The Synthetic Cell as a Techno-scientific Mandala: a Jungian Analysis of Synthetic Biology Research

Abstract

This paper analyses the technoscientific objective of building a synthetic cell from a Jungian perspective. After decades of fragmentation and specialisation, the synthetic cell symbolises a turn towards restored wholeness, both at the object pole (putting the fragments together again) and at the subject pole (synthetic biology as a converging field, a Gesamtwissenschaft, fostering individuation). From a Jungian perspective, it is no coincidence that visual representations of synthetic cells often reflect an archetypal, mandala-like structure. As a symbol of restored unity, the synthetic cell mandala compensates for technoscientific fragmentation via active imagination, providing a visual aid for the technoscientific turn towards reintegration. Although the biotechnological desire to reconstruct life in vitro has been compared to alchemy before, a Jungian analysis allows us to make this comparison more specific and precise. The problem of archetypal images, however, is that alluring prospects of reintegration may underestimate and obfuscate the deficiencies and tensions at work in the current situation. As a projection of a future wholeness, it fosters optimism, but may also function as a misleading façade, covering up collisions and complexities. This can be averted by the conscious employment of the mandala as a symbolic scaffold fostering processes of individuation and working through.

Dynamics of Space and Time of the Production Chain of the Ceramic Industry Production Center of Iranduba, Amazonas, Brazil

“…Mandalas demonstrate the fragmentation and reintegration of knowledge through active imagination, providing a technical-scientific vision of a research strategy, and can also serve as a guide for researchers to synthesize the various biochemical, biomolecular, and biocomputational fragments in order to help to direct the completion of a research process. At the same time, a mandala represents a type of map guiding researchers on their journey to new insights interconnecting all parts of a process [47]. Furthermore, when constructed in groups, mandalas arise from the dialectic between subject, group, and the problem being researched, in an attempt to understand, through systematic and open processes, thus permitting the development of non-linear approaches for complex situations that are studied [48].…”

Iconoclasm and Imagination: Gaston Bachelard’s Philosophy of Technoscience

“…Jung analysed the dreams of quantum physicist Wolfgang Pauli, a Nobel laureate who, among other things, predicted the existence of the neutrino, but who also was a prolific dreamer. According to Jung, mandalas (archetypes of wholeness) played a crucial role in Pauli's dreamlife, to compensate for the disruptive impact of quantum physics on established worldviews (Zwart 2018).…”