In the discussion of Whiteheads having crafted an alternative mathematics for relativity which produced the same empirical results but started from different metaphysical assumptions, I’m reminded of the work of David Bohm. Would love to see a video reflecting on the connections and differences between Bohm and Whitehead. Thank you for all the work that went into this.
@cheri238
7 ай бұрын
Amazing!!! Thank you!!
@adamdavis8253
3 жыл бұрын
"Time doesn't go fast when we observe it. It feels watched over. But it takes advantage of our inatentions. Perhaps there are even two times, the one we observe and the which transforms us". ---- Albert Camus
@patricktebo2605
Жыл бұрын
This is great. Been on a Bergson binge and this video was a pleasant surprise to find.
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
0:30:29:16 - Misspoke: the train thought experiment is, of course, in reference to the special, not the general theory of relativity. But Einstein first articulates it in a later text meant for the general public that summarizes both theories.
@JeanineMarieCompassion
3 жыл бұрын
I had some champs while listening. Such a gift to have Matt give this talk.
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
1:04:40 misspoke: Einstein’s general theory builds on Riemann’s geometry (Einstein drew on Minkowski’s geometrical manifold for the special theory).
@julesjgreig
3 жыл бұрын
Thanks so much for this, Matt - I found it super helpful. Very clear explanations, great slides. And fun! 👍🏽
@brynbstn
2 жыл бұрын
Really enjoyed listening to this, thank you for putting time/effort into researching the history and telling the story so well. Made my time on the treadmill fly by
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
the perils of drunk histories...
@Nalhek
3 жыл бұрын
"If I go through all that really fast, don't worry, if I went thru it slower you still wouldn't understand it" LMAO SAVAGE HAHAHAHA
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
lol my intent here was to foreshadow the way that physicists tend to tell laypeople to check their intuitions at the door, i.e., we are asked to let go of the need to understand how spacetime really works. Whitehead challenges this sort heroic feat of explaining away and tries to defend common sense.
@projectkairos2231
3 жыл бұрын
Great title! Hits my brain just the way I like it.
@johannesbongers
4 ай бұрын
This is so helpful, placing Whitehead between Bergson and Einstein. Thanks!
@KipIngram
10 ай бұрын
48:51 - This is very interesting. I've long thought that time actually has significance in the world in two different ways. In Einstein's work, time is a coordinate label, along with the three spatial coordinates. The whole point is that observers in relative motion will assign different coordinates to the same events. So that's "time as a coordinate." But then there is also "time as experienced." It doesn't matter how we move - we the same sense of time passage regardless. You could think of the relativistic spacetime coordinates as analagous to latitude and longitude on Earth's surface. But using that coordinate system restricts you to talking only about points on Earth's surface - similarly, using spacetime coordinates restrict you to discussing events spacetime. There is simply no way to "designate" anything outside of that. Tycho crater on the moon has no Earth-based latitude/longitude coordinates. This is what we run into when physicists say that space and time "didn't exist" prior to the Big Bang. That's simply where our chosen coordinate system "ends." It doesn't mean that "nothing happened" before the Big Bang - it just means our language of physics doesn't equip us to discuss such things. To do so would require a different frame of reference. I think it's very important to keep these two different "senses" of time in mind as we try to probe the "deep philosophy" of existence.
@jonathans.bragdon5934
9 ай бұрын
Bergson was a brilliant, in fact, a superb mathematician.
