974].
Number links the observer with the observed, the internal (subjective and qualitative) world with the external (objective and quantitative) world. Number is a meeting point between mind and matter, where symbol and meaning synchronize. Number acts as a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious. It harmonizes both realms, which is why number plays an important role in the process of individuation.
Number is a primitive concept because it has its origin in an archetype of order that is irreducible. It has the power to connect to order (or to become aware of order) within the chaos of appearances.
The number-archetype, like every archetype, has an aprioristic, primordial nature, prior to human consciousness.
The number-archetype is unrepresentable (like every archetype). The natural numbers have a concrete representation and can be represented in many ways. But no representation can express the deep, synthetic unity that constitutes the number-archetype.
Numbers have quantitative and qualitative aspects. In the West we have hardly considered this second aspect, but in the East it is very important, sometimes even more than the first. The Chinese, for example, have shaped their culture on the basis of qualitative resonances between natural numbers and various situations, structures, patterns, forms, etc. In ancient China, it is said that in an assembly of generals in which they had to decide whether or not to engage in combat, 3 generals were opposed and 8 wanted to fight. It was decided not to fight, giving priority to the qualitative aspect over the quantitative, because the number 3 symbolizes the overcoming of opposites, consciousness and truth.
We know the numbers by their superficial aspects, their multiple relations between them, theorems, etc., but we do not know their deep, intuitive structure, which Ramanujan, for example, did have.
The numbers are states, doors and engines of consciousness. They connect us with the essential, with the deepest part of our psyche. Numbers represent states of consciousness or psychological patterns. For example: 1 symbolizes unity, the undifferentiated and wholeness; 2, duality, opposition, division, repetition and symmetry; 3, consciousness, dynamicity, creativity, harmony and reconciliation of opposites; 4, stability and return to unity; etc.
Following Jung and the Pythagoreans, von Franz emphasized the great power of the quaternary, for the first 4 numerical archetypes are universal patterns, manifesting in all objects.
Numbers represent vibrational energetic waves, just as Pythagoras discovered the intimate connection between numbers and musical tones/notes. Odd numbers are dynamic energetic waves, and even numbers are static energetic waves. Hence, the ternary is an active principle, while the quaternary is a passive principle.
Numbers have known (representable) properties and hidden or unrepresentable properties.
Numbers are multifaceted and multidimensional. When we refer to a number, for example 21, we are implicitly referring to relationships and laws (known or unknown), such as the different partitions of 21, multiples of 21, etc. The number resonates (consciously or unconsciously) with those relationships and laws.
Numbers represent abstract patterns of movement, both physically and psychically. Numbers thus have an essential relationship with the time dimension, an aspect particularly studied by von Franz.
Numbers are linguistic universals. They manifest themselves in all languages.
Numbers are universal patterns that appear in the formation of symbols. Symbols (and their numerical aspects) connect us to the deep.
The number-archetype, being a primary archetype, plays an essential role in the phenomena of synchronicity.
The numbers have a vertical structure. The upper pole is the superficial, rational, representable aspect. The lower pole is deep, symbolic-intuitive and unrepresentable.
In addition to the quantitative-qualitative and static-dynamic properties, there are also real and imaginary numbers. Imaginary numbers, not only serve to connect the internal and external worlds (the conscious and the unconscious), but also unify them. The real and imaginary components of the complex plane correspond to the conscious and unconscious contents of the psyche.
The hypothesis of numbers as archetypes can be considered as a new version of Pythagoreanism. For the Pythagoreans, number was the universal archetype (number as the essence of all things, and as the representation of unity in multiplicity). For Jung, however, number is one of the primary archetypes (not the only one) of the Unus Mundus
The Archetypal Paradigm, a Unifying Philosophy
The concept of archetype, which Jung first presented in his theory of the collective unconscious, and later in his theory of the Unus Mundus, is a universally valid concept. Archetypes manifest themselves everywhere and in multiple forms: in literature, in art, in science, in various cultures, etc.
