In radioactivity, the tunnel effect
demonstrates
also that it is ab- surd to talk about the identity of the particles.
Hegel Was Right_nodrm
?
?
?
Infinite and Distinction 159
But those who try to give an empirical meaning to the word distinct by means of 'here' and 'there' incur even in a bigger mistake. The 'here' is so metaphysical and unempirical as Newton's absolute space and, in fact, as any other space. When someone thinks that he is seeing the space that separates him from the wall before him, what he is seeing is the wall before him, not the space. The space is invisible, and a point within space is even more invisible, for that matter. The 'here' is a point or a region in space; but none of these things are seen. And if someone believes that he can touch the space with his hands, the only thing one can tell him is that he is not touching anything. If our definer pretended to attribute an empirical meaning to the distinction by a 'here' and a 'there', his failure could not be more disastrous.
Besides, if our definer reflects a little, he has to recognize that the idea 'two beings really distinguish themselves' is not the same as the idea 'this being is here and the other being is there'. As Hegel says: "In the here and now as such does not consist the distinction" (GP I 315). Let us make the following question to clarify this: if two beings identify themselves with each other, would they cease to be two bodies? The fact itself that we understand this question implies that being distinct is not the same as being in different places, for we understand the dif- ference between two bodies occupying the same space and two bodies identifying themselves with each other. Even he, who is inclined to respond affirmatively to the question, has to understand it first: this implies that the meanings of 'identifying' and 'being one body' are not the same. Now, this will do: the meaning of distinction supposedly consisted in being at different places, and we have proved that this is not the case.
The same question we made with regard to identity, one should ask it in regard of a 'twofold location'. The question would be: if a body were at two places simultaneously, would it cease to be the same body? The simple fact that the question is intelligible implies that 'being at two different places' does not mean 'being two and not one'. I owe anthro- pologist Leslie White the following information: ". . . it may be remarked that normal children and many primitive peoples find nothing wrong with the notion that a body can be in two different places at the same time" (1964, 279 n. ). This fact will do to demonstrate that the notion itself of being at two different places does not mean two different bodies.
In addition, one should know that the true extent of the experiment of Young and Taylor --to which we will refer later on-- is that terms
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 160 Hegel was right
like distinction, individuality and identity do not have any meaning in Physics. An example of this is that an electron can be in two places at the same time. Many physics would want to reject this. They reject exactly what they understand. It follows that the concept of two and not one, that is to say, the concept of distinction, does not mean to be in two places at the same time. Let's repeat with Hegel: "In the here and now as such, it does not consist distinction" (GP I 315)
6. individuaLity
Now, if the concept of distinction does not have an empirical meaning, the concept of individuality and identity do not have it too, for it is obvious that individuality implies that a being is distinct from other beings, and identity implies that a being is not distinct from itself. By some way or another, the concept of distinction enters into the defini- tions of individuality and identity, terms whose meaning is not empiri- cal. And vice versa: the distinction between two beings consists in that they are not identical. If some of these concepts are unempirical, then all of them are. This is precisely relevant in regard to the attempts of defining individuality through the localization in space: the individu- ality of a being does not mean that this being is 'here' and not 'there'.
The physic Bernard d'Espagnat has drawn some systematic observa- tions from Jean Piaget about the epistemological development of babies --conclusions that are undeniable in this sense. To identify the identity and the individuality of an object with certain localization in space is a practical construction that is useful to the kid in order to coordinate his movements and to integrate his early 'vision' of the world'. It is an implicit assumption that the baby makes to orient himself, but this does not have a greater probability than the contrary assumption. "This shows", according to d'Espagnat, "that the idea according to which any macroscopic object necessarily occupies some definite region of space --to the exclusion of other regions-- is not an obvious (and hence unquestionable) truth, but rather an element of the definition, useful in given circumstances, of the word 'object'. " (1976, xx)
Alongside the psychological developments of Piaget, one could recourse to the undeterministc physics of Heisenberg, Bohr and Von Neumann, which fortunately does not find today serious opponents among physics. D'Espagnat affirms:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 161
. . . the fact that the notion of localized objects is but a construct liberates us from the so-called commonsense view [. . . ] according to which individual macroscopic objects obviously --and therefore necessarily-- exist as indi- viduals independently of ourselves; hence it liberates us from the apparent necessity of considering them as more basic than numbers, logical struc- tures, and so on. (ibid. , xxi)
We have to point out "as individuals" we are not dealing with the existence of material.
Physics could have spared themselves the detour that goes through Heisenberg and Schro? dinger (and Piaget) if they had read the section about the sense-certainty at the beginning of the Phenomenology. The 'here' and the 'now' only manage to denote something individual if we understand them in function of the subject that pronounces this words. They express thus
"our intention" (unsere Meinung), as commentators like Lauer, Mure, Bon- siepen and Heinrich have very well understood. Therefore, to attribute an individuality to the material objects that does not depend on the knowing subject, not only means to draw a gratuitous and empirically unjustifiable stamen like that of absolute space, but is in fact a statement that lacks all sense whatsoever. Hegel says "there is no distinction between the atoms" (GP I 362).
"Spirit is, in a much deeper sense, this one thing" (WL II 121).
Two things are important: the concept of identity and individuality lack empirical meaning, and to predicate both things of material things is a thesis which has no meaning.
