fisica quantistica e trascendenza

Secondo voi un albero saprebbe distinguere una folata di vento dallo sfiorare dei suoi rami da parte di un cerbiatto di passaggio? Potete escludere recisamente che l'ombra o lo scintillio che scorgete con la coda dell'occhio non sia un'entità per voi quasi interamente invisibile?

"sono emersi anche punti di vista radicali, come quello del fisico Julian Barbour, che ritiene l’esistenza del tempo un’illusione causata dai nostri filtri percettivi, ma assente in una descrizione oggettiva della natura. E qui potrebbe entrare in gioco ciò che le neuroscienze stanno scoprendo a proposito della relazione tra la nostra mente e il tempo. Le nostre memorie sono una costruzione tanto quanto la nostra immaginazione del futuro: i due processi attivano le stesse aree cerebrali, e i pazienti con amnesie da trauma hanno anche difficoltà a prefigurare ciò che deve ancora accadere. Il neuroscienziato David Eagleman ha mostrato come il tempo mentale non sia un concetto unitario, ma sia in realtà frammentato in diverse componenti, legate al tipo di stimolo che il cervello si trova a processare. Anche la sensazione dello scorrere del tempo è influenzata dal contesto (per esempio da una situazione di rischio). Il nostro tempo interiore, dunque, è in definitiva il risultato di una complessa elaborazione degli stimoli esterni. Ed è possibile, come sottolineato dal fisico Paul Davies, che non solo il tempo, ma persino le stesse leggi della fisica, siano proprietà “emergenti”, piuttosto che caratteristiche fisse e preesistenti della realtà".http://www.ilpost.it/amedeobalbi/2011/10/14/tempo-fuor-di-sesto/.

- “nulla esiste finché non è misurato” (Niels Bohr, Nobel danese 1922);

- “un elettrone è una potenzialità immateriale finché non viene osservato” (Max Born, Nobel tedesco 1954);

- “se non sono disturbati dall’osservatore, gli elettroni non sono cose, non esistono nello spazio e nel tempo, la loro esistenza è meramente potenziale. Emergono in una condizione di esistenza reale ma provvisoria nell’atto di misurazione che è quindi un atto creativo” - “per ciò che riguarda le particelle che costituiscono la materia, non sembra esserci alcuno scopo nel considerarle come composte di qualche materiale. Sono, in un certo senso, pura forma, nient’altro che forma; ciò che si manifesta di volta in volta in osservazioni successive è questa forma, non uno specifico frammento di materia” (Erwin Schrödinger, Nobel austriaco 1933);

- “le più piccole unità di materia non sono, di fatto, oggetti fisici nel senso ordinario della parola; sono forme, strutture o, nell’accezione platonica, Idee, di cui si può parlare in modo non ambiguo solo nel linguaggio della matematica” (Werner Heisenberg, Nobel tedesco 1932);

- “la gente pensa sempre che, quando si dice “realtà”, si sta parlando di qualcosa di chiaramente noto a tutti, mentre invece per me il più importante e più arduo compito del nostro tempo è lavorare alla costruzione di una nuova idea di realtà” (Wolfgang Pauli, Nobel austriaco 1945, lettera a Markus Fierz, 1948);

- “gli elementi costitutivi del mondo fisico sono quelli che chiamiamo eventi. Un evento non persiste e non si sposta come un pezzo di materia tradizionale: esiste semplicemente per un suo breve attimo e poi cessa” (Bertrand Russell, “L’ABC della relatività”).

Cosa vuol dire tutto questo? Significa che l’elettrone esiste solo come campo di potenzialità, potenzialità di diventare una cosa (o per meglio dire un evento), con certe proprietà che possono essere misurate. Solo l’atto di misurazione trasforma il potenziale in effettivo. Protoni e neutroni, che formano l’atomo, assieme agli elettroni, si comportano allo stesso modo. Questi sono gli elementi costitutivi della materia che forma tavoli, sedie, libri ed esseri viventi. Continuiamo a chiamarli particelle anche se non lo sono, per mancanza di un termine migliore. Sono eventi. Ergo, solo la coscienza dell’osservatore rende reale ciò che non lo è (!!!!). Questo vale per gli atomi come per i miti etnici.

