The Mystery of Matter

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The Mystery of Matter, Part I:

ON THE FRONTIERS OF MODERN SCIENCE

Chapter 1: David Bohm's Interpretation of Quantum Theory

The three chapters of Part I make considerable demands, for they are non-technical

summaries of complex scientific theories. I am not going to compound these difficulties by

trying to establish whether these theories are correct or not. It is enough for our purpose to try

to become attuned to the language that emerges in the midst of these scientific endeavors. It

will demonstrate to us, I believe, that scientists, while pursuing their own disciplines and

particularly while exploring their far frontiers begin to almost instinctively create a language

with all kinds of philosophical resonances and implications. It is this kind of language that

will prepare us for examining the possibilities of the existence of a philosophy of nature.

CHAPTER 1: DAVID BOHM'S INTERPRETATION

OF QUANTUM THEORY

It is important to see David Bohm's interpretation of quantum theory in the context of the

revolution in physics brought about by quantum mechanics at the beginning of this century.

The following outline supplies the bare bones of that context which can be filled in by many

fine accounts of quantum theory that have appeared in recent years. (1)

1900. In Berlin, Max Planck is struggling with the problem of black body radiation, which isthe radiation that a heated, thin-walled, hollow, metal cylinder gives off through a small hole

in it. Instead of this radiation being emitted in a smooth fashion, it is given off in lumps or

clumps. In a moment of desperation and inspiration, Planck derives a formula which involved

a very small constant he calls h that fits the data, but then he begins to struggle to understand

its physical implications.

1905. In Bern, Albert Einstein, an unknown patent examiner, submits three papers to

theAnnalen Der Physik: the special theory of relativity, a proof for the existence of atoms

based on Brownian motion, that is, the motion of small particles like grains of pollen by some

unseen force, and a third paper on the photoelectric effect in which electrons are given off by

a metal bombarded by light, but the emission depends not on the intensity of the light but itsfrequency. In this last paper Einstein extends Planck's ideas to electromagnetic radiation in

order to explain this effect, and concludes that light could be considered not only a wave, as

the long prevailing opinion had it, but is made up of distinct particles, or quanta, as well.

1911. Ernest Rutherford in England bombards a thin sheet of gold foil with particles and some

of them bounce back, indicating that the atoms of the foil have nucleii.

1913. Neils Bohr, a young Danish physicist, tries to understand how electrons can form a

stable structure with these nucleii and not spiral into them. He finds a solution based on

Einstein's and Planck's work on quanta in which electrons can only take up certain orbits or

states of energy.


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1923. Louis de Broglie, a young physics student in Paris, reasons that if light is made up of

particles, why couldn't electrons be made up of waves. This opens the door for considering

the wave properties of other particles, as well. His thesis advisor, Paul Langevin, sends his

work to Einstein who sees its importance.

1925. Werner Heisenberg, a young German physicist, is also apparently influenced byEinstein "who hovers over this entire subject like some sort of magisterial ghost." (2)

Heisenberg decides that Bohr's picture of the orbits of the atom which had never been

observed could be replaced by a purely mathematical structure. Max Born and Pascal Jordan

complete his work which Born had realized made use of a branch of mathematics called

matrix mechanics whose strange feature was that the result of two numbers multiplied by each

other differed depending on which number was put first. For example, the position of a

particle multiplied by its momentum would not be equal to its momentum multiplied by its

position, but would be proportional to the constant Planck had found. Paul Dirac, a young

Englishman, works out an equivalent mathematical theory. Another young physicist, a brash

and aggressive friend of Heisenberg, Wolfgang Pauli, applies matrix mechanics to the light

spectrum of hydrogen and comes up with the same answers that Neils Bohr had discovered.

1925-1927. Erwin Schrdinger hears of de Broglie's work through a paper of Einstein's and

works out a wave theory of the atom that arrives at the same results as the work of

Heisenberg, Born, Jordan and Dirac. These two different approaches were soon shown to be

mathematically equivalent, but they are driven by quite different attitudes to the nature of

physics, and these attitudes will play an important role in our story.

The mathematical formulation of quantum theory is falling into place, but it is being

increasingly subjected to two different philosophical interpretations. Schrdinger is initially

inclined to look at his wave as a matter wave, which he names after Einstein and de Broglie.

They, in turn, think of this wave as a pilot wave that guides the electron. At the same time

Born, Heisenberg and Bohr are veering away from trying to picture what the mathematics of

quantum theory physically represents. Born has created a probabilistic interpretation of

Schrdinger's waves in which the wave indicates the probability of a particle being in a

certain place. Heisenberg develops his famous uncertainty principle in which the uncertainty

of the position and the momentum of a particle is never zero, but always related to Planck's

constant. And Bohr comes up with a principle of complementarity in which the wave and

particle properties of the electron are both true, but mutually exclusive. But all these ideas,

which come together to create the Copenhagen interpretation and which is going to become

dominant among physicists, carry with them a considerable amount of philosophical baggage.

Heinz Pagel in his Cosmic Code portrays this dominant position with enthusiasm. Born's

probabilistic interpretation of Schrdinger's waves is taken up as an indication of the of the

quantum world, itself:

"This indeterminism was the first example of quantum weirdness. It implies the existence of

physical events that were forever unknowable and unpredictable. Not only must human

experimenters give up knowing when a particular atom is going to radiate or a particular

nucleus undergo radioactive decay, but these events are even unknown in the perfect mind of

God." (3)

Heisenberg's uncertainty principle arises not just from our inability to measure the propertiesof the electron more accurately, but from this indeterminism of the quantum world, itself.


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Quantum theory makes statistical predictions and rules out any subquantum or hidden

variable theory that would be deterministic. The immense explanatory power of quantum

theory comes "at the price of renouncing the determinism and objectivity of the natural

world." (4)

What we know is what our experiments tell us, which is an inseparable mixture of ourexperimental methods and what we are experimenting on. We do not know what the quantum

world is in itself. Bohr remarks: "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out

how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." (5) And Heisenberg

comments: "Progress in science has been bought at the expense of the possibility of making

the phenomena of nature immediately and directly comprehensible to our way of thought."

And again, "Science sacrifices more and more the possibility of making 'living' the

phenomena immediately perceptible by our senses, but only lays bare the mathematical,

formal nucleus of the process." (6)

But this loss of objective reality was highly uncongenial to Einstein, Schrdinger and de

Broglie. Einstein had a long running debate with Bohr and others about these matters, andresisted this interpretation to the end of his life. He wrote to Born about his probability wave,

"Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the

real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the 'old

one.' 1, at any rate, am convinced that He is not playing at dice." (7) De Broglie attempted a

causal interpretation of wave mechanics in 1927, but it aroused considerable criticism,

especially on the part of Pauli, and he dropped it.

The whole weirdness of quantum theory was summed up in the two slit experiment. In

classical physics this experiment was used to demonstrate the wave theory of light. Light is

directed at two narrow slits in a barrier with a screen placed behind it. If either of the slits is

covered, the light shines through the other one and a line is created on the screen. But if both

are open, then instead of two lines, there is a pattern of light and dark lines caused by the

interference of the two waves of light that have gone through the two slits.

But what will happen if the experiment is repeated with electrons? If electrons are particles, as

much evidence indicates, we should expect that the electrons shot through one slit would form

a line on the screen behind it, and if the electrons are shot through both slits, two lines would

be formed. In actual fact, what is found is an interference pattern like that created by the

waves of light. Even if the electrons are shot one at a time through the slits, the interference

pattern is formed. The crux of the mystery is in trying to explain how particles can form a

wave interference pattern. In the Copenhagen interpretation, the explanation goes like this: theelectron must go through either one slit or the other, but then we should not get a wave

interference pattern. Further, if the electron goes through one or the other slit, it should not

matter if the one It is not going through is closed. But in actual fact, if we close it, we don't

get the interference pattern. So instead, we should say that we cannot talk about which slit the

electron goes through until we measure it. If we measure which slit the electron goes through,

then the electron acts like a particle and gives a particle pattern. If we don't measure it, the

wave distribution will begin to appear. Somehow our act of measurement has forced the

probability wave to collapse and the electron to appear at a distinct place. The loss of this

probability wave, or wave packet, causes the loss of the interference pattern. According to this

Copenhagen interpretation, what is at stake is the nature of physical reality, or classical

objectivity.


