Entropy

Entropy occupies a uniquely liminal position in the depth-psychology corpus, serving simultaneously as a thermodynamic datum, a metaphor for psychic dissolution, and a marker of transformative potential. Jung imported the concept from physics — explicitly invoking Boltzmann’s formulation — to describe the equalization of psychic opposites, arguing that a relatively closed psychic system tends toward a levelling of energic differences, an entropic equilibration that paradoxically produces stable new attitudes. Murray Stein distills this inheritance: Jung absorbed entropy as one law among several from physics, deploying it as a structural metaphor for the movement of libido toward equilibrium. Marie-Louise von Franz extends the stakes considerably by proposing that archetypes function as sources of negentropy, reversing the entropic drift through the emotional activation of preconscious ordering patterns — a claim that links depth psychology directly to information theory. Carhart-Harris and colleagues translate entropy into neuroscientific terms, arguing that psychedelic and primary states correspond to measurably increased neural entropy, with normal waking consciousness constituting a regime of entropy suppression maintained by the default mode network. McGilchrist and Hillman deploy entropy culturally, the latter reading maintenance labor as a counter-entropic act against thermodynamic dissipation. Ulanov introduces the distinction between entropic and deterministic chaos in reading the Psyche myth, a move that situates entropy within chaos theory and individuative narrative alike. The central tension across these voices is whether entropy names a terminal dissipation or a threshold condition for transformation.

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entropy is suppressed in normal waking consciousness, meaning that the brain operates just below criticality. It is argued that this entropy suppression furnishes normal waking consciousness with a constrained quality and associated metacognitive functions, including reality-testing and self-awareness.

Carhart-Harris advances the central thesis of the entropic brain model: normal consciousness is a state of actively suppressed entropy, and primary states such as the psychedelic experience mark a release into higher-entropy criticality.

Carhart-Harris, Robin, The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs, 2014thesis

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we cite direct evidence for increased entropy in brain networks in psychedelic state and use this to support a general principle: that the transition from normal waking consciousness to primary consciousness is marked by an increase in system entropy.

This passage states the entropic brain hypothesis in its most general form: the shift from secondary to primary consciousness is indexed by a measurable increase in neural network entropy.

Carhart-Harris, Robin, The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs, 2014thesis

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the physical concept of information is identical with a phenomenon of reversal of entropy. The psychologist must add a few remarks here… it is only there, if anywhere, that we might discover instances or sources of negentropy.

Von Franz argues that archetypes, as emotionally activated preconscious ordering patterns, constitute the depth-psychological equivalent of negentropy — the psyche’s counter-force to entropic dissipation.

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

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The psyche, too, can be regarded as such a relatively closed system, in which transformations of energy lead to an equalization of differences. According to Boltzmann’s formulation, this levelling process corresponds to a transition from an improbable to a probable state.

Jung applies Boltzmann’s statistical formulation of entropy directly to the psyche, framing the equalization of psychic opposites as an entropic process analogous to thermodynamic levelling.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis

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Physics had constructed an elaborate theory of energy, with laws of causality, entropy, conservation of energy, transformation, and so on. Looking to these laws of physics and leaving out the mathematical formulas and equations, Jung set out to conceptualize the psyche.

Stein situates entropy as one of several physical laws that Jung appropriated metaphorically to construct a rigorous model of psychic energy and its transformations.

Stein, Murray, Jung’s Map of the Soul: An Introduction, 1998supporting

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Aphrodite’s wrath is entropic chaos. What saves Psyche is the transcendent element present in the tale from the beginning. Had Eros never intervened in Aphrodite’s plan to begin with, entropic chaos could not have been transformed into deterministic chaos.

Ulanov distinguishes entropic chaos — formless, terminal dissolution — from deterministic chaos capable of self-organization, locating the transformative function of the mythic narrative in the conversion between these two modes.