Therefore, this paradigm should be applicable to the various domains (both scientific and humanistic) as a unifying philosophy of nature and mind, of the external world and the internal world. In fact, archetypal models have been realized in biology, sociology, religion, physics, mathematics, computer science, linguistics, art, music, mythology, ecology, literature, economics, politics, etc. Hence we can affirm that the concept of archetype is also an archetype (or meta-archetype), and that the concept of Unus Mundus can be considered the parent archetype of all archetypes.
The archetypal paradigm is of a top-down type: it goes from general principles to their particular manifestations. It is like a universal axiomatic. The materialistic worldview is the opposite, it is an ascending approach: it goes from particular observable phenomena to general laws, applying a process of induction.
The application of the universal model of archetypes to different domains has enormous advantages over other more or less particular paradigms:
It is a unifying paradigm. It facilitates the union or interrelation between apparently different domains, by always connecting the universal present in all things.
It clarifies the domain, by grounding it in solid and profound principles.
Faced with increasingly sophisticated and complex domains, it simplifies them. Archetypes, by their very nature, are simple, for they are the foundation of consciousness, and consciousness is closely linked to simplicity.
Conceiving everything in terms of archetypes has the advantage that it internalizes us, it attunes us to the essential and fundamental of everything, instead of focusing only on the superficial, on phenomena. This paradigm transports us from the superficial of any phenomenon to the deep, considering it as a manifestation of a deep archetype. Both poles are needed to achieve consciousness: the union of the internal and the external, the deep and the superficial.
Innerization, in turn, creates the optimal conditions for the phenomenon of creativity to emerge, the combining of archetypes. Creativity is supreme, it is the maximum possible by combining the deepest factors.
It brings us closer to the truth, to the authentic reality and to the meaningful. It is paradoxical, that the material that we consider to be the real, is the least real. From this point of view, the deeper something is, the more real it is.
The archetypal paradigm is universal. It is applicable not only to science, but also to religion. Pauli complained about the lack of soul in scientific conceptions. He said that science and religion have a common origin that humanity has forgotten. Until the end of his life he insisted on the need to unify scientific knowledge (of external reality) and knowledge of our inner reality. That the dialogue between science and religion is an essential movement to reconcile the inner and the outer.
In the face of such theoretical advantages, there is the problem of finding the basic, fundamental or primary archetypes. It is assumed that, being profound, they are difficult to find. And indeed this is so because, paradoxically, they are so simple and obvious, that we are not able to see them. But once identified or discovered, everything becomes simpler and clearer.
Duality as a meta-archetype
Just as human consciousness is dual (and is associated with the two cerebral hemispheres), the entire universe also has a dual nature, thus establishing an analogy between mind and universe. This duality of the universe (which we may call Left Mode (or Surface Mode) and Right Mode (or Deep Mode), as the modes of human consciousness, manifests itself with different properties, including the following:
Left Mode
Right Mode
Temporal
Temporary
Spatial
Independent of space
Relative
Absolute
Cause-effect
Synchronistic or acausal
Local
Global
Conscious
Unconscious
Objective
Subjective
In ancient Chinese philosophy, this primary archetype is called yin-yang, the dual, opposite or complementary universal aspects of reality. All other aspects are particular cases of this primary archetype, which we can qualify as meta-archetype, since it applies to all particular archetypes. Incidentally, that the yin-yang symbol is antisymmetrical (one part reflects the other with the opposite color).
Symmetry as a manifestation of duality
Symmetry is a manifestation at the physical level of the meta-archetype of duality. Symmetry has proven to be an essential tool for the development of science, and today it is one of the leading concepts in modern physics and mathematics. The two most brilliant theoretical developments of the 20th century, relativity theory and quantum theory, incorporate notions of symmetry as an essential foundation. Said Heisenberg: "In the beginning was symmetry".
