Field concept of matter in relativity physics

·期刊原文

Comparison of the field concept of matter in relativity physics and the Buddhist idea of nonself

By Mendel Sachs

Philosophy East and West

Volume 33, no. 4 October 1983 P.395-399

(C) by University of Hawaii Press

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P.395

I

In a recent article in this journal by Kenneth K.
inada, (1) the concept of"nonself" (anaatman) was
clearly explicated as a central theme of Buddhistic
philosophy having to do with the elementarity of
process as contrasted with the elementarity of
"self" (aatman).

From my frame of reference, as a theoretical
physicist, it appears that there are some very
interesting mutual ideas in the Buddhistic idea of
nonself and the fundamental view of matter according
to Einstein's theory of general relativity. Of
course, there are subtle aspects of Buddhism that
take a great deal of scholarship to comprehend
fully. But Inada's discourse on the concept of
anaatman was so excellently presented as to give me
some notion of it, especially in regard to its
similarity with notions that occur in the
explanation of matter when the theory of general
relativity is fully exploited as a general theory of
matter.

On this point, I should caution my colleagues in
both fields (physics and philosophy) that it is
indeed easy to proceed from one discipline to
another without properly changing the context in
this transformation of ideas, thereby coming to
false notions of the newly explored field of ideas.
Still, I do believe that if one is sufficiently
careful, it is possible to discover invariant ideas
with respect to changes from one contextual
framework to another. I have argued elsewhere(2)
that this may indeed be a possible way to achieve
progress in one's own intellectual discipline, to
search for such invariants.

The main purpose of this note is to add a few
comments to Inada's discussion, particularly
focusing on a comparison of a contemporary continuum
view of matter, according to relativity physics, and
the Buddhist concept of nonself--similar to the
neo-Taoist concept of nonbeing (wu).(3)

It is interesting to note at the outset that a
major problem in contemporary physics is to
reconcile the full implications of the theory of
relativity and those of the quantum theory as bases
for a fundamental theory of matter: For the view of
relativity theory leads to a continuum, nonatomistic
approach, while the (new) quantum theory, based on
the ideas of the Copenhagen school, entails an
atomistic (elementary particle) approach, though in
terms of an intrinsic lack of predetermination of
the parameters associated with the atomic
constituents of macromatter. The latter view of
matter is strongly tied (epistemologically) to the
empiricist approach, along the lines of
predominantly Western views. The former is closer to
the epistemological and ontological approach of
Eastern philosophies.

The crisis that has been reached at the present
stage in the history of physics, because of the lack
of success (during the past sixty years!) in fusing
the quantum and relativity theories in a
mathematically and logically consistent fashion, is
not

P.396

unrelated to the philosophical problems that have
arisen in the dialogues since ancient times
regarding the opposition of approaches to reality
that one may now identify with predominantly Western
versus predominantly Eastern views.

It has been my contention that the evolution of
physics to the present stage has led to a crisis in
the apparent need to fuse logically dichotomous
concepts--that indeed cannot peacefully coexist in a
consistent theory of elementary matter. Thus, we
have reached the stage where one of these
fundamental approaches or the other--that is, either
the axiomatic basis of the quantum theory or the
theory of general relativity--must be chosen in
order to proceed further. It may be argued that in
terms of their philosophical bases, these two
contrasting approaches, in turn, favor the Western
versus the Eastern philosophical points of view.

In a recent article,(4) I attempted to compare
the implications of the philosophy of relativity
theory--fully exploited as a basis for a theory of
elementary matter--and some of the concepts of
Taoism, such as the tao, and ch'i. There is, of
course, strong similarity between the latter
concepts and those in the Buddhistic philosophy--for
example, in the comparison of nonbeing (wu) and
nonself(anaatman) , as mentioned above and as
discussed in relation to process by Inada. Inada has
also discussed the similarity of the latter view
from the East and Whitehead's approach to process in
the West.(5) In ancient Greece, such an approach was
suggested much earlier by Heraclitus.

