Max Brown
Space time as the fundamental psychic force
Conscious--------------> time
or
time-------------> consciousness?
I think Teilhard comes very close to solving this problem. Does time exist only because I exist? If so, how does one account for the fact that the total time experienced by a fly (30 days) is indeed a lifetime? Is time for the fly compressed in someway? Is time for the geological earth stretched out? What is the objective time from which other temporal perceptions arise? Can time be molded to create unique experiences? If time has no substance how is this possible? Maybe space-time provides a response?
The base solution that time is birthed by experience and consciousness is unsatisfactory because it is a circular argument. Time cannot be fundamentally subjective. Yet it seems to our perceptions to be…
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Teilhard posits space-time as the background for his mysterious "psychic energy" which gives birth to tangential and radial energy and ultimately to the ever more complex spirals of life. See page 83:
"I am obliged to recognize that the assumption of a dimensional milieu in which space and time are organically combined is the only way we have found to explain the distribution around us of animate and inanimate substances."
Here Teihard posits space time as merely the stage: atoms, composed of strange tangential and radial forces are the players. The dimensional milieu of space-time contains within it matter and energy. In this backdrop animate and inanimate find themselves "groping" and building towards heightened states: the molecule, the cell, the organism, the human.
I think Teilhard is implicating that the existence of matter and energy is primarily a response to space-time. Life and phenomena are responses to space-time and this gives them duration and substance. Following page 83:
"The distribution of objects and forms at any given moment can only be explained by a process whose duration in time varies directly with the spatial dispersion of objects in question. Every distance in space, every morphological deviation, presupposes and express a duration."
Unmistakably Teihard is saying that the "process," or the "existence" of something, occurs within time: it is a short fraction of time itself. As existing within a piece of time, these fragments or moments in time have duration within time. Abstractly, this temporal metric, this temporal tangibility comes to be called duration. This is a property of the "thing." Thus Teilhard posits that:
" In the Biologist's space-time, the introduction of a new morphological end-form or stage needs immediately to be translated by a correlative prolongation of the axis of duration." p. 84.
To paraphrase and briefly put this in the larger context of Teilhard's work: duration is a property of matter (containing psychic energy), and is a reaction against or perhaps better said a consequence of time. This is why the duration must be prolonged, and new end forms have longer and longer temporal longevity. Duration comes to be a fundamental identity of "things" in the backdrop of space time (there is another fundamental identity of things: tangibility, or occupancy of space. Hence we deal with "space-time", or as Teilhard says at first in the foreword, " the framework of phenomenon and appearance," pg. 31). This view pits time and life together in an eternal battle, and we can anthropomorphize this simply in aging, physical degradation, and death. Even the most stable molecule given millions of years will slowly decay. Or the sun, collapse upon itself.
So I feel that Teilhard assumes a priori that matter and energy exists with the dimensional milieu of space time as the other. But for the physicist or the philosopher this is problematic. How does Teilhard account for such a status quo? By this I mean how does Teilhard explain the fundamentals: there is space time, and within this are homogenous units of matter containing tangential and psychic forces?
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He doesn't. Book One, Before Life came, begins by understanding the "stuff of the universe" and jumps to "elemental matter."
This is how he explains it: "To begin with, at the very bottom there is a still unresolved simplicity, luminous and nature and not to be defined in terms of figures. Then, suddenly, came a swarming of elementary corpuscles…" p. 48.
"Unresolved simplicity," and then a silence, an emptiness into which "suddenly" things appear. This is really rather contrary to common sense and definitely unscientific. Maybe he left this gap open and ambiguous so as to provide room for some sort of creationism. Regardless, it is a thorn in his elegant theory of everything. But I think we can, given the underlying mechanisms of his theory ( the fundamental forces of tangential and radial energy) nearly pull a beginning together and provide a deeper understanding of how space time came to possess myriad homogenous things.
The only thing I can find in the text to guide this attempt to explain origins of matter is this assumption:
"Since the stuff of the universe has an inner-aspect at one point of itself, there is necessarily a double aspect to its structure, that is to say in every region of space and time- in the same way, for instance, as it is granular." p. 56.