Symmetry plays an essential role in reality. For Pauli, symmetry is a unifying archetype of mind and matter.
At the mental level, symmetry is a key aspect of aesthetics, order, harmony and meaning.
At the physical level, symmetry is associated with the foundation of all laws of nature. In fact, many physical laws can be deduced solely from symmetry postulates. According to Noether's theorem (1918), an abstract symmetry in a physical system is linked to a conservation law and vice versa. Symmetry is nature's way of achieving maximum economy of resources and maximum simplicity.
Symmetry, like any archetype, is unrepresentable. We can only perceive its effects, its manifestations, which are representable and understandable.
Consciousness intervenes in symmetry and symmetry produces consciousness. An image with symmetry connects us with the deep, with the essence of nature, because consciousness envelops and transcends opposites. This explains the great power of internalization that we experience when contemplating mandalas, which have a symmetrical structure that combines the circle (continuous symmetry) and the square (discrete symmetry). Symmetry connects the external (the physical) with the internal (the psychic).
The perception of an image with symmetry leads us to a state of simultaneity, of concurrence, of superposition of elements, as occurs in quantum phenomena. The result is a virtually dynamic state, where time is transcended.
An example of symmetry, in which the phenomenon of superposition can be appreciated, is the stellated dodecagon, in the versions in which 4 triangles or 3 squares appear:
4 triangles
3 squares
Mathematical structures called "symmetry groups" are manifestations of the symmetry archetype.
The most powerful images are those with the greatest symmetry. The circle has so much power precisely because it has infinite symmetries: as it turns it is always equal to itself. It is the sovereign symmetry. And at the same time it is supreme simplicity.
Archetypes in Computer Science
The philosophy of archetypes is being attempted to be applied to computer science as well. At the California Institute of Technology there is an "Archetype Working Group", which is applying the archetype paradigm to computer programming, to try to unify different aspects such as: identifying recurring patterns in programming languages and software development techniques; sequential, parallel and distributed modes of computation; etc. The expected result is a reduction of complexity in software development and a greater portability of the software on different systems. [see on the Internet "Archetype Project Homepage"]
Cyberspace is a human product and, therefore, archetypes must be reflected, which could explain the fascination with the Internet and its technologies. Indeed, we can consider the following as archetypes:
The Web, which is the mother space that houses a set of interrelated elements at a static and dynamic level. It is a metaphor for the collective mind.
The communication between contents and between people. They are practically instantaneous in nature and without limitations of physical distance. It is non-local communication, exactly like the mental world and the quantum world.
The navigation, which is the user's conscious traversal of specific Web content.
The goal of the Internet should be to become a model of the human mind. This would require using the primary archetypes, which establish our degrees of freedom and our creative and imaginative capacity. In this way, the Internet will truly become the global mind.
Archetypes in Physics
Traditional Western culture is characterized by an implicit division between the physical (objective, external) world and the psychic (subjective, internal) world. In this division, the objective world has taken precedence over the subjective, to the point of considering the mind as an epiphenomenon of matter (the brain). This conception has been forged largely by the theoretical-practical success of the classical physics developed by Newton and his successors. According to this model, physical reality is determined by precise mathematical laws. It is the conception of the universe as a clock, as a deterministic mechanism.
With the irruption of modern physics (quantum and relativistic) this materialistic-deterministic model has been undermined, as the fundamental physical concepts have been replaced by others:
Quantum physics has forced a revision of the concepts of causality, determinism and locality. In addition −and perhaps most importantly− it questions the idea that the properties of matter have an existence independent of observation or the observer's consciousness.
Einstein's special and general theory of relativity has forced the revision of the concepts of space, time, matter, energy and gravitation.
The most important thing about the new model of reality is that the psyche or consciousness is somehow involved in the physical world.
