Symbolic Density

Let me begin with a more general point of view on Jung regarding the importance of his early work on the word association test and on the linguistic patterns of dementia praecox [Schizophrenia]. Jung’s work in these areas is, in my experience, too easily overlooked in preference for the later materials on archetypes, typology, and the alchemical writings. It is important for our purposes in thesetwo areas that the word association test revealed important foundational elements of psychological functioning in the phenomenology of associative networks, particularly the affective content of these networks.

As Spitzer (1992) argues in his historical review of the word association experiment, Jung significantly enlarged the scope of the test and, more importantly for psychiatry, used it to argue for the deep coherence of psychotic discourse, thereby influencing Bleuler’s model of schizophrenia. Jung’s understanding of schizophrenic discourse emphasized the presence of relatively coherent associative paths connecting the manifest elements of the discourse, but large portions of that connective network were obscured. This point of view on psychotic discourse has been investigated more recently by Rebeiro (1994) among others, who mapped the subterranean – or unconscious – networks of association that exist in the often seemingly disjointed ramblings of severely psychotic patients.

The essential element in this early work of Jung is the centrality of associative relationships among elements that we can reasonably call symbols, or at least symbolically significant markers in the individual’s psychic world. For an example, I recommend reading Jung’s masterful unpacking of thesymbol of the linden tree in his study of dementia praecox. What I now want to do is begin to tie Jung’s work on symbolic networks to a larger body of research on the nature of the symbolic, beginning with the American pragmatist and founder of semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914). Peirce divided sign systems into three essential levels, the icon, the index and the symbol. Deacon (1997), in his essential study The Symbolic Species, draws directly on Peirce’s work as part of his discussion of the emergent nature of truly symbolic systems.

We do not need linger on icons, as they are relatively direct representations of the object of concern, such as a portrait of Louis XIV or a photograph of Jung. Where matters become interesting is in the move to the indexical level of signification. At this level, a sign begins to aggregate instances into larger sets such as monarchs or famous psychologists. There remains, however, a known, and essentially unquestioned referential relationship between the sign stimuli and the object or action in question.

Deacon identifies a critical transitional stage to a more complex arrangement of tokens, where the tokens, still largely indexical in relation to their objects, begin to arrange themselves in patterns of token-to-token combination. Importantly, these indexical combinations of token interactions still do not relinquish their referential relationship to objects or actions – monarchs who exercized great power throughout Europe.

As we move to the fully symbolic level, the relationships that matter shift to those between the tokens themselves, and only by abstraction to their physical or pragmatic referents. At this point one could thematize the nature of kingship, or, perhaps, the archetype of the king. Without elaborating on this in detail, I would suggest that Deacon’s approach is a useful illustration of what Jung was beginning to observe in the word association test, and in his work with dementia praecox and the discourse of the psychotics. These observations formed the foundation for what would eventually be his theory of archetypes.

Another brief comment to set the stage for what is perhaps the most difficult part of my argument. We are all aware of the importance of Jung’s close relationship with Wolfgang Pauli and their extended discussion of synchronicity in relation to quantum physics. Pauli was, in many ways, the only interlocutor to whom Jung paid actual attention and even deference. Pauli reciprocated with an extraordinary level of engagement in topics that he was aware could easily marginalize him in some scientific circles.

That said, when we read their correspondence, it is clear that one of Pauli’s greatest challenges in the exchange was getting Jung to understand the statistical nature of quantum mechanics. I raise this historical bit of the discussion of synchronicity because, with the advent of quantum mechanics, much of theoretical physics became statistical in nature, and that process has continued to the present. The aspect of this development that concerns us here is the application of the statistical methods developed by physicists, as well as some other disciplines such as economics, to domains beyond their normal purview, including the study of language and the nature of symbols. One way in which my own argument over the last several years might be framed is that Jung, as well as Pauli, with some of this research at hand, might have arrived at a very different understanding of archetypes and synchronicity.