The Concept of Nature The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919 · Alfred North Whitehead
SPACE AND MOTION
The topic for this lecture is the continuation of the task of explaining the construction of spaces as abstracts from the facts of nature. It was noted at the close of the previous lecture that the question of congruence had not been considered, nor had the construction of a timeless space which should correlate the successive momentary spaces of a given time-system. Furthermore it was also noted that there were many spatial abstractive elements which we had not yet defined. We will first consider the definition of some of these abstractive elements, namely the definitions of solids, of areas, and of routes. By a 'route' I mean a linear segment, whether straight or curved. The exposition of these definitions and the preliminary explanations necessary will, I hope, serve as a general explanation of the function of event-particles in the analysis of nature. We note that event-particles have 'position' in respect to each other. In the last lecture I explained that 'position' was quality gained by a spatial element in virtue of the intersecting moments which covered it. Thus each event-particle has position in this sense. The simplest mode of expressing the position in nature of an event-particle is by first fixing on any definite time-system. Call it {alpha}. There will be one moment of the temporal series of {alpha} which covers the given event-particle. Thus the position of the event-particle in the temporal series {alpha} is defined by this moment, which we will call M. The position of the particle in the space of M is then fixed in the ordinary way by three levels which intersect in it and in it only. This procedure of fixing the position of an event-particle shows that the aggregate of event-particles forms a four-dimensional manifold. A finite event occupies a limited chunk of this manifold in a sense which I now proceed to explain.
Let e be any given event. The manifold of event-particles falls into three sets in reference to e. Each event-particle is a group of equal abstractive sets and each abstractive set towards its small-end is composed of smaller and smaller finite events. When we select from these finite events which enter into the make-up of a given event-particle those which are small enough, one of three cases must occur. Either (i) all of these small events are entirely separate from the given event e, or (ii) all of these small events are parts of the event e, or (iii) all of these small events overlap the event e but are not parts of it. In the first case the event-particle will be said to 'lie outside' the event e, in the second case the event-particle will be said to 'lie inside' the event e, and in the third case the event-particle will be said to be a 'boundary-particle' of the event e. Thus there are three sets of particles, namely the set of those which lie outside the event e, the set of those which lie inside the event e, and the boundary of the event e which is the set of boundary-particles of e. Since an event is four-dimensional, the boundary of an event is a three-dimensional manifold. For a finite event there is a continuity of boundary; for a duration the boundary consists of those event-particles which are covered by either of the two bounding moments. Thus the boundary of a duration consists of two momentary three-dimensional spaces. An event will be said to 'occupy' the aggregate of event-particles which lie within it.
Two events which have 'junction' in the sense in which junction was described in my last lecture, and yet are separated so that neither event either overlaps or is part of the other event, are said to be 'adjoined.' This relation of adjunction issues in a peculiar relation between the boundaries of the two events. The two boundaries must have a common portion which is in fact a continuous three-dimensional locus of event-particles in the four-dimensional manifold. A three-dimensional locus of event-particles which is the common portion of the boundary of two adjoined events will be called a 'solid.' A solid may or may not lie completely in one moment. A solid which does not lie in one moment will be called 'vagrant.' A solid which does lie in one moment will be called a volume. A volume may be defined as the locus of the event-particles in which a moment intersects an event, provided that the two do intersect. The intersection of a moment and an event will evidently consist of those event-particles which are covered by the moment and lie in the event. The identity of the two definitions of a volume is evident when we remember that an intersecting moment divides the event into two adjoined events.
A solid as thus defined, whether it be vagrant or be a volume, is a mere aggregate of event-particles illustrating a certain quality of position. We can also define a solid as an abstractive element. In order to do so we recur to the theory of primes explained in the preceding lecture. Let the condition named {sigma} stand for the fact that each of the events of any abstractive set satisfying it has all the event-particles of some particular solid lying in it. Then the group of all the {sigma}-primes is the abstractive element which is associated with the given solid. I will call this abstractive element the solid as an abstractive element, and I will call the aggregate of event-particles the solid as a locus. The instantaneous volumes in instantaneous space which are the ideals of our sense-perception are volumes as abstractive elements. What we really perceive with all our efforts after exactness are small events far enough down some abstractive set belonging to the volume as an abstractive element. It is difficult to know how far we approximate to any perception of vagrant solids. We certainly do not think that we make any such approximation. But then our thoughts--in the case of people who do think about such topics--are so much under the control of the materialistic theory of nature that they hardly count for evidence. If Einstein's theory of gravitation has any truth in it, vagrant solids are of great importance in science. The whole boundary of a finite event may be looked on as a particular example of a vagrant solid as a locus. Its particular property of being closed prevents it from being definable as an abstractive element.