In general, the basic concepts of physics (such as space, time, mass, energy, field, wave, particle, etc.) were originally intuitive concepts, archetypal ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers. These ideas evolved and became more concrete until they were finally expressed in abstract mathematical terms. For example, the concept of the elementary particle was formulated by Leucippus and his disciple Democritus, who called it "atom" (meaning "indivisible").
For Plato, the primary elements of matter are the 5 regular polyhedra, today called "Platonic solids": tetrahedron, cube, icosahedron, octahedron and dodecahedron. It is believed that Empedocles was the first to associate the first 4 with the 4 elements of nature: fire, earth, water and air, respectively. Plato associated the dodecahedron with the universe.
Space and time as archetypes
Every archetype unites the internal and the external, so space and time are archetypes, for there is an external (objective) space and time, and an internal (subjective) space and time. For Kant, space and time are a priori concepts.
Objective (or physical) time is linear, a concept fully assumed in the West. Objective time is an abstraction, it is not something concrete and material. It is the background of events in the external world.
Subjective (or psychological) time contracts or expands, according to the circumstances experienced. Subjective time is practically unlimited in childhood, and contracts as we grow older.
Space is not something concrete and material either, it is an abstraction. It is the environment where material bodies manifest themselves.
Time and space are linked. Our internal senses of space and time allow us to understand and measure external space and time.
Time, at the deep subjective level, is diluted. In the soul it disappears, for it is eternal or timeless.
Space and time are fractal or holographic. Both contain themselves. In each instant of a person (in the present) is his whole life. And in every point of space is all of space.
Quantum physics
The fundamental laws of quantum physics were discovered independently by Werner Heisenberg (1925) and Erwin Schrödinger (1926), as models of the mysterious phenomena that contradicted the fundamentals of classical physics. The most prominent phenomenon was that of wave-particle duality. Electrons, which were considered particles, also behaved as waves. Light, which was considered a wave, exhibited particle properties (photons). Niels Bohr, to reconcile the two aspects, established the "principle of complementarity," according to which the two aspects are mutually exclusive, but both are necessary for the description of the phenomena of quantum physics.
According to David Bohm, there is an "ocean of energy" at a deep level, as the background of the universe, a background that is neither physical nor psychic. This corresponds to Jung's Unus Mundus Bohm's ocean of energy is the implicate or deep order of reality, which is of the unmanifest type. The explicate order is the manifest order.
According to Hindu philosophy, space and matter are two aspects of the same entity: the Akasha, the subtle physical level or deep space, the foundation and essence of all things in the material world. From the Akasha arose the whole universe, and to the Akasha it returns. Therefore, according to this view, the Akasha would be the unifying archetype at the physical level.
John Wheeler had already asserted that, for example, all electrons would be manifestations of a single archetypal electron. The story goes that one day John Wheeler telephoned his disciple Richard Feynmann and said, "Feynmann, I know why all electrons have the same charge and the same mass. Because they are the same electron!".
There are parallels or analogies between depth psychology and quantum physics (some were already discovered by Jung and Pauli):
Just as we cannot directly capture an archetype (we have to go to its manifestations), we cannot apprehend a quantum entity directly, but have to infer its properties indirectly (e.g., from traces left on a Wilson camera).
Quantum entities, like archetypes, are unrepresentable. However, particular quantum entities are identified with high-level mathematical abstractions where imaginary expressions appear.
At the subatomic level, everything is connected, the boundaries are blurred. In quantum physics, the phenomenon of nonlocality (the entanglement between quantum entities, regardless of the distance that separates them) occurs. Non-locality is a characteristic shared also by the mind and archetypes. Archetypes, from deep within, connect all elements of surface or manifested reality.
Just as archetypes unite the internal and the external, in quantum physics they unite the subjective and the objective, the experiment (physical) and the experimenter (psychic), mind and matter, cause and effect.
Quantum entities are not "things", they are possibilities, like archetypes.
In quantum physics, the wave-particle complementarity principle can be made to correspond to the unconscious and conscious, respectively.
