137 - Arthur I. Miller [26]
The puzzle that Bohr set to Pauli was to find an equation that described this behavior. The effect existed; it had been identified. Therefore it must be possible to deduce an equation from Bohr’s iconic theory of the way atoms worked—electrons revolving like planets in small solar systems. Despite its shortcomings Bohr’s theory offered the only means to deal with problems of atomic physics. Perhaps it could be modified to suit the one at hand.
Day and night Pauli thought about it. He calculated and calculated, he tried this approach and that approach, and eventually he fell into a fit of despair. Everything had been going so well. The boy genius’s triumphant entry into Munich had been heralded by an important paper on relativity theory and two more quickly followed. Even Einstein had been impressed. But ever since it had been nothing but one failure after another: “A colleague who met me strolling rather aimlessly in the beautiful streets of Copenhagen said to me in a friendly manner, ‘You look very unhappy,’ whereupon I answered angrily, ‘How can one look happy when he is thinking about the anomalous Zeeman effect?’”
There had to be a way. But how?
The Philosopher’s Stone
Jung’s analytical psychology: The four function types
MEANWHILE, in Zürich, Carl Jung was establishing a vocabulary and framework for his budding new field of analytical psychology. In 1921 he published his seminal book on the subject, Psychological Types.
In this he argued, based on his vast experience with patients, that there were two opposing modes of being that determined and limited a person’s reaction to the world and to himself—introversion and extraversion. In Jung’s initial definition, introversion is a turning inward from an object, while extraversion is the reverse. Jung was the first to coin these two terms, which have since become common currency. He then broke these two categories down further and proposed four basic functions or function-types: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition. He was intrigued that there appeared to be four function types rather than three or some other number. But for the moment he set the problem aside.
Jung defined what he called the four orienting functions of consciousness thus: thinking leads to logical conclusions; feeling is a means to establish a subjective criterion of acceptance or rejection; sensation directs one’s attention outside oneself and is caused by conscious perception through the sense organs. As for intuition, it is somewhat like sensation but there is no cause for directing one’s attention. Rather, there is a hunch, an inspiration, or gut feeling. Conclusions surface not by logical means but as if bursting out of nowhere, such as in suddenly realizing how to solve a problem when you are not consciously thinking about it.
The two opposing modes of being and four function types.
Jung then divided these four functions into two groups of two: thinking and feeling, which are to do with rationality and logic; and intuition and sensation, which he classified as irrational, outside of reason. Besides his clinical experience, Jung drew upon his knowledge of Eastern and Western religions and of myths, philosophy, and literature to support his theory of types. In particular, he drew on the notion of pairs of opposites such as evil/good, darkness/light, matter/spirit, which he saw as emerging from deepest history—before Christianity, the Hebrews, the Egyptians, and the Chinese—and providing the energy for creativity and for life itself.
The extent to which these four functions predominate in an individual, Jung argued, gives each person a mode of being. Specifically, thinking types direct their mental energy toward thought at the expense of feeling, which disturbs the flow of logic; feeling types are governed by their feelings. Similarly, to understand a situation with one’s senses—by sensation—requires concentration and focus, whereas trying