The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919Whitehead, Alfred North
Philosophy
The Concept of Nature: The Tarner Lectures Delivered in Trinity College, November 1919
Whitehead, Alfred North
Knowledge, Theory of; Nature; Science -- Philosophy
Again when we seek definitely to express the relations of events which
arise from their spatio-temporal structure, we approximate to simplicity
by progressively diminishing the extent (both temporal and spatial) of
the events considered. For example, the event which is the life of the
chunk of nature which is the Needle during one minute has to the life of
nature within a passing barge during the same minute a very complex
spatio-temporal relation. But suppose we progressively diminish the time
considered to a second, to a hundredth of a second, to a thousandth of a
second, and so on. As we pass along such a series we approximate to an
ideal simplicity of structural relations of the pairs of events
successively considered, which ideal we call the spatial relations of
the Needle to the barge at some instant. Even these relations are too
complicated for us, and we consider smaller and smaller bits of the
Needle and of the barge. Thus we finally reach the ideal of an event so
restricted in its extension as to be without extension in space or
extension in time. Such an event is a mere spatial point-flash of
instantaneous duration. I call such an ideal event an 'event-particle.'
You must not think of the world as ultimately built up of
event-particles. That is to put the cart before the horse. The world we
know is a continuous stream of occurrence which we can discriminate into
finite events forming by their overlappings and containings of each
other and separations a spatio-temporal structure. We can express the
properties of this structure in terms of the ideal limits to routes of
approximation, which I have termed event-particles. Accordingly
event-particles are abstractions in their relations to the more concrete
events. But then by this time you will have comprehended that you cannot
analyse concrete nature without abstracting. Also I repeat, the
abstractions of science are entities which are truly in nature, though
they have no meaning in isolation from nature.
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