Wave and particle are not mutually exclusive aspects, as Bohr's principle of complementarity states, but rather that the particle is the manifestation of the wave. Or that wave and particle are both manifestations of something deeper, the wave being deeper than the particle. Wave and particle correspond to the two modes of consciousness.
The collapse of the wave function of a quantum entity is a phenomenon analogous to the manifestation of an archetype.
Discontinuity in quantum physics is a manifestation of order. Archetypes represent a discontinuous architecture, a reflection of the underlying order of the Unus Mundus
The atom consists of nucleus and "shell" (the set of electrons). The human personality consists of a deep part or nucleus (Self) and a superficial part (ego). Thus, the atom and the person are manifestations of the same archetypes.
It has been suggested that the true language of quantum physics is of a mythical-symbolic type and that conventional mathematical language cannot express its strange phenomena, that it needs some deeper abstractions. Those abstractions in their supreme degree are the primary archetypes.
The string theory of quantum physics, the theory that currently has the best chance of achieving the unification of all physical phenomena, is based on an archetype: vibration. Everything vibrates: the atom, electromagnetic radiations, light, etc. "Everything is vibration" (Hermes, Pythagoras). The string is synonymous with flexibility and possibility. According to this theory, all particles and all forces are different modes of vibration of a primordial and archetypal string. The lower the frequency of vibration, the more material (superficial) it is; and the higher the frequency of vibration, the deeper and more subtle it is. The difficulty of string theory lies in its complexity, which is a contradiction, since the opposite should be the case: it should be a simple theory. Perhaps its complexity lies in the fact that it is using traditional mathematics, and not one also based on primary archetypes.
An alternative view to string theory may be that there is no string at all, but that matter is condensed space or vibrating space.
Vibration is an archetype because it is the manifestation of opposites, of two opposite states succeeding each other in time. One can express an elementary oscillator (or abstract vibration) by the expression (x = x'), where ((x')' = x). By evaluating x, we obtain successively alternative opposites: x, x', x, x', x', x, ...
Theory of relativity
Einstein's theory of special relativity is based on an archetypal principle: the invariance of the speed of light in a vacuum, leading to the unification of space and time in the space-time entity, which can be considered an archetype.
The issue of the invariance of the speed of light collides head-on with our usual logic when considering the composition of velocities of two moving objects. However, it may have an explanation if we consider that light emerges from a deeper physical dimension, where everything is connected: the Akasha As light manifests externally, superficially, in our universe, it always appears in the same form, regardless of the speed of the observer and the speed of the light source.
According to the theory of relativity, if we could travel at the speed of light, we would observe that all space would contract and be reduced to a point, and time would disappear. That is, from the point of view of light itself, from its own frame of reference, there is neither space nor time.
Here we postulate a new principle of equivalence (or analogy), relating light and consciousness, velocities close to that of light, and interiorization into inner or deep space (the Akasha). Indeed, when we travel at these speeds, time dilates, space contracts and mass-energy increases. This is therefore analogous to a process of internalization, of going into the deep. In the limit, if we could move at the speed of light, time and space would disappear and we would have infinite energy.
Therefore, we can state as a conclusion that light is the manifestation of the Akasha That is why we cannot reach the speed of light, because the profound, the Akasha, is unattainable. If we were to reach it, we would live in no time, in no space and with infinite energy. Light is more than a metaphor for consciousness. Light connects the inner and the outer. Light is a universal archetype.
The electron can be considered as condensed light or a manifestation of light, for when an atomic electron descends to a lower orbital, it emits light.
Toward a "theory of everything" based on archetypes
Causal, mechanistic laws are part of classical physics. Today, modern physics seeks a unified theory, a "theory of everything", an absolute theory that explains the diversity of particular laws and unifies them into a universal law that connects all phenomena of nature. The archetypal paradigm is the most direct option to achieve this unification. The result would be a profound and transcendental physics. The French philosopher Jean Guitton calls it "semantic physics," a physics of the meanings hidden behind the superficial laws of physics. But to establish such a deep physics also requires a deep, archetypal mathematics.
