Schrödinger affirmed the awareness of our soul

Marilyn Schlitz and John H. Spencer in an essay entitled “Science, Soul, and Death” include these comments and quotes from Nobel Prize winning quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961).

“Schrödinger offers an interesting perspective on why it is so difficult to pinpoint the experiencer or observer in our scientific investigations: he writes that ‘the reason why our sentient, percipient and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can easily be indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained in it as a part of it’ (Schrödinger, 1967, p. 138.).”

“Additionally, any awareness of anything implies that there must be some sort of separation from the physical events that we are aware of, and that anything that can be self-aware must necessarily be nonphysical.”

“Schrödinger even went so far as to argue that consciousness is universal and singular: ‘there is only one thing and what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian MAYA)’ (Schrödinger, 1967, p. 95 (original emphasis).

“Schrödinger also agreed with psychiatrist Carl Jung that ‘all science...is a function of the soul, in which all knowledge is rooted’ (Schrödinger quoting Jung in Schrödinger, 1967, p. 129). Even if Schrödinger would have preferred the word ‘mind’ or ‘consciousness,’ he does not shy away from Jung’s use of the word ‘soul.’

“In either case, they are both referring to the same thing—the very subject of awareness, the nonphysical locus of all experience, the self or being or consciousness that ‘I am.’ While it may be beyond the limits of science to directly access soul, it is not at all scientific to deny its reality. Soul, in this sense anyway, is presupposed by the possibility of being able to do science in the first place.”

Marilyn Schlitz and John Spencer, “Science, Soul, and Death” in Beauregard, Mario; Dyer, Natalie; Woollacott, Marjorie, editors Expanding Science: Visions of a Postmaterialist Paradigm, 2020 (p. 414). AAPS. Kindle Edition.

Schrödinger, E. (1967). What is Life? & Mind and Matter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marilyn Schlitz, Ph.D., is a social anthropologist, researcher, writer, and charismatic public speaker. She currently serves as President Emeritus and Senior Fellow at the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

John H Spencer, Ph.D., was awarded his degree from the University of Liverpool, specializing in the Philosophical Foundations of Quantum Physics. He is the multiple award-winning author of The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics, and Ultimate Reality.