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
So far in speaking of space we have been talking of the timeless space
of physical science, namely, of our concept of eternal space in which
the world adventures. But the space which we see as we look about is
instantaneous space. Thus if our natural perceptions are adjustable to
the p-system of measurements we see instantaneously all the
event-particles at some definite time p₄, and observe a succession
of such spaces as time moves on. The timeless space is achieved by
stringing together all these instantaneous spaces. The points of an
instantaneous space are event-particles, and the points of an eternal
space are strings of event-particles occurring in succession. But the
man on Mars will never perceive the same instantaneous spaces as the man
on the earth. This system of instantaneous spaces will cut across the
earth-man's system. For the earth-man there is one instantaneous space
which is the instantaneous present, there are the past spaces and the
future spaces. But the present space of the man on Mars cuts across the
present space of the man on the earth. So that of the event-particles
which the earth-man thinks of as happening now in the present, the man
on Mars thinks that some are already past and are ancient history, that
others are in the future, and others are in the immediate present. This
break-down in the neat conception of a past, a present, and a future is
a serious paradox. I call two event-particles which on some or other
system of measurement are in the same instantaneous space 'co-present'
event-particles. Then it is possible that A and B may be co-present,
and that A and C may be co-present, but that B and C may not be
co-present. For example, at some inconceivable distance from us there
are events co-present with us now and also co-present with the birth of
Queen Victoria. If A and B are co-present there will be some systems
in which A precedes B and some in which B precedes A. Also there
can be no velocity quick enough to carry a material particle from A to
B or from B to A. These different measure-systems with their
divergences of time-reckoning are puzzling, and to some extent affront
our common sense. It is not the usual way in which we think of the
Universe. We think of one necessary time-system and one necessary space.
According to the new theory, there are an indefinite number of
discordant time-series and an indefinite number of distinct spaces. Any
correlated pair, a time-system and a space-system, will do in which to
fit our description of the Universe. We find that under given conditions
our measurements are necessarily made in some one pair which together
form our natural measure-system. The difficulty as to discordant
time-systems is partly solved by distinguishing between what I call the
creative advance of nature, which is not properly serial at all, and any
one time series. We habitually muddle together this creative advance,
which we experience and know as the perpetual transition of nature into
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