Hume already remarked the first point: First, "As to the principle of individuation; we may observe, that the view of any one object is not sufficient to convey the idea of identity [. . . ] On the other hand, a multi- plicity of objects can never convey this idea, however resembling they may be supposed" (Treatise I, IV, ii). The last thing is obvious; the simi- larity is not only identity but negation of identity; in order to be alike, the objects need to be two and not one. But the vision of a sole object does not suffice either to evoke in the mind the idea of identity: this is a very abstract contribution on account of the intellect. If we explain to a farm worker what we want to say, he would agree with us in that the rock we have before is identical to itself and is individual, but he would have not come up with such a round-about idea despite he has been
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 162 Hegel was right
seeing that rock for years. In fact, despite how much time we spend observing an object, none of its colors, forms or visible details denote identity or individuality: "the one cannot be seen, it is an abstractum of thought" (GP I 358).
"The word this expresses precisely that distinguishing and sin- gling out something is a subjective designation, which lacks something outside from itself" (WL I 104).
It is frequent and coarse to believe that the individuality of a macroscopic object consists in its having visible and palpable limits that distinguish it from other objects. But we said that the existence of fields and forces that constitute each body go far beyond such empiri- cal limits. This refutes by itself such a belief. In regard to the identity of a body across the course of time, it is obvious that senses only witness at best that the body is exactly the same. That it is in fact the 'same' than a minute ago. This is something that empirical impressions do not tell us. Selfsameness is an idea tremendously metaphysical idea, a re- fined contribution of which the senses know nothing; an (ungrounded) projection towards the material of the self-sameness of the knowing subject, in which the word selfsameness does have sense.
If the observed body would have ceased to exist, and if in its place an exactly same body started to exist, the testimony of the senses would not vary at all. This demonstrates that the senses do not know anything about identity and individuality.
Besides, what difference would there be between a body that remained the same and a body that was replaced by other? The selfsameness of the material does not have any meaning at all. I am not only saying that our empirical perception would not notice anything; I am saying that it is completely indifferent that the body has been substituted for another, and consequently, I affirm that we are extrapolating a concept to the physical that has only meaning in self-consciousness, intersubjectivity and morals. That matter is a principle of individuation is one of the most foolish things that have ever been said in the history of thought. It was originated in the illusion of the localization that was dispelled above. Karl Rahner, the most intelligent Scholastic of our century, re- jected this impossible doctrine:
"Moreover, identity is given to us, now and in the future, by the iden- tity of the spiritual subject of freedom called soul" (Schriften XII 461s). The macroscopic is apparent. Its origin is the subjectivist peculiarity of our senses. If the material possessed identity and individuality, this
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 163
would have to be in the microscopic level. But the most intelligent physics have noticed that "there is no distinction between the atoms" (GP I 362) just as Hegel thought. Besides d'Espagnat, it would be useful to quote other physics, for instance, P. W. Bridgman: "The elemental processes or 'objects' do not have individuality or identificability, nor can they be repeated. The concept of 'sameness' does not apply in the microscopic domain of quantum phenomena (Schilpp II 1970, 346).
Likewise, Eddington says:
". . . distinction of individuality, if it has any meaning at all, has no bearing on physical manifestations" (1978, 175).
The next paragraph of Max Jammer summarizes the thought and the experiments of Heisenberg, Hund, Denisson, Wigner, Heitler and London
These results not only lent weight to the concept of like particles; they also showed that like particles may be indistinguishable, that is, may lose their identity, a conclusion which follows from the uncertainty relations or, more precisely, from the impossibility of keeping track of the individual particles in the case of interactions of like particles. For, contrary to classical dynamics, trajectories could no longer be defined as sharp nonintersecting world- lines but had to be conceived as overlapping each other. In fact, all papers on exchange phenomena and, in particular, the calculations concerning the ground state of the helium atom, in which the wave functions of the two electrons overlap completely, showed clearly that the classical principle of an unrestricted identifiability of particles had to be abandoned. Moreover, it was possible to show that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was al- ready contradicted by the idea of an approximately continuous sequence of atomic-configuration measurements, designed to identify electrons in lower-energy states and hence requiring positional uncertainties smaller than average electron distances. (1966. 344)
This is related with the 'forbidden distance' or impossible orbits of Bohr's atoms which we will in short bring into consideration. Let us only look first at this quotation of Paul Dirac: "If a system in atomic physics contains a number of particles of the same kind, e. g. a num- ber of electrons, the particles are absolutely indistinguishable one from another. No observable change is made when two of them are inter- changed. " (1981, 207)
Hegel had already said in times of classical mechanics that we are dealing with "exterior objects, not individual ones" (WL II 376).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 164 Hegel was right
In the atomic model of Bohr, the atoms 'jump' from one orbit of radio to another depending on how much energy each of them has. However, as it was experimentally demonstrated by Planck's discovery of the indivisibility ad infinitum of physical realities, an orbit's radio cannot have any dimension, there are radios that are physically im- possible, which means that it is impossible for the electron to be at such a distance from the nucleus. Therefore, it is not the case that the electron passes from one orbit to another, but rather that the intermedi- ate states cannot exist. The only thing that happens is that the electron disappears from one orbit and reappears in another. But how could one affirm that it is the 'same' electron, if there is no continuity between one state and the other? Further: is it relevant at all that it is the same electron or not? The only possible meaning of being the same is con- sidering oneself to be the same. And this happens without any substra- tum. It is not the case that the subject remains the same even when he is not conscious of being the same; we already showed (III, 6) that these intermediate states do not exist. I am myself because I consider myself to be so. This lies in mutual dependency with intersubjectivity (cfr. III, 7): Just as it is true that I consider myself the same in function that the others consider me the same, so it is true that they consider me the same because I consider myself to be the same. "Only in morals this concept of the absolute individuality of consciousness has properly sense. " (GP I, 271). Individuality and identity of matter, is an absolutely unjustified projection of concepts which only have a meaning in the spirit.