When a moment intersects an event, it also intersects the boundary of that event. This locus, which is the portion of the boundary contained in the moment, is the bounding surface of the corresponding volume of that event contained in the moment. It is a two-dimensional locus. The fact that every volume has a bounding surface is the origin of the Dedekindian continuity of space. Another event may be cut by the same moment in another volume and this volume will also have its boundary. These two volumes in the instantaneous space of one moment may mutually overlap in the familiar way which I need not describe in detail and thus cut off portions from each other's surfaces. These portions of surfaces are 'momental areas.' It is unnecessary at this stage to enter into the complexity of a definition of vagrant areas. Their definition is simple enough when the four-dimensional manifold of event-particles has been more fully explored as to its properties. Momental areas can evidently be defined as abstractive elements by exactly the same method as applied to solids. We have merely to substitute 'area' for a 'solid' in the words of the definition already given. Also, exactly as in the analogous case of a solid, what we perceive as an approximation to our ideal of an area is a small event far enough down towards the small end of one of the equal abstractive sets which belongs to the area as an abstractive element.
Two momental areas lying in the same moment can cut each other in a momental segment which is not necessarily rectilinear. Such a segment can also be defined as an abstractive element. It is then called a 'momental route.' We will not delay over any general consideration of these momental routes, nor is it important for us to proceed to the still wider investigation of vagrant routes in general. There are however two simple sets of routes which are of vital importance. One is a set of momental routes and the other of vagrant routes. Both sets can be classed together as straight routes. We proceed to define them without any reference to the definitions of volumes and surfaces. The two types of straight routes will be called rectilinear routes and stations. Rectilinear routes are momental routes and stations are vagrant routes. Rectilinear routes are routes which in a sense lie in rects. Any two event-particles on a rect define the set of event-particles which lie between them on that rect. Let the satisfaction of the condition {sigma} by an abstractive set mean that the two given event-particles and the event-particles lying between them on the rect all lie in every event belonging to the abstractive set. The group of {sigma}-primes, where {sigma} has this meaning, form an abstractive element. Such abstractive elements are rectilinear routes. They are the segments of instantaneous straight lines which are the ideals of exact perception. Our actual perception, however exact, will be the perception of a small event sufficiently far down one of the abstractive sets of the abstractive element.
A station is a vagrant route and no moment can intersect any station in more than one event-particle. Thus a station carries with it a comparison of the positions in their respective moments of the event-particles covered by it. Rects arise from the intersection of moments. But as yet no properties of events have been mentioned by which any analogous vagrant loci can be found out. The general problem for our investigation is to determine a method of comparison of position in one instantaneous space with positions in other instantaneous spaces. We may limit ourselves to the spaces of the parallel moments of one time-system. How are positions in these various spaces to be compared? In other words, What do we mean by motion? It is the fundamental question to be asked of any theory of relative space, and like many other fundamental questions it is apt to be left unanswered. It is not an answer to reply, that we all know what we mean by motion. Of course we do, so far as sense-awareness is concerned. I am asking that your theory of space should provide nature with something to be observed. You have not settled the question by bringing forward a theory according to which there is nothing to be observed, and by then reiterating that nevertheless we do observe this non-existent fact. Unless motion is something as a fact in nature, kinetic energy and momentum and all that depends on these physical concepts evaporate from our list of physical realities. Even in this revolutionary age my conservatism resolutely opposes the identification of momentum and moonshine.
Accordingly I assume it as an axiom, that motion is a physical fact. It is something that we perceive as in nature. Motion presupposes rest. Until theory arose to vitiate immediate intuition, that is to say to vitiate the uncriticised judgments which immediately arise from sense-awareness, no one doubted that in motion you leave behind that which is at rest. Abraham in his wanderings left his birthplace where it had ever been. A theory of motion and a theory of rest are the same thing viewed from different aspects with altered emphasis. Now you cannot have a theory of rest without in some sense admitting a theory of absolute position. It is usually assumed that relative space implies that there is no absolute position. This is, according to my creed, a mistake. The assumption arises from the failure to make another distinction; namely, that there may be alternative definitions of absolute position. This possibility enters with the admission of alternative time-systems. Thus the series of spaces in the parallel moments of one temporal series may have their own definition of absolute position correlating sets of event-particles in these successive spaces, so that each set consists of event-particles, one from each space, all with the property of possessing the same absolute position in that series of spaces. Such a set of event-particles will form a point in the timeless space of that time-system. Thus a point is really an absolute position in the timeless space of a given time-system.
