The Analysis of Matter

may be asked whether it is metaphysically accurate, and even whether, at the stage we have reached, it is adequate to all the needs of physics. We must now examine the arguments on this question. As regards adequacy for physics: we have already (in Chapter IV.) given a brief account of Heisenberg's theory, which, in effect, resolves the electron into a series of radiations. We have also seen that electrons and protons are not now supposed to be strictly indestructible, but are thought by many to be capable of annihilating each other. Thus the indestructibility of matter is no longer accepted as a universal law of the physical world. With this goes the fact that proper[Pg 284] mass is not supposed to be exactly conserved, and that relative mass has been absorbed into energy. Mass was supposed to be "quantity of matter." This certainly could not be said of relative mass, which depends upon the choice of axes and belongs also to light-waves. And if it be said of proper mass, we must conclude that the "quantity of matter" is not quite constant. On all these grounds, persistent units of matter, though still convenient, have no longer the metaphysical status that they were formerly supposed to have. This conclusion is reinforced by arguments of economy. We perceive events, not substances; that is to say, what we perceive occupies a volume of space-time which is small in all four dimensions, not indefinitely extended in one dimension (time). And what we can primarily infer from percepts, assuming the validity of physics, are groups of events, again not substances. It is a mere linguistic convenience to regard a group of events as states of a "thing," or "substance," or "piece of matter." This inference was originally made on the ground of the logic which philosophers inherited from common sense. But the logic was faulty, and the inference is unnecessary. By defining a "thing" as the group of what) would formerly have been its "states," we alter nothing in the detail of physics, and avoid an inference as precarious as it is useless. What, then, shall we say about the analysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen? We shall say something of this sort: Water has, for common sense, a certain amount of permanence: although puddles dry up, the sea is always there. This permanence, interpreted without the use of "substance," means certain intrinsic causal laws: the behaviour of the sea can, to a considerable extent, be discovered by observing only the sea, without taking account of other things. Similarity on different occasions is the most obvious of these approximate causal laws. But water can change into ice or snow or steam:[Pg 285] here we can observe the gradual transformation, and continuity takes the place of likeness for common sense. In all changes, we find, on examination, that there is some continuity like that between water and ice; we thus trace a causal chain, more or less separable from other causal chains, and having enough intrinsic unity to be regarded as successive states of one "substance." When we throw over "substance," we preserve the causal chain, substituting the unity of a causal process for material identity. Thus the persistence of substance is replaced by the persistence of causal laws, which was, in fact, the criterion by which the supposed material identity was recognized. We thus preserve everything that there was reason to suppose true, and reject only a piece of unfruitful metaphysic. The analysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen represents, therefore, the analysis of one approximate causal law into two more nearly accurate causal laws. If you infer that where there was water yesterday there is water to-day, you are employing a causal law which is not always correct. If you infer that where there was hydrogen and oxygen there is hydrogen and oxygen (or at least that there is hydrogen and oxygen in places connected by a continuous route with where they were yesterday), you are very unlikely to be wrong, unless the place is in the neighbourhood of Sir Ernest Rutherford. It is assumed (what is only partially true at present) that the properties of water can be inferred from those of oxygen and hydrogen together with the manner in which they are combined in the molecules of water. Thus by means of analysis you have obtained causal laws which are at once more true and more powerful than those which common sense could obtain by supposing that all the parts of water were water. We may say that this is the characteristic merit of analysis as practised in science: it enables us to arrive at a structure[Pg 286] such that the properties of the complex can be inferred from those of the parts.[58] And it enables us to arrive at laws which are permanent, not merely temporary and approximate. This is an ideal, only partially verified as yet; but the degree of verification is abundantly sufficient to justify science in constructing the world out of minute units. From what has been said about substance, I draw the conclusion that science is concerned with groups of "events," rather than with "things" that have changing "states." This is also the natural conclusion to draw from the substitution of space-time for space and time. The old notion of substance had a certain appropriateness so long as we could believe in one cosmic time and one cosmic space; but it does not fit in so easily when we adopt the four-dimensional space-time framework. I shall therefore assume henceforth that the physical world is to be constructed out of "events," by; which I mean practically, as already explained, entities or structures occupying a region of space-time which is small in all four dimensions. "Events" may have a structure, but it is convenient to use the word "event," in the strict sense, to mean something which, if it has a structure, has no space-time