In radioactivity, the tunnel effect demonstrates also that it is ab- surd to talk about the identity of the particles. There is a 'prohibited zone' for the particles around the nucleus, but these particles are in fact emitted from the nucleus towards the surrounding world. The zone is prohibited because the kinetic energy of the particle would be negative in it and its speed would be imaginary. Therefore, to say that a particle passes by this zone is to utter something impossible. All the problematic that may rise up in regard of the identity of the particle emitted by the nucleus is based on the ignorance of what the physical world is in contrast with the spirit.
This lack of knowledge was what made Einstein broke up with Bohr, and it is also the reason why he was incapable of accepting the decisive facts of relativity and, more in particular, the disturbing fact discovered by Young's dispositive and Geoffrey Ingram Taylor's technique. This technique is described by Ted Bastin:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 165
. . . any interference experiment can be conducted at such low intensity that effects due to statistical assemblages of particles can be discounted, yet interference occurs just the same. Hence even in the traditionally central case of electron interference, purely statistical treatment is not possible. (1971, 5 n. )
In other words, it is not the case that a photon is interfered by an- other, but rather that it interferes with itself. And the same goes for the electrons. Cfr also: EB 23, 20, 2.
Niels Bohr summarizes the problem thus: "". . . to be obliged to say, on the one hand, that the photon always chooses one of the two ways and, on the other, that it behaves as if it had passed both ways" (1958, 51).
This is the dispositive: to the left hand we have a fountain of photons, in the center we have a partition with two orifices or little slots, and to the right hand we have a screen where the light is reflected and where we can observe by the form of the lights and the shades if there is in- terference or not, for strips of maximal intensity juxtaposed to dark strips mean that two wave trains are being superimposed, whether in phase or not. Let us remember that by the low intensity of the fountain one has achieved monophotonic rays; in other terms, it is not a front of various photons that goes toward the partition, but a single strip of a photons in which each of the elements advances one at a time. Now, if there is individuality in the material, the photon can only go through one of the orifices; but then there would be nothing of interference, since there would not be two different trajectories and hence there would not be superimposition or annulment of wave crests, something for which two wave trains are required.
The phenomenon which has caused an unmendable consternation among physics is that the interference is produced when the two ori- fices are open, but if we block one of them, no interference is produced. The intellectual honesty of Bohr and his colleagues oblige them to say: the photon, evidently, goes through one of the orifices, but it behaves as if it went through both of them. Otherwise, they would have to say something much more scandalous and completely absurd: when pass- ing through one of the orifices, the photon knows if the other orifice is closed or open, and as a result, it creates or not interference on the screen.
It is obvious, however, that an as if does not solve the problem and hence the Physics of our century has not dared to face the true logi- cal conclusion of the experiment. The conclusion is that individuality,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 166 Hegel was right
distinction and identity are categories that have nothing to do with the empirical word. If the entire physical world was only one being, the ob- servable phenomena would not be different as how they really are.
The experiment has been repeated thousands of times and in the most diverse circumstances and variants, always with the same shocking effect on the minds of the classical physics. For instance, if we capture one of the two resulting photons of the decay of positronium by means of a polaroid in a vertical position, the other will certainly go through a polaroid in a horizontal position. But if we turn forty-five degrees both polaroids, classical optics has to affirm that the first photon has fifty percent of probabilities of going through and that the second pho- ton, which knows nothing about the former one, would have the same probabilities. However, things are not this way. Let us put two po- laroids in a straight angle: if a photon goes through one of them, the other photon will always go through its corresponding polaroid. It acts is as if it knew that the other photon has gone through. If we do not want to sustain the absurdity that a photon, once it has went through its polaroid, communicates with the other and orders it to go through its corresponding polaroid --a communication that would have to take place at a speed faster than light--, the only solution is to say what physic O. R. Fisch has affirmed: "We must consider the two photons as being one system" (Bastin, 1971, 20).
It is obvious that we should repeat what we have said about the as if of Bohr. To begin with, physics should have never considered the two photons as two separate beings. They ought not to be deceived by the belief that individuality has some meaning in physics. Einstein accused quantum physics of believing in telepathy. But every problem of com- munication or telepathy supposes gratuitously that they are 'distinct' and 'individual' entities. Physics are ridiculously assuming this pseudo- problem, because these concepts only have a meaning in the spirit, not in matter. The 'occult parameters' of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen are only efforts to solve the same pseudo-problem.
7. the bottom of the probLem
After demonstrating that it is impossible to give empirical or physical meaning to the words distinction, identity and individuality, we are now in the conditions of going deeper into the matter.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 167
We said that those who accuse Hegel of pantheism should only focus on whether self-consciousness is preserved or not. And the bottom-line is this: this ideal and not physical contraposition between different 'selves', between self-consciousnesses that reciprocally address each other and make each other being, is the only possible meaning of the word distinction. Evidently, however, the ideal and not physical entity they create thereby is only one; there is no way to fragment it because it is not material. There we have distinction in the identity and vice versa; it is impossible to define one without the other in the definition. The great difference between the abstract intellect that does not understand and the reason that understands consists in that the former "commits the same absurdity of making that which is pure relation into something devoid of all relation. " (WL. I 211).
