Mysticism and Logic and Other EssaysRussell, Bertrand
Philosophy
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Russell, Bertrand
Mathematics; Philosophy; Science
all those objects which, as one would naturally say, _contain_ the
point. To secure a definition giving this result, without previously
assuming that physical objects are composed of points, is an agreeable
problem in mathematical logic. The solution of this problem and the
perception of its importance are due to my friend Dr. Whitehead. The
oddity of regarding a point as a class of physical entities wears off
with familiarity, and ought in any case not to be felt by those who
maintain, as practically every one does, that points are mathematical
fictions. The word "fiction" is used glibly in such connexions by many
men who seem not to feel the necessity of explaining how it can come
about that a fiction can be so useful in the study of the actual world
as the points of mathematical physics have been found to be. By our
definition, which regards a point as a class of physical objects, it
is explained both how the use of points can lead to important
physical results, and how we can nevertheless avoid the assumption
that points are themselves entities in the physical world.
Many of the mathematically convenient properties of abstract logical
spaces cannot be either known to belong or known not to belong to the
space of physics. Such are all the properties connected with continuity.
For to know that actual space has these properties would require an
infinite exactness of sense-perception. If actual space is continuous,
there are nevertheless many possible non-continuous spaces which will be
empirically indistinguishable from it; and, conversely, actual space may
be non-continuous and yet empirically indistinguishable from a possible
continuous space. Continuity, therefore, though obtainable in the _a
priori_ region of arithmetic, is not with certainty obtainable in the
space or time of the physical world: whether these are continuous or not
would seem to be a question not only unanswered but for ever
unanswerable. From the point of view of philosophy, however, the
discovery that a question is unanswerable is as complete an answer as
any that could possibly be obtained. And from the point of view of
physics, where no empirical means of distinction can be found, there can
be no empirical objection to the mathematically simplest assumption,
which is that of continuity.
The subject of the physical theory of space is a very large one,
hitherto little explored. It is associated with a similar theory of
time, and both have been forced upon the attention of philosophically
minded physicists by the discussions which have raged concerning the
theory of relativity.
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