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whether we measure it or not, whereas for Bohr, "A particle in reality hasneithera position

nor momentum. It has only thepotentialto manifest these complementary properties when

confronted by suitable experimental apparatus." (12)

This was Einstein's last paper on the subject, but he continued to talk about it until the end of

his life. In 1944 he writes to Max Born, "You believe in the God who plays dice, and I incomplete law and order in a world which objectively exists, and which 1, in a wildly

speculative way, am trying to capture... Even the great initial success of the quantum theory

does not make me believe in the fundamental dice-game, although I am well aware that our

younger colleagues interpret this as a consequence of senility. No doubt the day will come

when we will see whose instinctive attitude was the correct one." (13)

1950. David Bohm has been teaching quantum theory at Princeton and has just finished

writing a quantum textbook following the interpretation of Neils Bohr. It is well received, and

has two distinctive qualities: more words than formulas, and a mention of the Einstein,

Podolski and Rosen paper, which was not usual at the time. (14) But Bohm is dissatisfied with

what he has done, and what he perceives as the unresolved issues of quantum theorypreoccupy him. His life is about to change, both personally and scientifically. He has refused

to testify before the House committee on unAmerican activities about his student days in

Berkeley, and he is cited for contempt and suspended by the university, and discouraged from

visiting. Bohm is eventually cleared of charges, but his contract is not renewed by Princeton,

and he cannot find a job in the U.S. He goes to Brazil, then to Israel, and finally to England.

On the scientific front, he sends copies of his textbook to Bohr, who doesn't answer, to Pauli,

who is enthusiastic, and to Einstein, who is at Princeton and who calls and invites him to visit.

Einstein still feels that something is missing from quantum theory, and it should be possible to

go beyond the statistical approach and create some kind of deterministic theory in which there

is an objective reality independent of the observer. Bohm is strongly effected by his meeting

with Einstein, sets out to look for such a theory, finds the beginning of one, and publishes two

papers in 1952, von Neumann's proofs not withstanding.

Einstein, however, is not happy with his theory. It involves a new force that Bohm calls a

quantum potential, which has as one of its characteristics nonlocality, and instead of breaking

entirely new ground with some revolutionary formulation, it evokes ideas similar to those

proposed by de Broglie more than twenty years before. Pauli criticizes it and de Broglie

rallies to it, but in the world of physicists it only slowly makes headway. It goes against the

prevailing mentality which either cares little for the philosophical side of quantum theory, or

strongly embraces the conventional interpretation. Objections are raised that Bohm's theoryproduces no new empirical results, but Bohm replies that if de Broglie's ideas had prevailed in

1927, then the same objection could have been brought against anyone developing the

Copenhagen interpretation later. Bohm will continue to develop and expand his ideas until the

end of his life in 1992.

1964. If Bohm's 1952 papers did not make much of an impact, they did excite the interest of a

young Irish physicist, John Stewart Bell. He, too, had been uneasy about the conventional

interpretation, and now he saw Bohm doing what was not possible to do according to the

common wisdom of physicists supported by von Neumann's mathematical proofs: creating a

causal or hidden variable interpretation of quantum theory.


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nonlocality, wave-particle duality and "above all, there is the inability to give a clear notion of

what the reality of a quantum system could be." (18) Quantum theory "merely gives us

knowledge of how our instruments will function." But says "little or nothing about reality

itself." (19) Bohm and Hiley have created a theory that gives the same statistical results as the

conventional interpretation, but which is, as they say, an ontological interpretation, which is

"intuitively graspable" so that it is possible to see into the nature of the physical realityunderlying the mathematical formalism of quantum theory, and perhaps in this way to

advance quantum theory in new directions.

While much of the book is given over to demonstrating how this theory will yield all the

results of the earlier interpretation, what is important for us is the sense of the ontological

thirst that drives the whole process, and the picture that begins to emerge. Classical physics

had implied a certain unexamined realism that allowed the physicist to go about his or

her work. Particles and fields actually existed, could be known, and that knowledge didn't

change them. All this was called into question with the advent of quantum mechanics, as we

have seen. With the ascendancy of the Copenhagen interpretation, any quantum ontology like

that proposed by Bohm and Hiley was ruled out. What we were left with was a "quantumalgorithm which gives the probability of the possible results for each kind of experimental

arrangement. Clearly this means that the mathematics must not be regarded as reflecting an

independent quantum reality that is well defined, but rather that it constitutes in essence

only knowledge about the statistics of the quantum phenomena." (20) Our authors are not

satisfied with this kind of approach, for in it science doesn't deal with what is, but is limited to

what is observable. There is no way to get below the surface, or in this case, below the

indeterminacy that quantum phenomena present. But for Bohm just because quantum

phenomena are indeterministic doesn't mean that the quantum world must be, and thus the

possibility exists for a quantum ontology.

In such an ontology "the electron actually is a particle with a well defined position... which

varies continuously and is causally determined" and this "particle is never separate from a

new type of quantum field that fundamentally affects it." (21) This field has new features that

differentiates it from the fields familiar to classical physics. This "quantum potential is

independent of the strength (i.e., the intensity) of the quantum field but depends only on its

form." (22) They liken it to a radio wave that guides a ship that is on automatic pilot. The

energy to move the ship comes from its engine and not from the intensity of the radio wave,

but the form of the wave controls the direction of the ship. In a similar way, "we may

therefore propose that an electron too moves under its own energy, and that the form of the

quantum wave directs the energy of the electron... Moreover, since the effect of the wave does

not necessarily fall off with the distance, even remote features of the environment canprofoundly affect the movement." (23)

When Bohm and Hiley consider the two slit experiments in this new way, the much

proclaimed quantum weirdness dissolves. If one slit is open, the particle passes through that

slit as well as its quantum wave. If both slits are open, the particle passes through one or the

other, but its wave goes through both, giving rise eventually to the characteristic interference

pattern.

They compare this quantum field to what they call active information in which "a form having

very little energy enters Into and directs a much greater energy." The word information here is

taken in its root sense "to in-form, which is actively to put form into something or to imbuesomething with form." (24) A radio, for example, has unformed energy coming from its


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power source which is informed by the radio wave so that the information in the radio wave

"ispotentially active everywhere, but it is actually active, only where and when it can give

form to the electrical energy which, in this case, is in the radio." (25) When this kind of

conception is applied to the electron in the two slit experiment, the particle is seen as having

an ability to work, which is released by the active information of the quantum field, which

doesn't push or pull the particle, but directs and guides its energy, which suggests "that anelectron or any other elementary particle has a complex and subtle inner structure." (26)

This conception of a quantum field also points to the fact that the experiment has to be looked

at as a whole. The slits themselves effect the way the waves move the particles, and the whole

environment of the experiment effects how the final pattern appears on the screen. While at

first glance this seems similar to Bohr's point of view, it differs markedly because in this case

the wholeness involved "is open to our 'conceptual gaze' and can therefore be analyzed in

thought, even if it cannot be divided in actuality without radically changing its nature." (27)

Indeterminateness remains in our measurements, but that does not mean that quantum reality

itself is indeterminate.