"The elements of the distinction are the identity and the distinction itself" (WL II 34).
It has been nothing more than sheer superficiality to attribute un- intelligibility to the Hegelian thesis according to which "the identity of the identity with the no-identity" (JS 96), for "the identity [. . . ] does not exclude the distinction; it has it essentially in its own determination" (BS 371). The ideal entity called intersubjectivity cannot exist if these poles are not distinguished.
The abstract intellect stiffens: it considers that identity and distinc- tion are things that have nothing to do with each other and are not re- lated at all. One misunderstands thus both of them, since it is impossible to give them meaning by empirical or physical means. The abstract intellect uses these two words without giving them meaning.
In contrast with reason, " in general it stands for the understanding as abstracting, and hence as separating and remaining fixed in its sepa- rations. Directed against reason, it behaves as ordinary common sense and imposes its view that truth rests on sensuous reality, that thoughts are only thoughts, meaning that it is sense perception which first gives them filling and reality" (WL. I 26)
We have long enough demonstrated that this opinion is something utterly impossible. The sensible perception cannot give meaning to the concepts. What happens is that the abstract intellect 'thinks in a simi- lar way than imagination', as Hegel denounces. For imagination, each thing stands on its side with no relation to others; things are unrelated within the (imaginary) space. Properly speaking,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 168 Hegel was right
thought, mediation, the intellectual determinations as such are forms of relation, but they can be immobilized as imaginary figurations, and just then we must think properly in the form of imagination: the intellect (PR I 293).
But:
this holding apart of likeness and unlikeness is their destruction. For both are determinations of difference; they are relations to one another, the one being what the other is not; like is not unlike and unlike is not like; and both essentially have this relation and have no meaning apart from it (WL. II 36)
The ideal and mental reality called intersubjectivity --which is more real than anything physical, as our third chapter showed-- is a simple entity because it is immaterial; it is identical because it consists in that its poles are distinct from each other; it consists in that every self-consciousness addresses the others directly and reciprocally. This reality is pure act, self-determination of each of the subjects in action and a movement that integrates every one of them; but the intellect separates and makes these things static. It "commits the same absur- dity of making that which is pure relation into something devoid of all relation. " (WL I 211)
"If we take into account [. . . ] that the simple does not need to be void, one dispels the aforementioned impression, as if the simple ex- cluded from itself the distinct" (EGP 277).
The whole point is not to confuse simplicity with nothingness. Intersubjectivity is simple, because it is not material; but it consists in the distinction that exists among the subjects, which is the only real dis- tinction that there can be. According to Hegel, the identity in Aristotle is "activity, movement, repulsion, and therefore it is not inert identity; identity is identical to itself in the distinction" (GP II 164). If the iden- tity is not nothingness, that means to say, if it has content, it contains ipso facto a distinction.
By mere conceptual analysis, Proclus affirmed rightly that the mul- tiple (i. e. distinction) is not in itself; that one can only understand the multiple as included in and streaming from the one (i. e. identity); the multiple would not be multiple if they were not one. Indeed, if they were completely unrelated and had nothing to do with each other, we would not call them many, but we would call each of them one by
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 169
their own, and the mind would not know of the other when consider- ing each of them. The multiple must stream from the one itself; the distinction has to be included in the identity. For that reason Hegel says: "The reality of the contraries and real contraposition can only be brought about by identity" (JS 97). This could only be rejected by whoever manages to give the words 'identity' and 'distinction' another intelligible meaning; not an imaginary one, for we saw that what one can imagine is empirical and no empirical data can correspond to the meaning of these words.
For that reason, Hegel says the following about those who accuse him of pantheism:
These doctrines are of speculative kind, and if there are theologians who are not able to understand them, that in this point they cannot follow the pace of the concept, they should at least, in their weakness, leave alone these speculative subjects. Theology is to understand the religious con- tent; these theologians should acknowledge that they cannot understand, and they should refrain from passing the judgment of pantheism to the concepts they have not understood (PR I 256).
The first thing that these theologians do not understand is the word God. As we saw in our previous chapters (III, 1), they do not know what the spirit is and they tend to define it as the negation of the material. This recourse is pointless since the definiendum does not get thereby any other content than materiality itself. And we saw (IV, 3) that they do not know the meaning of 'infinite' either. This should not surprise us, since the meaning of infinite is the spirit itself. "We, on the other hand, consider God as spirit" (PR I 8); now, "the spirit is essentially being for the spirit" (PR I 201). The spirit is intersubjectivity; but, as we just exposed, there is the identity, and not only does it not loose distinction, but rather there is precisely the identity so that the distinction between God and men can have any meaning.
"This relation with the Absolute is not suppressing both, for there would be no distinct thus, but rather they must remain distinct without losing that nature" (JS 96).
"The principal is the true determination of this identity, and the true identity is the one that exists in the infinite subjectivity, which cannot be conceived as neutralization or reciprocal cancellation, but only as infinite subjectivity" (PR II, II 68).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 170 Hegel was right
In universal history, the only thing that matters is that these two parts re- main in absolute unity, true conciliation, a conciliation in which the free subject does not succumb in the object mood of the spirit, but rather obtains his full autonomy, and in the like way, the absolute spirit, the objective and reluctant unity, obtains its absolute right as well (VG 244).
This subject about identity and distinction is the point in which the famous 'conversion ad phantasma' of the Scholastic philosophers plays a dirty trick against them. It demonstrates not only that it is false that we should cast our eyes to fantasy in order to understand: it also demon- strates that we have to do without fantasy if we want to understand.