Questa conclusione della meccanica quantistica è in linea non solo col buddismo e con il neo-platonismo, ma anche con David Hume e George Berkeley – “esse est percipi”: essere significa essere percepiti. Solo ciò che è percepito è reale.

Per questo Werner Heisenberg, Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, Arthur Eddington, Alfred North Whitehead, David Bohm ed Erwin Schrödinger erano o neoplatonici, o neopitagorici o buddisti. In ogni caso, ed è questo che conta, erano trascendentalisti ed anti-materialisti. Se anche continuassimo a credere all’interpretazione materialista della realtà, resta il fatto che la materia è fatta di atomi e gli atomi sono virtualmente vuoti (al 99,9 periodico percento), tanto che se si togliesse lo spazio tra elettroni e nucleo la Terra si ridurrebbe ad una palla da baseball e se un atomo fosse grande come lo stadio San Siro, il nucleo sarebbe più piccolo di un pisello a centro campo. Dunque questo tavolo è sostanzialmente vuoto, come chi vi parla, come ciascuno di voi. Il mio sedere non è a contatto con una sedia ma è sostenuto, nel vuoto, dalla resistenza elettromagnetica degli elettroni alla compressione (le particelle con la stessa carica si respingono). Solo l’esistenza di un qualcosa capace di trascendere l’universo quantistico e di fungere da osservatore cosciente darebbe un senso ad un vocabolo così sdrucciolevole come quello di “identità”.

“L’universo prospettato dalla quantistica viola tutte le leggi della fisica classica: la materia si comporta sia come un’onda che come una particella e la trasmissione dell’onda esprime la sovrapposizione della totalità delle probabilità relative a spazio e tempo; il movimento è casuale ed indeterminato; gli eventi sono acausali e privi di localizzazione, perché i quanti non esistono indipendentemente gli uni dagli altri, ma sono in grado di interagire tra loro, a qualsiasi distanzia siano posti. La visione atomistica e meccanicistica appare dunque totalmente inadeguata per interpretare questa nuova realtà, la quale richiede piuttosto un approccio olistico che includa nella propria analisi l’oggetto osservato, il contesto di osservazione e l’osservatore. Infatti, è solo in seguito all’osservazione che l’oggetto acquisisce il suo stato definitivo. Alla luce di tutto questo, il ruolo della coscienza umana si trasforma radicalmente; l’osservatore non è più un essere indipendente e distaccato, che vaga per l’universo fisico, valutando e registrando i fenomeni, ma piuttosto qualcuno che partecipa attivamente e che interagisce col mondo esterno. […]. Pur comprendendone il funzionamento, i fisici ancora stentano ad afferrarne il significato. […]. Poiché in ultima analisi qualsiasi oggetto può essere ridotto al livello subatomico, interpretabile sulla base della teoria dei quanti, la materia deve essere considerata come indeterminata, acausale e non localizzata. In altre paorle, il mondo è in realtà regolata da principi diametralmente opposti a qualli suggeriti dal senso comune. […]. È probabile che la sete di conoscenza non rappresenti solo una caratteristica intrinseca della natura umana, ma sia altresì un requisito fondamentale affinché le probabilità della realtà dei quanti si realizzino nella realtà materiale, con la quale l’uomo è in grado di interagire” (Helen Morgan, “la nuova fisica attraverso la prospettiva junghiana”).