Here Teilhard makes the concession that because "stuff" has an inner-aspect to itself ( the within, the consciousness, radial energy manifest) there is a "double aspect" to its structure. By this I take Teilhard to mean that there is another dimension of composition, one fairly elusive. This is concurrent with his theory. But then he says, quite profoundly that in "every region of space and time" there is the dimension of the within. If this within is the radial energy, or perhaps the psychic energy which contains both radial energy and tangential( we remember that at some level the two can be related ie. the calorie giving rise to thought) , then Teilhard has implicated that space-time itself in imbedded with psychic force.
Given this critical assumption, that space-time contains psychic force (regardless of the existence of matter or energy), we can take the hierarchy of existence another step further ( now I am going to leave the text).
Without matter at all- without the "stage being set" with space-time and matter- we can crudely imagine space time itself existing alone. The composition of space time itself is extremely elusive to modern physics, but we must make the assumption that space-time is composed of psychic energy, the basic energy which becomes all other forms of energy and matter. So really space-time and psychic energy are the same thing. Presuming that this ubiquitous psychic energy has the same essential propensities of tangential and radial energy- that is to come together in ever increasing forms of organization and duration- we can formulate a general theory of everything within Teilhards' general framework.
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1. In the beginning there was psychic energy. This is the base unit of energy which can be interconverted into radial and tangential energy. I cannot explain where this energy came from. But in this psychic energy contains the fabric of space time. It is space time.
2. Because this psychic energy contains the radial propensity to fold upon itself and make itself more and more complicated, it did so. As it did this it increased the tangential energy within itself. This began to give what before had no mass, mass. This continued (outside of the perspective of time because this is birthing our notion of time).
3. Eventually the radial energy caused such a concentration of tangential energy that the entire sum of psychic energy blew up. This correlates with the big bang.
4. As bits of newly formed tangential energy and radial energy were dispersed they eventually formed atoms that have the property of duration. This is because they are made from the psychic energy which contained the fabric of space time itself. This is why space-time is the fundamental psychic force.Because objects take up space and have duration they must be made up of space and time. This underscores Teilhards essential logic that (paraphrasing) everything that exists has its roots in a beginning. The beginning is simply the psychic energy, an aura of space-time that surrounds nothing .
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I believe this is an argument for why time births consciousness. As the fundamental unit is space time, the radial property of this unit forms ever increasing objects that have duration and substance. As Teilhard believes, human beings are at the precipice of this process. Not only as he says are we a way for "evolution" to know itself but more profoundly we are a say for "space-time" to know itself.
So to rework Teilhards model: Space time folds upon itself to give atoms, atoms fold upon themselves to give molecules, molecules fold upon themselves to give cells, cells fold upon themselves to give organisms, organisms fold in upon themselves to give consciousness…and throughout the whole process the fundamental unit is space-time, so that each step in this biological evolution gives an ever more increasing perception of space-time. This is why our perception of time is so much more profound than the that of the fly. Also note that throughout this entire process the fundamental propensities of psychic energy, the radial and tangential force as posited by Teilhard, do indeed hold.
Conscious--------------> time
ReplyDeleteor
time-------------> consciousness?
I am also very interested in the concept of time and how it relates to subjective consciousness. I believe that time is a perception made through ones ability to measure movement. Though we may measure our lives as a whole, we consist of so many lives. We are made up of atoms, mega-molecules, cells, organs etc. Each microcosm of life / consciousness has a different perception of time. For instance, over the course of our lives we replace the skin that coats out body hundreds if not thousands of times (not a biology person..) but we continue to live. These smaller forms of life all contribute to our awareness.
What fascinates me goes beyond our own “buildup” of life, to the “buildup” of all life. As a collection of living organisms we may accomplish a more objective perception of time, from the birth of life itself.
This leads to the question: where are we in the lifetime of life?
