Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience

2. Duality Without Dualism by Timothy E. Eastman

14 2 Duality Without Dualism Timothy E. Eastman It is a matter of common sense that the world is composed of a multiplicity of discrete, separable objects. Indeed, this worldview of perceptual objects is practical and essential for everyday life. As the atomic theory of matter emerged, it was rather natural to assume that atoms were small-scale counterparts of everyday objects. Indeed, such a simplistic, philosophical atomism became an accepted part of the implicit metaphysics of classical physics. Similarly commonsensical is the basic distinction between mind and matter which, with Descartes, was elevated to a philosophical first principle. Descartes’s mind-matter distinction became the prime exemplar of dualism , the notion that certain concepts related in experience are not really related but belong to different categories, and that the apparent relationship of such dual pairs derives only from secondary connections. In contrast, the processrelational approach emphasizes a “duality without dualism” that affirms the fundamental connection of such concepts as being/becoming, mind/matter, and symmetry/asymmetry, but does so in a way that avoids a simplistic symmetry of the dualities. In particular, contrasts are presented of the form “both A with respect to x and B with respect to y” instead of simple dualisms that set up some form of absolute “A versus B” opposition. In this way, a process framework grounds the “both-and” approach described below, which is embodied in the transition from classical to modern physics. By correlating various dualities in modern physics and philosophy, we demonstrate a new tool for testing certain philosophical claims and for suggesting new hypotheses of interest in physics. The nuanced correlates discussed by Whitehead and some process philosophers are closer to complementary pairs in modern physics than traditional dualisms. Duality Without Dualism 15 Perceptual Objects and Particularism The worldview of perceptual objects, with its discreteness and separability, has continued its imaginative hold up to the present day, although many aspects of modern physics support a process-relational understanding of the world, as Whitehead proposed (Jungerman 2000). In contrast to this process interpretation , it has been claimed that “field theories are radically reductionistic: the whole reality of a field in a given region is contained in its parts, that is to say, its points” (Howard 1989, 235). This common view of field theories is rationalized by assuming that the discreteness and separability of mathematical points can be simply mapped onto physical systems. A more technical statement of this claim is that “by modeling a physical ontology upon the ontology of the mathematical manifold, we take over as a criterion for the individuation of physical systems and states within field theories the mathematician’s criterion for the individuation of mathematical points” (236). Einstein presupposed the kind of separability indicated here and used it, along with a locality principle , as part of his strong attack on the completeness of quantum theory. Yutaka Tanaka (ch. 13) demonstrates the construction of Bell’s inequalities , applicable to certain quantum systems and their experimental testing, which have provided a definitive test of the assumptions of separability and locality. These assumptions together have now been shown conclusively as false (see chapters in Cushing and McMullin 1989). This experimental discon- firmation of Bell’s inequalities confirms quantum over classical prediction. Paul Teller refers to the assumption of ontological locality, employed in setting up Bell’s inequalities, as particularism (Teller 1989, 215) and points out that this assumption allows “only one kind of locality: causal locality.” In discussing the correlations revealed by the Bell inequality violations, Teller states that recognizing ‘relational holism’ and avoiding particularism allows one to see “The correlation . . . as simply a fact about the pair. This fact . . . need not itself be decomposable in terms of . . . more basic, nonrelational facts” (222). There are numerous historical and philosophical reasons to be skeptical of classical notions of separability and particularism, as shown by Leclerc (1986, 1986), and to be skeptical of the nonrelational, container view of space and time that is generally linked with the worldview of classical physics (Čapek 1971; Angel 1974). Experience and Dualities Stapp (1993) has shown how high-level consciousness or mind can be considered as an integral part of basic physical systems without assuming a simplistic reductionism or turning to mind-body dualism. One essential, nonreducible feature of quantum measurement is determining which question is posed (Stapp, ch. 9). As shown below, dualities are common in modern science, 16...