Since the strength of the quantum field does not fall off with distance, distant features of the

environment can effect the particle. In a similar way, two particles can be coupled over long

distances, giving rise to nonlocality. This kind of wholeness goes beyond "the actual spacial

relationships" of the particles and transcends any conception of mechanism. The concept of

wholeness in mechanism is concerned with the overall arrangement of the parts. "In our

interpretation of the quantum theory, we see that the interaction of parts is determined by

something that cannot be described solely in terms of these parts and their preassigned

interrelationships... Something with this kind of dynamical significance that refers directly to

the whole system is thus playing a key role in the theory. We emphasize that this is the most

fundamentally new aspectof the quantum theory." (28)

Bohm and Hiley are making no claims to more precise quantum measurements because the

object to be measured and the measuring instrument are still conceived to be interacting and

are "'guided' by a common pool of information implying a quantum potential that connects

them in a nonlocal way." (29) There is no way to predict the behavior of the particle even

though this motion is determinate in itself, but their interpretation avoids the paradoxes that

abound in the normal interpretation of quantum theory. Bohm and Hiley bring out the

nonlocality of their quantum theory by considering the Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen thought

experiment. They imagine a molecule with a total spin of zero with each of its atoms having a

spin of one half. The molecule disintegrates and the atoms move far apart. The spins of the

atoms should be opposite to each other. If we measure the first atom we can deduce what thespin of the second atom is, and while our measurement disturbs the first atom, according to

Einstein's reasoning, it should not disturb the second atom, and so the reality of the spin of the

second atom must have existed before we measured the first atom. We saw that Einstein,

Podolsky and Rosen used this kind of reason to point to the incompleteness of the

conventional quantum theory because in this way all the elements of spin of the second atom

can be determined, which is something that the mathematical formalism of quantum theory

does not allow for.

But another possibility exists. The two atoms are bound together by some unknown field so

that the disturbance caused by the measurement of the first atom is communicated to the

second. Considering the early work of Bohm, John Bell had asked whether "nonlocality wasnecessary for all possible ontological explanations of quantum mechanics." (30) The result, as


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we have seen, was Bell's inequality, which experiments have shown to be violated, pointing to

the fact that any hidden variable must be nonlocal. In Bohm and Hiley's theory, the state of

the second atom is dependent on the measurement apparatus of the first atom, and this

interconnectedness is brought about by the quantum potential. The ordinary world of sense

experience is a world of relatively stable structures outside of each other which locally

interact, but the quantum world has "a radically different nature," for it is a world ofnonlocality and indivisible wholeness. "Thus there is a kind of objective wholeness,

reminiscent of the organic wholeness of a living being in which the very nature of each part

depends on the whole." (31) In many cases the effect of the quantum field can be neglected

"so that the classical world can be treated on its own as if it were independently existent. But

according to our interpretation it is actually an abstraction from the subtle quantum world

which is being taken as the ultimate ground of existence." (32)

This intuitive approach stands in strong contrast to one that starts with the mathematical

formulation of quantum theory and tries to derive a physical interpretation from it. This latter

approach is a reversal of the traditional role of mathematics in physics. But now very often the

mathematical equations are seen as providing the most immediate contact with nature. WhileBohm and Hiley agree that progress can be made from the mathematical side alone, they do

not want to "regard these physical concepts as merely imaginative displays" (33) of the

meaning of the equations.

This interpretation of quantum theory which can produce the results of the conventional

interpretation, and thus has the status of an independent physical theory, was connected, in

their minds, with more general considerations. Classical physics can be compared to an

optical lens which allows the points of an object to correspond to the points of its image. The

new unbroken wholeness that Bohm and Hiley champion is like a hologram in which each

part contains an image of the whole object. "So in some sense, the whole object is enfolded in

each part of the hologram rather than being in point-to-point correspondence." (34) The order

in the hologram is thus called implicate, while the image explicate.

To illustrate this difference they imagine a device with two concentric glass cylinders, one

inside the other. When the outer one is fixed, and the inner one revolves slowly, and the space

between them Is filled with some viscous fluid, then an insoluble ink drop placed in the fluid

will be drawn out into a long, thin thread until it is no longer visible. But if the direction is

reversed, the thread and then the dot will eventually reappear. If one drop is enfolded in this

way, and then another at the same point, and so on, and then the rotation of the cylinders is

reversed, what we will see will look like a single drop that is appearing and disappearing. "We

thus obtain an example of how form that persists in the explicate order can arise from thewhole background and be sustained dynamically by a movement of enfoldment and

unfoldment." (35) If a red drop and a blue drop are enfolded until they disappear and then

made to reappear, we have an example that illustrates the Einstein, Podolsky, Rosen

experiment, for the two explicit particles are intimately connected in the implicate order. The

world of classical physics and even the movement of the particle in the quantum world belong

to the explicate order, but there is also an implicate dimension to the quantum world in which

active information, represented by the quantum potential, plays a fundamental role.

We are going to return later to Bohm's scientific and philosophical thoughts, but hopefully we

have seen enough here to reach our first objective: important philosophical questions arise in

the midst of properly scientific work. In the next two chapters we will see the same process inbiology and psychology.


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Despite the merits of Driesch's position, Sheldrake was unhappy with the fact that the

entelechy was non-physical, and thus led to a dualistic conception of the organism, for how

could it act on physical and chemical processes if it, itself, was not physical? "The physical

world and the non-physical entelechy could never be explained or understood in terms of each

other." (3) Then Sheldrake turned to organicism, which tried to solve the problems of

morphological development by proposing that the wholeness exhibited came from embryonicor developmental or morphogenetic fields. But as potentially fertile as this idea was, it had

remained more of a description of morphogenesis than an explanation of it.

Sheldrake took the best in Driesch's vitalism and of these field theories, and created a new

hypothesis he called formative causation. Forms are all around us, and they cannot be

completely comprehended in purely quantitative terms. Biologists recognize forms like

flowers and butterflies directly, and classify them. "As forms they are simply themselves; they

cannot be reduced to anything else... If the forms of things are to be understood, they need not

be explained in terms of numbers, but in terms of more fundamentalforms." (4) These kinds

of reflections brought to mind the doctrine of Plato in which the things of daily experience

were reflections of the archetypal forms, but this didn't explain how these eternal forms wererelated to our earthly ones.

"Aristotle believed this problem could be overcome by regarding the forms of things as

immanent rather than transcendent: specific forms were not only inherent in objects, but

actually caused them to take up their characteristic forms." (5)

Sheldrake realized that physics dealt with energy as a principle of change, but not really with

form, and so he proposed a new type of causation. "The hypothesis of formative causation

proposes that morphogenetic fields play a causal role in the development and maintenance of

the forms of systems at all levels of complexity. In this context, the word 'form' is taken to

include not only the shape of the outer surface or boundary of a system, but also its internal

structure." (6) He recognized that the energetic cause in physics was like Aristotle's efficient

cause, while his formative causation resembled Aristotle's formal cause, and he uses the

analogy of building a house to illustrate this kind of causality. In order to build a house we

need the raw materials, the carpenters who do the actual building, but also a plan "which

determines the form of the house." And this plan, too, is a cause. (7)

Morphogenetic fields are not kinds of energy, but they play a causal role in determining the

forms of the systems with which they are associated." (8) They are " spatial structures

detectable only through their morphogenetic effects on material systems.. Thus there must be

one kind of morphogenetic field for protons; another for nitrogen atoms; another for watermolecules; another for sodium chloride crystals; another for the muscle cells of earthworms;

another for the kidneys of sheep; another for elephants; another for beech trees; and so on."

(9)

In morphogenesis a morphogenetic field surrounds an already organized system which

becomes the germ of the higher level system to come, and the field is probably associated

with this germ because of their similarities in form. This germ develops under the direction of

the field which is not yet filled out or completed, but contains the final goal in virtual form,

and directs the activities of the seed system so it realizes that goal. "(M)orphogenetic fields

differ radically from electromagnetic fields in that the latter depend on the actual state of the

system - on the distribution and movement of charged particles whereas morphogenetic fields


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In the past the laws of nature were presented as if they had an objective existence which

somehow transcended space and time, and were even imagined by scientists to have existed

before the creation of the universe. To this Sheldrake responds: "How could we possibly

know that the laws of nature existed before the universe came into being? We could not ever

hope to prove it by experiment. This is surely no more than a metaphysical assumption." (17)

"Eternal laws made sense when they were ideas within the mind of God, as they were for the

founding fathers of modern science. They still seem to make sense when they govern an

eternal universe from which God's mind had been dissolved. But do they any longer make

sense in the context of the Big Bang and an evolving universe?" (18) Sheldrake feels that

these eternal laws should be replaced by the notion of habits, but if we do so, we are still left

with the question of how these habits originated and sustained themselves. Somehow habits

arise within nature and influence subsequent events.

