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Process
Philosophy
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Def. P(a)={x | x<a} |
P(a) is called the (causal) past of a |
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Def. F(a)={x | a<x} |
F(a) is called the (causal) future of a |
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Def.
|
a is contemporaneous with b |
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As the
relation of contemporaneity is not always transitive, the existence of
the uniquely-defined present of a given event is not guaranteed by the
theory of relativity. We can introduce something like a cosmological
"present" in terms of a maximum class of mutually contemporary events
instead
Def. If a
class d of events satisfies
the following conditions, it is called a contemporary duration of the
universe :
(1)
(2)
The
relativity of simultaneity means that there are an infinite number of
possibilities for a contemporary duration of the universe. As the arrow
of local causality always passes from the past to the future in every
frame of reference, it cannot explain the quantum correlation of the Bell
experiment which holds between two contemporaries. The contemporaneity as
defined above is essentially a negative (derivative) relation and also
irrelevant to the explanation of positive correlation in quantum physics.
The experimental test of Bell's theorem requires something positive to
cover such a correlation. Self-projection in the mode of mutual immanence
is introduced to satisfy this requirement. This mode should be non-causal
in the sense that it does not pass immediately from the past to the
future, but signifies a kind of mutual interpenetration among events in
terms of which a composite system behaves as if it were one individual.
Causal efficacy ranges from causal immanence to causal influence.
Causal
immanence holds between two temporally separated events in the isolated
microscopic system with a small number of degrees of freedom, when the
causal influences from the outside are negligible. The relation of causal
immanence is the basis of a deterministic description of the microscopic
system before its interaction with the measuring apparatus.
The causal
efficacy from the macroscopic system with a great number of degrees of
freedom is called causal influence. It is practically impossible to give
a deterministic description of the system on the basis of the exact
control of causal influences, which only permit statistical treatment of
complex thermo-dynamical processes with an
increasing entropy. The irreversible process of quantum
measurement, however, cannot be identified with the entropy-increasing
process of thermodynamics, as Wigner showed in his argument against
Daneri-Loinger-Prosperi's theory of measurement.(5) When a and b project
themselves into each other in the mode of mutual immanence, they behave
as if they were one individual on account of mutual immanence (the
non-separability of quantum events). Even when the two loci of a and b are spatially separated, these two loci as
potentialities have an internal relation with each other with regard to
certain characteristics (e.g. polarization or spin).
The mutual
immanence disappears when the system is causally influenced from the
outside system. The collapse of the wave function of a composite system
may give a distant simultaneous correlation when self-projections between
contemporary parts of the system pass from the mode of mutual immanence
to that of mutual transcendence (the disappearance of the term of phase
interference between them). Every event is organically related with the
whole universe by symbolic correlation which integrates the two modes of
self-projection. The distant correlation h quantum physics holds between
two contingent events with the same causal past immanent in both. This
correlation does not mean the superluminous sending of information in
terms of causality. but signifies the relation
of mutually self projecting events which constitute the organic system.
This system integrates two different modes of self-projection in the
presented duration defined by the measuring apparatus. The whole setting
of the measuring apparatus determines the kind o simultaneous correlation
which holds between contingent patterns of physical value, measured in
both parts. Each of two events with the same immanent causal past can be
seen as the symbol of the other as if they were two sides of the same
coin.
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2. The
Big-Bang Cosmology and Process Metaphysics
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Relativistic
quantum cosmology is one of the most controversial frontiers of modern
physics. The discovery of astronomical vestiges of the Big-Bang in the
1960s has made it possible for physicists to tackle metaphysical problems
concerning the origin and the destiny of our universe. (6) In
the Western Middle Ages, God's creation of heaven and earth in seven days
was a topic of great importance amongst Christian theologians. Today, it
is the physicist Steven Weinberg's story of "the First Three Minutes"
after the Big Bang about eighteen billion years ago which engages the
minds of those concerned with the origin of the universe. (7)
Some physicists, unsatisfied with merely describing the universe after
the Big Bang, boldly set about resolving the Big-Bang-singularity itself.
The dogma of creatio ex nihilo, which was considered as one of the
incomprehensible mysteries in Christianity, i s now discussed by
physicists as a genuine theoretical possibility. (8) Leibniz
summed up the fundamental problems of metaphysics in the question: "why
are there beings rather than nothing at all?"
His answer
was based on the principle of sufficient reason, which ultimately
appealed to God as the First Cause.( 9
) Heidegger restated the above question with capitalized "Nichts",
and criticized onto-theology for its explication of Being.