* "We seem to be faced with the necessity of deep conceptual changes ... especially as to the nature of space and time." (David Gross, Nobel per la Fisica, 2004)

* "Even though the phenomena encountered in quantum physics are only indirectly visible, it has been tempting to depict the quantum world in graphical form. An electron for example, may be imagined as a praticle orbiting the atomic nucleus. Wolfgang Pauli (Nobel austriaco, 1945) maintained, however, that since we have no visual clues, it is only with mathematics that such a process can be described. Extending Jung's definition of a symbol to the realm of quantum physics, Pauli saw mathematics as providing a symbolic representation of the quantum reality, which in itself is beyond physical representation" ("Pauli & Jung: The Meetings of Two Great Minds," David Lindorff, IL, Quest Books, 2004, pp. 246-47)

* "se si era inizialmente creduto che nel corso del progresso delle scienze tutto ciò che è "trascendentale" sarebbe stato progressivamente soppresso, perché in ultima analisi si poteva ricondurre tutto ad una spiegazione razionale, si dovette poi ammettere che il mondo materiale che per noi è così tangibile, si dimostra invece sempre più simile ad apparenza e si dissolve in una realtà che non è fatta di cose e di materia, ma di forme che predominano. [...] La fisica quantistica ci ha confermato ancora una volta che la nostra esperienza scientifica, la nostra conoscenza del mondo, non rappresenta la realtà ultima ed intrinseca, qualunque significato si voglia attribuire a queste espressioni".
Hans-Peter Dürr, fisico nucleare e quantistico tedesco, "Physik und Transzendenz", Scherz Verlag, 1986.

"Perhaps we are actually 4-D beings and our physical bodies are only a 3-D cross section of our full bodies, but it cannot be said that there is anyconvincing evidence of this. Convincing evidence would consist of some consistent and plausible extension of our present theory of physics that would assume the four-dimensionality of ordinary physical bodies and predict verifiable experimental resulsts. As long as there is no good theory of astral bodies, psychic phenomena and so on, no experiment can be really convincing". ("Geometry, relativity, and the fourth dimension", Rudy von Bitter Rucker, 1977, p. 41)

"But the equations of physics will never take wings and fly for they are simply mathematical descriptions, abstractions in thought. Suppose, however, that these laws are themselves the mathematical manifestations of something which has hitherto only been dimly graspd. What if the laws of nature - the ones that really fly - are not simply abstractions of experience but are the realization, within the world of mind, of something that lies beyond mathematics, language, and thought? [...] For the present, it will be refered to as na "objective intelligence" or "creative ordering" that manifests itself in both the mental and the physical realms" (p. 88)

"Just as no one can step into the same river twice so too can no one think the same thought twice. For the act of thinking changes the thinker. Indeed, just as there is an irreducible link between observer ad observed in the quantum theory, so, within consciousness is there an irreducible link between the thinker and the thought" (p. 109).
F. David Peat (fisico), "Synchronicity: The Bridge Between Matter and Mind", 1987, Bantam, NY-London)

"There is no sun or moon unless a conscious mind perceives them, for both are constructs of consciousness, icons in a species-specific user interface. To some this seems a patent absurdity, a reductio of the position, readily contradicted by experience and our best science. But our best science, our theory of the quantum, gives no such assurance. And experience once led us to believe the earth flat and the stars near. Perhaps, in due time, mind-independent objects will go the way of flat earth".

DONALD HOFFMAN, Cognitive Scientist, UC, Irvine.

Christian De Duve, biochimico belga, Nobel per la medicina nel 1974: "Ora sappiamo che l'immagine del mondo offerta dai nostri organi di senso, che pure funziona perfettamente nella vita di ogni giorno, ha poco a che fare con la realtà. Ciò che ci sembra solido e impenetrabile è perlopiù vuoto [...]. Di conseguenza, la nostra definizione intuitiva della materia è completamente distorta dai filtri che i nostri organi di senso interpongono fra un oggetto e noi. Si tratta di una definizione essenzialmente pragmatica, basata sul genere di informazioni che si sono rivelate più utili nella ricerca del cibo, nella lotta contro i predatori e per il successo riproduttivo. Come strumenti di conoscenza, queste informazioni sono quasi prive di valore".
(De Duve, 2002, Come evolve la vita, Milano: Cortina, p. 292-293)

Da: "Neuropsicologia dell’esperienza religiosa", di Franco Fabbro.

Issues in Quantum Mechanics
By Casey Blood

I would like to present a point of view on the relation between science and religion, particularly the mystical aspect of religion. My scientific background is that of a physicist who has investigated the interpretation of the mathematics of quantum mechanics for three decades.