@kennyguzman5470
Жыл бұрын
Super dope 👌🏽 thanks for this presentation
@tanorbonin9509
7 ай бұрын
Excellent, thank you
@andrewbartlett9282
8 ай бұрын
Great talk - many thx Matt
@nochesdad
3 жыл бұрын
Since you gave me an open path I want to delve more closely on the synastry chart of the full moon chart of 29 May 1919, Einstein’s natal chart of 14 March 1879 and the current alignments while you were doing the current podcast 3 April 2021. First of all I want to dwell on your note about this full moon was occurring right at Einstein’s Uranus Opposition. This is the alignment which psychologists refer to as the mid-life transition or by the vernacular “mid-life crisis”. It is fascinating that this event of the full moon occurred at Einstein’s Uranus Opposition because it was really, in a sense. a “mid-life crisis” for the modern scientific zeitgeist. This full moon scientific experiment which validated Einstein’s theories of space and time actually shifted science away from the “Newtononian” scientific paradigm to the modern paradigm. I would put forth that our zeitgeist has not full adjusted to the ramifications of what occurred during that full moon on 29 May 1919. Furthermore, as you pointed out it was actually an eclipse of the Sun. Truly symbolizing the epic nature of the moment. Eclipses have been symbolized since humans became conscious of eclipses as an omen of huge transition from one reality into another reality. Eclipses were many times an omen about the death of the king or some other similar symbol. Another significant aspect of the Uranus Opposition Einstein was experiencing at that exact moment is that Einstein was born with Uranus within a three degree conjunct to the fixed star Regulus. Regulus is one of the four Royal stars ancient astrologers/astronomers identified as the most significant 4 stars in the sky. Therefore, the eclipse of 29 May 1919 was actually making a T-square alignment with Einstein’s Uranus Opposition making to square to Regulus. Subsequently, the eclipse was also within 2 degrees conjunction to the Royal Star Aldeberan. As you noted on 29 May 1919 Mercury was square to Saturn which triggered Einstein’s natal Mercury Saturn almost exact conjunction. Mercury signifying communication to the cosmos and Saturn signifying putting the communication to be transferred becoming something solid and structured. Indeed, the significance of that day is only gradually being absorbed by the global zeitgeist in a way that could be described as gradual increasing collapses of the scientific wave function. Furthermore, the current transits of the moon’s nodes are that the south node of the moon is having a nodal opposition to where the north node of the moon was located 29 May 1919 signifying the transmission of your podcast to the world. I think that the significance of astrology is also gradually re-emerging into the zeitgeist. Astrology fits snugly into the Einstein/Whitehead/Berson discussion.
@casteretpollux
Жыл бұрын
Really? I'd be interested to know what is the source of your views on how people viewed eclipses back in the day. They certainly knew how to predict them. And knew what was happening. A person able to predict an eclipse might be able to get away with quite a bit on the basis of proven expertise.
@Edo9River
18 күн бұрын
Rather abstruse to beyond useful
@gypsygypsy7185
2 жыл бұрын
Had a great time listening to your summary you know how to make everything flow by connecting the storytelling behind the scene stories I even found myself drinking last night
@okra7648
3 жыл бұрын
Great presentation matt.
@Edo9River
Ай бұрын
My professor was a great admirer of Whitehead
@michaelrahnfeld8538
3 жыл бұрын
I enjoyed listening.
@2bsirius
3 жыл бұрын
As an American teetotal living as an ex-pat living in Cambridgeshire, I have to say I enjoyed this video very much, and I did it in non-inebriated state :)
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
0:34:08 Misspoke again: since 2014, Russia has claimed Crimea as its own.
@KipIngram
10 ай бұрын
1:13:20 - I think there is some merit in the idea that ultimately there may be aspects of existence that science simply can't address. Science is really about the study and quantification of cause/effect relationships. Any sort of free will flies right in the face of that - ultimately, somewhere in the free will process there exists a "first cause," which is itself "causeless." Science has no mechanism for coming to grips with that. If science sees something "just happen" (assuming they can see it at all) then it's declared "random." Science just than that. And I'm ok with that idea - science has more than "paid its freight" these last few centuries. Just look at all the marvelous things we've accomplished with it. Our distant ancestors would look upon us as gods, given all the things we can do. I think most of the "problem positions" in science arise, basically, from arrogance. The very idea that science can give us the "keys to everything" is unfounded. These people have gotten drunk on their own hooch, more or less - the marvelous accomplishments of science have gone to their heads, and they attach too much power to the substantial power of science.