Scientific theories must arise from the meeting or union of two poles. On the one hand, from the empirical facts, from the superficial, from where the laws that can be expressed in mathematical language arise. On the other, from the archetypes, from the deep, which although they cannot be expressed in mathematical language, their manifestations can be expressed in the form of laws or general patterns that relate the archetypes to each other.
According to Kepler, nature has not only a mathematical and rational aspect, but also a magical and symbolic aspect; that the faculty that perceives and recognizes forms is a faculty of the soul, which does not act in a discursive, rational way. He said that it was as if the Sun and the planets were integrated in an organic and living whole. He believed in the famous principle of hermeticism "As above, so below; as below, so above", the universal law or pattern that governs absolutely everything and gives unity to everything, a true universal archetype. According to Kepler, the solar system reflects the trinity (with its famous 3 laws of planetary motion) and the human mind itself.
In Mysterium Cosmographicum (The Mystery of the Cosmos, 1596), Kepler associated the Platonic solids with the structure of the solar system: each planet moved in a sphere separated from the adjoining one by a Platonic solid. With this model, he believed he had discovered the secrets of the cosmos. Later, when analyzing the astronomical data of Tycho Brahe, he banished this model by discovering that the planets moved in elliptical orbits and following his famous 3 laws.
For Pauli, the process of understanding nature is based on the correspondence or dialectical reconciliation between the internal and external worlds, and its foundation by means of archetypes. According to Pauli, Kepler not only relied on the concrete data of astronomical observation (which allowed him to infer his 3 laws), but also on the archetypal image of the solar system as a mandala.
For Pauli, physics must evolve towards a deeper, archetypal physics, and that quantum theory was an advance in that direction. That new physics would be revolutionary and more universal, beyond the boundaries of classical or conventional physics.
But a true "theory of everything" must not include only physics. It must be universal. The path of primary archetypes is the best way to achieve this because the sciences must be united through their common foundation, and that foundation is primary archetypes.
Archetypes in Linguistics
According to Chomsky, there is a universal and innate grammar in all human beings:
It is a product of evolution, and not of some timeless, a priori archetypes.
It explains the ease with which children of all cultures learn languages.
It explains the ease with which children learn languages in all cultures.
Explains the invariance, at a fundamental level, of all human languages.
The essential structure of universal grammar is the foundation of the intellectual capacities of human beings. The underlying principles of language and mind are the same.
Chomsky established the concept of generative grammar. It is based on the fact that the surface form of a sentence is inseparable from the deep structure that generated it. A set of rules describes how all possible sentences in the language are generated.
The problem with Chomsky's theory is:
He has not identified what exactly are those primary resources that constitute the universal grammar, resources that are supposed to be semantic.
Your concept of generative grammar is founded on ideas other than universal grammar and where semantics is not considered.
He does not (surprisingly) speak of an innate universal language, but of an innate universal grammar.
Here we argue that primary archetypes (universal and abstract) also manifest themselves in linguistics:
As archetypes connect inner and outer worlds, this explains that language reflects both worlds and acts as an intermediary element between them. There is correspondence or equivalence between ontology and epistemology.
They explain the existence of linguistic universals.
Primary archetypes manifest themselves at the level of lexical semantics (semantic primitives) and structural semantics (semantic grammar). Lexical semantics is the same as structural semantics. They are the same archetypes manifesting in both domains. Universal grammar and universal language are the same thing.
For Chomsky, language reflects the mind. For Jung, symbols and myths reflect archetypes (unconscious patterns). The primary archetypes allow unifying language and the pattern of the mind.
Addenda
Origin and history of archetypes
Pythagoras founded a mystical school based on the occult truth that the very numbers we use to count are the basic bricks from which the edifice of reality is constructed.