To explain the point of view, suppose that each of us still exists after we die; that is, we can still perceive, act, and experience emotions (although not physically). That would imply there is a nonphysical component to existence. This raises the question of whether science -- primarily quantum mechanics -- is consistent with there being both a physical and a nonphysical component to existence. The further question is whether or not we can glean information on the nature of the nonphysical component, assuming there is such, from the structure of quantum mechanics. In my opinion, finding answers to these questions is the primary reason for studying the relation between science and mysticism. I will outline my answer to the first question.

1. The Wave Function and Particles in Quantum Mechanics. In trying to understand how the mathematics of quantum mechanics relates to what we perceive, it is usually assumed that the wave function describes the behavior of objectively existing particles. It can be shown, however, that there is no way to PROVE that particles -- electrons, protons, atoms -- objectively exist. Based in the current experimental evidence and mathematical formulations, it is just as likely that only the wave functiion exists as it is that particles exist. We are therefore free to assume that only the wave function exists.

2. Classical vs Quantum. Determinism vs Many Possible Futures.

2A. In classical mechanics, there is an objectively existing world. In the mathematics of the classical world, the future is completely determined by the present (or past) state of matter. There is no room for choice or creativity of any kind.

2B. By contrast, in the MATHEMATICS of quantum mechanics, there is no reference to an objectively existing world composed of particles; the mathematics applies solely to the wave function. It is nearly always assumed, for obvious reasons, that the properties of the wave function refer to or describe the properties of an objectively existing world. But that assumption is indeed just an assumption; it cannot be proven.

2C. From the mathematics of quantum mechanics, we know that the wave function can contain, at a given time, many "branches" which correspond to different possible futures. For example, if one has (the wave function for) a radioactive atom, the wave function contains, at any given instant, one part in which the atom has radioactively decayed, and another part in which it has not decayed. Thus if one sticks strictly to the accepted mathematics of the wave function (and excludes both the conjectured existence of particles and the conjectured collapse of the wave function), there is no unique, objective world. Instead, there are many "potential versions" of physical existence at a given instant.

3. Perception.

3A. We know from experience that only one version of the physical world is perceived. But it is not necessary to draw the conclusion that there is a single, objectively existing physical world.

3B. Instead, it could be that only one version of the physical world (that is, one branch of the wave function) is PERCEIVED.

3C. We assume that that is the case; a unique physical world is perceived, not because there is a unique, objectively existing world, but because only one branch of the wave function is perceived.

4. The Perceiving Aspect.

4A. If only one branch of the wave function is perceived, there must be some "aspect" of each of us that perceives it.

4B. If one describes physical existence as everything that is described by the wave function, then one can prove that the perceiving part or aspect must be outside physical existence. It cannot be part of the brain wave function, for example.

4C.Thus we have arrived at the conclusion that the mathematics of quantum mechanics and our perceptions of the physical world are compatible with a thoroughgoing dualism in which there is both a physical and a nonphysical aspect to existence. The physical aspect is the wave function with its many branches, and the nonphysical aspect (VERY roughly, our "soul") is that which perceives one of the branches.

5. Future Discussions. The justification of the first point (on the nonexistence of particles), as well as the further implications of the dualistic conclusion (for nonphysical intelligence and emotions, for free will and the role of the brain, and for the nature of mysticism and th goals of the mystics) will be left to other communications, if there is interest in pursuing this line of reasoning.

