We have never been modern

How Dr Hoodboy is wrong

In his column of February 9, 2013, for the Express Tribune, Pervez Hoodboy quoted an assertion from preface of Iqbal’s The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, saying: “Classical Physics has learned to criticise its own foundations. As a result of this criticism the kind of materialism, which it originally necessitated, is rapidly disappearing.” According to Hoodboy, this was an “oversised assertion” by Iqbal and in his understanding: “no real physicist can take this statement seriously”. He added: “Even with the discovery of quantum physics — which superseded and improved upon classical physics — the description of observed physical phenomena requires nothing beyond material causes.” As Hoodboy preaches rational thinking keenly, the goal of today’s column is to show the reader that the materialistic conception of the universe, as attempted by Hoodboy, cannot be justified on the basis of the findings in post-Newtonian physics.

E A Burt in The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Sciences (1925) identifies key characteristics of the classical physics from Galileo to Newton and their philosophical implications. According to Burt, Galileo combined the geometrical representation of universe, based on Plato’s Timaeus, and the Democritus’s materialistic atomic theory of matter, for his work on bodies in motion. Before Galileo, why of motion was the subject of study in the qualitative terms yet he focused on the how of motion using quantitative methods of exact mathematics. Moreover, Galileo re-introduced concepts like separation between the mathematical (primary) and physical world (secondary). Mathematical world was declared to be primary because of being absolute, objective, and immutable, whereas the physical world happened to be relative, subjective, and illusion. Consequently, the mathematical study of the how of motion, introduced the concepts of homogenous space and time instead of the classical notions of substance and form.

Descartes formulated his Cartesian model of reality, based on Galileo, putting mind on top. On the contrary, Bacon also took materialistic theory for his experimental works, yet he puts the observable experiment on top. Newton combined experimental and mathematical domains for his mechanical conception of universe. For Newton, there was force i.e., gravity instead of motion, however, force could be defined only in the terms of observable body’s mass. Similarly, he gave absolute status to mathematically defined time and space. And, for motion to exist, Newton talked about existence of ether as a medium of motion in space. Therefore, for Newton, motion became absolute because motion meant transfer of body from one part of absolute space to the other. Building on Newton’s scientific work, Kant declared the limit on knowledge saying that we could not know “noumena”. Similarly, Laplace, ‘Newton of France’, developed scientific determinism saying that: “the position and motion of the atoms at any moment could predict the whole course of future events.”

Further, for Burt, this development of modern physical sciences based on materialism/mechanism/determinism puts questions to the existence of both God and man. According to Burt, it was Galileo, again, who quoted Tertullian’s dictum: “we know God first by nature, then by revelation”. Hence, one should interpret doubtful passages of scripture in the light of scientific discovery rather than the reverse. Boyle added, “As God played the mathematician in creating the world, mathematical principles, like the axioms of logic, must be ultimate truths superior to God himself, and independent of revelation; in fact revelation itself must be so interpreted as not to contradict those principles.” Newton contributed while saying, “After its first construction the world of nature has been quite independent of God for its continued existence and motion.” Laplace said, “I had no need of that hypothesis.”

Considering if Burt is right in his analysis of the classical physics, then the classical physics has three leading characteristics i.e., materialism, universal objectivism, and determinism. And, atheism is an ultimate outcome of the classical physics based on the materialism/determinism. It seems obvious that Iqbal refers to the implications of modern physics for “this kind of materialism” in his above assertion.

A cursory glance of the science literature of last two centuries strengthens Iqbal’s assertion. Electromagnetic worldview came to the front. Mathematicians blew the idea of absolute authority/truth in geometry through development of non-Euclidean geometries in the nineteenth century. Einstein’s theory of relativity (1905), based on non-Euclidean geometry, put an end to Newtonian absolutism of motion, space and time. Special relativity unified space and time and declared the both inseparable. Therefore, universe happened to be context-bound because different observers see the world differently. Similarly, After Michelson and Morley’s “failed experiment”, unable to determine the existence of the elusive ether, the classical notion of ether was put to abandon for good. Whitehead declared reality to be a system of inter-connected events and put forward a relational image of reality rather than dual/binary image. Later, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle (1927) replaced scientific determinism with probabilistic understanding of universe saying that either one could measure the speed of motion or could measure position of an atom but not both.

Here, it seems quite possible that one argues, like Hoodboy tried, in the favour of materialism/determinism based on quantum physics. However, quantum physicists like David Bohm will strongly disagree with Hoodboy. Bohm in Wholeness and Implicate Order (1980), critiques the Cartesian model of reality in the light of developments in quantum physics. He developed hidden variable theory/ontological theory against deterministic/mechanical presentation of reality based on quantum mechanics. Bohm views physical processes as determined by information based on causal interpretation of the quantum theory yet does not limit them to matter alone. More technically, Bohm thinks of electron as an “inseparable union of a particle and a field”. His formulation of a new theory of the relationship of mind and matter views thought and physical processes in an inseparable, non-dualistic and non-reductionist relationship.

Finally, if above all is the case based on the findings in post-Newtonian physics including quantum physics, the reader is allowed to make his decisive choice. Ironically, a nuclear physicist is urging to adopt the twenty five centuries old perspective that cannot be taken seriously after the findings of post-Newtonian physics. Oops! For Hoodboy, “We have never been modern!”

The writer is a PhD student at SSE, LUMS.