Ulanov, Ann Belford, The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology, 1971thesis

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Maintenance performs a function counter to the one-way direction of entropy down toward meaningless, patternless, random dissociation—like the image of the motel room when checking out. The idea of entropy increase in physics means lowering the grade of a s

Hillman recruits entropy from thermodynamics to frame the cultural and ethical significance of maintenance work as a counter-entropic practice resisting the drift toward disorder and meaninglessness.

Hillman, James, Kinds of Power: A Guide to Its Intelligent Uses, 1995supporting

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The second law says that isolated systems increase their randomness, becoming more disordered and less complex and structured as time moves forward. This is certainly not the picture a naïve application of the second law of thermodynamics would suggest.

McGilchrist contests the adequacy of naive entropic thinking by pointing to cosmic and biological evidence of increasing complexity, arguing that open systems persistently create order against the thermodynamic trend.

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

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the existence of decay doesn’t relieve you of the necessity to account for the existence of order – nor to account for the tendency, not just of life, but of all complex open systems to buck the trend by unceasingly creating vastly complex order.

McGilchrist argues that entropy’s reality as a tendency does not dissolve the philosophical obligation to explain the equally real counter-tendency toward self-organizing complexity in living and cosmic systems.

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

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the entropy of a system increases in the course of successive transformations. The theory of the theoretical maximum efficiency of heat engines conforms to this principle… But this irreversibility of the transformations of mechanical energy into caloric energy is perhaps not the only irreversibility that exists.

Simondon interrogates the scope of entropy’s irreversibility principle, opening space for the possibility that other irreversibilities — relevant to individuation and information — are not captured by classical thermodynamic formulations.

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

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far from equilibrium systems are: … nonlinear and occasionally indeterminate. They do not tend toward minimum free energy and maximum entropy but may evolve toward a new dynamic regime that is radically different from stationary states at or near equilibrium.

Conforti draws on Laszlo to argue that far-from-equilibrium psychic and natural systems can move toward higher-order complexity rather than maximum entropy, grounding the individuation process in dissipative-structure dynamics.

Conforti, Michael, Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche, 1999supporting

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Is it possible that in the realm of interpersonal relationships, to treat chaos with order is to precipitate entropy? Or does treating chaos with chaos create the opening for an eventual emergence of order?

Ulanov raises the psychodynamic paradox that imposing order on relational chaos may itself accelerate entropic dissolution, while receptive engagement with chaos may catalyze emergent self-organization.

Ulanov, Ann Belford, The Feminine in Jungian Psychology and in Christian Theology, 1971supporting

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What is accomplished in spite of the decreasing negentropy of the cosmos, and at its expense, is the accumulation of information by conscious beings incarnated in matter.

Von Franz cites Costa de Beauregard’s thesis that conscious information-accumulation occurs at the expense of cosmic negentropy, a formulation she interrogates from the standpoint of depth psychology and the archetypes.

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

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If the brain was to be sampled during a primary state (such as a psychedelic state) we would predict that the rules that normally apply to normal waking consciousness will become less robust.

Carhart-Harris provides empirical grounding for the entropic brain theory by predicting and confirming that the structured anti-correlations between brain networks characteristic of normal consciousness break down in high-entropy primary states.

Carhart-Harris, Robin, The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs, 2014supporting

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the energic view of psychic phenomena is a valuable one because it enables us to recognize just those quantitative relations whose existence in the psyche cannot possibly be denied but which are easily overlooked from a purely qualitative standpoint.

Jung defends the energic — and implicitly thermodynamic — framework for psychology as necessary for registering quantitative psychic relations, laying the conceptual groundwork within which entropy functions as an operative concept.

Jung, Carl Gustav, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960supporting

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As we begin speaking about the role of dissipative structures, we move into thermodynamic and chaos theory. Thermodynamic theory has much to offer in our investigation.

Conforti signals entropy and thermodynamics as the theoretical horizon within which dissipative structures — and their relevance to psychic pattern and field — are to be understood.

Conforti, Michael, Field, Form, and Fate: Patterns in Mind, Nature, and Psyche, 1999aside

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