But those who try to give an empirical meaning to the word distinct by means of 'here' and 'there' incur even in a bigger mistake. The 'here' is so metaphysical and unempirical as Newton's absolute space and, in fact, as any other space. When someone thinks that he is seeing the space that separates him from the wall before him, what he is seeing is the wall before him, not the space. The space is invisible, and a point within space is even more invisible, for that matter. The 'here' is a point or a region in space; but none of these things are seen. And if someone believes that he can touch the space with his hands, the only thing one can tell him is that he is not touching anything. If our definer pretended to attribute an empirical meaning to the distinction by a 'here' and a 'there', his failure could not be more disastrous.
Besides, if our definer reflects a little, he has to recognize that the idea 'two beings really distinguish themselves' is not the same as the idea 'this being is here and the other being is there'. As Hegel says: "In the here and now as such does not consist the distinction" (GP I 315). Let us make the following question to clarify this: if two beings identify themselves with each other, would they cease to be two bodies? The fact itself that we understand this question implies that being distinct is not the same as being in different places, for we understand the dif- ference between two bodies occupying the same space and two bodies identifying themselves with each other. Even he, who is inclined to respond affirmatively to the question, has to understand it first: this implies that the meanings of 'identifying' and 'being one body' are not the same. Now, this will do: the meaning of distinction supposedly consisted in being at different places, and we have proved that this is not the case.
The same question we made with regard to identity, one should ask it in regard of a 'twofold location'. The question would be: if a body were at two places simultaneously, would it cease to be the same body? The simple fact that the question is intelligible implies that 'being at two different places' does not mean 'being two and not one'. I owe anthro- pologist Leslie White the following information: ". . . it may be remarked that normal children and many primitive peoples find nothing wrong with the notion that a body can be in two different places at the same time" (1964, 279 n. ). This fact will do to demonstrate that the notion itself of being at two different places does not mean two different bodies.
In addition, one should know that the true extent of the experiment of Young and Taylor --to which we will refer later on-- is that terms
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 160 Hegel was right
like distinction, individuality and identity do not have any meaning in Physics. An example of this is that an electron can be in two places at the same time. Many physics would want to reject this. They reject exactly what they understand. It follows that the concept of two and not one, that is to say, the concept of distinction, does not mean to be in two places at the same time. Let's repeat with Hegel: "In the here and now as such, it does not consist distinction" (GP I 315)
6. individuaLity
Now, if the concept of distinction does not have an empirical meaning, the concept of individuality and identity do not have it too, for it is obvious that individuality implies that a being is distinct from other beings, and identity implies that a being is not distinct from itself. By some way or another, the concept of distinction enters into the defini- tions of individuality and identity, terms whose meaning is not empiri- cal. And vice versa: the distinction between two beings consists in that they are not identical. If some of these concepts are unempirical, then all of them are. This is precisely relevant in regard to the attempts of defining individuality through the localization in space: the individu- ality of a being does not mean that this being is 'here' and not 'there'.
The physic Bernard d'Espagnat has drawn some systematic observa- tions from Jean Piaget about the epistemological development of babies --conclusions that are undeniable in this sense. To identify the identity and the individuality of an object with certain localization in space is a practical construction that is useful to the kid in order to coordinate his movements and to integrate his early 'vision' of the world'. It is an implicit assumption that the baby makes to orient himself, but this does not have a greater probability than the contrary assumption. "This shows", according to d'Espagnat, "that the idea according to which any macroscopic object necessarily occupies some definite region of space --to the exclusion of other regions-- is not an obvious (and hence unquestionable) truth, but rather an element of the definition, useful in given circumstances, of the word 'object'. " (1976, xx)
Alongside the psychological developments of Piaget, one could recourse to the undeterministc physics of Heisenberg, Bohr and Von Neumann, which fortunately does not find today serious opponents among physics. D'Espagnat affirms:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 161
. . . the fact that the notion of localized objects is but a construct liberates us from the so-called commonsense view [. . . ] according to which individual macroscopic objects obviously --and therefore necessarily-- exist as indi- viduals independently of ourselves; hence it liberates us from the apparent necessity of considering them as more basic than numbers, logical struc- tures, and so on. (ibid. , xxi)
We have to point out "as individuals" we are not dealing with the existence of material.
Physics could have spared themselves the detour that goes through Heisenberg and Schro? dinger (and Piaget) if they had read the section about the sense-certainty at the beginning of the Phenomenology. The 'here' and the 'now' only manage to denote something individual if we understand them in function of the subject that pronounces this words. They express thus
"our intention" (unsere Meinung), as commentators like Lauer, Mure, Bon- siepen and Heinrich have very well understood. Therefore, to attribute an individuality to the material objects that does not depend on the knowing subject, not only means to draw a gratuitous and empirically unjustifiable stamen like that of absolute space, but is in fact a statement that lacks all sense whatsoever. Hegel says "there is no distinction between the atoms" (GP I 362).
"Spirit is, in a much deeper sense, this one thing" (WL II 121).
Two things are important: the concept of identity and individuality lack empirical meaning, and to predicate both things of material things is a thesis which has no meaning.