But there are alternative time-systems, and each time-system has its own peculiar group of points--that is to say, its own peculiar definition of absolute position. This is exactly the theory which I will elaborate. In looking to nature for evidence of absolute position it is of no use to recur to the four-dimensional manifold of event-particles. This manifold has been obtained by the extension of thought beyond the immediacy of observation. We shall find nothing in it except what we have put there to represent the ideas in thought which arise from our direct sense-awareness of nature. To find evidence of the properties which are to be found in the manifold of event-particles we must always recur to the observation of relations between events. Our problem is to determine those relations between events which issue in the property of absolute position in a timeless space. This is in fact the problem of the determination of the very meaning of the timeless spaces of physical science. In reviewing the factors of nature as immediately disclosed in sense-awareness, we should note the fundamental character of the percept of 'being here.' We discern an event merely as a factor in a determinate complex in which each factor has its own peculiar share. There are two factors which are always ingredient in this complex, one is the duration which is represented in thought by the concept of all nature that is present now, and the other is the peculiar _locus standi_ for mind involved in the sense-awareness. This _locus standi_ in nature is what is represented in thought by the concept of 'here,' namely of an 'event here.'
This is the concept of a definite factor in nature. This factor is an event in nature which is the focus in nature for that act of awareness, and the other events are perceived as referred to it. This event is part of the associated duration. I call it the 'percipient event.' This event is not the mind, that is to say, not the percipient. It is that in nature from which the mind perceives. The complete foothold of the mind in nature is represented by the pair of events, namely, the present duration which marks the 'when' of awareness and the percipient event which marks the 'where' of awareness and the 'how' of awareness. This percipient event is roughly speaking the bodily life of the incarnate mind. But this identification is only a rough one. For the functions of the body shade off into those of other events in nature; so that for some purposes the percipient event is to be reckoned as merely part of the bodily life and for other purposes it may even be reckoned as more than the bodily life. In many respects the demarcation is purely arbitrary, depending upon where in a sliding scale you choose to draw the line. I have already in my previous lecture on Time discussed the association of mind with nature. The difficulty of the discussion lies in the liability of constant factors to be overlooked. We never note them by contrast with their absences. The purpose of a discussion of such factors may be described as being to make obvious things look odd. We cannot envisage them unless we manage to invest them with some of the freshness which is due to strangeness.
It is because of this habit of letting constant factors slip from consciousness that we constantly fall into the error of thinking of the sense-awareness of a particular factor in nature as being a two-termed relation between the mind and the factor. For example, I perceive a green leaf. Language in this statement suppresses all reference to any factors other than the percipient mind and the green leaf and the relation of sense-awareness. It discards the obvious inevitable factors which are essential elements in the perception. I am here, the leaf is there; and the event here and the event which is the life of the leaf there are both embedded in a totality of nature which is now, and within this totality there are other discriminated factors which it is irrelevant to mention. Thus language habitually sets before the mind a misleading abstract of the indefinite complexity of the fact of sense-awareness. What I now want to discuss is the special relation of the percipient event which is 'here' to the duration which is 'now.' This relation is a fact in nature, namely the mind is aware of nature as being with these two factors in this relation.
Within the short present duration the 'here' of the percipient event has a definite meaning of some sort. This meaning of 'here' is the content of the special relation of the percipient event to its associated duration. I will call this relation 'cogredience.' Accordingly I ask for a description of the character of the relation of cogredience. The present snaps into a past and a present when the 'here' of cogredience loses its single determinate meaning. There has been a passage of nature from the 'here' of perception within the past duration to the different 'here' of perception within the present duration. But the two 'heres' of sense-awareness within neighbouring durations may be indistinguishable. In this case there has been a passage from the past to the present, but a more retentive perceptive force might have retained the passing nature as one complete present instead of letting the earlier duration slip into the past. Namely, the sense of rest helps the integration of durations into a prolonged present, and the sense of motion differentiates nature into a succession of shortened durations. As we look out of a railway carriage in an express train, the present is past before reflexion can seize it. We live in snippits too quick for thought.
