Electron

Within the depth-psychology library, the electron functions less as a technical object of physics than as a conceptual hinge between classical substantialism and post-classical ontology. The term surfaces most forcefully in Simondon, who marshals the free electron as his central case study for an individuation that transcends both the purely continuous and the purely discontinuous—its behavior compelling physics to invent new ‘systems of compatibility’ between inductive and deductive method. McGilchrist deploys the electron to dismantle naïve particle-realism: drawing on Hobson and Brooks, he insists that the electron is ‘an energy increment of a spread-out matter field,’ not a bounded object, and that this insight aligns with right-hemisphere ontology and with Bergson’s processual metaphysics. Von Franz reads the electron’s reversible trajectory in space-time diagrams—readable as either an electron moving forward or a positron moving backward—as physical warrant for the symmetry of time, a theme she connects to synchronicity. Pauli attends to the electron’s ‘two-valuedness not describable classically’ as the theoretical crux that forced the invention of the exclusion principle and, ultimately, of spin. Jung himself mentions the electron only in passing, indexing it parenthetically in Aion. The collective weight of these positions establishes the electron as a privileged site at which depth psychology and quantum physics negotiate questions of identity, field, individuation, and the limits of classical representation.

In the library 17 passages

from an energetic point of view, all the free electrons in the illuminated metal plate are like a single substance … we would be unable to understand how there could be an effect of the accumulation of luminous energy arriving on the plate up to the quantity of energy necessary for the escape of an electron

Simondon argues that the photoelectric effect forces a non-substantialist, collective understanding of the electron, dismantling the idea of a discrete bounded individual.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

the introduction of relativist mechanics into the domain of the free electron … Other means of producing free electrons have been discovered: the cathodic ray tube was accompanied by the so-called ‘thermionic’ effect and then the beta decay of radioactive bodies

Simondon identifies the free electron as the empirical site where relativistic mechanics and new compatibility-systems between the continuous and discontinuous had to be invented.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

An electron is nothing like, say, a tiny pea. An electron is simply an energy increment of a spread-out matter field … it is more like an event within a temporal and spatial continuum

McGilchrist uses the electron’s field-ontological status to argue against particle-realism and for a processual, relational view of reality aligned with right-hemisphere perception.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The mathematical formalism of field theory suggests that these lines can be interpreted in two ways, either as positrons moving forward in time or as electrons moving backwards in time

Von Franz treats the temporal reversibility of the electron’s trajectory in quantum field diagrams as physical evidence for the symmetry of time, linking subatomic physics to her broader argument about synchronicity.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Psyche and Matter, 2014thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

The variation of the photon’s wavelength is due to an energy exchange with an electron; the trajectories of the photon and of the electron can be slowed down after this energy exchange, which is a veritable shock

Simondon analyzes the Compton effect to illustrate the productive tension between wave and corpuscle models of the electron, exemplifying the need for new ontological categories.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

I proposed instead of it the assumption of a new quantum-theoretic property of the electron, which I called a ‘two-valuedness not describable classically’

Pauli recounts how the failure of classical models of the electron to account for doublet spectra forced the invention of the concept of spin, marking a decisive break with classical individuation.

Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994thesis

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

‘Taking the existence of all these transmutations into account, what remains of the old ideas of matter and substance? The answer is energy’, writes Pauli. ‘This is the true substance, that which is conserved; only the form in which it appears is changing.’

McGilchrist, quoting Pauli, uses the dissolution of classical particle-identity (including the electron’s) into field energy to ground a processual, non-substantialist ontology.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

‘Taking the existence of all these transmutations into account, what remains of the old ideas of matter and substance? The answer is energy’, writes Pauli. ‘This is the true substance, that which is conserved; only the form in which it appears is changing.’

McGilchrist deploys Pauli’s energy-as-substance argument to dissolve the bounded particle-image of the electron into a field-relational ontology.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

already in 1924, before the electron spin was discovered, I proposed to use the assumption of a nuclear spin to interpret the hyperfine-structure of spectral lines … influenced on the other hand Goudsmit and Uhlenbeck in their claim of an electron spin

Pauli traces the historical genealogy of electron spin, demonstrating how a quantum property resistant to classical description emerged from anomalous spectral data.

Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

the question of the ‘structure’ of the electron and the nature and magnitude of its self-energy … to which no answer could be given on the basis of the electrodynamics of Maxwell and Lorentz alone

Pauli identifies the electron’s self-energy problem as the point at which classical electrodynamics definitively failed, necessitating new theoretical frameworks.

Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

In the case of the exclusion principle there can never exist a limiting case where such operators can be replaced by a classical field

Pauli argues that the exclusion principle governing electrons marks an absolute boundary beyond which quantum operators cannot reduce to classical field descriptions.

Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

a harmonic component oscillation is actually assigned to a pair of stationary states. By this abandonment of the mechanical picture — there is no such thing as a development in time of a single stationary state

Pauli recounts how quantum mechanics abandoned the classical trajectory model for electrons, replacing it with oscillations assigned to pairs of states.

Pauli, Wolfgang, Writings on Physics and Philosophy, 1994supporting

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Oppenheimer … understood it based on his observations of particles, which cannot be confined by concepts of space, time, being, or not being

Nhat Hanh invokes Oppenheimer’s particle observations (implicitly including electrons) as a modern scientific parallel to Buddhist teaching on the indeterminacy of being and non-being.

Nhat Hanh, Thich, The Sun My Heart, 1988aside

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

the nature of any system cannot be discovered by dividing it into its component parts and studying each part by itself, since such a method often implies the loss of important properties of the system

McGilchrist uses Planck’s systemic epistemology to argue that electron-level reductionism misses emergent properties, supporting a field-based and psychological holism.

McGilchrist, Iain, The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, 2021aside

Dig deeper with Sebastian →

Related terms