II

Before the twentieth century, the main Western view
of matter (as discussed in Greece by Democritus) was
that the essence of matter must be understood in
terms of particularity--the elementarity of the
atomistic, individuated self. This philosophy will
be referred to henceforth as "particle monism." It
assumes that all of the physical attributes of
matter are explicable in terms of a collection of
things and of the derivative influence that each of
them exerts on the others that make up the material
system.

With the discovery of the quantum theory, the
twentieth century witnessed a conceptual change in
our view of atomistic matter, from "particle monism"
to "wave-particle dualism." The latter dualistic
concept was introduced initially by Einstein in
reference to the (seemingly) dualistic nature of
electromagnetic radiation (such as light)--appearing
under some experimental conditions as a
superposition of waves and under other experimental
conditions as a collection of discrete particles.
This concept was then successfully extended by de
Broglie to matter. The idea proposed was that under
some conditions of observation, matter (such as
electrons) is wave-like. That is to say, under these
conditions electrons may be correctly represented as
a superposition of waves that combine destructively
or constructively-for example, one wave combined
with one other wave may add to no wave! Further, a
wave-like description of particles of matter is
nonlocal--it describes them continuously throughout
space and time.

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But under other sorts of observational conditions,
the atoms of matter are particle-like--for example,
in regard to rules of combination, one electron plus
one electron can only add to two electrons and
nothing else! Also, in the "particle-like" state,
the electron (according to the quantum theory) is
(almost) localized, that is, if it is
(approximately) somewhere in space, it can be
nowhere else at that time, at least with very high
probability.

The implication of the concept of "wave-particle
dualism" according to the preceding discussion is
that there is a certain amount of irreducible
subjectivity in the very definition of the elements
of matter. With this view, the way matter is depends
in part on the way it is observed. That is to say,
with this philosophy (of the Copenhagen school), the
act of observation (by a macroobserver) plays an
essential part in the very definition of elementary
matter. This interpretation is commonly accepted in
the physics community today because of the claim by
physicists that it must be so because, from the
empirical side, matter does exhibit wave-like
behavior under some experimental conditions and
particle-like behavior under other sorts of
experimental conditions. However, as we will discuss
below, the concept of wave-particle dualism for
matter is one. but not the only, possible
interpretation of the existing data.

A basic question that arose with the concept of
wave-particle dualism was this: What is the precise
meaning of the wave aspect of a particle of matter?
The answer that came was that the wave aspect of a
particle relates to the continuously distributed
probability state of micromatter, having to do with
the chance of measuring its features with one value
or another. Still, it was contended by the realists,
such as de Broglie, that underlying the probability
wave description, there must exist a real, singular
particle of matter,(6) even though there may be
epistemological claims that limit its full
description for a macroobserver. Still, both
epistemological views--that of the Copenhagen school
(based on an approach of logical positivism) and
that of the realism approach of de Broglie--are
versions of the essential particularity of matter,
that is, atomism.

Almost simultaneously with the discovery in the
twentieth century of the quantum theory, there came
another revolution in physics that contrasted with
its view of matter in several philosophical aspects.
This was the theory of relativity. viewed as a
theory of elementary matter. Fully utilizing its
axiomatic basis, it follows that matter must be
represented most fundamentally by a continuous
field, without singularities--an undifferentiated
whole--similar to the Buddhistic concept of
anaatman. Accepting this approach to matter in
contemporary physics, " wave-particle dualism''
reduces to "wave-monism." But the wave aspect in
this view would be abstract, that is, not directly
observable, though it would be ontological (a real
existent) rather than the epistemological field of
the quantum theory. The "observed" wave-like
behavior of matter is then a direct logical
consequence of this model. Further, it is in the
nature of this abstract field (the matter wave) that
under special circumstances it manifests itself in a
way that gives the outward appearance of "things."
Still, it should be

P.398

recognized that the underlying field of matter is
not, ontologically, a collection of "things," just
as a disturbed pond is not a collection of
(separable) constituent ripples. Rather, the field
of matter is closer in its meaning to the
elementarity of process, representing fundamental
relations, rather than relata. Thus its meaning is
indeed closer to the nonself of Buddhistic
philosophy, as discussed by Inada.

