The Not Old Better Show, Inside Science Interview Series

Welcome to The Not Old Better Show, I’m Paul Vogelzang and this is episode #507. As part of our Smithsonian Associates Inside Science Interview series, we are joined today by the scientist, author, quantum physicist, Dr. Paul Halpern. Dr. Paul Halpern will be appearing at the Smithsonian Associates program via Zoom, January 11, 2021, and the title of his presentation is Synchronicity: Pauli, Jung, and the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect.

Physicists remember Wolfgang Pauli for his Nobel-Prize-winning theoretical discoveries, his acerbic wit, and his uncanny tendency to destroy lab equipment if he happened to be in its vicinity. Psychologists, on the other hand, note that he shared hundreds of his strange, symbolic dreams with his therapist, the renowned psychoanalyst Carl Jung, leading to profound discussions between them about the nature of connections in mind and matter. Their collaboration is a fascinating chapter in 20th-century thought.

Together, Pauli and Jung explored a concept called synchronicity, an unusual phenomenon they thought could link events without causes. Paul Halpern, professor of physics at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, tells the little-known story of this unlikely friendship and shows how their insights continue to resonate in today’s discourse about the nature of quantum reality. Halpern shows that in order to map out the complex connections in physics, we need to make sure we know how to separate the real from the illusory—and how even the greatest thinkers have conflated valid, testable scientific connections with human intuitions about the workings of the universe, isolated in space and dwarfed by the immensity of time.

That, of course, that was our guest today, Dr. Paul Halpern reading from his new book, Synchronicity: The Epic Quest To Understand the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect.

Please join me in welcoming to The Not Old Better Show, via internet phone, Dr. Paul Halpern.

My thanks to Dr. Paul Halpern will be appearing at the Smithsonian Associates program via Zoom, January 11, 2021, and the title of his presentation is Synchronicity: Pauli, Jung, and the Quantum Nature of Cause and Effect. More details available on our website. Thanks to the Smithsonian team for all they do to support the show, and thanks to you our wonderful Not Old Better Show audience. Please, everyone, practice smart social distancing, be well, and remember, let’s Talk About Better. The Not Old Better Show.

For more information about Smithsonian Associates and Dr. Paul Halpern, please click here: https://smithsonianassociates.org/ticketing/tickets/synchronicity-pauli-jung-and-quantum-nature-of-cause-and-effect