The idea of eternal laws is deeply rooted in Western tradition and goes back much further

than the rise of modern science. Here he again summarizes some of that philosophical

tradition in which the eternal forms of Plato were seen by Aristotle to be immanent in things.For Aristotle all living beings had souls that directed their development and activities toward

a goal. But Sheldrake feels that these souls, or natures, were also conceived by Aristotle as

fixed and changeless. Another problem with Aristotle's conception is that "the forms of all

kinds of organisms arise from non-material organizing principles inherent in the organisms

themselves." (19) This, as we remember, gave rise to the dualism that Sheldrake objected to in

Driesch's work. Aristotle's viewpoint was highly influential in later theories of vitalism and

organismic philosophies, and Sheldrake is making himself heir to this tradition, but trying to

put it in an evolutionary context.

There is something so fundamental about the idea of form in biology that it keeps on

reappearing. "All attempts to force the organizing principles of life into material objects such

as genes have failed: they keep bursting out again. The concept of purposive organizing

principles which are non-material in nature have been reinvented again and again." (20) Even

the idea of the universe as a machine implies a plan of organization. Whether we look to the

laws of nature or information theory, we return to the fundamental idea of form. "Information

is what informs; it plays an informativerole..." (21) "Is the information Platonic, somehow

transcending time and space? Or is it immanent within organisms?" (22) For Sheldrake this

kind of biological information, or morphogenetic fields are immanent in organisms and

"inherited in a non-material manner." (23) These morphogenetic fields are physically real

fields with their own spatio-temporal organization. Past fields influence present ones by "a

non-energetic transfer of Information." (24) Therefore, while physically real they are not likethe fields physics knows, and involve "a kind of action at a distance in both space and time"

which doesn't decline with distance in space and time. (25)

As a scientist the idea of testing this hypothesis by experiment was central to Sheldrake's

thinking, and he suggested various ingenious experiments that could be carried out. One that

was actually done was the result of a competition held to develop ways to test the idea of

formative causation. In the actual experiment non-Japanese speaking participants are asked to

chant three different Japanese rhymes. One was a traditional Japanese nursery rhyme, another

was a similarly structured Japanese rhyme created for comparison, and a third was a chant

that made no sense in Japanese. The theory, of course, was that the traditional rhyme,

established by millions of repetitions would have a stronger field which would influence thelearning of these non-Japanese speaking participants. In actual fact they did, Indeed, find


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learning the Japanese nursery rhyme easier than the other two, but as Sheldrake pointed out, it

is difficult to demonstrate that the original nursery rhyme was identical in learning difficulty

to the others.

Sheldrake felt that morphogenetic, or morphic fields, might also help us to understand the

mysterious nature of memory, and he goes into a wealth of detail of how these fields couldshed light on this whole realm. Not only will an organism tune into its own past by a kind of

self-resonance, it will also tune into the collective memory of past fields. Something like

telepathy could be explained as a tuning into the fields of other people. Even belief in

reincarnation could be related not to one person having lived a former life, but having tuned in

to the morphic field and the associated memory of the person who lived before.

Societies of animals and insects often act as if they have a morphic field common to them.

How else can we explain the elaborate behavior of a hive of bees, or the coordinated

movements of schools of fish and flocks of birds? Sheldrake recounts the work of the South

African naturalist, Eugene Marais, who drove a large steel plate through the center of a

termite mound in such a way that it was divided into two separate parts. Marais concluded:"The builders on one side of the breach know nothing of those on the other side. In spite of

this the termites build a similar arch or tower on each side of the plate. When eventually you

withdraw the plate, the two halves match perfectly after the dividing cut has been repaired.

We cannot escape the ultimate conclusion that somewhere there exists a preconceived plan

which the termites merely execute." (26)

Of particular interest to us is the link that Sheldrake forges with Jung's idea of the collective

unconscious. Jung found similar patterns in the myths and dreams of people from all over the

world and from different periods of time, and concluded to the existence of a collective

unconscious, "a kind of inherited collective memory." (27) "Even if it were to be assumed that

the myths of, say, a Yoruba tribe could somehow become coded in their genes and their

archetypal structure be inherited by subsequent members of the tribe, this would not explain

how a Swiss person could have a dream that seemed to arise from the same archetype. (28)

But the idea of morphic resonance makes it a lot easier, in Sheldrake's mind, to understand

how such a thing could take place. For Jung, the contents of the collective unconscious is

made up of archetypes which are innate psychic structures, and Sheldrake likens these

archetypes to morphic fields that contain "the average forms of previous experience." (29)

Sheldrake's remarks on Jung form a bridge to chapter three where we will look at Jung's

synchronicity, but he also has some interesting comments on the work of David Bohm. The

nature of life and consciousness have not yet been integrated into the theories of modernphysics. "There is a need for a new natural philosophy that goes further than physics alone

can go but remains in harmony with it." (30) And it is David Bohm's ideas on the implicate

order that Sheldrake sees as one of the best candidates for this natural philosophy.

"Bohm emphasizes the importance for physics, biology, and psychology of the notion of

formative causation as 'an ordered and structured inner movement that is essential to what

things are.' Any formative cause must evidently have an end or goal which is at least implicit -

what Aristotle called a final cause. Thus, for example, it is not possible to refer to the inner

movement from the acorn giving rise to the oak tree without simultaneously referring to the

oak tree that is going to result from this movement. Bohm points out that in the ancient view,

'the notion of formative cause was considered to be of essentially the same nature for the mindas it was for life and for the cosmos as a whole.'" (31)


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"Bohm's theory of the implicate order is more fundamental than the hypothesis of formative

causation, but the two approaches appear to be quite compatible." (32) Sheldrake and Bohm

discussed their relationship, and Bohm considered that the movement from the explicate back

to the implicate order and back again, if repeated enough, could give rise to a fixed

disposition. "The point is that, via this process, past forms would tend to be repeated or

replicated in the present, and that is very similar to what Sheldrake calls a morphogeneticfield and morphic resonance. Moreover, such a field would not be located anywhere. When it

projects back into the totality (the implicate order), since no space and time are relevant there,

all things of a similar nature might get connected together or resonate in totality." (33)

We certainly have not exhausted the richness of Sheldrake's thought, but I believe that once

again we have seen how the notion of formal cause appears in the midst of deep scientific

reflection and points to the need for a dialogue between science and a philosophy of nature.

We will continue to make this point in the chapter that follows.

The Mystery of Matter

Chapter 3: C.G. Jung's Synchronicity

C.G. Jung (1875-1961), the noted Swiss psychotherapist, did not write at length about

synchronicity until 1952 when he published an essay called, "Synchronicity, An Acausal

Connecting Principle" which appeared together with an essay on archetypes in Kepler by

Wolfgang Pauli whom we have already met in connection with quantum theory. Jung had

been long aware of events in his own life and those of his patients that seem to defy the

normal laws of causality. For example, one of his patients whose treatment had resisted

progress because of her excessively rationalistic cast of mind, had a dream in which she

received a golden scarab, an insect that plays an important role in Egyptian mythology. Later,

when she was telling Jung the dream, he heard a gentle tapping at the window, and when he

opened it, in flew a scarabaeid type beetle which was Switzerland's equivalent to the goldenscarab, and he caught it in his hand and handed it to her and said, "Here is your scarab." This

uncanny event had the effect of breaking through the rationalistic shell that she had built

around herself.

In another case, a woman whose husband Jung was treating told him that when both her

mother and grandmother had died birds had come and sat outside the house. Her husband

developed some physical symptoms, and Jung sent him to a heart specialist who could find

nothing wrong with him. After he left the doctor's office he collapsed dying in the street, and

was carried home. His wife was already upset, for a large flock of birds had landed about the

house after he had gone off to see the doctor.

These kind of events, that could be multiplied over and over again, led Jung to what he called

synchronicity, or meaningful coincidence. There seemed no way to explain them through the

normal action of cause and effect, and yet it seemed wrong to write them off as pure chance.

