[MD] Sneddon Thesis

[Ham Priday]

Chin, Ant --


One thing that can be said of Whitehead is that he spoke lucidly and with
intellectual integrity.  These recently retrieved notes and lectures have
thrown new light on the renowned British mathematician-philosopher for me.

Again, as I did with the Sneddon analysis, I'd like to select some
statements from the 1919 "Concept of Nature" lecture that Chin has uncovered
for us.  I think they not only crystallize the author's philosophical
position, they may help us understand why some undefined MOQ concepts are
still a bone of contention.

"Nature is that which we observe in perception through the senses.  In this
sense-perception we are aware of something which is not thought and which is
self-contained for thought.  This property of being self-contained for
thought lies at the base of natural science.  It means that nature can be
thought of as a closed system whose mutual relations do not require the
expression of the fact that they are thought about.

"Thus in a sense nature is independent of thought.  By this statement no
metaphysical pronouncement is intended.  What I mean is that we can think
about nature without thinking about thought.  I shall say that then we are
thinking 'homogeneously' about nature.

"Natural science is exclusively concerned with homogeneous thoughts about
nature.  But sense-perception has in it an element which is not thought.  It
is a difficult psychological question whether sense-perception involves
thought; and if it does involve thought, what is the kind of thought which
it necessarily involves.  Note that it has been stated above that
sense-perception is an awareness of something which is not thought.  Namely,
nature is not thought. But this is a different question, namely that the
fact of sense-perception has a factor which is not thought.  I call this
factor 'sense-awareness.'

"I also take the homogeneity of thought about nature as excluding any
reference to moral or aesthetic values whose apprehension is vivid in
proportion to self-conscious activity.  The values of nature are perhaps the
key to the metaphysical synthesis of existence.  But such a synthesis is
exactly what I am not attempting.  I am concerned exclusively with the
generalisations of widest scope which can be effected respecting that which
is known to us as the direct deliverance of sense-awareness."

This last paragraph is particularly significant because it defines the scope
of Whitehead's thesis.  MOQ fans will note that, although the author
acknowledges "the values of nature" and even concedes that they may hold the
key "to the metaphysical synthesis of existence," he declines to cross that
bridge.  By dealing exclusively with "that which is known to us," Whitehead
is in effect restricting his analysis to SOM precepts.

The most fundamental of these precepts is the notion of substantive
(unitary) objects existing in space/time.  Here's what he says about that:

"The unquestioned acceptance of the Aristotelian logic has led to an
ingrained tendency to postulate a substratum for whatever is disclosed in
sense-awareness, namely, to look below what we are aware of for the
substance in the sense of the 'concrete thing.'  This is the origin of the
modern scientific concept of matter and of ether, namely they are the
outcome of this insistent habit of postulation.

"Accordingly ether has been invented by modern science as the substratum of
the events which are spread through space and time beyond the reach of
ordinary ponderable matter. ...

"On the face of it space has nothing to do with substances, but only with
their attributes.  What I mean is, that if you choose-as I think wrongly-to
construe our experience of nature as an awareness of the attributes of
substances, we are by this theory precluded from finding any analogous
direct relations between substances as disclosed in our experience.  What we
do find are relations between the attributes of substances.

"The scientific doctrine of matter is held in conjunction with an absolute
theory of time. The same arguments apply to the relations between matter and
time as apply to the relations between space and matter. There is however
(in the current philosophy) a difference in the connexions of space with
matter from those of time with matter, which I will proceed to explain.

"Space is not merely an ordering of material entities so that any one entity
bears certain relations to other material entities.  The occupation of space
impresses a certain character on each material entity in itself.  By reason
of its occupation of space matter has extension.  By reason of its extension
each bit of matter is divisible into parts, and each part is a numerically
distinct entity from every other such part.  Accordingly it would seem that
every material entity is not really one entity.  It is an essential
multiplicity of entities. There seems to be no stopping this dissociation of
matter into multiplicities short of finding each ultimate entity occupying
one individual point.  This essential multiplicity of material entities is
certainly not what is meant by science, nor does it correspond to anything
disclosed in sense-awareness.  It is absolutely necessary that at a certain
stage in this dissociation of matter a halt should be called, and that the
material entities thus obtained should be treated as units.

"At an instant distinct volumes of space are occupied by distinct bits of
matter.  Accordingly there is so far no intrinsic difficulty in conceiving
that space is merely the resultant of relations between the bits of matter.
But in the one-dimensional time the same bit of matter occupies different
portions of time.  Accordingly time would have to be expressible in terms of
the relations of a bit of matter with itself.  My own view is a belief in
the relational theory both of space and of time, and of disbelief in the
current form of the relational theory of space which exhibits bits of matter
as the relata for spatial relations.  The true relata are events."

Pirsigians will see Whitehead's analysis of time, space, and substantive
units as a pure SOM discussion.  There is no attempt to integrate these
"relations between the attributes of substances" into some kind of unified
whole such as DQ.  Thus, as he says, "the true relata are events."

It's interesting to compare Pirsig's definition of value as "the event at
which awareness of both subjects and objects is made possible."  Is there a
connection between Whitehead's "relata event" and Pirsig's "value event"?
Quite possibly, since both were talking about the fundamental
differentiation of nature as it is experienced.  However, Pirsig in his SODV
paper was coming at it from the DQ side and saw reality as "evolution",
while Whitehead refused to consider value, convinced that "relations" (SOM)
told the whole story of a reality that is "process".

I don't know how you all feel about such conclusions, but as an Essentialist
I think it's unfortunate that neither philosopher was willing to hypothesize
an absolute reality beyond transitional space/time existence.

Merry Christmas,
Ham