The silence and the emptiness, which may provide the space for “some sort of creationism” as you say, is to me the most thought provoking and exciting part of this book. It is difficult certainly to appreciate Teilhard without discrediting his findings because of his faith. It seems that you are having trouble with that, as I too have had while reading the book, and yet I cannot help but stand before the writing of this man who worshiped our earth and devoted his life to a reconciliation of science and the divine. Its is rather incredible how beautifully and illusively he writes of our place within the cosmos. Yes, there are perhaps gaps in the logic, holes in the argument, but the silence with which you take issue, does not seem to leave room for creationism, in fact divine intervention plays no part at all. It accounts instead for the unsayable, that which cannot be understood by reflection or consciousness. With reason as a product of cognition we are able to raise ourselves up to a respectable height and contemplate our own position, but we are merely constituents in something too vast to conceive of. Teilhard says ‘Looked at from within, as well as observed from without, the stuff of the universe thus tends likewise to be resolved backwardly into a dust of particles that are (i) perfectly alike among themselves (at least if they are observed from a great distance) ; (ii) each co-extensive with the whole of the cosmic realm ; (iii) mysteriously connected among themselves, finally by a global energy. In these depths the world’s two aspect, external and internal, correspond point by point.’ pp. 59. Each one of us is a pon within space- time’s scope, both witness to and involved in its revolutions. I suppose Space- time encompasses the within and the without of matter. It seems that our subjective conception of time does constitute the “granular” nature of space- time, as Teilhard proposes. But the unspeakable nature of time cannot be forgotten as we investigate its mechanism and our places within it. How can one understand a process in which she is both involved and a product of?
ReplyDeleteThanks for responding!
ReplyDeleteI really like the language you use here.
"How can one understand a process in which she is both involved and a product of?"
This reminds me of some Aristotle I read a few years ago. I found the text online, and below is the exact segment which I am thinking of. For context, aristotle is talking about the movement of animals and discuss how for every movement to occur their must be a situated point. This speaks directly to your language when you say "Each one of us is a point within space- time’s scope, both witness to and involved in its revolutions."
The quote is a little hard to read, and I may be over simplifying the text. Definitely worth checking out, however.
"However, that which first moves the animal organism must be situate in a definite original. Now we have said that a joint is the beginning of one part of a limb, the end of another. And so nature employs it sometimes as one, sometimes as two. When movement arises from a joint, one of the extreme points must remain at rest, and the other be moved (for as we explained above the mover must support itself against a point at rest); accordingly, in the case of the elbow-joint, the last point of the forearm is moved but does not move anything, while, in the flexion, one point of the elbow, which lies in the whole forearm that is being moved, is moved, but there must also be a point which is unmoved, and this is our meaning when we speak of a point which is in potency one, but which becomes two in actual exercise. Now if the arm were the living animal, somewhere in its elbow-joint would be situate the original seat of the moving soul. Since, however, it is possible for a lifeless thing to be so related to the hand as the forearm is to the upper (for example, when a man moves a stick in his hand), it is evident that the soul, the original of movement, could not lie in either of the two extreme points, neither, that is, in the last point of the stick which is moved, nor in the original point which causes movement." (from On the Motion of Animals)
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/motion_animals.html
So when we think about the movement of objects (including our bodies) we are ultimately thinking of the movement of these objects in respect to the personally immobile soul. When we take this thought further and consider time, of rather the "process" of time, we can only be thinking of the movement of time in respect to the soul. The spirit, or soul, or human consciousness is the immovable point on which time extends from and moves. So when you say "each one of us is a point within space-time's scope" I immediately think about time as motion stemming from me.
But "The unspeakable nature of time" or "The unsayable" as you have alluded to is indeed the escape from this fundamental perspective. The soul, not residing in any particular part of the body yet remaining immobile so as to facilitate its movement, is our conscious and provides the perspective from which all else moves. Is it possible to escape this process? No. We are in many ways trapped in this perspective.
But Teilhard's attempt is in fact to escape this perspective and find in many ways not just where the soul of humans resides but where the soul of the universe (a sort of teleology) positions itself. I feel that in many ways he asserts that there is a "psychic force" which plays this role (blossoming into radial and tangential), but indeed knowledge beyond that is unascertainable. And again, this is because teleology, as we have learned, implies a beginning- and an end. There is by definition an unascertainable.