Finding the Hidden Key (pt 2)

This is the fifth of my posts reviewing Dr Wolfgang Smith's 2019 monograph: Physics & Vertical Causation, the End of Quantum Reality. (Angelico Press, 2019, also available on Amazon Kindle)

We finished yesterday with Smith's ontological distinction between corporeal and physical objects, together with their corresponding planes or domains. He raises at this point the question of how a physicist can make the transition from one domain to the other; what 'bridge' would be employed for this purpose? To answer this question, he introduces a form of shorthand. Let every corporeal object X be assigned its corresponding physical object SX. X and SX are 'as different as night and day', since X has a host of qualitative attributes but SX has none since it is described in exclusively mathematical terms. The physicist accordingly must make two “crossings” of the bridge: a theoretical transition from X to SX, complemented by an empirical return from SX to X. The physicist, he notes, does have something to say about the corporeal domain too, because it derives its quantitative content from the physical.

The discussion now proceeds to a number of surprising but highly significant statements on the distinction between the corporeal and the physical.

(1) The modus operandi of physics has for its object the physical; physics, then may be said ''to have eyes only for the physical.'' This flies in the face of most physicists' conflation of the physical and the corporeal.
(2) What distinguishes corporeal entities from the physical is that they exist.
(3) The physical does not coincide with the corporeal but constitutes a sub-existential domain. Heisenberg himself placed the quantum particles ontologically “just in the middle between possibility and reality.” They recall the potentiae (potencies) of Aristotle.
(4) Quantum particles as potentiae are actualized in the very act of measurement. A quantum particle is not actually a particle - which is to say it does not exist - until it interacts with a corporeal instrument of measurement.
(5) The physical universe constitutes a sub-existential domain. which underlies the corporeal world and determines its quantitative attributes.

Aristotle. After Lysippos. Roman Copy [Public domain]

The focus now shifts to a quite remarkable synthesis or harmonisation of Smith's insight into physics and quantum theory, on the one hand, and the metaphysics of Aristotle and his disciples, on the other. The following passage is worth quoting in full:

...the notion of an ontological realm or stratum “beneath” the corporeal proves to be integral to our metaphysical heritage. It springs in fact from the seminal recognition that corporeal being entails, not one, but two fundamental principles: something called hyle or materia, plus morphe or form, to put it in Aristotelian terms. Everything in creation hinges upon these two complementary principles: the paternal,[1] exemplified by form, and the maternal corresponding to materia (it seems our very language testifies to this fact [1]). The doctrine known as hylomorphism proves thus to be—not the mere invention of Aristotle—but the expression of a universal truth, which in one form or another constitutes in fact the sine qua non of every sound ontology.

Smith's tour de force now brings us back to the idea of 'verticality' mentioned in the earlier posts. His mastery of Eastern and Western traditions enables him to state unequivocally that the distinction between form and matter has been represented iconically 'since time immemorial' as a vertical distinction.

morphe/form

hyle/materia

Morphe/form is conceived pictorially as above hyle/materia. This notion of 'verticality', of 'high' and 'low' is not a merely subjective conception. The morphe/hyle dichotomy is nothing less than the metaphysical foundation of the world.

Smith extends this idea of ''verticality" by presenting a picture of the integral cosmos as a hierarchy of ''horizontal'' planes:

the corporeal
the physical
materia prima

We shall end today's post with Smith's recapitulation that the physical universe proves to be a sub-existential domain, situated ontologically between materia prima and the corporeal plane, noting that he describes the latter as ''pure receptivity'' which does not actually exist.

The next post will conclude our review of Chapter 3 and will contain further, ground-breaking  insights from the remarkable mind of Dr Wolfgang Smith. Here is a taster:

...the cosmos presentifies (sic) not only entities, but values, that it speaks to us not only of “things,” but of beauty and goodness—and ultimately, as Plato informs us, of the Beautiful and the Good itself. We need to remind ourselves thus of the categorical distinction between qualities and quantities, which proves to be immeasurably profound: for whereas quantities derive in truth “from below”—in keeping with the Scholastic dictum “numerus stat ex parte materiae”—it can in truth be said that qualities stem “from above,” that in fact they transmit the light of supernal essences into this nether world.

[1]  In corroboration of what I initially considered an unlikely etymological link made by Smith, it is interesting to compare ''pattern'' with ''material'' in this context. In its respective etymologies, the Complete OED links  ''pattern'' to ''patron' to 'pater' (father) and links  ''material'' to ''matter'' to ''mater'' (mother).  Accordingly, when a pattern and material are coupled together in dressmaking, the fruit of their union is a garment, eg a pair of trousers or a skirt!