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84 8 A Historical Reality That Includes Big Bang, Free Will, and Elementary Particles Geoffrey F. Chew Introduction This chapter forecasts development of a “natural science” based not on material reality but rather on a Whiteheadian ‘historical reality.’1 Such a science would come to grips with the hitherto-inaccessible phenomenon of free will. The term free will, as used here, means any influence on universe history not describable as “materialistic”—i.e., not describable in terms of “matter” controlled by local causality. In the foreseen scientifically meaningful historical reality, there is parallel with what David Bohm has called “implicate order.”2 The envisaged broader reality would combine local Whiteheadian process with quantum principles and global evolution of the universe (cosmology). There would be explicit differentiation between the local time of individual occasions and a global time providing meaning for the ‘present’—a concept not recognized by classical physics but essential to quantum mechanics. Material reality, currently epitomized by representation of the universe through the elementary particles of grand unification theory (GUT), will be recognized within global historical reality as a localized causal component of universe history—the only portion of reality that science has so far been able to define. I expect quantum cosmology to elaborate Whitehead’s process so as to allow material reality (e.g., causally interrelated elementary particles) to be recognized not as a priori but as an aspect of a universe history that includes the impact of free will. (Importance of global evolution has led to my preferring the word history to Whitehead’s term, process. The term process carries a local connotation.) Whitehead is identified at this conference primarily as a philosopher, not as a scientist. Why do I expect his approach eventually to reshape natural sci- Historical Reality 85 ence? One consideration is that Whitehead’s ‘process’ invoked a concept whose precise definition requires mathematical language of a type developed by physicists , not by philosophers. A more important substantial consideration is that, in the face of growing human appreciation of evolution, physics cannot indefinitely sustain a stance that disregards the history of the universe. ‘Process’ puts history up front while managing to recognize material reality as an important feature of “mature” regions of the universe, even though not the only feature and a feature not present everywhere. Whitehead’s ‘process’ involves what we shall call here “pre-events”3 individually localized (in a sense that requires careful attention) in Hilbert space. (The term Hilbert space characterizes the mathematical language with which physicists state quantum principles.) At a Whiteheadian pre-event something “happens,” although not to matter. The notion of matter is subordinated to the notion of ‘happening.’ ‘Matter’ corresponds to certain very special patterns of pre-event patterns that may or may not develop. The vast majority of pre-events do not belong to matter patterns. The foregoing may be restated in familiar physical language by saying that Whitehead subordinates energy to ‘impulse.’4 Localized energy is not a priori; the ‘occasions’ that build our universe are localized impulses. When a pattern of localized impulses exhibits a certain persistently repetitive regularity, the repetition provides meaning for energy. But all impulse patterns need not be repetitive: Historical reality has both material and nonmaterial content, the latter predominating. Because free will, whatever the precise meaning of this term, has impact on history, historical reality includes free will. The “commonsense” belief that free will locates outside material reality might be an illusion; perhaps free will is no more than a manifestation of causally behaving elementary particles; perhaps historical reality adds nothing to materialism. I do not believe such to be the case. One influential consideration stems from the cosmological idea of the big bang. Studies of the big bang notion by many different workers using many different approaches concur in concluding that in the extremely early universe, ordinary physical concepts fail. Historical reality, if it is to embrace early as well as late universe, must include nonmaterial components. A second set of considerations stems from my personal efforts during the past two years to represent historical reality through a chain of pre-events after big bang and before the present, each pre-event locating an impulse. A promising pattern has been found for representation of elementary particles, but all pre-events in a Whiteheadian chain cannot congregate in such patterns. I shall expand below on this assertion. I should dearly like to report discovery of a pre-event...

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