A century and a half later, Plato argued that the world we live in is but an imperfect projection of a higher, more authentic and deeper ideal world: the world of Ideas (or Forms), which constitute the essence and foundation of all things, both concrete and abstract (such as the beautiful, the just, the great, etc.). And that our soul can have recourse to these Ideas through thought because both (Ideas and thought) possess the same essence.
Plato was the first to attempt to explain the archetypal nature of reality, but his explanation was too generic, without detailing the nature of the structure of the relationship between the ideal world and the real world.
Goethe believed that to achieve wisdom, both humanistic and scientific, one had to look for archetypal patterns. Due to Goethe's influence, the concept of archetype was on the verge of becoming a dominant principle. This concept was also present in other authors such as Schiller, Schelling, Hegel, Coleridge and Emerson. However, the concept of archetype never achieved relevance in science, although it was important at the philosophical level.
But the real driver or driving force behind archetypes was Jung. Jung recognized that his conception of archetype had its roots in the ideas of Plato, who was the great precursor: "... the archetype is nothing more than an expression that already appears in antiquity and is synonymous with Idea..." [Jung, 2005].
There are overlaps between the Platonic and Jungian approaches to archetypes:
The Platonic world of Ideas is a higher realm, like the Jungian Unus Mundus
The world of Ideas refers to ideal and perfect forms that manifest in the physical and psychic worlds. The archetypes of the Unus Mundus also refer to both realms.
But there are differences:
Platonic Ideas are static. Jungian archetypes are dynamic.
Platonic Ideas are singular, they always manifest themselves in the same way. Jungian archetypes are plural or polyvalent, they can manifest in many different ways.
The term "archetype" was used by Neoplatonic philosophers such as Plotinus to designate not only the model-ideas of all that exists (in the Platonic sense), but also as something of spiritual value: an attempt to approximate the eternal ideas of the One (God). For Plotinus, the true source of reality is in the One, from which emanates the Nous (intellect) and the world of archetypes. It is what today we call "descending causality".
In theistic philosophies, archetypes are the ideas present in the mind of God, the deepest and most transcendent ideas. For St. Augustine, the archetypes are God's own thought, and the Platonic Ideas the modes by which God conceives reality.
Types of Jungian archetypes
According to Jung, there are as many archetypes as there are typical situations in life: God, the goddess, the child, birth, death, the trinity, the quaternity, the father, the great mother, the hero, the wise old man, the devil, the puer aeternus (eternal youth), the mentor, the swindler, the scarecrow, etc. But there are 5 archetypes that are the most important:
The Self is the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation.
The Anima is the feminine aspect of the psyche of man.
The Animus is the masculine aspect of the female psyche.
The Shadow corresponds to our most primitive impulses, the lower part of the personality which is not taken over by the conscious part and which, when it gains a certain autonomy, becomes an antagonist of the self.
The Person ("mask") is the external attitude or superficial manifestation of the individual which corresponds on the one hand to his intentions, and on the other to the demands of the environment.
Archetypes and myths
According to Ferrater Mora (in his Dictionary of Philosophy), a myth "is an account of something fabulous that is supposed to have happened in a remote and almost always imprecise past". Its subject matter is very varied. It can be of a religious, poetic, natural, physical, psychic, heroic, etc. type. But behind the story is hidden a deep, metaphorical, essential, allegorical, symbolic, archetypal, paradigmatic meaning, a deep and universal philosophical truth, a way of seeing the world that transcends time and space. Myth integrates symbolic images or archetypal manifestations into a universal scheme or model. Myth is the foundation of the behavior and culture of peoples.
There is a close relationship between archetype and myth:
Myths belong to the deep, like archetypes. Both are situated at the level of the intuitive and transcendental, beyond reasoning. They are even associated with the operations or functions of the soul, with the aprioristic, with essential consciousness: the "mythic consciousness".
