What Is This Thing About the Thing?
This essay starts by considering the idea of the thing and the issues associated with the subject/object duality that this implies. It goes on to explore the underlying concepts and philosophical implications of quantum physics, followed by a brief look at Whitehead’s process philosophy (developed partly in response to Einstein’s theories of relativity and the advent of quantum mechanics) and its parallels with quantum physics. Finally the essay considers the relationships between these ideas and art in a post-medium-specific era where temporal and digital relations, networking and philosophical considerations play an increasingly significant role.
What is this thing about the thing?
Suppose you took a cart and removed both the wheels and the axle. What would you have?
The idea of the ‘thing’, the ‘object’, the ‘real’, has been key to human thought in many different contexts. In our everyday ‘making sense’ of, and being in, the world; in capitalism with it’s cycle of the production and consumption of things; in philosophy, in the perfect unchanging forms of Socratic thought where what we perceive is an abstract representation of many types of essential thing, in Kant’s assertion that the ‘external world’ provides the ‘things we sense’, or in Heidegger’s essay 'On the Origin of the Work of Art' (Heidegger, pp. 143-212) where he describes a thing as ‘formed matter’ and discusses the ‘thingness of the thing’. The ‘thing’ has also been ‘the thing’ in science; both in science’s historic focus on materialism that culminated in Newtonian ‘mechanics’ where it was postulated that, given enough information, the future was entirely predictable, and also post-Newton where the search has been for ever smaller ‘things’ that make up the bigger ‘things’. In art, the ‘art object’ was ‘the thing’ that you went to see, and when, in the age of mechanical reproduction, the art object became many and commerce intruded, Greenbergian modernism pursued the ‘things’ that made each medium specific, as in flatness and abstraction for painting. We have been thingking the thing as king.
Duality and Quantum Mechanics
‘There is no place to seek the mind. It is like the footprints of the birds in the sky’. (Wray, 2006, p. 131)
The idea of the object predicates the idea of the subject, and this dualism, this polarity, lurks at the heart of problems in different areas. In the social where the idea of ‘them and us’ serves alienation, power structures, war; in philosophy where this gap, the distance between the subject and the object, the mind and the body, has proved so difficult to navigate; and in science, in the field of quantum mechanics. When, in the 1920s, tools became available to probe the nature of the atom, some very strange results were obtained. Experiments based on ideas of particulate matter and classical materialism returned unexpected, and initially inexplicable, results. Perhaps the most famous of these experiments is the double-slit experiment, where a thin plate with two parallel slits is placed between a coherent light source and a detector. When light is sent through the slits, the light behaves in a wavelike way. The waves interfere with each other as they pass through the slits and a diffraction pattern results at the detector. The first strange result was obtained when just one ‘particle’ of light, a photon, was sent through the slits. The expectation was that the photon would go through one slit or the other and result in a point of light on the detector. In fact the result was the same as with many photons; a diffraction pattern was obtained implying that the photon had gone through both slits at once and interfered with itself. The second strange result was that when a detector was placed at the slits, the diffraction pattern was replaced by a point light source. The third oddity was the delayed choice experiment, where the method of detection (i.e. whether to detect which slit the photon went through or detect its interference with itself) could be changed after the photon had passed through the slit(s) and yet was still found to determine the result. Lastly, the quantum eraser experiment where the experimenter first measures which slit the photon went through thereby destroying the interference pattern and then erases the ‘which path’ information obtained and thus restoring the interference pattern. These, and other, strange results in quantum mechanics were accepted without recourse to a real, you might say, philosophical, understanding of what is going on. The issue seems to lie partly with the subject-object expectations of the classical experiment; the way science has always been done, with the ‘impartial’ observer making an experiment and taking measurements of invariant things with the expectation of things always being this or that; discrete, particulate, things made of things; and partly with the expectation that the things happening are independent of the observer. Impartial; the gap between the observer and the experiment; the subject and the object. By contrast, quantum mechanics is based on a universal interrelatedness and inherently implies the impossibility of a sharp separation between the behavior of a system and its interaction with the measuring instruments and the surrounding environment. Quantum mechanics describes the evolution from facts that exist before a measurement interaction to novel facts that exist after the interaction. These novel facts are also consequent of the measurement interaction; facts presuppose measurement as much as measurement presupposes facts. Novel facts are therefore the products of interrelations among facts, and are consequent of, and not just subsequent to, the interrelations among facts comprising the measuring equipment, the environment and the systems measured. So in the double-slit experiment, the different results are dependent on the types of interrelations between the measurement apparatus and that which it measures; if the set up has no detector at the slits you get a diffraction pattern; if the set up has a detector at the slits you get a point of light. This ties back to relativity theory where any fact or system of facts cannot be considered apart from its interrelations with other facts. This has been construed as pure subjectivity; but only if a classical view of physics is maintained where the object being measured remains unchanged during the measurement; quantum mechanics describes an object becoming during a measurement, in the way described above. It seems that in a quantum-mechanical world the materialist, russian-dollness of things gives way to a system of interrelations of facts; and since the theory of quantum mechanics presupposes a closed system (i.e. a system that is not affected by other systems) in which to operate, and that the only closed system we know of is the universe as a whole, quantum mechanics implies that all facts in the universe are interrelated.
