“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

2. For those who are interested: As soon as Seth mentioned the “psychological activity” of atoms and molecules, I was intuitively and strongly aware of connections between his statement and at least two principles of modern physics. Yet I hesitated. “I know my feelings are right,” I told Jane, “but how do I explain them in a few words and make any sense?” I was also constrained by the limits of my own knowledge. Especially, though, I sensed relationships between Seth’s idea on the one hand, and both the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics and the principle of complementarity on the other.

The uncertainty principle, or the principle of indeterminacy (advanced by Heisenberg in 1927, and part of the theory of quantum mechanics), sets definite limits to the accuracy possible in measuring both the motion and position of atoms and elementary particles simultaneously; more importantly to my mind, for the purposes of this note, the uncertainty principle maintains that there is an interaction between the observer (with his instruments) and the object or quality being measured.

I doubt if physicists in the 1920s were concerned about the psychological activity of atoms, molecules, or particles, although it seems that Heisenberg came close to Seth’s idea when he considered the free behavior of an electron emitted by a light ray. Albert Einstein, whose own work was rooted in strict causality, found a notion like the free will of an electron untenable, even though much earlier (in 1905) he had laid the foundation for quantum mechanics in his special theory of relativity.