Therefore Jung, with reluctance because of the difficulty of the matter, set out to try to make

some sense of what could be going on. He reasoned that if these events were not causally

connected, perhaps they were the manifestations of some acausal connecting principle. He

was encouraged along these lines because it seemed that modern physics, in developing

quantum theory, had broken with causality, and "shattered the absolute validity of natural law

and made it relative.. The philosophical principle that underlies our conception of natural law

is causality. But if the connection between cause and effect turns out to be only statistically

valid and only relatively true, then the causal principle is only of relative use for explainingnatural processes and therefore presupposes the existence of one or more other factors which


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would be necessary for an explanation. This is as much as to say that the connection of events

may in certain circumstances be other than causal, and requires another principle of

explanation." (1)

Jung's association with Pauli would have only strengthened this impression of the meaning of

quantum theory because Pauli was a firm believer in the conventional Copenhageninterpretation. Therefore since causal connections in these meaningful coincidences seem

inconceivable, Jung wants to move in the direction of an acausal principle, a kind of

"meaningful cross-connection" between causal chains of events. (2)

He reviews the history of similar ideas from Albertus Magnus in the Middle Ages to

Schopenhauer, to Paul Kammerer and J.P. Rhine in recent times. Rhine's work, statistically

demonstrating extra-sensory perception by guessing cards over various distances in space and

time, suggested to Jung that "the fact that distance has no effect in principle shows that the

thing in question cannot be a phenomenon of force or energy... We have no alternative but to

assume that distance is psychically variable, and may in certain circumstances be reduced to

vanishing point by a psychic condition." (3) He concludes, "We must give up at the outset allexplanations in terms of energy, which amounts to saying that events of this kind cannot be

considered from the point of view of causality, for causality presupposes the existence of

space and time in so far as all observations are ultimately based on bodies in motion." (4)

Therefore it would be best to look for an explanation by starting with "a criticism of our

concepts of space and time on the one hand, and with the unconscious on the other." (5)

For Jung space and time are only apparently the properties of bodies in motion, and are

essentially psychic in origin, and therefore it is not unthinkable that the deep contents of the

collective unconscious, that is, the archetypes and the powerful energies connected with them,

could effect them.

Jung had been puzzling over the question of synchronicity for a long time, and he cites one ofhis earlier conclusions: "'Causality is only one principle and psychology essentially cannot be

exhausted by causal methods only, because the mind (=psyche) lives by aims as well."' He

goes on to comment on this passage: "Psychic finality rests on a 'pre-existent' meaning which

becomes problematical only when it is an unconscious arrangement. In that case we have to

suppose a 'knowledge' prior to all consciousness. Hans Driesch comes to the same conclusion

(Die Seele als elementarer Naturfaktor)." (6)

Somehow there must be something in the unconscious like an "a priori knowledge." (7) In

some way the unconscious must become activated by intent or fear or hope, or some other

strong emotion, and this activation is accompanied by a lowering of the level of consciousness

and leads to the relativization of space and time. The resulting coincidence of inner subjectivestate and outer object is brought about not by causality, but by meaning or even

"transcendental meaning."

Jung finds historical parallels to this kind of meaning in the Chinese idea of Tao which, too,

can be understood as meaning. The Taoist "Nothing" "is evidently 'meaning' or 'purpose,' and

it is only called Nothing because It does not appear in the world of the senses, but is only its

organizer." (8) Jung also cites Agrippa von Nettesheim's inborn knowledge in living

organisms which he sees taken up again by Driesch. (9) And he comments: "Whether we like

it or not, we find ourselves in this embarrassing position as soon as we begin seriously to

reflect on the teleological processes in biology or to investigate the compensatory function of

the unconscious, not to speak of trying to explain the phenomenon of synchronicity. Finalcauses, twist them how we will,postulate a foreknowledge of some kind. It is certainly not a


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knowledge that could be connected with the ego, and hence not a conscious knowledge as we

know it, but rather a self-subsistent 'unconscious' knowledge which I would prefer to call

'absolute knowledge."' (10) For Johannes Kepler the very fact that flowers have a definite

color and number of petals points to an "instinctus divinus, rationis particeps." (11)

In short, in earlier ages there had always been a principle parallel to causality, but the rise ofmodern science had pushed it out of consciousness. Synchronicity points to "self-subsistent

meaning" outside the realm of the ego, and is akin to Plato's forms, or formal factors in

nature. Synchronicity "ascribes to the moving body a certain psychoid property which, like

space, time, and causality, forms a criterion of its behavior." (12) Such a view of

synchronicity could help clarify the relationship between body and soul with its "causeless

order" or "meaningful orderedness."

Jung goes on to reflect on a near death experience, and wonders if events of this kind indicate

"whether there is some other nervous substrate in us, apart from the cerebrum, that can think

and perceive, or whether the psychic processes that go on in us during loss of consciousness

are synchronistic phenomena, i.e., events which have no causal connection with organicprocesses." (13) Such a substrate might be related to the sympathetic nervous system. Bees,

for example, have a highly developed dance language which is probably unconscious and

connected with the sympathetic system, and indicates the "existence of transcerebral thought

and perception." (14)

If this begins to remind us of Sheldrake's formative causation, the impression is only

strengthened when Jung writes, "On the organic level it might be possible to regard biological

morphogenesis in the light of the synchronistic factor." (15) And then he goes on to bring

forward the case of radioactive decay, which has suggested to certain physicists that the

ultimate laws of nature are not even causal. Jung therefore concludes that synchronicity,

understood as a psychoid factor, should be added to the classical triad of space, time andcausality. It is the manifestation of a deeper and wider principle of "acausal orderedness"

which embraces "a priori factors such as the properties of natural numbers, the discontinuity

of modern physics, etc." (16) It is in synchronicity that this more general acausal orderedness,

becomes observed.

Jung saw that numbers were not just artifacts of the conscious mind, but had a deeper

significance, a mysterious numinous aspect, which is why they appeared so frequently in

divinization procedures like that of the I Ching, which he felt was based on ideas similar to

that of synchronicity. Number was, therefore, connected to synchronicity. It brought order and

had an archetypal foundation, and so Jung defined it as an "archetype of order." (17) Number

appeared, as well, in the symbols of the self that Jung called mandalas that often have a four-

fold structure, or some multiple of four. Number seems to be used by the unconscious to

create order.

Near the end of his life Jung realized there was more here to explore than he would ever have

the opportunity to do himself, so he gave the task to one of his close colleagues, Marie-Louise

von Franz, and she developed these ideas inNumber and Time, and explored the notion of

synchronicity in a series of essays that were eventually collected under the title ofPsyche and

Matter.

The psyche cannot be reduced to the ego. It embraces a much wider reality that Jung called

the collective unconscious, and the lowest level of that unconscious is nature. Therefore,

when the deep levels of the unconscious become activated, it is not surprising thatsynchronistic events would occur. These events, in turn, could be looked upon as empirical


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saying that there are two very different ways in which to look at nature, and these two ways, if

a dialogue could be established between them, could find very interesting things to say to

each other. But the obstacles to such a dialogue are enormous. A brief glance at the history of

the philosophy of nature will show us why.

We have already seen a number of references to Aristotle (384-322 B.C.), and the history of aThomist philosophy of nature begins with him. Aristotle was both a great scientist and a

wonderful philosopher, and Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) derived much of his philosophy of

nature and his understanding of science from him. Thomas, himself, certainly had no where

near the scientific interest of Aristotle, or even the omnivorous curiosity in the field of science

of his own teacher, Albert the Great. He was primarily a theologian and philosopher. But the

critical point is this: neither Aristotle nor Thomas distinguished their science from their

philosophy of it nature. How could they? Science as we know it didnt begin to exist until the

16th century. Even then it was going to be a long and difficult process for the sciences to

discover their own distinctive ways of proceeding, and even the first modern scientists

thought of themselves as philosophers of nature.