Quantum mechanics does not explain why facts exist; it describes how facts evolve, although some physicists such as Stephen Hawking and James Hartle have attempted to use quantum mechanics to explain the origin of facts (the big bang). The ‘vacuum’ of space, rather than being empty and inactive has proved to be a seething mass of potential with pairs of ‘virtual‘ particles/events continuously popping in and out of existence (or more accurately, in and out of the range of our current measurement capabilities). This popping into existence of actualities from a quantum foam is what has been used by Hawking and Hartle to propose a quantum cosmogonic model where, as Michael Epperson writes, ‘a vacuous space-time is said to evolve quantum mechanically from a void of pure potentiality – potentiality somehow abstracted from actuality’ (Epperson, 2004, p. 6). Epperson goes on to point out the inconsistency of the idea of such a void being a quantum-based void: ‘such a void, often termed a “quantum vacuum’” or “quantum foam” is a fundamentally incoherent construction, given that the concept of actuality is necessarily presupposed by the concept of potentiality, such that the latter cannot be abstracted from the former’. (Epperson, 2004, pp. 6-7). It is important to stress, therefore, that quantum mechanics anticipates a unique factual outcome (the production of a novel fact) via a matrix of probabilities, but it does not account for it. This can, however, be regarded as a limitation of any scientific theory; for example classical mechanics presupposes the existence of material particles, which it cannot account for. The question then arises of how the existence of facts and the creation of novel facts can be accounted for; this is not within the boundaries of quantum theory.
How is the transition from one fact or state to another described in quantum physics? In summary it is the forward historical movement of facts from actuality to potentiality to actuality, driven and regulated by their mutual interrelations. A measurement, or transition, involves a specification of a measured system (a subset of facts belonging to the universe) relative to a single fact or subset of facts (the indexical eventuality) belonging to the subset of facts referred to as the detector, and the environment (the rest of the universe). The indexical actuality may also be seen as one feature of the detector; e.g. a pointer needle being up or down. There is first the initial state (actuality) that is itself a result of all past histories (in this sense the past is immortal since it is always involved in the creation of its own future history). The next step is to group all potential states into two sets, one set with the pointer up and one with it down. These sets include all potential states (potentia) of the universe where the pointer is either up or down. This includes logically inconsistent, nonsensical states (such as the measured system being in two places at once). The next step is to eliminate (negatively select) these logically inconsistent states so that only mutually exclusive logically consistent potentia remain. This elimination is best explained by the theory of decoherence which proposes that since the number of logically inconsistent states that arise because of the inclusion of the relations of the measured system and detector to the rest of the universe are almost infinite, they effectively cancel each other out, leaving just potentia that ‘make sense’. Each of these remaining potentia also acquires a probability value in the process. The last step is the realisation of one of the potentia in accordance with the probability values assigned. How this ‘collapse’ from a state of two or more potentia to an actuality occurs is not described by quantum physics and remains elusive. Quantum physics therefore predicts probable potential outcome states and not determined actualoutcome states. The potentia are regarded as being as real as the actualised states however, and Epperson illustrates this with the following scenario. The wife of a travelling salesman gives birth in California while he is in Hong-Kong. At what point does he become a father? There are two possible answers, when the baby is born, and when the salesman receives the news via a signal limited by the speed of light. In the former, the salesman’s potential future histories are changed (the potentia), since there are now all the possibilities given by becoming a father, even though he is unaware of the birth. In the latter, his future histories are causally affected, since he the birth has now become an actuality for him.
