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Einstein's unified field concept
| Content Provider | Scilit |
|---|---|
| Author | Sachs, Mendel |
| Copyright Year | 2018 |
| Description | Book Name: Relativity In Our Time |
| Abstract | Question How does the philosophy that underlies Einstein’s unified field concept compare with earlier views of closed systems, such as those of Spinoza and the monad theory of Leibniz? Reply The philosophy that follows from Einstein’s unified field concept, attempting to express all physical manifestations of matter in a single conceptual scheme, does indeed bear some resemblance to the Leibnizian world as fundamentally one, without separable parts-from my understanding of his philosophy. Plato also had the view that the universe is a single, existential entity, though he believed that its form is changeable. Leibniz1 viewed the world in terms of what he called ‘monads’— entities that many philosophers have likened to atoms. But Leibniz’ monads were not really separable things, as are the constituent elements of the real, material world, according to the atomists of ancient Greece, or the atomists of the contemporary period-such as Bohr and Heisenberg. Leibniz’ monads are different from separable atoms-they are more like the ripples of a pond, or the notes sounded by a violin string-as particular modes of behaviour of a closed system. Leibniz referred to his assemblage of monads as an array of reflections of one world, I would then interpret his word ‘reflection’ to mean ‘physical manifestation’. With this interpretation, Leibniz would not be taking the atomistic view at all; rather, he would be taking an approach more similar to that of Einstein, where it is assumed that there is only one, real, objective world, without actual parts, but rather characterized by an infinite spectrum of possible physical manifestations (monads). It is interesting to extrapolate from this holistic view of the material world to a universe that includes humankind. Assuming, with Spinoza2, that such an extension is logically necessary, one might then view the human beings’ inquiry into the nature of the universe (including themselves!) as based on an approximation that our consciousness can get into, thereby reflecting on underlying abstract relations about the nature of the real world. We may then extrapolate from these relations toward a more complete understanding of the universe-that fundamental existent of which the human being is, in principle, an inseparable component. According to this view, the human being’s attempt to comprehend the world is not a matter of our ‘looking in’, as impartial observers, tabulating its physical characteristics, according to the responses of our sense impressions. It seems to me to be, rather, a matter of the human being’s intellectual reflections, introspections and deductions about the basic nature of a single, abstract, underlying reality-that existent that is the universe, and from which the human being derives particulars to be correlated with the physical reactions of our senses. Still, we must keep in mind the idea that there are infinitely more particulars that fall within the scope of our reasoning power, but are not within the domain of direct responses to our sensing apparatuses. Nevertheless, the latter (unobservable) particulars can play the important role of the logically necessary ingredients of a theory, that leads, by logical implications, to bona fide tests of our comprehension that do entail directly observable particulars. There are critics of such a unified approach who argue that, according to Gödel’s theorem, in logic, it is illogical to start at the outset with a complete system, because the investigators themselves must have the freedom to decide how, where and when to explore along one direction or another3, i.e. they have the freedom to exercise a decision-making process, with their own ‘free wills’. But this view tacitly assumes that the human being is indeed a separable entity, apart from the rest of society and everything else in our environments! Should one accept this assumption as a fundamental axiom, then Gödel’s theorem could apply to the real world, outside of the logical system to which he applied it (a theory of arithmetic). One would then not be able to assert that there could be ‘complete knowledge’ to talk about in the first place. On the other hand, Gödel’s theorem is not an a priori truth of nature! It is only as true as the set of axioms on which it is based. I, for one, do not accept the axiomatic basis of this theorem as relating to nature, since I believe (with Spinoza) that we are truly one with all of nature, not separable parts, but rather as manifestations of the holistic system that is the universe. Thus, I believe that there is indeed ‘complete knowledge’—a total underlying order. But I do not believe that we can ever reach this total knowledge, because it is infinite in extent. Still, I feel that it is our obligation, as scientists and philosophers, to pursue this objective knowledge of the universe, bit by bit, continually criticizing and rejecting what is scientifically invalid, and holding on to what is scientifically true. According to Spinoza’s view, in which there are no absolute lines of demarcation in the world between ‘observer’ and ‘observed’, and the leibnizian monad concept of the universe-an existent without actually separable parts-the tacit assumption that separates the human being from the rest of the universe must be rejected. That is, rather than the atomistic view, in which the universe is said to be composed of many coupled, though separable parts-some of which are the collection of independent consciousnesses with their own free wills-the proponents of the unified field theory must view the world, with Spinoza, as a fully deterministic existent, that may exhibit an infinite manifold of intrinsic manifestations; yet where free will (actual individuality and separability) is only an apparent... |
| Related Links | https://content.taylorfrancis.com/books/download?dac=C2004-0-18556-1&isbn=9781315274362&doi=10.1201/9781315274362-27&format=pdf |
| Ending Page | 151 |
| Page Count | 6 |
| Starting Page | 146 |
| DOI | 10.1201/9781315274362-27 |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited |
| Publisher Date | 2018-10-08 |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Subject Keyword | Book Name: Relativity In Our Time History and Philosophy of Science Decision Making Believe Real World Philosophers Attempting Leibnizian View the World Free Wills Universe an Existent |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Chapter |