On the other hand the immediate present is prolonged according as nature presents itself to us in an aspect of unbroken rest. Any change in nature provides ground for a differentiation among durations so as to shorten the present. But there is a great distinction between self-change in nature and change in external nature. Self-change in nature is change in the quality of the standpoint of the percipient event. It is the break up of the 'here' which necessitates the break up of the present duration. Change in external nature is compatible with a prolongation of the present of contemplation rooted in a given standpoint. What I want to bring out is that the preservation of a peculiar relation to a duration is a necessary condition for the function of that duration as a present duration for sense-awareness. This peculiar relation is the relation of cogredience between the percipient event and the duration. Cogredience is the preservation of unbroken quality of standpoint within the duration. It is the continuance of identity of station within the whole of nature which is the terminus of sense-awareness. The duration may comprise change within itself, but cannot--so far as it is one present duration--comprise change in the quality of its peculiar relation to the contained percipient event. In other words, perception is always 'here,' and a duration can only be posited as present for sense-awareness on condition that it affords one unbroken meaning of 'here' in its relation to the percipient event. It is only in the past that you can have been 'there' with a standpoint distinct from your present 'here.'
Events there and events here are facts of nature, and the qualities of being 'there' and 'here' are not merely qualities of awareness as a relation between nature and mind. The quality of determinate station in the duration which belongs to an event which is 'here' in one determinate sense of 'here' is the same kind of quality of station which belongs to an event which is 'there' in one determinate sense of 'there.' Thus cogredience has nothing to do with any biological character of the event which is related by it to the associated duration. This biological character is apparently a further condition for the peculiar connexion of a percipient event with the percipience of mind; but it has nothing to do with the relation of the percipient event to the duration which is the present whole of nature posited as the disclosure of the percipience.
Given the requisite biological character, the event in its character of a percipient event selects that duration with which the operative past of the event is practically cogredient within the limits of the exactitude of observation. Namely, amid the alternative time-systems which nature offers there will be one with a duration giving the best average of cogredience for all the subordinate parts of the percipient event. This duration will be the whole of nature which is the terminus posited by sense-awareness. Thus the character of the percipient event determines the time-system immediately evident in nature. As the character of the percipient event changes with the passage of nature--or, in other words, as the percipient mind in its passage correlates itself with the passage of the percipient event into another percipient event--the time-system correlated with the percipience of that mind may change. When the bulk of the events perceived are cogredient in a duration other than that of the percipient event, the percipience may include a double consciousness of cogredience, namely the consciousness of the whole within which the observer in the train is 'here,' and the consciousness of the whole within which the trees and bridges and telegraph posts are definitely 'there.' Thus in perceptions under certain circumstances the events discriminated assert their own relations of cogredience. This assertion of cogredience is peculiarly evident when the duration to which the perceived event is cogredient is the same as the duration which is the present whole of nature--in other words, when the event and the percipient event are both cogredient to the same duration.
We are now prepared to consider the meaning of stations in a duration, where stations are a peculiar kind of routes, which define absolute position in the associated timeless space. There are however some preliminary explanations. A finite event will be said to extend throughout a duration when it is part of the duration and is intersected by any moment which lies in the duration. Such an event begins with the duration and ends with it. Furthermore every event which begins with the duration and ends with it, extends throughout the duration. This is an axiom based on the continuity of events. By beginning with a duration and ending with it, I mean (i) that the event is part of the duration, and (ii) that both the initial and final boundary moments of the duration cover some event-particles on the boundary of the event. Every event which is cogredient with a duration extends throughout that duration. It is not true that all the parts of an event cogredient with a duration are also cogredient with the duration. The relation of cogredience may fail in either of two ways. One reason for failure may be that the part does not extend throughout the duration. In this case the part may be cogredient with another duration which is part of the given duration, though it is not cogredient with the given duration itself. Such a part would be cogredient if its existence were sufficiently prolonged in that time-system. The other reason for failure arises from the four-dimensional extension of events so that there is no determinate route of transition of events in linear series. For example, the tunnel of a tube railway is an event at rest in a certain time-system, that is to say, it is cogredient with a certain duration. A train travelling in it is part of that tunnel, but is not itself at rest.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.