structure, i.e. it does not have parts which are external to each other in space-time. I do not assume that an event can ever occupy only a point of space-time; the construction of "points" out of finitely extended events will form the subject of the next chapter. Nor do I assign a maximum to the duration of an event, though I hold that any event, in the broad sense, which lasts for more[Pg 287] than about a second can, if it is a percept, be analyzed into a structure of events. But this is a merely empirical fact. There are certain purely logical principles which are useful in regard to structure. When we are dealing with inferred entities, as to which, as explained in Part II., we know nothing beyond structure, we may be said to know the equations, but not what they mean: so long as they lead to the same results as regards percepts, all interpretations are equally legitimate. Let us take an example. Suppose we have a set of propositions about an electron which we will call . According to the subject-predicate logic, and according to the view that matter is a substance, there is a certain entity which is mentioned in all statements about this electron. According to the view which resolves an electron into a series of events, the propositions in question will be differently analyzed. Assuming a certain schematic simplicity, we might set the matter out as follows: there is a certain relation which sometimes holds between events, and when it holds between and , and are said to be events in the biography of the same electron. If belongs to the field of , "the electron to which belongs" will mean the relation with its field limited to terms belonging to the -family of ; and the -family of consists of together with the terms which have the relation to and the terms to which has the relation . "This electron" will mean "the electron to which this belongs." "An electron" will mean "a series such that there is an such that the series is the electron to which belongs." In order to mention some particular electron, we must be able to mention some event connected with it, e.g. the scintillation when it hits a certain screen. Thus, instead of saying "the event happened to the electron " we shall say "the event happened to the electron to which happened," or, more simply, " belongs to the -family of ." The formal properties of the propositional function " belongs to the -family[Pg 288] of " ( being constant) are the same as those of " belongs to the electron ." If we want any two electrons to be mutually exclusive, in the sense that no event can happen to both, we can insure it by assuming that if has the relation (or the converse relation) to both and , then belongs to the -family of . If we do not want this, we do not make this assumption about . It is because of the identity in formal properties that the one propositional function can be substituted for the other. Whenever we suggest a new view as to structure, we have to make sure that it does not falsify any of the old formulæ, though it may give them a new interpretation. Another illustration, more purely logical, may be useful. It seems natural to say that any given shade of colour is a quality, i.e. that when we say "this is red," we are saying that "this" has a characteristic which we cannot express otherwise than by a predicate—assuming, for the moment, that "red" stands for just one shade of colour. But although this may be the right view, there is no logical necessity for supposing that it is. We might define one shade of colour as "all the coloured surfaces which have exact colour-similarity to a given surface." Thus "this has the colour " is replaced by "this is one of the class of entities that have exact colour-similarity with "; and " is a colour" will be replaced by " is the class of all entities having exact colour-similarity with a given entity." In this case, no facts can be conceived which would give reason for preferring one form of statement to the other, since any ascertainable fact can be interpreted equally well on either theory. We have, in fact, something more or less analogous to the arbitrariness of co-ordinates in the general theory of relativity. Provided our symbols have the same interpretation when they apply to percepts, their interpretation elsewhere is arbitrary, since, so long as the formulæ remain the same, the structure[Pg 289] asserted is the same whatever interpretation we give. Structure, and nothing else, is just what is asserted by formulæ in which the meaning of the terms is unknown, but the purely, logical symbols have definite meanings (see Chapter XVII.). Even the purely logical symbols are arbitrary to a certain limited extent, as we saw in the above example of colours. But often, when facts from different regions have to be brought into connection, one interpretation is much simpler than another. Often, also, one interpretation involves less inference than another, and is therefore less likely to be wrong. These are the main motives governing any suggested interpretation of the symbols which occur in mathematical physics. FOOTNOTES: [58] Dr C. D. Broad, in The Mind and its Place in Nature, lays stress upon what he calls "emergent" properties of complexes—i.e. such as cannot be inferred from the properties and relations of the parts. I believe that "emergent" properties represent merely scientific incompleteness, which would not exist in the ideal physics. It is difficult to advance any conclusive argument on either side as to the ultimate character of apparently "emergent" properties, but I think my view is supported by such examples as the explanation of chemistry in terms of physics by means of the Rutherford-Bohr theory of atomic structure. [Pg 290] CHAPTER XXVIII THE CONSTRUCTION OF POINTS[59] THE subject of this chapter is one which has been treated with wonderful ingenuity by Dr Whitehead, to whom is