Hume already remarked the first point: First, "As to the principle of individuation; we may observe, that the view of any one object is not sufficient to convey the idea of identity [. . . ] On the other hand, a multi- plicity of objects can never convey this idea, however resembling they may be supposed" (Treatise I, IV, ii). The last thing is obvious; the simi- larity is not only identity but negation of identity; in order to be alike, the objects need to be two and not one. But the vision of a sole object does not suffice either to evoke in the mind the idea of identity: this is a very abstract contribution on account of the intellect. If we explain to a farm worker what we want to say, he would agree with us in that the rock we have before is identical to itself and is individual, but he would have not come up with such a round-about idea despite he has been
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 162 Hegel was right
seeing that rock for years. In fact, despite how much time we spend observing an object, none of its colors, forms or visible details denote identity or individuality: "the one cannot be seen, it is an abstractum of thought" (GP I 358).
"The word this expresses precisely that distinguishing and sin- gling out something is a subjective designation, which lacks something outside from itself" (WL I 104).
It is frequent and coarse to believe that the individuality of a macroscopic object consists in its having visible and palpable limits that distinguish it from other objects. But we said that the existence of fields and forces that constitute each body go far beyond such empiri- cal limits. This refutes by itself such a belief. In regard to the identity of a body across the course of time, it is obvious that senses only witness at best that the body is exactly the same. That it is in fact the 'same' than a minute ago. This is something that empirical impressions do not tell us. Selfsameness is an idea tremendously metaphysical idea, a re- fined contribution of which the senses know nothing; an (ungrounded) projection towards the material of the self-sameness of the knowing subject, in which the word selfsameness does have sense.
If the observed body would have ceased to exist, and if in its place an exactly same body started to exist, the testimony of the senses would not vary at all. This demonstrates that the senses do not know anything about identity and individuality.
Besides, what difference would there be between a body that remained the same and a body that was replaced by other? The selfsameness of the material does not have any meaning at all. I am not only saying that our empirical perception would not notice anything; I am saying that it is completely indifferent that the body has been substituted for another, and consequently, I affirm that we are extrapolating a concept to the physical that has only meaning in self-consciousness, intersubjectivity and morals. That matter is a principle of individuation is one of the most foolish things that have ever been said in the history of thought. It was originated in the illusion of the localization that was dispelled above. Karl Rahner, the most intelligent Scholastic of our century, re- jected this impossible doctrine:
"Moreover, identity is given to us, now and in the future, by the iden- tity of the spiritual subject of freedom called soul" (Schriften XII 461s). The macroscopic is apparent. Its origin is the subjectivist peculiarity of our senses. If the material possessed identity and individuality, this
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 163
would have to be in the microscopic level. But the most intelligent physics have noticed that "there is no distinction between the atoms" (GP I 362) just as Hegel thought. Besides d'Espagnat, it would be useful to quote other physics, for instance, P. W. Bridgman: "The elemental processes or 'objects' do not have individuality or identificability, nor can they be repeated. The concept of 'sameness' does not apply in the microscopic domain of quantum phenomena (Schilpp II 1970, 346).
Likewise, Eddington says:
". . . distinction of individuality, if it has any meaning at all, has no bearing on physical manifestations" (1978, 175).
The next paragraph of Max Jammer summarizes the thought and the experiments of Heisenberg, Hund, Denisson, Wigner, Heitler and London
These results not only lent weight to the concept of like particles; they also showed that like particles may be indistinguishable, that is, may lose their identity, a conclusion which follows from the uncertainty relations or, more precisely, from the impossibility of keeping track of the individual particles in the case of interactions of like particles. For, contrary to classical dynamics, trajectories could no longer be defined as sharp nonintersecting world- lines but had to be conceived as overlapping each other. In fact, all papers on exchange phenomena and, in particular, the calculations concerning the ground state of the helium atom, in which the wave functions of the two electrons overlap completely, showed clearly that the classical principle of an unrestricted identifiability of particles had to be abandoned. Moreover, it was possible to show that Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was al- ready contradicted by the idea of an approximately continuous sequence of atomic-configuration measurements, designed to identify electrons in lower-energy states and hence requiring positional uncertainties smaller than average electron distances. (1966. 344)
This is related with the 'forbidden distance' or impossible orbits of Bohr's atoms which we will in short bring into consideration. Let us only look first at this quotation of Paul Dirac: "If a system in atomic physics contains a number of particles of the same kind, e. g. a num- ber of electrons, the particles are absolutely indistinguishable one from another. No observable change is made when two of them are inter- changed. " (1981, 207)
Hegel had already said in times of classical mechanics that we are dealing with "exterior objects, not individual ones" (WL II 376).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 164 Hegel was right
In the atomic model of Bohr, the atoms 'jump' from one orbit of radio to another depending on how much energy each of them has. However, as it was experimentally demonstrated by Planck's discovery of the indivisibility ad infinitum of physical realities, an orbit's radio cannot have any dimension, there are radios that are physically im- possible, which means that it is impossible for the electron to be at such a distance from the nucleus. Therefore, it is not the case that the electron passes from one orbit to another, but rather that the intermedi- ate states cannot exist. The only thing that happens is that the electron disappears from one orbit and reappears in another. But how could one affirm that it is the 'same' electron, if there is no continuity between one state and the other? Further: is it relevant at all that it is the same electron or not? The only possible meaning of being the same is con- sidering oneself to be the same. And this happens without any substra- tum. It is not the case that the subject remains the same even when he is not conscious of being the same; we already showed (III, 6) that these intermediate states do not exist. I am myself because I consider myself to be so. This lies in mutual dependency with intersubjectivity (cfr. III, 7): Just as it is true that I consider myself the same in function that the others consider me the same, so it is true that they consider me the same because I consider myself to be the same. "Only in morals this concept of the absolute individuality of consciousness has properly sense. " (GP I, 271). Individuality and identity of matter, is an absolutely unjustified projection of concepts which only have a meaning in the spirit.