(10) Metaphysics is not sufficient for the solution of the
problematik of Being because the "root" of beings is not a being
at all. We find an analogous situation in the realm of natural science
today in the search of the ultimate ground of being.
As quantum
physics does not permit the unlimited use of the principle of sufficient
reason, the creation of the universe from nothingness, which has been
formulated as a fluctuation of the vacuum , might well be considered as a
mere contingency i n the sense suggested by Heisenberg's principle of
uncertainty. Such a conception of nothingness seems necessarily to result
in a kind of paradox because it explicitly contradicts one of the most
fundamental principles of ontology: that nothing comes out of nothing, or
everything comes out of something. I would like to discuss two
interrelated problems which have some bearing on the transcendental
dialectics of Kant's First Critique, and then to put forward the paradox
of the Big Bang cosmology; why are there beings rather than nothing at
all?
The first
problem to be considered concerns the "decidability" of the cosmological
problems; is it possible for us to determine, empirically or
speculatively, whether the whole universe is finite or infinite in space
and in time ? As the universe qua the spatio-
temporal totality of beings necessarily includes ourselves who ask the
cosmological question, we cannot observe it from the outside in relation
to space and time. Only able to inquire into the universe from the
inside, we cannot in principle stipulate the spatio-temporal boundary
conditions of the universe. How, then, can we apply the fundamental laws
of physics to the whole universe without knowing its boundary conditions?
And even if we can do without necessary boundary conditions on the purely
theoretical level, how can the Big Bang cosmology claim empirical
certainty concerning the origin of the universe when, according to the
accepted theory, we human beings, are only the latest products of the
expanding universe?
The second
problem to be considered concerns the modern version of the cosmological
arguments for a God who imposes order on the universe; how has the
universe achieved its organization in its history since the Big Bang? The
second law of thermodynamics tells us that any closed system cannot
evolve from chaos to order. If there is any system evolving from chaos to
order, it must be open, and therefore capable of admitting new
"information" through its interaction with the outside environment.
Therefore,
if we admit the creative evolution from the simple to the complex
material structures of the universe, we would have to characterize the
whole universe as an open system. But what is it to which the universe open? If it is something, then it must be
included in the universe. On the other hand, if the universe is a
self-sufficient closed system, how can we explain the creative evolution
from the Big Bang to the present universe---a process which includes the
creation of human beings who can ask the being of the universe?
One may
think that the impossibility of resolving the above cosmological problems
had been established by Kant's First Critique. Certainly, Kant's stated
intention was to prove that the a priori use of pure reason cannot
determine whether the universe is finite or infinite because of the
antinomy which that endevour necessarily involved. I would like to
stress, however, that the problem is more complex for us than it was for
Kant. Due to the scientific revolution caused by the theory of relativity
and quantum physics, Kant's cosmological arguments can no longer be
acceptable without suitable modifications. Kant was able to assume the
universal validity of Euclidean geometry and Newtonian physics as quid
facti, and to ask the quid juris question concerning the possibility of
such knowledge a priori. Thanks to Einstein, though, we have come to
believe that both Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry are not
universally valid, and that their validity should therefore be claimed
only as a posteriori knowledge. Moreover, the status of the fundamental
laws of physics which Kant considered as synthetic a priori has been
drastically changed; for example, the conservative law of matter has been
unified with that of energy, and the law of causal change has been
reformulated in terms of probability theories. Kant's arguments of
transcendental analytics proved to be insufficient for the explanation of
the problems of modern physics . This means
that while Kant's laying of the foundation of empirical science in
judgments synthetic a priori has become dubious, physicists today are
beginning to consider cosmological problems that Kant rejected as
unanswerable on purely rational grounds a priori in his arguments dealing
with transcendental dialectics.
The
finite-versus-infinite antinomy of the universe was resolved by Einstein
in his 1917 paper, "Cosmological Considerations on the General Theory of
Relativity". (11) In this celebrated paper, Einstein set out
to resolve the paradoxical problem of how to describe the whole universe
including ourselves from the inside---that is, how to apply the
differential laws of relativity physics to the whole universe, and how to
integrate them without the arbitrary specification of its boundary
conditions. Einstein has shown that this paradox of impossible e boundary
conditions can be resolved if our universe proves to be a non-Euclidean,
Riemannian space with a positive curvature on empirical grounds a
posteriori. In this case, our universe is t o be described as a spatially
finite universe with no boundaries, and the condition of having no
boundaries would serve as a boundary condition for the application of the
universal laws of physics to the universe. Einstein's predilection with
the eternity of the universe led him to introduce the "cosmological
constant" in order to make his model of the universe temporally stable.
