Science and the modern world

by Alfred North Whitehead

The requirements of physics now suggest an idea which is very consonant with the organic philosophical theory. I put it in the form of a question: Has our organic theory of endurance been tainted by the materialistic theory in so far as it assumes without question that endurance must mean undifferentiated sameness throughout the life-history concerned? Perhaps you noticed that (in a previous chapter) I used the word ‘reiteration’ as a synonym of ‘endurance.’ It obviously is not quite synonymous in its meaning; and now I want to suggest that reiteration where it differs from endurance is more nearly what the organic theory requires. The difference is very analogous to that between the Galileans and the Aristotelians: Aristotle said ‘rest’ where Galileo added ‘or uniform motion in a straight line.’ Thus in the organic theory, a pattern need not endure in undifferentiated sameness through time. The pattern may be essentially one of aesthetic contrasts requiring a lapse of time for its unfolding. A tune is an example of such a pattern. Thus the endurance of the pattern now means the reiteration of its succession of contrasts. This is obviously the most general notion of endurance on the organic theory, and ‘reiteration’ is perhaps the word which expresses it with most directness. But when we translate this notion into the abstractions of physics, it at once becomes the technical notion of ‘vibration.’ This vibration is not the vibratory locomotion: it is the vibration of organic deformation. There are certain indications in modern physics that for the rôle of corpuscular organisms at the base of the physical field, we require vibratory entities. Such corpuscles would be the corpuscles detected as expelled from the nuclei of atoms, which then dissolve into waves of light. We may conjecture that such a corpuscular body has no great stability of endurance, when in isolation. Accordingly, an unfavourable environment leading to rapid changes in its proper space-time system, that is to say, an environment jolting it into violent accelerations, causes the corpuscles to go to pieces and dissolve into light-waves of the same period of vibration.

A proton, and perhaps an electron, would be an association of such primates, superposed on each other, with their frequencies and spatial dimensions so arranged as to promote the stability of the complex organism, when jolted into accelerations of locomotion. The conditions for stability would give the associations of periods possible for protons. The expulsion of a primate would come from a jolt which leads the proton either to settle down into an alternative association, or to generate a new primate by the aid of the energy received.

A primate must be associated with a definite frequency of vibratory organic deformation so that when it goes to pieces it dissolves into light waves of the same frequency, which then carry off all its average energy. It is quite easy (as a particular hypothesis) to imagine stationary vibrations of the electromagnetic field of definite frequency, and directed radially to and from a centre, which, in accordance with the accepted electromagnetic laws, would consist of a vibratory spherical nucleus satisfying one set of conditions and a vibratory external field satisfying another set of conditions. This is an example of vibratory organic deformation. Further [on this particular hypothesis], there are two ways of determining the subsidiary conditions so as to satisfy the ordinary requirements of mathematical physics. The total energy, according to one of these ways, would satisfy the quantum condition; so that it consists of an integral number of units or cents, which are such that the cent of energy of any primate is proportional to its frequency. I have not worked out the conditions for stability or for a stable association. I have mentioned the particular hypothesis by way of showing by example that the organic theory of nature affords possibilities for the reconsideration of ultimate physical laws, which are not open to the opposed materialistic theory.

In this particular hypothesis of vibratory primates, the Maxwellian equations are supposed to hold throughout all space, including the interior of a proton. They express the laws governing the vibratory production and absorption of energy. The whole process for each primate issues in a certain average energy characteristic of the primate, and proportional to its mass. In fact the energy is the mass. There are vibratory radial streams of energy, both without and within a primate. Within the primate, there are vibratory distributions of electric density. On the materialistic theory such density marks the presence of material: on the organic theory of vibration, it marks the vibratory production of energy. Such production is restricted to the interior of the primate.

All science must start with some assumptions as to the ultimate analysis of the facts with which it deals. These assumptions are justified partly by their adherence to the types of occurrence of which we are directly conscious, and partly by their success in representing the observed facts with a certain generality, devoid of ad hoc suppositions. The general theory of the vibration of primates, which I have outlined, is merely given as an example of the sort of possibilities which the organic theory leaves open for physical science. The point is that it adds the possibility of organic deformation to that of mere locomotion. Light waves form one great example of organic deformation.

At any epoch the assumptions of a science are giving way, when they exhibit symptoms of the epicyclic state from which astronomy was rescued in the sixteenth century. Physical science is now exhibiting such symptoms. In order to reconsider its foundations, it must recur to a more concrete view of the character of real things, and must conceive its fundamental notions as abstractions derived from this direct intuition. It is in this way that it surveys the general possibilities of revision which are open to it.

The discontinuities introduced by the quantum theory require revision of physical concepts in order to meet them. In particular, it has been pointed out that some theory of discontinuous existence is required. What is asked from such a theory, is that an orbit of an electron can be regarded as a series of detached positions, and not as a continuous line.

The theory of a primate or a vibrating pattern, given above, together with the distinction between temporality and extensiveness in the previous chapter, yields exactly this result. It will be remembered that the continuity of the complex of events arises from the relationships of extensiveness; whereas the temporality arises from the realisation in a subject-event of a pattern which requires for its display that the whole of a duration be spatialised (i.e., arrested), as given by its aspects in the event. Thus realization proceeds viâ a succession of epochal durations; and the continuous transition, i.e., the organic deformation, is within the duration which is already given. The vibratory organic deformation is in fact the reiteration of the pattern. One complete period defines the duration required for the complete pattern. Thus the primate is realised atomically in a succession of durations, each duration to be measured from one maximum to another. Accordingly, so far as the primate as one enduring whole entity is to be taken account of, it is to be assigned to these durations successively. If it is considered as one thing, its orbit is to be diagrammatically exhibited by a series of detached dots. Thus the locomotion of the primate is discontinuous in space and time. If we go below the quanta of time which are the successive vibratory periods of the primate, we find a succession of vibratory electromagnetic fields, each stationary in the space-time of its own duration. Each of these fields exhibits a single complete period of the electromagnetic vibration which constitutes the primate. This vibration is not to be thought of as the becoming of reality; it is what the primate is in one of its discontinuous realisations. Also the successive durations in which the primate is realised are contiguous; it follows that the life history of the primate can be exhibited as being the continuous development of occurrences in the electromagnetic field. But these occurrences enter into realisation as whole atomic blocks, occupying definite periods of time.

There is no need to conceive that time is atomic in the sense that all patterns must be realised in the same successive durations. In the first place, even if the periods were the same in the case of two primates, the durations of realisation may not be the same. In other words, the two primates may be out of phase. Also if the periods are different, the atomism of any one duration of one primate is necessarily subdivided by the boundary moments of durations of the other primate.

The laws of the locomotion of primates express under what conditions any primate will change its space-time system.