Casey Blood
Physics Dept
Rutgers University, Camden

e se l'universo fosse un ologramma? Sull'esperimento di Alain Aspect a Parigi
Is Our Universe a Hologram? In 1982 a Litttle Known but Epic Event Occured at the University of Pari
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2011/09/is-our-universe-a-hologram-in-1982-a-litttle-known-but-epic-event-occured-at-the-university-of-paris.html.
"Sostanzialmente Aspect con la sua apparecchiatura verifica, nella pratica, il "legame" che unisce indissolubilmente, e "in tempo reale", i fotoni delle coppie correlate ... Allorquando infatti, il fotone del Settore A devia in seguito all'attraversamento del Cristallo Birifrangente verso il rivelatore c, ISTANTANEAMENTE anche il fotone del Settore B "devia" verso il rivelatore in d!
La sfida tra EPR e Bohr (resa possibile dai lavori di Bell e Aspect) finiva così a favore del fisico danese.
Per le sue dirompenti conseguenze, il non-localismo rappresenta (a giudizio unanime di fisici ed epistemologi) una delle tappe più sconvolgenti e per certi versi imbarazzanti nell'intera storia della scienza".
[appunti del corso "Fondamenti concettuali ed implicazioni epistemologiche della Teoria Quantistica" del prof. Tiziano Cantalupi].
http://xoomer.virgilio.it/paaccom/Teorema_Bell.htm.
E tanti saluti al paradigma riduzionist-materialista!


LE STRINGHE SONO UN VICOLO CIECO

* The problem with string theory isn’t the lack of experimental evidence, it’s the lack of any predictions about any experiments, and, worse than that, the lack of any plausible idea of how one is ever going to get such a prediction, despite more than 20 years of trying.

* String theorists: We've got the Standard Model, and it works great, but it doesn't include gravity, and it doesn't explain lots of other stuff, like why all the elementary particles have the masses they do. We need a new, broader theory.
Nature: Here's a great new theory I can sell you. It combines quantum field theory and gravity, and there's only one adjustable parameter in it, so all you have to do is find the right value of that parameter, and the Standard Model will pop right out.
String theorists: We'll take it.
String theorists (some time later): Wait a minute, Nature, our new theory won't fit into our driveway. String theory has ten dimensions, and our driveway only has four.
Nature: I can sell you a Calabi-Yau manifold. These are really neat gadgets, and they'll fold up string theory into four dimensions, no problem.
String theorists: We'll take one of those as well, please.
Nature: Happy to help.
String theorists (some time later): Wait a minute, Nature, there's too many different ways to fold our Calabi-Yao manifold up. And it keeps trying to come unfolded. And string theory is only compatible with a negative cosmological constant, and we own a positive one.
Nature: No problem. Just let me tie this Calabi-Yao manifold up with some strings and branes, and maybe a little duct tape, and you'll be all set.
String theorists: But our beautiful new theory is so ugly now!
Nature: Ah! But the Anthropic Principle says that all the best theories are ugly.
String theorists: It does?
Nature: It does. And once you make it the fashion to be ugly, you'll ensure that other theories will never beat you in beauty contests.
String theorists: Hooray! Hooray! Look at our beautiful new theory.

* How can 30 years go by and nothing in particle physics theory is remotely Nobel-worthy? How can the two most important experimental results (non-zero neutrino masses and a positive cosmological constant) catch string theory by such surprise?

* there is ZERO PHYSICAL EVIDENCE of 11 dimensions, branes, parallel universes and ANYTHING that string theory proposes;

* Unfortunately String Theory cannot be falsified because it makes no predictions. The author writes, "A scientific theory that makes no predictions and therefore is not subject to experimentation can never fail, but such a theory can never succeed either"
The real strength of science is its ability to self correct. Unfortunately when a theory is non-falsifiable arguing against it can be like trying to box smoke;

* One thing is clear from this great and brave effort from within the same mansion of theoretical physics and it is that modern physics is in such a trouble because it followed the exclusive lead of Albert Einstein, and his obssesion with the gravitational field, and so with the concept of particle. "These people(Einstein included) worked as if Plank, Bohr, Heisenberg and Schrodinger had never existed. They were living after the quantum mechanical revolution but pretending to work in an intelectual universe in which that revolution never occurred. The Trouble with Physics. Pag52.
This confirms my suspicion and gives me a good reason of my surprise when I found that, there had been for a long time, just one reviewer of The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics by Erwin Schrodinger, where he wrote in 1952:
"Let me say at the outset, that..., I am opposing not a few special statements of quantum mechanics held today, I am opposing as it were the whole of it, I am opposing its basic views that have been shaped 25 years ago...Pg19 ... To me this alone suffices, to strongly question the adequacy of the concept of particle...Pag21.