@mandys1505
Жыл бұрын
😵💫 a new book on bergson recently came out.. i just ordered it, hoping to understand... how deleuze and guatarri, in their anti-oedipus book, based their metaphysics NOT on the historical western tradition, but on the metaphysics of bergson; i looked at the wikipedia while reading the d + g book, because it was my first time reading them... and i needed perspective: and then! the wikipedia article said, that sure enough, this is not in the western tradition of metaphysics. and that after Foucalt read anti-oedipus, he stated that we can now do philosophy without using the forms of negativity... such as lack, and i was like. my mind! my mind is blowing up. then of course i thought, how does all of this relate to whitehead? i have your book, "Crossing the Threshold".. and it has a relevant passage on page 238, " To secularize the concept of God, as Schelling, Whitehead, and Deleuze demand... is to dig up what has been buried beneath the foggy illusions of transcendence estranging humanity from its terrestrial home." The thing is, i have been so attracted to both Holderlin and Heidegger... with their poeticizing the earth.. and each of their metaphysics... which is very much within the western tradition. Well, i'm worried that the holy and transcendental being taken out, is still.. going to leave us with the same human desires.. such as bergson's idea of teleology. 🎉it's a lot! but i'm into it... its difficult to be self- taught.... I do love so much, Whitehead's On Nature!!! i have looked over these various maths and physics books, bit again... why cant i live another 1000 years to be able to read enough 😂 yikes! Thank you!!
@Edo9River
Ай бұрын
But Bergson talks about the veil, can this veil possibly cause confusion among the people gripped by chronological causal interpretation
@KipIngram
10 ай бұрын
26:02 - It wasn't as preposterous as it first sounds, since it's precisely electromagnetic forces that hold atoms and molecules together. If you "muck about" with the way that electromagnetic field works, it could certainly muck about with the dimensions of atoms and molecules. In the end we didn't accept this theory the way Lorentz presented it, but it wasn't that it was "far fetched" or anything. Scientists just feel that Einstein's way of capturing the same idea was simpler and cleaner. Einstein didn't really offer a "why" for his postulate of invariant light speed. He simply put it down as a postulate and moved on. You could think of Lorentz's proposal as an "implementation" of that idea.
@Edo9River
Ай бұрын
For 15 years physicists have. Been expecting or hoping for this paradigm shift and basically producing nothing useful for us in experiential space and time
@give_me_hope
3 жыл бұрын
That was good and very informative. Bergson is not popular last 40 years . I once read and see the his opposing and appealing views .
@KipIngram
10 ай бұрын
24:58 - That's not said quite right - it's not that the either would "slow" the light. The idea is that the light would be moving at the same speed always , and therefore would be moving at the same speed always relative to the device (since it was assumed to be moving through the ether). The further idea was that the effective speed of light in the two "arms" of the experiment, which are perpendicular to one another, would be different, and it is this difference the instrument would be sensitive to. So, the expectation was that the changing motion of Earth through the ether would of the the speeds in the two arms, and that would show up as a change in the interference fringe patter at the detector.
@casteretpollux
Жыл бұрын
Thank you very much for sharing this with the public. I've got a little foothold from it from which to further learn and explore. One question: Why is philosophy such a male dominated domain ? And the novel, female ? Is the novel a Philosophical tool? Whitehead - rise from the dead please, and reply. Noting that Einstein relied on his wife of the time to do the maths. Why did women like Bergson ? I can think of possible explanations to my questions but I'd appreciate any thoughts on this.
@davidfleming4052
11 ай бұрын
The bigger global comparison is between Whitehead and Henry Nelson Wieman. By 1921, Wieman was the US expert on Whitehead. (Eventually his work was the subject of the PhD dissertation of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) In 1925, Whitehead moved to Harvard and spent a year teaching...J Robert Oppenheimer! So, on one hand, civilization goes forward with process inquiry, Oppenheimer and Whitehead. On the other hand, you have moral genius pervading scientific method from Creative Interchange. Who would you rather have lead civilization? An amoral cosmic consciousness or moral genius? My hope--my prayer--is that we search for a new option. "Before mankind destroys itself" (Wieman and Einstein's fear).