In 1922 Einstein's static cosmology was modified by Freedmann in such a
way that it could describe the unstable evolving universe; and this was
verified by astronomical observations of Hubble's law. (12)
The problem
of the eternity of the universe was empirically decided by Penzias and
Wilson, whose 1964 discovery of background radiation as the remnant of
the Big Bang earned them a Nobel Prize in 1978. The standard theory of
the Big Bang is theologically important, for it tells us on empirical
grounds that the universe is spatially finite though it has no
boundaries; that the universe has a history spanning about eighteen
billion years; and that the material structure of the universe has been
formed in the process of its expansion. (13) It i s noteworthy
that the method of relativistic cosmology is characterized by the idea
that the topology of space-time is inseparable from the gravitational
field. The universe as a whole must be taken into consideration because
of the gravitational field which makes the idea of an isolated physical
system untenable.
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Moreover,
the topological thinking of relativity physics demands that the concepts
of spatial distance and temporal duration be modified in such a way that
they become frame-independent measurable quantities, to be reconsidered
in terms of four dimensional space-time. There
is a sense in which we can say that Big Bang which occurred eighteen
billion years ago is nearer to us than the events we read about in
yesterday's newspaper---if, that is, we can define "nearness" in terms of
the four-dimensional distances of relativistic cosmology. The fact that
we can now observe evidence of the Big Bang in Penzias and Wilson's
background radiation means that the beginning of the universe can be
located on the backward light cone at a zero distance from the
here-present event. We may say that the relativistic cosmology, through
combining Riemann's idea of the non-Euclidean manifold of space-time with
empirical evidences, has answered the first antinomy of Kant's
transcendental dialectics in such away that the universe has a temporal
beginning, that it is spatially finite in spite of having no boundaries,
and that it is now expanding itself in the cosmological history. Although
we have evidences of the past singularity of the Big Bang, we cannot have
such a direct evidence of the future singularity of the Big Crunch as the
global "death" of the universe. Concerning the future of the universe, we
have not empirical evidences enough to predict whether the universe has a
temporal end or not. The "birth" problem of the universe, however, seems
inseparable from the "death" problem because we can have empirical
evidences of the black hole which can be considered as a local "death" of
the universe. The existence of the black hole which relativistic
cosmology predicts would give us essential informations concerning
theoretically the life-death problem of the universe. Rejecting the idea
of the eternal universe, modern physics has solved another paradox
concerning the "heat death" of the universe.
@
In 1865
Clausius predicted on the basis of the cosmological formulation of the
two laws of thermodyanamics; the entropy as the measure of disorder of
the universe will increase to the maximum-thermodyanamic equilibrium,
whereas its energy always remains constant. (14) This
prediction was paradoxical. If the universe is eternal in the sense of
the conservation law of mass and energy, why did it not reach to the
state of maximum entropy long ago? And if the universe has a beginning in
time, what or who "wound up the clock" of cosmic maximum complexity and
order in the beginning? Such a concept of deus ex machina would be
formidable both to scientists and theologians.
After the
discovery of the Big Bang , physicists began
to reconsider Clausius' cosmological formulation of thermodyanamics.
According to our best scientific understanding of the primieval universe,
it does seem as though it began in the simplest state of all and that the
currently observed complex structures and elaborate activity only
appeared subsequently. Clausius thought that the evolution of the
universe from simplicity to complexity would be impossible and the "heat
death" would be an inevitable result. Certainly, the second law of
thermodynamics requires that the order of any closed system should give
way to disorder, so that complex structures tend to decay to a final
state of disorganized simplicity. Therefore, if the universe as a whole
is a closed system, the evolution of the universe from simplicity to
complexity would be impossible and the "heat death" would be an
inevitable result. The fact of creative evolution means that the universe
cannot be a closed system. As there is nothing outside of the universe,
we must say that the universe as the totality of beings is open to
nothingess. This paradox of "open wholeness", the apparent conflict of
the creative evolution of the universe with the second law has only
recently been solved.
According to
Paul Davies, Fan Li Zhi, and other physicists, the coupling of
thermodyanamics and the cumulative effects of universal gravity opens the
way to the injection of order into cosmic material by the cosmological
gravitational field . ( 15 ) The expanding universe
can generate order in the cosmic material itself, thus preventing
thermodynamic equilibrium. Moreover, the expansion of the universe should
be considered as a continuous creation of space rather than as its scattering of material beings into empty space as
the ready-made framework. The universe as a whole can be an open system
through its spontaneous generation of order in cosmic material during its
dynamic expanding process.