III

In the context of the history of physics, it
appears to me that "wave-particle dualism" is not a
permanent development in our understanding of
matter. However, it did serve the (most important)
role of bridging the conceptual gap, from the
earlier view of "particle monism" to the later view
of "wave monism." That is, "wave-particle dualism"
led from the (more concrete) idea of
atomism--building blocks of macromatter-that entails
particularity and individuality of the "constituent
things" as the essence of matter, to the (more
abstract) idea of matter in terms of the field
concept--an undifferentiated whole that is truly
without parts, though manifesting itself in terms of
mutual interaction processes that entail its
intrinsic modes of behavior, This seems to me to be
a bridging from a predominantly Western view to a
predominantly Eastern view of matter.

I believe that such a conceptual bridge was
necessary in the history of physics primarily
because of the psychological difficulty in the
"common sense'' aspect of human thinking for the
latter to adapt itself to the more abstract
approach. It appears to me that this evolution in
our understanding (in passing from the philosophy of
the quantum theory to that of the relativity theory)
is a natural consequence of a maturity in scientific
thinking.

Of course, the development of the art of
mathematics since the period of ancient Greece has
greatly enhanced the further exploitation of
scientific ideas in the West, leading to a great
deal of progress in pure science as well as the
technological developments based on this science.
Still, the empiricist concepts seem to have become
bogged down at the present stage of fundamental
physics. It seems extremely interesting to me that a
possible way out this dilemma (stemming essentially
from the failure to fuse mathematically and
logically the quantum and relativity theories) may
be to return to the more abstract approach, that is,
to go from the predominantly Western approach to a
predominantly Eastern approach. Particularly, this
would be a return from the idea that the essence of
matter is to be understood in terms of particularity
(aatman) to the idea that the essence of matter is
to be understood in terms of process and relation,
where the whole is not a sum of parts (anaatman).
The latter view of matter in contemporary physics is
indeed implied when one fully exploits the field
concept feature of the theory of general relativity
as a general theory of matter.

A possible lesson to be learned in this
discovery, which I have indicated above, is that to
search effectively toward increased understanding of
the material world, it may indeed behoove man to
recognize that the essence of the ideas we seek may
very well be embedded in the philosophical outlooks
of (seemingly)

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diverse cultures, independent of their specific
contextual outlooks, or their spatial and temporal
frames of reference. This idea is an example of an
extension of Einstein's principle of general
relativity, which asserts an invariance
(objectivity) in the truths of nature with respect
to transformations into any reference frame of
space, time, or culture.

NOTES

1. Kenneth K. Inada, "Problematics of the
Buddhist Nature of Self," Philosophy East and West
29, no. 2 (1979): 141-158.

2. M. Sachs, "Maimonides, Spinoza and the Field
Concept in Physics." Journal of the History of
Ideas 37, no. 1 (1976): 125-131.

3. See, for example, Wing-tsit Chan, A Source
Book in Chinese Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1963), p. 315.

4. M. Sachs, "On the Philosophy of General
Relativity Theory and Ideas of Eastern and Western
Cultures," in Festschrift for Ta-You Wu, ed. S.
Fujita (New York: Gordon and Breach, Science
Publishers, Inc, 1978), pp. 9-24.

5. Kenneth K. Inada, "The Metaphysics of
Buddhist Experience and the Whiteheadian Encounter",
Philosophy East and West 25, no. 4 (1975): 465-488.

6. L. de Broglie, The Current Interpretation of
Wave Mechanics (New York: American Elsevier
Publishing Co., 1964).