“The advancements of science & technology, combined with a rationalistic & materialistic view of the world, threaten the spiritual & psychic heritage of man with instant annihilation” -C.G. Jung “Archetypes of the Collective UnconsciousThe connection of psyche to matter
A rationalistic & materialistic world view, when both views are held together in collaboration, is rife with contradiction & conflict. One one hand, there is more to life than what you see, in rationalism, and on the other hand, nothing exists outside of objects which have mass & take up space, in materialism. These seem to be mutually exclusive perspectives. Jung came to the conclusion that this is dangerous when combined with the advancements in science & technology.
From the materialist perspective, advancements in science & technology only result in more objects which have mass & take up space. From my understanding, this leaves some room for the functionality of the object, or device. For instance, a cell phone is invented, and its functions include communication across great distances, and the ability to use Wi-Fi for Internet Access. When we speak of wireless communication devices, it seems inherently obvious that there’s more to the device than its mass & the fact that it takes up physical space. Because the object also has its own internal storage capabilities that can’t be seen by the eye unless you expose the microchips. But even the microchips can’t only be explained away as “matter”. The physical object contains information which can’t always be attributed to its mass & volume. What would this be called? It’s spirit, or meaning?
Jung did add, moving forward with these views would “threaten the spiritual & psychic heritage of man with instant annihilation.” He meant that it would endanger the non-physical, unexplainable phenomena attributed to human beings which has been characteristic of the species for as long as we’ve been around with destruction of that phenomena. When science & technology are developing new forms of matter, we should know there is more than what meets the eye. However, our materialistic view of the world prevents us from fully realizing the mental & spiritual consequences of new forms of scientific technology.
The ability of humans to conjure their own meaning & not only project onto external stimuli, but to bind meaning with physical object or occurrence is the magical element of human life in the universe. We create stories, and must be able to continue to create stories. Jung implies we should do away with our naivete about the appearance of new physical technologies and accept their existence as being attributable to the human mind, ideas, and the everpresent non-physical, unexplainable phenomena that coincides with existing in the universe.