Tanabe
argued from philosophical reasons in Dialectics of Relativity Physics
that relativity physics contains contradictions which cannot be solved in
its own terms unless it is integrated with quantum physics.
(16) Both relativity and quantum theories can provide only
partial descriptions of the universe; the former deals with the extremely
macroscopic whereas the latter with the extremely microscopic aspects of
the same universe. In 1970 Penrose and Hawking mathematically proved that
the Big Bang as well as the black hole are
inevitable results of Einstein's theory of general relativity.
Relativistic cosmology is considered by them to be incomplete for the
explanation of the life-death problem of the universe; it must be
complemented by quantum physics because there seems to have been "the
coincidence between maximum and minimum" both in the beginning and end of
the universe. By a simple application of quantum mechanical principles, it
is estimated that, at scales of 10-33 cm and durations shorter
than 10-43 second, general relativity will have to be
supplemented by a theory that correctly handles the quantum effects of
the very early universe. It is in this domain of quantum cosmology that
we seem to confront what may be called the ultimate paradox of physics:
why are there beings rather than nothing at all?
In 1982 the
Russian physicist Alex Vilenkin launched a relativistic quantum theory of
cosmogenitum ex nihilum in his paper, titled "Creation of Universes from
Nothing". (17) The American physicist Heinz Pagel commented on
Vilenkin's idea of Nothingness as the earliest state of the universe:
(18)
The
Nothingness "before" the creation of the universe is the most complete
void that we can imagine --- no space , time ,
or matter existed . It is a world without place
, without duration or eternity. . . .Yet this unthinkable void
converts itself in the plenum of existence ---a necessary consequence of
physical laws. Where are these laws written into the void? It would seem
that even the void is subject to law, a logic that existed prior time and
space.
Vilenkin's
answer to the fundamental paradox of physics might well be characterized
as saying that there is something rather than nothingness because
nothingness is creative. He used an analogy of nothingness between the
creation of the universe from nothingness before its inflationary
expanding stage on the one hand and the pair-creation of a particle and
its anti-particle from nothingness on the other, the latter of which we
can confirm as a "quantum tunneling effect" in experiments. Instead of
"Nature abhors a vacuum", the view of the new physics suggests, "The
vacuum is all of physics" ; everything that
ever existed or can exist is already potentially there in the vacuum as
the place of nothingness. Physicists came to this remarkable view of the
nothingness by way of a deeper understanding of Heisenberg's uncertainty
principle and the existence of anti-matter. (19)
The
cosmogenituln ex nihilum in relativistic quantum physics does not imply
that there is any concept of time in which the universe did not exist
before a certain instant and then came into being. Real time is defined
only within the universe, and doesnot exist outside it. The creation of
the universe from nothingness as a tunneling quantum effect at the
minimum radius was described through an imaginary time, which the "no
boundary proposal" for the quantum state postulates.
As Stephen
Hawking has emphasized, to ask what happened before the universe began is
like asking for a point on the Earth at 910; it just is not
defined. (19) In what way should we realize the creative
nothingness of quantum relativistic cosmology? We cannot consider it as
absolute nothingness because we must still grant the existence of a body
of pre-existing laws of nature in order to explain the cosmogenitum ex
nihilum in scientific terms. The topos of nothingness from which the
universe is created, in which the expanding universe is open, must be
more primordial than space-time. This topos cannot be space-time without
matter because space-time as well as matter have been created in the beginning. The Whiteheadian
concept of the extensive continuum as the receptacle of creativity would
give an important philosophical suggestion concerning how to realize this
primordial place of nothingness. Whitehead characterizes the extensive
continuum as below: (20)
The
extensive continuum expresses the solidarity of all possible standpoints
throughout the whole process of the world. It is not a fact prior to the
world; it is the first determination of the order---that is, real
potentiality---arising out of the general character of the world. In its
full generality beyond the present epoch, it does not involve shapes,
dimensions, or measurability; these are additional determinations of real
potentiality arising from our cosmic epoch.
The Big Bang
cosmology which has recovered the solidarity of the whole universe needs
the concept of nothingness both as the receptacle which is more
fundamental than the four dimensional space-time manifold on the one hand, and as creative activity
which makes the universe evolve in this receptacle on the other.
Creativity in the topos of nothingness is the principle which makes it
possible for the universe to exist as an "open
wholeness."
@
References
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