Book Review: Synchronicity by Paul Halpern

Gabriellebirchak/ October 2, 2020/ Modern History, Uncategorized

“Syn­chronic­i­ty is the com­ing togeth­er of inner and out­er events in a way that can­not be explained by cause and effect, and that is mean­ing­ful to the observ­er.” — Carl Jung

Skep­ti­cism reigns supreme in sci­ence. When some­thing doesn’t make sense, there is a search for truths. Since the begin­ning of archa­ic humans, our ances­tors have con­tin­u­al­ly pon­dered the con­nec­tions of our tan­gi­ble world as well as the illu­sions that bring those con­nec­tions to false truths. Sci­ence is no dif­fer­ent. The evo­lu­tion of sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tion occa­sion­al­ly wan­ders into the realms of meta­physics, only to be pulled back again to evi­den­tial truths. Such is the case of syn­chronic­i­ty, as elo­quent­ly illu­mi­nat­ed by Pro­fes­sor and Author Paul Halpern, in his most recent book, Syn­chronic­i­ty: The Epic Quest to under­stand the Quan­tum Nature of Cause and Effect.

How did we come to under­stand the nature of quan­tum mechan­ics? The answer is per­fect­ly encap­su­lat­ed in Syn­chronic­i­ty, as Halpern dense­ly packs his book with the evo­lu­tion of sci­en­tif­ic ideas and dif­fer­ences. This thor­ough­ly edi­fy­ing book takes the read­er on a time jour­ney to under­stand sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tion from the begin­ning of celes­tial obser­va­tions to the cal­cu­la­tions of move­ment between sub­atom­ic par­ti­cles, all while con­tem­plat­ing the valid­i­ty of acausal­i­ty as it encoun­ters the sci­en­tif­ic neces­si­ty of cause and effect. For those who enjoy sci­ence his­to­ry, this is the per­fect book, as it intro­duces an exten­sive list of sci­en­tists who, in their own unique way, con­tribute to the evo­lu­tion of quan­tum physics.

Begin­ning with the ancient Greeks, Halpern shows us how some of our ear­li­est sci­en­tists like Aris­to­tle and Empe­do­cles came to eval­u­ate grav­i­ty and the speed of light. From there, the foun­da­tions of sci­en­tif­ic obser­va­tions unfold, as the read­er begins to see how sci­ence evolves from far-fledged sus­pi­cions and intu­ition to ver­i­fi­able and repro­ducible data.

One of the many promi­nent threads through­out Syn­chronic­i­ty is the chal­lenge in sci­ence when acausal­i­ty encoun­ters causal­i­ty. After the Greeks, Halpern intro­duces the sci­en­tists who came to under­stand the foun­da­tions of clas­si­cal mechan­ics. In the age of Renais­sance sci­ence, we meet Kepler, who mod­eled an accu­rate descrip­tion of our solar sys­tem only after he dis­missed his intu­itions. Instead, he hon­ored the math­e­mat­i­cal data that val­i­dat­ed causal­i­ty. How­ev­er, in this delight­ful tome of sci­ence his­to­ry, Halpern presents a few sci­en­tists who, regard­less of the evi­den­tial data, still clung to the super­nat­ur­al as a way of dis­cov­er­ing science.

Build­ing on the foun­da­tions of quan­tum mechan­ics, we meet Ein­stein, who unwa­ver­ing­ly held to his beliefs of causal­i­ty and deter­min­is­tic physics and made a vision­ary leap of sci­ence with his work on Rel­a­tiv­i­ty. Halpern expert­ly explains Einstein’s the­o­ries so that even a layper­son can under­stand what Einstein’s deter­min­is­tic physics encom­pass­es. Einstein’s pres­ence in this book is fun­da­men­tal, and Syn­chronic­i­ty is one of the few books that per­fect­ly describes Einstein’s the­o­ries of Rel­a­tiv­i­ty and leads us to under­stand the road­block that sci­ence encoun­tered when Max Born, Wern­er Heisen­berg, and Wolf­gang Pauli first pre­sent­ed quan­tum mechanics.

The book then segues into the core of Syn­chronic­i­ty, which is the sto­ry about Wolf­gang Pauli, his per­son­al chal­lenges, and his grap­ple with causal­i­ty and acausal­i­ty. Quan­tum mechan­ics cre­at­ed divi­sions among the sci­ence com­mu­ni­ty as Ein­stein dis­agreed with many new­er the­o­ries. Some sci­en­tists had even aban­doned the con­cept of objec­tive phys­i­cal real­i­ty. Even when Heisen­berg pre­sent­ed his posi­tion and momen­tum oper­a­tors, which math­e­mat­i­cal­ly val­i­dat­ed some con­cepts in quan­tum mechan­ics, Ein­stein main­tained his belief in con­ti­nu­ity and con­tin­u­al­ly stat­ed that the the­o­ry of quan­tum mechan­ics was incomplete.

Uncer­tain­ty sur­round­ed quan­tum physics as the rift in the sci­ence com­mu­ni­ty grew. Ein­stein remained ded­i­cat­ed to his deter­min­is­tic views. Mean­while, Pauli expe­ri­enced a sequence of dis­tress­ing events. Pauli’s father had an affair, his moth­er com­mit­ted sui­cide, and his wife filed for divorce. At his low­est point, he sought help from Carl Jung. Dur­ing his heal­ing process, Pauli began to explore the world of syn­chronic­i­ty and acausal­i­ty, even while remain­ing a promi­nent con­trib­u­tor to the field of quan­tum mechan­ics. Even­tu­al­ly, Pauli and Jung became stead­fast friends and worked togeth­er, com­bin­ing physics and psy­chi­a­try, causal­i­ty and acausal­i­ty, as well as repro­ducible data and unfound­ed per­cep­tion. This sto­ry of Pauli and Jung dom­i­nates the book and shows how acausal­i­ty can occa­sion­al­ly usurp sci­en­tif­ic analysis.

Halpern guides us to the end of his sto­ry, spot­light­ing promi­nent sci­en­tists of our mod­ern age and our cur­rent advance­ments with entan­gle­ment, worm­holes, and quan­tum jumps. Through­out it all, the con­cept of syn­chronic­i­ty weaves its way into the dis­cus­sion of quan­tum physics and under­scores the val­ue in acausal­i­ty while search­ing for cause and effect. As with all of his mag­nif­i­cent books, Halpern’s ele­gant and elo­quent writ­ing leads the read­er to com­pre­hend the mag­nif­i­cence of sci­ence. And, unlike most sci­ence books, the expla­na­tions of com­plex sub­jects are easy to under­stand through Halpern’s analo­gies and descrip­tions. No doubt, Halpern’s Syn­chronic­i­ty enlight­ens the read­er, hon­ors the beau­ty of sci­ence, all while high­light­ing the mean­ing and val­ue of synchronicity.

“The cos­mos is sim­ply not a friend­ly place for know-it-alls; rather, like a cryp­tic James Joyce nov­el, it invites par­tial under­stand­ing.” — Paul Halpern