* A major part of "the trouble with physics" is what can only be called the "Kaluza-Klein cu de sac," or better yet the "Kaluza-Klein runaway train to nowhere."

* As one of its pioneers, Daniel Friedan, later wrote, "String theory cannot give any definite explanations of existing knowledge of the real world and cannot make any definite predictions. The reliability of string theory cannot be evaluated, much less established. String theory has no credibility as a candidate theory of physics."

* unlike them he remains a realist assuming that physical theories can actually apprehend Reality as it is. As part of the philosophical questioning necessary to re-examine near-universal assumptions, Smolin fails to recognise the errors in Galileo's notion of primary and secondary qualities. As Schrodinger and Husserl etc. recognised, primary measurable qualities actually presuppose a conscious observer to determine them. Thus Galileo began the "despiritualization" of Nature by abstraction of measurable quantities.
Whereas Smolin points to the Cartesian representation of Time as a frozen dimension as possibly the big mistaken assumption of physics, the likes of Heisenberg and Schrodinger were far more philosophically profound than would-be "seer" Smolin. So too was David Bohm whom Smolin's greatest hero Einstein befriended at Princeton. Smolin would do well to ask why Schrodinger was an advocate of Vedanta (Brahmanism), why Heisenberg said that Indian philosophy subconsciously influenced his physics ideas, why Bohm was a friend of Krishnamurti, and Pauli with Carl Jung. As Heisenberg said, it came as a great help to him to discover than an entire civilisation already subscribed to a view that resembled that of the new Quantum Mechanics which had so shocked the Western Mind (from Capra: Uncommon Wisdom). Heisenberg even checked the chapter on QM in "The Philosophy of Space and Time and the Inner Constitution of Nature" by mathematical physicist and Sanskrit-literate mystic Michael Whiteman in which Whiteman argued for a Universal Consciousness. All these mathematical theories simply explore the realm of possibilities or archetypes well known to mystics. The true Reality lies beyond such ideational realms in the distinctionless Ground of Universal Consciousness whose energetic vibrations manifest the phenomenal universe. Physics cannot even account for the most basic fact of our existence, our consciousness.

Resources and Problems in Whitehead's Metaphysics
By William Grassie

In 1927, British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead was asked to give the prestigious Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Edinburgh. His talks were published two years later as Process and Reality, the book that introduced Whitehead's process philosophy to the world and secured him a place in the canon of Western metaphysics. Today, Whitehead’s influence has not abated. One sees this, for instance, in the reliance on Whitehead’s thought by many of the luminaries in the field of religion and science including Ian Barbour, Holmes Rolston, and John Haught.1 Indeed, Whitehead’s signature can even be traced in the very name of Metanexus Institute. The key to Whitehead’s lasting consequence is that his process relational metaphysics solves many philosophical problems in understanding and interpreting contemporary science. However, I will argue that Whitehead’s process metaphysics tends to 1) depersonalize God to the extent of rendering theism irrelevant and 2) naturalize moral evil in the service of evolution. Once these points are established, it is then possible to seek a partial solution to these problems by synthesizing Whitehead’s thought with that of his successors.

A Review of Process and Reality

When revisiting my studies of Whitehead from my days in graduate school at Temple University, I was quickly reminded of how difficult it can be to penetrate Whitehead’s language, especially in Process and Reality (1929), but also how rewarding the effort. Much of what I discuss below are well-worn arguments and have been written and debated many times by philosophers, theologians, and scholars. It is nevertheless useful and necessary to revisit such debates, so we do not forget the recurrence of problems and the reincarnation of ideas in our contemporary discourse.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) created a comprehensive metaphysical system for understanding science, society, and self. 2 Whitehead refers to this project as “speculative philosophy,” which he defines as,

the endeavor to frame a coherent, logical, necessary system of general ideas in terms of which every element of our experience can be interpreted. By this notion of “interpretation” I mean that everything of which we are conscious, as enjoyed, perceived, willed, or thought, shall have the character of a particular instance of the general scheme. Thus the philosophical scheme should be coherent, logical, and in respect to its interpretation, applicable and adequate…(Process and Reality, 3)