Myths, like archetypes, are innate structures of the mind.
As with archetypes, the concrete manifestations of myths may vary with different cultures, but the underlying structures (with their corresponding meanings) are the same. Myth possesses a structure independent of its specific manifestations.
The qualifier of "fabulous" in the definition of myth, refers us to the deep level where everything is possible, the same level from which archetypes emerge.
Human language, as a structure, can have its origin, not in isolated archetypes, but in thematic myths built with blocks of manifested, conscious archetypes.
To Lévi-Strauss we owe an elaborate theory of myths, expressed mainly in his series of works called "Mythologiques".
Archetypes and fractals
It has been suggested that archetypes and fractal structures could be synonymous, as fractals have a very close relationship with consciousness, as they link the internal and the external, and are self-referential, as they manifest the same pattern at all levels, which is the fractal image itself.
Fractal geometry is the one that describes chaotic systems, systems of nonlinear dynamics that are on the border between determinism and nondeterminism. They are deterministic systems, but being highly sensitive to initial conditions, their behavior is very difficult to predict and appears to be chaotic.
It has been suggested that the so-called "strange attractors", which appear in complex chaotic-type dynamical systems, may be archetypal patterns, since they represent behavioral constraints or limitations; they are unrepresentable and appear in very different dynamical systems. It has even been suggested that archetypes themselves may be considered strange attractors operating in the complex dynamics of the psyche.
Information is not a primary archetype
Physicist John Wheeler, in his theory "it from bit" argues that information (the bit) is a profound factor that manifests itself in the reality of physical phenomena (the it): "It is not unreasonable to think that information sits at the core of physics, as it sits at the core of a computer." According to this author:
Information is the foundation of the universe. All things are information in origin, deep down.
Information is responsible for all physical phenomena. Every item in the physical world has an immaterial source of explanation: information.
Every it, every particle, every force field, even the space-time continuum itself derives its function, its meaning and its very existence from information.
All the laws of physics can be expressed in terms of information.
According to philosopher of mind David Chalmers, information is a natural candidate for a theory of consciousness because of its deep and fundamental character.
Information can be considered an archetype because it unites internal world and external world, but it is not a primary archetype because primary archetypes are degrees of freedom. Information is a concept close to consciousness, but it is not consciousness.
Pauli's exclusion principle, an archetype of nature
All quantum entities are described by a wave function expressed in an abstract infinite-dimensional space called "Hilbert space". Pauli discovered that the form of the wave function is governed by a dual principle: all quantum entities have one of two properties that he called "symmetry" and "antisymmetry". In this sense, quantum entities are divided into two classes:
Fermions. They are the basic constituents of matter. They have an antisymmetric wave function and half-integer spin (1/2, 3/2, ...). The spin is an abstract property that can be metaphorically associated with the spin of the particle.
Bosons. They are the quantum entities responsible for the forces between fermions. They have a symmetric wave function and integer spin (1, 2, ...).
The Pauli exclusion principle −discovered in 1925, and for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1945− states that fermions are governed by a principle of symmetry: no two fermions can be in the same quantum state. In contrast, bosons are governed by an antisymmetry principle: they can share the same quantum state, which allows them to be grouped into a single quantum state, as in the case of lasers, superconductors and superfluids.
In an atom, electrons must be distributed in different energy levels. Thanks to this principle: 1) the different chemical elements of the periodic table exist; 2) there is stability in matter, since molecules cannot arbitrarily approach each other, because the electrons bound to each molecule cannot be in the same state as the electrons of neighboring molecules.
In this scheme, there are two archetypes. First, the symmetry-asymmetry archetype, which manifests itself in the two types of symmetry exhibited by quantum entities. Second, there is an archetype of (non-physical) order that governs the patterns that quantum entities can form.
Pauli's view of the essential role played by symmetry in nature led him to predict (in 1930 the existence of a new particle, the neutrino, which was discovered 25 years later.
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