In radioactivity, the tunnel effect demonstrates also that it is ab- surd to talk about the identity of the particles. There is a 'prohibited zone' for the particles around the nucleus, but these particles are in fact emitted from the nucleus towards the surrounding world. The zone is prohibited because the kinetic energy of the particle would be negative in it and its speed would be imaginary. Therefore, to say that a particle passes by this zone is to utter something impossible. All the problematic that may rise up in regard of the identity of the particle emitted by the nucleus is based on the ignorance of what the physical world is in contrast with the spirit.
This lack of knowledge was what made Einstein broke up with Bohr, and it is also the reason why he was incapable of accepting the decisive facts of relativity and, more in particular, the disturbing fact discovered by Young's dispositive and Geoffrey Ingram Taylor's technique. This technique is described by Ted Bastin:
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 165
. . . any interference experiment can be conducted at such low intensity that effects due to statistical assemblages of particles can be discounted, yet interference occurs just the same. Hence even in the traditionally central case of electron interference, purely statistical treatment is not possible. (1971, 5 n. )
In other words, it is not the case that a photon is interfered by an- other, but rather that it interferes with itself. And the same goes for the electrons. Cfr also: EB 23, 20, 2.
Niels Bohr summarizes the problem thus: "". . . to be obliged to say, on the one hand, that the photon always chooses one of the two ways and, on the other, that it behaves as if it had passed both ways" (1958, 51).
This is the dispositive: to the left hand we have a fountain of photons, in the center we have a partition with two orifices or little slots, and to the right hand we have a screen where the light is reflected and where we can observe by the form of the lights and the shades if there is in- terference or not, for strips of maximal intensity juxtaposed to dark strips mean that two wave trains are being superimposed, whether in phase or not. Let us remember that by the low intensity of the fountain one has achieved monophotonic rays; in other terms, it is not a front of various photons that goes toward the partition, but a single strip of a photons in which each of the elements advances one at a time. Now, if there is individuality in the material, the photon can only go through one of the orifices; but then there would be nothing of interference, since there would not be two different trajectories and hence there would not be superimposition or annulment of wave crests, something for which two wave trains are required.
The phenomenon which has caused an unmendable consternation among physics is that the interference is produced when the two ori- fices are open, but if we block one of them, no interference is produced. The intellectual honesty of Bohr and his colleagues oblige them to say: the photon, evidently, goes through one of the orifices, but it behaves as if it went through both of them. Otherwise, they would have to say something much more scandalous and completely absurd: when pass- ing through one of the orifices, the photon knows if the other orifice is closed or open, and as a result, it creates or not interference on the screen.
It is obvious, however, that an as if does not solve the problem and hence the Physics of our century has not dared to face the true logi- cal conclusion of the experiment. The conclusion is that individuality,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 166 Hegel was right
distinction and identity are categories that have nothing to do with the empirical word. If the entire physical world was only one being, the ob- servable phenomena would not be different as how they really are.
The experiment has been repeated thousands of times and in the most diverse circumstances and variants, always with the same shocking effect on the minds of the classical physics. For instance, if we capture one of the two resulting photons of the decay of positronium by means of a polaroid in a vertical position, the other will certainly go through a polaroid in a horizontal position. But if we turn forty-five degrees both polaroids, classical optics has to affirm that the first photon has fifty percent of probabilities of going through and that the second pho- ton, which knows nothing about the former one, would have the same probabilities. However, things are not this way. Let us put two po- laroids in a straight angle: if a photon goes through one of them, the other photon will always go through its corresponding polaroid. It acts is as if it knew that the other photon has gone through. If we do not want to sustain the absurdity that a photon, once it has went through its polaroid, communicates with the other and orders it to go through its corresponding polaroid --a communication that would have to take place at a speed faster than light--, the only solution is to say what physic O. R. Fisch has affirmed: "We must consider the two photons as being one system" (Bastin, 1971, 20).
It is obvious that we should repeat what we have said about the as if of Bohr. To begin with, physics should have never considered the two photons as two separate beings. They ought not to be deceived by the belief that individuality has some meaning in physics. Einstein accused quantum physics of believing in telepathy. But every problem of com- munication or telepathy supposes gratuitously that they are 'distinct' and 'individual' entities. Physics are ridiculously assuming this pseudo- problem, because these concepts only have a meaning in the spirit, not in matter. The 'occult parameters' of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen are only efforts to solve the same pseudo-problem.
7. the bottom of the probLem
After demonstrating that it is impossible to give empirical or physical meaning to the words distinction, identity and individuality, we are now in the conditions of going deeper into the matter.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 167
We said that those who accuse Hegel of pantheism should only focus on whether self-consciousness is preserved or not. And the bottom-line is this: this ideal and not physical contraposition between different 'selves', between self-consciousnesses that reciprocally address each other and make each other being, is the only possible meaning of the word distinction. Evidently, however, the ideal and not physical entity they create thereby is only one; there is no way to fragment it because it is not material. There we have distinction in the identity and vice versa; it is impossible to define one without the other in the definition. The great difference between the abstract intellect that does not understand and the reason that understands consists in that the former "commits the same absurdity of making that which is pure relation into something devoid of all relation. " (WL. I 211).
"The elements of the distinction are the identity and the distinction itself" (WL II 34).