The seeming strangeness of quantum mechanics stems from its basis of including in its calculations the interrelations of all things, and the existence of the potentia when a fact evolves to a novel fact. Classical or Newtonian mechanics with its subject/object approach is an abstraction from quantum mechanics, useful when applied to macroscopic behaviour. Whereas classical mechanics posits a deterministic universe, quantum physics suggests an influential universe.
Active (Process-relational) Philosophy
‘That the self advances and confirms the myriad things is delusion. That the myriad things advance and confirm the self is enlightenment (Wray, 2006, p. 265).
Alfred North Whitehead developed active, or process-relational philosophy, in the early part of the twentieth century. His aim was to develop a metaphysics that would provide an ontological framework for the developments in theoretical physics at the time, in particular Einstein’s theories of relativity and the theories of quantum mechanics. As a prominent mathematician, Whitehead was aware that the fundamental desiderata of mathematical theories are that they are logical, coherent, applicable and adequate, with adequate meaning that there are no examples where a mathematical theory does not apply. Whitehead wished to apply the same desiderata to his metaphysics, and as his metaphysics was intended to accommodate physical phenomena, applicability and adequacy implied empirical examples. This is particularly relevant to theoretical physics with its dependence on both mathematics and experiment. The opposition of metaphysical and empirical, the subject/ object split of classical physics and the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter were rejected by Whitehead in favour of a philosophy where everything is in a state of becoming, events connected with their own histories of events and with all other events. Everything is active.
‘In the physics that Whitehead aimed at….. the laws of physics express contingent, internal relations that bind together elementary events in social networks within the worldwide network of all elementary events’ (Desmet, 2010).
‘Emperor: “Gudo what happens to the man of enlightenment and the man of illusion after death?”
Gudo: “How should I know sir?”
Emperor: “Because you’re a master.”
Gudo: “Yes, sir, but not a dead one!”
For Whitehead, everything derived from experience, and, everything had experience; an electron experienced an electromagnetic field, an amoeba experienced its immediate environment and so on, but unlike the philosophy of Hume, which did not account for causality, Whitehead split perception into two modes: the mode of presentational immediacy and the mode of causal efficacy. The former is what we experience through our senses and the latter says that all our sense perceptions are the result of our causal interactions with the world. There is a strong correlation between quantum physics’ description of the evolution of a novel fact and that developed in Whitehead’s metaphysics. For Whitehead each quantum event is dipolar, with a physical pole relating to the causal effect of antecedent data, and a mental pole (which is not to do with human mentality) relating to the part of the evolution from potentiality to actuality. The quantum mechanical equivalents are the initial state (physical pole) and the transition from a large number of possible outcomes to a limited number of mutually exclusive probable outcomes to the new actuality (mental pole). Whitehead defined several categories to describe the different phases, but the underlying philosophy was the same as in quantum mechanics; that the universe was in a continuous state of becoming; that the universe consists of actualities and potentialities that are equally real; that all events are in some way connected; and that the universe is not a deterministic one and that the subject/object mind/matter dualities are abstractions from the interconnectedness of everything. The universe is inherently and perpetually creative. What neither system explains is the origin of actualities and potentia, or how the probable outcomes of an event turn into an actuality.
What are the connections between the ideas expressed in quantum mechanics and process-relational philosophy to contemporary art in a post-medium specific age?
Bibliography
Benjamin, W. (2008). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (J. Underwood, Trans.). London, UK: Penguin Books.
Desmet, R. (2010). Whitehead's Principle of Relativity. Retrieved from vub.academia.edu: http://vub.academia.edu/RonnyDesmet/Papers/228067/Whiteheads_Principle_of_Relativity
Epperson, M. (2004). Quantum Mechanics and the Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. New York, NY, USA: Fordham University Press.
Heidegger, M. On the Origin of the Work of Art. In M. Heidegger, & D. Farrell (Ed.), Basic Writings. New York, NY, USA: HarperCollins.
Massumi, B. (2011). Semblance and Event. Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press.
Wray, W. (2006). Zen Buddhism Reflections for Every Day. London, UK: Arcturus Publishing Ltd.