@Edo9River
18 күн бұрын
Even more local and practical; which product of an education process is more beneficial to society? The amoral, individualistic Ayn Rand type, ambitions genius, or the genial kind, family. And community oriented Joe whose work is filling a job in the service economy in a small community?
@jaguardb8483
Жыл бұрын
its hard, especially with such an over abundance of visual metaphors and language that refers to visual phenomenon ,,,, hard not to think that "time" as its mapped out by Einstein is not some emergent quality of the visual cortex..... if he had been blind from birth and newton too, would our understanding via their thinking be different? time is a function of the nervous system because there can be no "measured time of the physicist" without the physicist and his/her measuring,. consider two people holding their breath under water for 3 minutes (clock time) the first person is an untrained, unfit man of 65. the second person is a champion freediver of the same age. the first person holds his breath for 3 minutes but his heart beats 225 times in the 3 minutes of clock time. the second person's heart beats 75 times in the 3 minutes.....which person/which organism stayed underwater longer?
@KipIngram
10 ай бұрын
27:24 - Clarification - because observers are restricted to relative velocities less than the speed of light, the of events can't be observer dependent (at least not events that can actually be observed by all of the observers). They won't be simultaneous for all observers, and the interval between them is observer dependent, but all observers will agree on the .
@neoepicurean3772
7 ай бұрын
I'd somehow overlooked Whitehead as a philosopher in his own right. Now I'm writing about time, and it seems his view in opposition to Einstein mirrors modern discussions, like Smolin vs Rovelli for example.
@@Footnotes2Plato Thanks! Seems like you'll get a citation or two!
@geoffreyah
3 жыл бұрын
Alfred Whitehead does have one thing right. According to general relativity, there is no geometry of empty space. Once we put in matter and energy, it causes space time to warp or curve which is gravity. Once we put matter and energy into space it has a measurable geometry, take out that energy and matter and there is no geometry of empty space at least locally. Also time is proven to be mind independent by radioactive decay and cesium clocks which also slow down when the gravitational field becomes stronger. Yes general relativity says that time is relative, but it also does have an absolute existence that physicists don't talk much about because that problem does not come up much in physics. Its called the arrow of time which states that time moves forwards at the same rate everywhere no matter how far away one is, i.e., the is a now time for distant objects like our nearest galaxy, the Andromeda galaxy so a planet there has a now time but we only see it in the past but not how it is now since light takes 2 million years go travel the distance to us
@relational7832
2 жыл бұрын
This seems or appears to be a dynamical approach to spacetime philosophy. What I get from that is somewhat ingrained in dynamical/constructivist positions on the matter is that spacetime geometry is constructed out of assumptions/measurements of the behaviors that objects undergo. Obviously the philosophers ideas of time that physical processes/changes continue on immutably or not in what may be a directed manner isn't something that physics could do away with. However, our local/global standards and understanding of how changes progress could be effected dramatically by either distributing objects differently or merely moving them rather relatively fast. When you assert that there is still time ticking away for Andromeda I may agree in the sense of the philosopher saying 'there is change that will be had'. However, that the statement 'change of a particular sort is happening now' broaches on where we split along ontological or epistemological grounds. *Epistemologically* it may not be possible for such a distant simultaneity to be known. The concept of distant compared to local simultaneity itself may not even warrant meaning if we demand that it respect our ability to warp nature into telling us what is going on over there. Ontologically speaking you could still swallow your intuitions and declare that rather then talking about the the *there-now* the only coherent notion of the present is the *here-now* . If you take an interest in this interpretation then you are free to read to your hearts content, uhra.herts.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/2299/20534/13053356%20Andrews%20Samuel%20final%20version%20of%20submission.pdf;jsessionid=AABACBB129E86766C58CAAB68C74D971?sequence=1 .
@azsx299
3 жыл бұрын
Bergson, maybe the most famous Philosopher of the 19th C? Citation needed.