An adequate metaphysics, then, must apply in general terms to the whole of reality, including all human subjective experiences. Whitehead’s metaphysics is especially constructed with reference to the emerging objective scientific worldview, but not to the neglect of subjective human experience. Indeed, the metaphysics is such that the normal uses of the terms subjective and objective no longer apply. "Nothing must be omitted,” writes Whitehead, “experience drunk and experience sober" (Adventures of Ideas, 226). It is not adequate to construct a metaphysics that renders the full spectrum of the emotional and imaginative life invisible or insignificant. Whitehead warns that "[p]hilosophy may not neglect the multifariousness of the world—the fairies dance, and Christ is nailed to the cross" (Process and Reality, 338). Note that while Whitehead references fantastic inventions of human imagination, his objective is objectivity. A general description of reality is the goal.

What is fundamentally real, says Whitehead, are not things but events. All events are relational. They have causal antecedents and causal consequences in webs of varying complexity, significance, and intensity. All events also exhibit some modicum of internal self-creative freedom that is not fully determined by their causal antecedents nor is it predictable in their causal consequences.

Whitehead’s process metaphysics does not rely on the usual dualisms that have vexed previous metaphysical systems. We no longer need to be troubled about the distinctions between matter and mind, animate and inanimate, created and evolved, nature and nurture, or reductionism and emergence. The difference between atoms, animals, artifacts, and humans is in the degrees of complexity, the intensity of causal relationships, and the extent of self-creative freedom integrated in these various phenomena. The differences are not in any essentialized notions of natural kinds. Most philosophical problems in the metaphysics of contemporary science disappear with Whitehead’s event-centered process philosophy.

God is a category that Whitehead feels compelled to invoke in his process philosophy of every “actual occasion,” but it is God of all past realities and all future possibilities. The incarnate God is determined by the sum of all past actualities, and the transcendent God is limited within a matrix of future possibilities. Whitehead’s God also functions as a persuasive telos that draws the universe toward greater complexity, greater integration of these complexities in communion, and greater co-creative freedom within those relational webs. For Whitehead, the one become many and the many one as the universe and God evolve together. The goal of this evolution is realized beauty.

God in Whitehead’s view can be understood as the set of all relationships and all processes. In that sense, Whitehead’s God is radically transcendent and radically incarnate at the same time. Indeed, we might call it “god-in-universe” or “universe-in-god,” remembering that this is a gerund and not a noun, a verb and not a thing. God-in-universe is a complex distributed system. The technical term used is panentheism, to be distinguished from pantheism. Whiteheadean process metaphysics has given rise to various schools of process theology that have found devotees in numerous seminaries and departments of religion.3 Indeed, Whitehead can be seen as one of the patron saints of the modern dialogue between science and religion.

In Whitehead’s view, all being is causally related becoming. This does not mean all beings are equivalent in a flat, relativistic monism without significant distinctions, because being is spun within a web of asymmetrical, multivariable, hierarchically layered, and differentially valued relationships. While Whitehead does not develop an explicit epistemology to go along with his ontology, we may infer that all knowing is also causally related knowing within a web of asymmetrical, multivariable, hierarchically layered, and differentially valued relationships.

Whitehead’s process metaphysics can be understood as reviving Aristotle’s notion of natural kinds, albeit in a changing evolutionary context. A nexus of complexity, be it a proton, a protein, or a person, has a temporal “personality” that persists and thus achieves an emergent identity, a temporary “essence.” He combines this evolutionary Aristotelianism with a Platonic notion of an ideal horizon toward which all events tend in the complexification of the universe. This is the persuasive telos of god-in-universe. Finally, Whitehead adopts a Hegelian notion of history’s movement as a kind of progressive incarnation of spirit.

****
L’albero che volle farsi artigiano e l’artigiano che sciolse le sue catene

David Foster Wallace
http://fanuessays.blogspot.com/2011/10/la-coscienza-dal-buddha-david-foster.html.