It has been nothing more than sheer superficiality to attribute un- intelligibility to the Hegelian thesis according to which "the identity of the identity with the no-identity" (JS 96), for "the identity [. . . ] does not exclude the distinction; it has it essentially in its own determination" (BS 371). The ideal entity called intersubjectivity cannot exist if these poles are not distinguished.
The abstract intellect stiffens: it considers that identity and distinc- tion are things that have nothing to do with each other and are not re- lated at all. One misunderstands thus both of them, since it is impossible to give them meaning by empirical or physical means. The abstract intellect uses these two words without giving them meaning.
In contrast with reason, " in general it stands for the understanding as abstracting, and hence as separating and remaining fixed in its sepa- rations. Directed against reason, it behaves as ordinary common sense and imposes its view that truth rests on sensuous reality, that thoughts are only thoughts, meaning that it is sense perception which first gives them filling and reality" (WL. I 26)
We have long enough demonstrated that this opinion is something utterly impossible. The sensible perception cannot give meaning to the concepts. What happens is that the abstract intellect 'thinks in a simi- lar way than imagination', as Hegel denounces. For imagination, each thing stands on its side with no relation to others; things are unrelated within the (imaginary) space. Properly speaking,
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 168 Hegel was right
thought, mediation, the intellectual determinations as such are forms of relation, but they can be immobilized as imaginary figurations, and just then we must think properly in the form of imagination: the intellect (PR I 293).
But:
this holding apart of likeness and unlikeness is their destruction. For both are determinations of difference; they are relations to one another, the one being what the other is not; like is not unlike and unlike is not like; and both essentially have this relation and have no meaning apart from it (WL. II 36)
The ideal and mental reality called intersubjectivity --which is more real than anything physical, as our third chapter showed-- is a simple entity because it is immaterial; it is identical because it consists in that its poles are distinct from each other; it consists in that every self-consciousness addresses the others directly and reciprocally. This reality is pure act, self-determination of each of the subjects in action and a movement that integrates every one of them; but the intellect separates and makes these things static. It "commits the same absur- dity of making that which is pure relation into something devoid of all relation. " (WL I 211)
"If we take into account [. . . ] that the simple does not need to be void, one dispels the aforementioned impression, as if the simple ex- cluded from itself the distinct" (EGP 277).
The whole point is not to confuse simplicity with nothingness. Intersubjectivity is simple, because it is not material; but it consists in the distinction that exists among the subjects, which is the only real dis- tinction that there can be. According to Hegel, the identity in Aristotle is "activity, movement, repulsion, and therefore it is not inert identity; identity is identical to itself in the distinction" (GP II 164). If the iden- tity is not nothingness, that means to say, if it has content, it contains ipso facto a distinction.
By mere conceptual analysis, Proclus affirmed rightly that the mul- tiple (i. e. distinction) is not in itself; that one can only understand the multiple as included in and streaming from the one (i. e. identity); the multiple would not be multiple if they were not one. Indeed, if they were completely unrelated and had nothing to do with each other, we would not call them many, but we would call each of them one by
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Infinite and Distinction 169
their own, and the mind would not know of the other when consider- ing each of them. The multiple must stream from the one itself; the distinction has to be included in the identity. For that reason Hegel says: "The reality of the contraries and real contraposition can only be brought about by identity" (JS 97). This could only be rejected by whoever manages to give the words 'identity' and 'distinction' another intelligible meaning; not an imaginary one, for we saw that what one can imagine is empirical and no empirical data can correspond to the meaning of these words.
For that reason, Hegel says the following about those who accuse him of pantheism:
These doctrines are of speculative kind, and if there are theologians who are not able to understand them, that in this point they cannot follow the pace of the concept, they should at least, in their weakness, leave alone these speculative subjects. Theology is to understand the religious con- tent; these theologians should acknowledge that they cannot understand, and they should refrain from passing the judgment of pantheism to the concepts they have not understood (PR I 256).
The first thing that these theologians do not understand is the word God. As we saw in our previous chapters (III, 1), they do not know what the spirit is and they tend to define it as the negation of the material. This recourse is pointless since the definiendum does not get thereby any other content than materiality itself. And we saw (IV, 3) that they do not know the meaning of 'infinite' either. This should not surprise us, since the meaning of infinite is the spirit itself. "We, on the other hand, consider God as spirit" (PR I 8); now, "the spirit is essentially being for the spirit" (PR I 201). The spirit is intersubjectivity; but, as we just exposed, there is the identity, and not only does it not loose distinction, but rather there is precisely the identity so that the distinction between God and men can have any meaning.
"This relation with the Absolute is not suppressing both, for there would be no distinct thus, but rather they must remain distinct without losing that nature" (JS 96).
"The principal is the true determination of this identity, and the true identity is the one that exists in the infinite subjectivity, which cannot be conceived as neutralization or reciprocal cancellation, but only as infinite subjectivity" (PR II, II 68).
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 170 Hegel was right
In universal history, the only thing that matters is that these two parts re- main in absolute unity, true conciliation, a conciliation in which the free subject does not succumb in the object mood of the spirit, but rather obtains his full autonomy, and in the like way, the absolute spirit, the objective and reluctant unity, obtains its absolute right as well (VG 244).
This subject about identity and distinction is the point in which the famous 'conversion ad phantasma' of the Scholastic philosophers plays a dirty trick against them. It demonstrates not only that it is false that we should cast our eyes to fantasy in order to understand: it also demon- strates that we have to do without fantasy if we want to understand.