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
“Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was one of the most famous and influential French philosophers of the late 19th century-early 20th century.” -Lawlor, Leonard and Valentine Moulard Leonard, "Henri Bergson", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/
@jontrevathan9928
9 ай бұрын
The relativity of simutinaiety Paradox arises from Minkowski’s 4-D block universe interpretation of Einstein’s relativity. Einstein’s metaphysics is the logical result of these scientific understandings. For free will to be retained, contingency must exist along the time vector or there must be at least one additional dimension of time. (See Issac Barr) However, these fixes fail to resolve the relativity of simultaneity problem. Time symmetry and reverse causality has been proposed to resolve the delayed choice quantum erasure paradox and if posited to participate in every wave function collapse would permit future contingencies to resolved through a “zipper effect”
@Edo9River
Ай бұрын
No wait!!! What 😂is the contribution of Process and Reality 😢😢😢😢
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
4:20 turns out teetotal has nothing to do with tea en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teetotalism
@robbydyer4500
3 жыл бұрын
add that timestamp to the mix . . .
@dltooley
3 ай бұрын
What about stoned history, or for that matter psychedelic history?
@Edo9River
Ай бұрын
My wife has a MA in philosophy on Bergson, my MS depends on Whitehead about 40 %
@stephensmith6524
3 жыл бұрын
Great talk explaining Einstein, Bergson and Whitehead’s understanding of time. Well worth the 1.5 hours to watch. Thank you for sharing this. It’s a subject dear to my heart. And I don’t find much to disagree with here, I just have my reactions that follow, for sharing. Its seems to me that it’s the act of measurement that implies relativity, i.e., it’s a necessary condition that measurement is always relative to a standard of measure. Likewise, observation is relative to a frame of reference. This places both the observer and consciousness in the blind spot implied by relativistic physics. This is the essence of self-referral, there is always a mirror that illuminates and a blind spot the veils the middle-term given the implied two-sidedness that can be deduced from self-referral (or self-duality). That these conditions extend in a non-trivial way to the universe is remarkable, however, given that light speed is found as a constant and gravity and acceleration are indistinguishable. This seems to be an endorsement of Whitehead’s panpsychism. Note that relativity become a necessary condition for the visible universe, but visibility does not define all of reality. The Aether that serves as the middle-term remains invisible as long as there remains no standard of measurement. Nevertheless, its existence is predicted by deductive thought. Though I am guessing, I would bet that Whitehead’s mathematical treatment of relativity is consistent with two-sided time that envelopes duration. Two-sidedness does not imply that the future is determined, or pre-existing.
@minnjony
Жыл бұрын
Can anyone tell me what the PCC Forum is?
@Footnotes2Plato
Жыл бұрын
It is a speaker series hosted by the Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness graduate program at CIIS.edu
@minnjony
Жыл бұрын
@@Footnotes2Plato Thank you. Are you based in San Francisco or Dartington, U.K.?
@Footnotes2Plato
Жыл бұрын
@@minnjony SF
@geoffreyah
3 жыл бұрын
According to Albert Einstein, the philosophers like Descartes and did not think space was something real, but Einstein did. Also in my opinion philosophy and physics are two different things. There is a philosophy of science which considers the physical forces to be mind independent, objective, absolute and invariant. Time according to general relativity must be mind independent and objective. Einstein in his book on general relativity for the general public that philosophers did not give physical reality to space. It looks as though you are implying the Alfred Whitehead was a physicist on par with Einstein and there is no evidence of that. Wikipedia says his Principia Mathematica is about axioms and inference rules in symbolic logic which does not have anything to do with the physics of general relativity so I doubt Whitehead understood it. Albert Einstein did have help with the mathematics of general relativity, but only how to do the math, but Einstein still made the calculations himself and the thought experiments which involve the visual images of the process of warped space was all Albert Einstein which is why he is probably the greatest physicist of all time. The math is extremely complicated in Einstein's gravitation field equations. Tensor calculus with 2nd order partial differential equations in four dimensions, coupled and non linear. This little gravitation field equation takes 3,000 terms to calculate! Miquel Alcubierre, Starship Congress 2017: Miguel Alcubierre, "Faster Than The Speed Of Light".
