By PIA SKOGEMANN, Natural Science and View of Life. 1993

" My line of work, the analytical psychology, is not natural science. Unlike the physicist I am in no position to design a meticulously controlled experiment in order to get meticulously controlled results. None the less I, too, have been marked with an ideal belonging to the natural sciences, because I grew up in a society permeated by the natural sciences. Hence it is my opnion that experiments should be designed and carried out with the strictest integrity. However, when I express myself in my own field in such a way, I have to be aware of the fact that indeed I am expressing myself in a metaphorical way.

By speaking metaphorically I ascertain a coherence at a non-logical level. Metaphors can be used to communicate analogies between human activities that have different objects; e.g. between major systems of science, religion, social order, relations between the sexes and psychology. The human view of life accordingly is based upon a comprehensive metaphorical system containing more than science.

When Einstein in his famous argument with Niels Bohr exclaimed:"God does not throw dice", and Bohr replied:"Don´t tell God what to do." the metaphorical language offered itslef, even though the two of them weren´t discussing religion but quantum physics. And even if the two of them might never have said anything of the kind, this dialogue has been recounted in numerous biographies, essays and articles in order to pass on the disagreement between the two giants to the common reader.

The truth of the metaphor belongs to another order than the truth of the natural sciences. We leap from interpretation of physical measures to cosmology. Such a leap is justified by the fact that a deep faith in the universality of science as to explanations of the world is rooted in our cultural fundament.
The metaphor expresses that, since Bohr was scientifically right, corresponding consequences as to the deepest foundation of man´s interpretation of being upon which view of life is based, had to be drawn. The unacknowledgeable bedrock - psychologically speaking: the unconscious - in itself.

The "old" God had created a universe of order. In a world of chance and probability and an inexhaustible potential of change, however, the image of God has to change as well. And if the image of God changes the image of man and his relations change - as well as the other way round. We so to speak have to accept God´s throwing dice as a part of his creative working method - but does this make us metaphorical dice ?" (p.375)

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