So when we look at the philosophy of nature to be found in St. Thomas, we are going to see it

mixed with various bits and pieces of Aristotelian science and Greek science, in general. The

long Aristotelian tradition that stretches from Aristotle to the 16th century is, therefore, an

undifferentiated mixture of these two elements, and what is more, it is easy to see how in it

blind repetition of supposed scientific findings could take the place of the actual examination

of facts. Even on the philosophical side of things, rote often took the place of striving for

insight. Since science and the philosophy of nature were so closely bound up with each other

for so long, the birth of modern science took on some of the characteristics of the breakup of a

long marriage. The modern sciences began to discover their distinctive methods, revel in this

newfound freedom and make tremendous progress. They had little patience with a

philosophical tradition that would keep them chained to the handed down fragments of Greekscience. They needed to go their own way, but having broken with the science of the past,

they at the same time broke with the philosophy it was mixed with. While it was true that the

scientists did not need a philosophy of nature in order to do science, it was also true that they

presupposed certain philosophical principles like the existence of the world around them, and

our ability to know it, and that they were led by their scientific work to pose certain

philosophical questions. In short, there is an incurable philosophical bent in scientists, not

precisely as scientists, but as men and women searching for a wider context in which to place

their scientific findings. The history of science then becomes in part the story of the many

philosophical partners that science has taken on and discarded over the last 400 years. Even

when science did not pick out an already existing philosophy, it often blithely created one out

of whole cloth in the image and likeness of science. Science then became the one true way toknow things, and philosophy was discredited altogether. We don't need to pursue this chapter

in the history of thought in any detail. Jacques Maritain, whom we will meet in a few

moments, has carefully examined its philosophical implications, and more recently, Stanley

Jaki, in The Relevance of Physics and many essays, with the keen eye of a historian of

science, has clearly pointed out the philosophical substructures, both overt and hidden, in the

work of many scientists.

What we do need to do is look at what happened to the old philosophy of nature. Angry and

uncomprehending of its rejection by science, it withdrew from it. It reflected on its

metaphysical foundations, and the principles it had derived from the examination of nature,

but it failed to see that it needed a living and vital dialogue with science in order to bestimulated to reflect on the findings of science in its own way, and thus stay alive. The


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philosophy of nature lived on as a seldom visited province in the world of Thomist

philosophy, and its dialect became more and more archaic and less understandable to the

outside world. If scientists had wanted to dialogue with it, they could have hardly found it or

understood it. This kind of a Thomist philosophy of nature made its way down to the end of

the 19th century when a far-reaching renewal of Thomist philosophy began.

By the eve of World War II it had made a brilliant recovery of the revolutionary metaphysics

of St. Thomas centered on the act of existence, and it had made substantial advances in other

areas, as well, but the Thomist philosophy of nature was not one of them. It existed as an

artificial construct composed of the opinions of Aristotle and Thomas that were extracted

from their work and put in logical form in order to be better packaged in college textbooks

and seminary manuals. But the vital ingredient of living contact with the sciences was still

missing. To be sure, it still contained philosophical gems, but they were lost in a barren plain

of abstraction. This kind of philosophy of nature was taught in Catholic colleges and

seminaries right down to the 1960's, and perhaps there are still places where it is being taught

today, but on the whole it produced a profound stupor in both its students and professors.

Thomism as a whole also suffered from bad pedagogy and was too often imposed from

without instead of given the chance to capture the minds and hearts of its students from

within. With the advent of the Second Vatican Council and the freedom it brought in its wake,

this kind of Thomism quickly fell apart, and if anything, a Thomist philosophy of nature

disintegrated even more. It could almost be said that even the Thomists, themselves, could

hardly believe in it.

All this should not be taken as a demonstration of deep-seated flaws in the principles of this

philosophy of nature. I think the situation is much like a banked fire where the coals are still

alive under the ashes, or a tree in winter that shows no apparent life, but could blossom

magnificently when the spring returns, and this sad history does, as I said, have a promisingend. Although the 20th century renewal of Thomism in general did not extend to the

philosophy of nature, there was a notable exception. Jacques Maritain, one of the most

dynamic and creative Thomists of this century or any other, made a concerted effort to

reestablish the foundations for such a philosophy.

Maritain (1882-1973) grew up in Paris in a liberal Protestant setting, and studied both science

and philosophy at the Sorbonne, but neither one of them satisfied his deeper aspirations. He

went on to discover Henri Bergson, and then, together with his wife Raissa, converted to

Catholicism. From that point on they faced a difficult but exhilarating challenge. How could

science, philosophy and faith be reconciled? There was to be no ready-made answer to this

question, but rather, a long journey of discovery. Unsure of what road to follow, Maritain

went off to Heidelberg in 1906 to study new developments in biology with the help of Hans

Driesch. It was in that setting that he came to the reluctant conclusion that Bergsonian

philosophy was not compatible with the faith he had embraced. He sensed in an instinctive

way the kind of philosophy he was looking for, and a bit later, found it in St. Thomas. But the

Thomism that Maritain discovered had little to do with the dry scholastic manuals, or even the

external structure of medieval thought. Maritain made living contact with the fundamental

intuitions that animated the philosophy of St. Thomas, and so he could apply these principles

to contemporary situations, as he did with good effect in fields as diverse as art, poetry and

politics.

But he never forgot his dream to relate science to philosophy and to faith, and it was one of

his major achievements to develop an epistemological framework, a veritable noetic typology

in his masterpiece, The Degrees of Knowledge, that maps out the relationship between the


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sciences of nature, the philosophy of nature, metaphysics, faith, theology and mysticism. Late

in his life he called the development of a Thomist philosophy of nature a vanished dream of

his youth, but by that he didn't mean that he had given it up as a lost cause, or had had a

change of heart about the foundations for such a philosophy of nature that he had laid down,

but rather, that time and circumstances had not allowed him to do more in the field of the

actual dialogue between such a philosophy of nature, and the contemporary sciences. He did,in fact, make some Interesting applications, which we will look at later, but he saw that so

much remained to be done.

Let's try to get some idea of the map of the mind that he created in regard to the sciences and

the philosophy of nature. Following Aristotle and St. Thomas, he accepted that when the mind

grappled with reality, it discovered three distinct territories: physical reality, or the world of

nature, the world of mathematics, and the realm of metaphysics. We have seen that for the

ancients, and even for the first scientists, there was not yet any distinction between science

and the philosophy of nature, and one of the main tasks that Maritain set for himself was to

make that distinction clear, to clarify the epistemological types of the individual sciences, and

contrast them with that of the philosophy of nature. Further, he wanted to carry out thisprocess by making contact with the best of the Thomism of the past, and bringing its

fundamental principles to bear on this new question.

The sciences have their distinctive ways of trying to Understand physical reality, and this was

at the root of their need to break with the old philosophy of nature. But this does not mean -

and this is a point that is much more difficult for our modern age to accept - that there cannot

be a distinctively philosophical way of looking at this same physical reality. Indeed, our

whole first part was devoted to showing that the more scientists pursue the deep issues of their

science, the more apt they are to begin to pose questions that point to a need for a philosophy

of nature. Naturally, given the history of a Thomist philosophy of nature that we have seen, it

is not at all surprising that they did not look in that direction, nor is it surprising that scientiststoday would, for the most part, have great difficulty believing that there even could be a

philosophy of nature. But let's go a little further and see how Maritain describes the

differences between the sciences of nature and a philosophy of nature.

Both the sciences and the philosophy of nature deal with the same subject matter, which is the

world of nature or sensible beings. But they have very distinctive ways of looking at it. The

scientists look at it by way of measurement and observation, while the philosophers of nature

look at it from the perspective of its ontological content, the essences of things, or their basic

constitutive principles. The scientists focus on "sensible being, but first and foremost, as

observable or measurable." (1) The philosophers of nature grasp the same sensible being, but

they see this sensible being "first and foremost as intelligible." (2) We will return to thesedistinctions later and see the delicate instruments that Maritain has fashioned that can be

applied with good effect to the dialogue between the sciences and the philosophy of nature.

Our task now is to accustom our ears to the texture and feel of the language to be found in St.

