COMMENTS ON SHA XIN WEIS

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COMMENTS ON SHA XIN WEIS

• WHITEHEADS POETICAL MATHEMATICS

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Sha Proposes to

• yield a way out of the static and atomistic
  aspects of Whiteheads metaphysics,
• enrich a plenist and process-oriented concept of
  unbifurcated nature.
• Replace Whiteheads topological methods with more
  modern tools.

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My Comments Will

• Defend Whiteheads atomism on the basis of its
  concordance with, and utility for, contemporary
  basic physical theory.
• Suggest a different modern way to improve
  Whiteheads topological method.

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Whiteheads Core Idea

• CONTINUITY CONCERNS WHAT IS
  POTENTIAL,
• WHEREAS
• ACTUALITY IS INCURABLY ATOMIC

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Whiteheads ontology is built out of atomic
(indivisible) actual entities!

• The final facts are, all alike, actual entities,
  and these actual entities are drops of
  experience p.18
• an actual entity is an act of experience p.68
• Actual entities---also termed actual
  occasions, are the final real things of which
  the world is made. p.18

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Atomism

• The actual entities atomize the extensive
  continuum. This continuum is in itself merely
  potentiality for division. p.67
• The contemporary world is in fact divided and
  atomic, being a multiplicity of definite actual
  entities. These contemporary actual entities are
  divided from each other, and are not themselves
  divisible into other actual contemporary actual
  entities p. 62

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Atomism

• in the actual world there are definite atomic
  actualities determining one coherent system of
  real divisions throughout the region of
  actuality. Every actual entity issomewhere in
  the continuum (p.67)

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Atomism

• every actual entity in the temporal world is to
  be credited with a spatial volume for its
  perspective standpoint.. These conclusions are
  required by the consideration of Zenos arguments
  in connection with the presumption that every
  actual entity is an act of
• experience. (p.68)

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Atoms of ActionDecisions

• Actual entities atomize it the extensive
  continuum and thereby make real what was
  antecedently merely potential. (p.72)
• every decision is referred to one or more actual
  entitiesActuality is decision amid
  potentiality. (p. 43). Actual entities are the
  only reasons.causes. (p.24)

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Continuity, Causation, and Discreteness in
Physics

• Newton/Classical physics. Continuous process
  satisfying causal closure of the physical
  mind/consciousness is left out of the causal
  structure!
• Quantum theory has discrete events the Geiger
  counter clicks or does not click.
• Bohr The element of wholeness symbolized by the
  action, and completely foreign to classical
  physical principles.

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Quantum theory has causal gaps and discrete
decisions.

• Two kinds of discrete decisions needed!
• Process 1 free choice by experimenter.
• Natures choice of outcome.
• Like Twenty Questions
• Each discrete decision is associated with a
  particular region in space
• Drops of experience, active or passive.

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Actual and Knowledge inQuantum Mechanics

• Heisenberg The observation itself changes the
  probability function discontinuously it selects
  of all possible events the actual one that has
  taken place. Since through the observation our
  knowledge of the system has changed
  discontinuously, its mathematical representation
  has also undergone the discontinuous change

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Transition from possible to actual in Quantum
Mechanics

• Heisenberg the transition from the possible
  to the actual takes place during the act of
  observation.

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Tomonaga-Schwinger and Whitehead

• ?(t)??(s)
• tA continuous three-dimensional surface in the
  four-dimensional space-time continuum, with all
  spatial point lying at the same time t
• sA continuous three-dimensional surface in the
  four-dimensional space-time continuum, with no
  pair of points light-like
• separated.

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Compatible with relativity

• Predictions are independent of ordering of
  space-like separated events.
• Newtons receptacle space and time exists even
  if nothing is in it, versus
• Leibnizs relational view.