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
Here is Whitehead's alternative rendering of relativity theory, published in 1922 as "The Principle of Relativity": www.google.com/books/edition/Principle_of_Relativity/mDE6F7jfnW0C?hl=en
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
Whitehead considered space and time to be "real," but not actual. In other words, they are abstractions from the primary reality, which is that of events or actual occasions.
@Footnotes2Plato
3 жыл бұрын
See also Whitehead's 1905 paper "Mathematical Concepts of the Material World," as well as his numerous papers on relativity delivered in the late 19teens. His 1919 and 1920 books "Principles of Natural Knowledge" and "The Concept of Nature" go into relativity both conceptually and mathematically in great depth.
@geoffreyah
3 жыл бұрын
@@Footnotes2Plato I didn't know Whitehead knew Whitehead had an alternative rendering of general relativity since I am not an expert on him or philosophy. Thankyou.
@geoffreyah
3 жыл бұрын
I took a look at the introduction of the book you posted above, Principle of General Relativity, by Amit Hager who writes that Whitehead rejected the strong equivalence principle of general relativity and the idea that matter warps space. I don't see how he could call Whiteheads view of space as A principle of general relativity which does not work without the warping of spacetime by matter and energy or the strong equivalence principle. Minkowskian space does not use curved spacetime or has a Euclidian geometry but there is no evidence where that Alfred Whitehead understood any of these physical principles, but only that the author Amit Hager is trying to make his own theory of physics and use the prestige of the guru figure Whitehead make it look valid to sell his book. I'll admit I'm not an expert in philosophy or research, but I can't find any evidence online that Alfred Whitehead had a working knowledge general relativity. It's one thing taking a position on a theory, but writing one's own and understanding a theory in physics is another thing. Simply rejecting some ideas in physics does not make one a physicist, i.e., I don't think Whitehead was a physicist, but a great philosopher.
@johnmaynard869
Жыл бұрын
Those guys had no idea about the coming counterintuitive nature of the new quantum theory that would even shake Einstein, in fact the developers themselves. 😜
@Footnotes2Plato
Жыл бұрын
I'd say Whitehead at least integrated the quantum revolution into his later metaphysics.
@Edo9River
18 күн бұрын
I think in your presentation you abandoned the idea of ether’s existence or non-existence.😮😮😮
@Footnotes2Plato
17 күн бұрын
@@Edo9River there is an ether but it is an ether of events and not a material medium.
@Edo9River
17 күн бұрын
@@Footnotes2Plato so, you really exist! thanks so much for your reply. Years ago I tried to to read Process and Reality. My professor at that time warned me, saying it “was premature for me to do so. As “the work was like an adult talking to a child”of say 2-3. There’s nothing the child yet has in experience, or vocabulary, or ? , to process the work in their(my )mind. He was right. I could get through the intro. and ch 1. Chapter 2 was like hitting a wall. The vocabulary is new, and old words have special meanings. I had to give up. Years have gone by. I got married, raised a family, and now I have retired from teaching English in Japan. I came across your video. Old memories arise like faint ghosts. Long ago I read several of Whiteheads popular works. I’m thinking what would you recommend to me to read next as a step up in Whitehead process philosophy? Secondly, did Whitehead bridge the gap between the world view of Einstein and Bergson? (I didn’t mention that my wife has a MA in philosophy in Japan on Bergson; but her English is inadequate to discuss the matter, so I gave up trying.) I have had enough to do with studying Japanese, until now and I want to go mountain climbing again while I still have the strength.
@johnmaynard869
Жыл бұрын
It may be of interest that the destructive use of technology is bound to national and religious differences more than objective modeling, the defense of capitalism and other ideas of property and position. Genesis 1:28 has been used at length to justify petroleum, forests and other verses , justifying slavery, I submit that the scientific understanding is not the danger, but incidental in the prejudice of human philosophy of power.
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