Thomas, both in his philosophy of nature and the metaphysical vision that underlies it. The

following quotes from St. Thomas will help us make a beginning.

Nothing but the divine goodness moves God to produce things. (3)

God does not preserve things in existence except by continually pouring out existence in

them. (4)


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considered in its first state, is in potency to its ideas; since these are infinite, they have a

certain potential infinity. Hence the intellect is the form of forms, because it has a form that is

not determined to one thing alone, as is the case with a stone, but has a capacity for all forms.

(14)

The entire universe is constituted by all creatures, as a whole consists of its parts. In the partsof the universe every creature exists for its own proper act and perfection, and the less noble

for the nobler... each and every creature exists for the perfection of the entire universe.

Furthermore, the entire universe, with all its parts, is ordained toward God as its end inasmuch

as it imitates, as it were, and shows forth the divine goodness, to the glory of God.. The divine

goodness is the end of all corporeal things. (15)

The human body is something supreme in the genus of bodies and is harmoniously tempered.

It is in contact with the lowest of the higher genus, namely, the human soul, which holds the

lowest rank in the genus of intellectual substances, as can be seen from its mode of

understanding. Thus one can say that the intellectual soul is on the horizon and on the

confines of things corporeal and incorporeal. (16)That which can exist, but does not, is said to be in potentiality. That which now exists is said

to be in actuality.. The name "matte?' can be given both to what is in potentiality to substantial

existence and to accidental existence; that which is potential to substantial esse is said to be

prime matter... Matter, however, is said to have existence because esse comes to it, since its

own esse is incomplete (or, rather, it has no esse, as the commentator says in On the Soul II).

Thus, understood absolutely, the form gives existence to matter... Because form brings

existence into actuality, we state that form is act... generation does not come from any

nonentity whatsoever, but from nonentity that is an entity in potentiality, as a statue comes

from bronze, which is a statue in potentiality and not in actuality. But three things are required

for any generation: existence in potentiality, which is matter; nonexistence in actuality, whichis privation; and that by which a thing is made to be in actuality, which is form. For example,

a statue made out of bronze, which in potentiality to the form of statue, is matter; its shapeless

or unformed state isprivation; and the shape that allows it to be called a statue is its form. But

this is not a substantial form, because before the shape is imposed, the bronze already has

existence in actuality, and this existence does not depend upon the shape. Rather, this is an

accidental form, for all artificial forms are accidental... Thus the matter destined for a statue is

itself composed of matter and form. Therefore, since bronze possesses a form, it is not called

prime matter. Matter, however, without any form or privation but subject to form and

privation is called prime matter because there is no matter prior to it... It is evident from all we

have said that there are three principles of nature: matter, form, and privation. But generation

requires more than these. Whatever exists potentially cannot make itself exist actually. Thebronze potentially a statue cannot cause itself to be a statue; an agent is needed to bring the

form of the statue from potentiality to actuality. Nor can form extract itself from potentiality

to actuality. I am referring to the form of the reality generated that we call the aim of

generation. In other words, form exists only when the reality is achieved; but whatever does

the achieving is present within the very becoming or while the reality is being achieved. In

addition to matter and form, therefore, there must be a principle that acts, and this is called the

efficient or the moving or the agent cause, or that which is the principle of motion. And since,

as Aristotle comments inMetaphysics II(2; 994 b 15), nothing acts without some aim, there

has to be a fourth thing, namely, the aim of the agent; and this is called the end. (17)

It is clear that we have quite a gap to bridge from St. Thomas to contemporary science. Eventhe final selection which comes from St. Thomas'Principles of Nature, leaves us wondering


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what relevance such a view could have. In Part III we are going to once again look at quantum

theory, formative causation and synchronicity, but this time from the perspective of a Thomist

philosophy of nature brought up to date with the help of Maritain. But before we undertake

that difficult work, a little recreation Is in order in the form of a tongue-in-cheek Thomistic

view of the creation of the universe, which might actually help us to penetrate a little more

into the Thomistic vision of things.


Chapter 5: A Thomist Story of Creation

Before there was even a beginning there was God. And God was peaceful and contented, as is

only fitting when you possess the fullness of being which is identical with the fullness of

knowledge, love and consciousness. There was nothing to want and no way to be lonely.

One day - in those days before there were any - God had a brilliant idea. God said, "I am

enjoying existing so much, what would it be like if someone else existed and enjoyed their

own existence and mine?" So God thought about this strange idea for a while, and being very

reasonable, decided that the more the person created was like God, that is, the more being ithad, the more it would enjoy itself and God, too.

So God created the first creature in the form of a spiritual being who could know and love,

and was the highest spiritual being that it was possible to create. Now how did God do this?

Since there was nothing outside of God, the Thomists say that God created out of nothing, but

this nothing was not like some preexisting material. It was simply nothing. (Nor was it a

nothing like the nothing of the mathematician, or the empty space, or vacuum, of the

physicist.) And since there was nothing outside of God, the model God used was God's own

self. God couldn't create something equal to God, but God chose some aspect of God's own

being, and modeled the creation of this first creature after that. So God created the first and

highest creature, according to God's own image, and God enjoyed the whole process, andpresumably, so did the creature.

But then God saw that the job was over. There could only be one, first and highest creature. It

filled up the idea that God had of its being. Let's say that it filled up the first rung of the ladder

of creation completely. There could only be one purely spiritual creature of a kind, for if there

were another identical one, what would separate them? (This is what Thomas Aquinas

thought, and he was not called the Angelic Doctor for nothing. The study of angels for a

metaphysician like St. Thomas is something like the study of pure mathematics. In fact, each

angel could be compared to a different whole number, which represented its distinctively

different nature.)

God so enjoyed this first act of creation that God decided to create someone else. And so God

did, and filled the second rung of the ladder of creation. Once God got into it, God kept on

going. Why not? It didn't cost any more. So God, after the model of God's own being, which

was the fullness of existence itself, created one spiritual creature after the other, filling up the

myriad of rungs of the ladder of creation. Finally one day God had created all the spiritual

beings, at least, all God wanted to. God had mirrored the major aspects of God's being and

had represented, as it were, all the major whole numbers, and had no desire to go into

fractions. God had filled the ladder of creation, putting a creature on every rung. It had been

fun, and it was fun to have these creatures about. But now it looked like the fun of creation

was over. The whole point of creating something was so that it could enjoy existing, and

enjoy the fact that God existed, and this demanded self-awareness and the ability to love. Butnow God saw that all the major kinds of spiritual beings had been made.


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But one day God was admiring the beautiful ladder of spiritual beings, with each of the beings

glowing on its own rung, and God happened to notice that the bottom side of the bottom rung

of the ladder had nothing on it. It was, of course, of no possible use. Or was it? This was the

most interesting problem that God had faced in quite some time. Obviously it was not

possible to make another purely spiritual being, for all the rungs of the ladder were filled.

Then God had a daring insight. What about making a creature that was a potentially spiritualbeing. It would have the capacity to become actively spiritual. But how would such a spiritual

being in potency ever get activated? It couldn't pull itself up by its own bootstraps. It would

have to get the assistance of something below it. But there was nothing below.

In this way God came face to face with a very strange possibility. Spiritual beings, even this

hypothetical spiritual being in potency had a transparency to themselves. They grasped

themselves with a tenacious grip on their own natures in such a way that they would never let

go, and never cease to exist. But what if there were a creature that wasn't transparent to itself,

and wasn't in potency to being a spiritual being, but was in potency to its own nature and

existence? It would simply lack the ontological density to be once and for all what it was.

Naturally, God had never thought about such things before. There had been no reason to. Butnow they exercised a certain fascination. If such a non-spiritual creature would not even be

potentially spiritual, but would be in potency to its own nature and existence, then this meant

it could cease to be what it was and become something else! Furthermore, if it didn't exhaust

its whole nature, why couldn't there be more than one thing of the same kind! Perhaps there

could even be more than one spiritual being in potency. This was truly bizarre, but exciting.

But more problems immediately came up. If this spiritual being in potency needed to be

activated by something just below it, what would activate the thing that activated it? It, too,

would have to be activated by something just below it, and on and on. God saw that in order

to make these spiritual beings in potency, it would be necessary to make the simplest and

most elemental things possible, and let them interact and build each other up into morecomplex and more conscious systems until they had all evolved to the degree necessary that

this spiritual being in potency could then take its place.

This was certainly a very bold experiment, but one day, just before the first day, God decided

to try it. The most elemental and simple being came sizzling out of real nothingness, and

immediately began to interact and organize, and move toward their distant goal where they

would some day help the spiritual beings in potency realize their natures.

But as soon as creation began, God saw that it was stranger than God had imagined. So used

to infolded being was God that it was mind-boggling to see that these new beings, because of

their lesser ontological density, outfolded instead. They were not present to themselves and

where they acted, like spiritual beings, but literally folded out into part outside of part, and the

relationships between the outfolding of one being to the outfolding of another gave rise to

space, and the interaction of these beings gave rise to motion and time.

Thus came about these strange beings with a fundamental capacity towards their own natures

and existence, which capacity the Thomists call matter, and these material beings were all part

of one system, as the very word universe implies, and all work together to finally produce the

complex and increasingly conscious material creation that could help bring forth the spiritual

beings in potency, and help activate them to realize their spiritual natures so that they become

the awareness of the universe, that we are.


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Part III:

THE DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE SCIENCES

AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

Chapter 6: Quantum Theory and the Philosophy of Nature

We need to look again at Bohm's causal interpretation of quantum theory, Sheldrake's

formative causation and Jung's synchronicity, but this time beginning the difficult process of

trying to bring them into dialogue with a Thomist philosophy of nature.

CHAPTER 6:

QUANTUM THEORY AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE

There are three main questions around which a dialogue between quantum theory and a

Thomist philosophy of nature could coalesce: the epistemological type of modern physics, the

principle of causality, and wholeness and nonlocality.

The Epistemological Type of Modern Physics

A Thomist philosopher of nature like Maritain would certainly have been pleased at the soundphilosophical instincts that moved Bohm to avoid philosophical indeterminism as a direct

consequence of quantum theory, and embrace a realism that believed in the existence of the

objective world and our ability to know it. But our philosopher of nature would be somewhat

dismayed to see how marginalized Bohm became because he acted on those instincts in

regard to quantum theory. A belief in the objectivity of the world and our ability to know it, as

well as causality, are all implicit in the work of the natural sciences. Without them science

would not be possible. Why, then, would Bohm be isolated by his attachment to them?

Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that Bohm had a more developed philosophical sense than

is common among physicists. From his early years he felt an intense desire not only to know

the details about things, but he was fascinated with the question of wholeness. "I learned laterthat many of my fundamental interests were what other people called philosophical and that

scientists tended to look down on philosophy as not being very serious. This created a

problem for me, as I was never able to see any inherent separation between science and

philosophy. Indeed in earlier times, science was called natural philosophy and this

corresponded perfectly with the way I saw the whole field." (1)

When he worked later on electron plasma in which electrons seemed to exhibit a collective

behavior, it was this wholeness with its similarity to living beings and society that interested

him more than the formulas he developed. When he saw these formulas taken up and

developed in an abstract way and the ideas behind them ignored, he lost interest in the field.

He was to approach quantum theory in the same way. Even his textbook on quantum theory

that followed Bohr showed a different attitude to doing physics. N never could think in terms


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of formalism. When I wrote my book on the quantum theory, I always worked out the results

intuitively. I knew you had to put in a certain number of formulae between the beginning and

the end, so I put them in. Though the results were always right, the formulae that I had put in

between them were often wrong. I went over the book two times myself. A student went over

it once, and still quite a few errors remained!" (2)

He realized that science among the Greeks had been largely speculative and had needed to be

corrected by an emphasis on experimentation, but he felt that observations and their

mathematical coordination now held sway to such a degree that philosophical insight that

could give rise to experimentation was looked down upon. Physicists could give rein to their

mathematical imagination, but not their philosophical one. (3)

Bohm, in one of the passages we have just seen, seems to identify physics with natural

philosophy. This is an area to which Maritain devoted a great deal of energy, and he clarified

the relationship between these two disciplines. We live in a world of concrete existing things,

of trees and birds and stars, fire and ocean, and it is a world of constant change and

interaction. Both the physicist and the philosopher of nature explore that world, the world ofthe physically or sensibly real, but each in a distinctive way. It is an understanding of the

distinctiveness of these ways that has the power to resolve the conflict that has raged between

the sciences and philosophy and religion for the last 300 years, and Maritain excelled at that

kind of epistemological analysis.

He starts his analysis by summarizing the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition of the three degrees

of abstraction, or put in more modern terms, the three fundamental ways in which the mind

can carve out intelligible cross-sections in actually existing things. Let's imagine I have a steel

ball bearing in my hand. If I were a mathematician I could abstract from the fact of its matter

and focus on its spherical shape and its properties even though that sphere could only actually

be realized in some concrete existing thing. If I were a metaphysician, I might abstract from

matter completely and simply consider the primordial fact that this certain kind of thing

exists. But both the philosopher of nature and the physicist would look at the ball bearing as

part of the world of the sensible real, as an object that falls under our senses and is subject to

motion and change. They wouldn't look at it as this particular concretely existing steel ball

bearing. They would abstract from its individual matter. But each of them would cut a

different intelligible cross section. The physicist looks at the world of the sensible real

inasmuch as it is measurable. The philosopher of nature looks at that same world, but tries to

fathom its deepest nature. If the physicist would drop the ball bearing out the window, he or

she would then be caught up in discovering the law of the motion of falling bodies. The

philosopher of nature, in contrast, would be trying to discover the nature of change in terms ofpotency and act.

In Aristotle the philosophy of nature embraced what we call today both natural philosophy

and physics. It tried to be at once an examination of the basic principles of nature and of

phenomena, and in this it failed. The newly emergent sciences of nature had to discover their

own distinctive ways of proceeding. They broke with the old philosophy of nature and allied

themselves to mathematics. In this way physics became a genuine science of phenomena, but

it also believed that it had no longer any need of a philosophy of nature, or even it, itself, was

a philosophy of nature.

Let's look at this issue in a more nuanced and detailed way by examining Maritain'smasterpiece, The Degrees of Knowledge. The alliance of physics with mathematics instead of


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philosophy Maritain ranks as one of the great discoveries of modern times. Physics is

"materially physical and formally mathematical." (4) Physics both starts and ends in the

physically real, but submits the measurements it has drawn from the physical world to the rule

of mathematics.

But if natural philosophy had to learn that its domain did not extend to the phenomenon ofnature, physics has its own difficult lesson to learn. The method it uses to capture phenomena

does not touch the inner nature of things. "It grasps the essence in a substitute which is

scientific law..." (5) It is certainly founded on the stable ontological core of things, but it

grasps it blindly in a web of measurements submitted to the formal rule of mathematics. It is a

true and valuable knowledge of the physically real, for both its measurements and the

mathematics it uses are derived from that real world, but it doesn't yield a direct insight into

the underlying ontological structure of things. It presupposes that there are stable structures

that give rise to universally valid scientific laws.

But if this is true, then "a physico-mathematical theory will be called "true" when a coherent

and fullest possible system of mathematical symbols and the explanatory entities it organizescoincides, throughout all its numerical conclusions, with measurements we have made upon

the real; but it is in no wise necessary that any physical reality, any particular nature, or any

ontological law in the world of bodies, correspond determinately to each of the symbols and

mathematical entities in question." (6)

This is a statement of the highest importance if we are ever going to unravel the philosophical

issues that surround quantum theory. There is no way in which we can establish a one-to-one

correspondence so that each mathematical symbol corresponds to a certain physical reality.

Therefore, it becomes extremely difficult to discover the philosophical implications of

something like quantum theory which takes such a highly mathematical form. If this

knowledge of a physico-mathematical kind were erected into a philosophy of nature, we

would be left in a s

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The Mystery of Matter

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