July 17, 2021

Think outside the clocks

Is there such a thing as Time with a capital T that lies beneath the time that we measure using clocks?

This question is at the heart of a fascinating book I've been reading called The Physicist and the Philosopher by Jimena Canales. It's a story about Albert Einstein, who needs no introduction, and Henri Bergson, who probably does.

Over the decades, many experiments have conclusively established the enduring power of Einstein’s scientific vision expressed in the theory of relativity. With each passing confirmation, another question has continued to endure. Could Einstein be right about the scientific nature of time and yet be wrong about the broader context into which we place that science?

We love physics because it explains the world we see around us. There is another reason to love physics. It explains the worlds we cannot see. It describes what is beneath, behind, above and below our everyday experience. Indeed, physics has become more than just knowledge or facts. It has come to resemble Truth with a capital T.

Physics uses powerful mathematical representations and creative instruments in its pursuit of Truth. But, as we reach the edge between the measurable and the immeasurable, is there something else that comes along for the ride? Is there something beyond “just facts” that comes into play as we peer into the deepest layers of reality?

To pose the question more precisely, does physics provide the last word on the nature of reality? Or, is there a subtler layer that lies beyond the measurements of scientists? Is there a metaphysics that goes beyond physics, mathematics and instrumentation? The Truth of all truths? These questions lie at the heart of the famous debate between Einstein and Bergson, one that was unfortunately lost by the latter.

A French philosopher, Henri Bergson was the more famous of the two at the turn of the 20th century. How he came to be forgotten and Einstein memorialized is a story unto itself. The debate and Bergson’s defeat culminated in science becoming the last word on everything, even on topics as subtle and slippery as space and time. With his defeat, philosophy came to be sidelined in western society and replaced with scientism, which I’d argue has been to our detriment. It all began in 1922 when the two met in an unplanned but fateful debate.

Time was central to Einstein’s special theory of relativity. Time, he said, was not a fixed backdrop to the universe. Clocks sped up or slowed down depending on the speed at which one traveled. If you compared a clock on earth with one on a rocket moving at near the speed of light, the hands on the latter would move slower. Einstein revolutionized the idea of time, and the world gasped at his audacity. Time itself would prove him right.

Time was also central to Bergson’s work. He made it clear that he did not disagree with the technical details and the equations Einstein put forth. Bergson argued that Einstein’s theory spoke more about clocks and how time was measured rather than time itself, which he called “duration.” The special theory of relativity, Bergson said, was not a fundamental description of Time. He called Einstein out for missing the distinction.

In Bergson’s world, Time was much more than measurements and clocks. Time was not a mere physical quantity of a disembodied universe but dependent on embodied consciousness. “When our eyes follow on the face of a clock, the movement of the needle that corresponds to the oscillations of the pendulum, I do not measure duration, as one would think; I simply count simultaneities, which is quite different.” According to Bergson, something novel, more important and outside of the clock needed to be included in our understanding of time. Only that could explain why we attributed to clocks such great power, or why we even invented them in the first place. He described it as the underpinning of human experience.

Bergson was reproached by physicists for being “mystical,” “unfriendly to science” and criticized for bringing in the “observer” into the world of physics. Bergson countered that the observer should never be made irrelevant and instruments by themselves would never describe reality. At the end of their first debate, Einstein lobbed the now famous grenade by saying, “The time of the philosophers does not exist any more.” While he meant to say that time as described by philosophers was dead, he might as well have meant the age of the philosophers had passed. He accused Bergson of not understanding relativity and confusing between physical and psychological perceptions of time. Bergson, in turn, believed that Einstein had not properly understood his objections. In the decades that followed, the force of Einstein’s personality along with the momentum of discoveries in physics overwhelmed Bergson’s arguments and relegated him to obscurity. When the man, once considered one of the greatest western philosophers, died, a wag quipped, “Isn’t he already dead?”

What are the metaphysics of Einstein’s theory of relativity? As you can imagine, this would take a book or two to explain. In essence, relativity replaces a separate space and time with an interwoven four-dimensional construct called space-time. Weird things happen when you make this leap. Einstein’s 4D space-time contains everything that has ever happened - the past, the present and the future. In the space-time continuum, we find Julius Caesar’s stabbing, India’s victories in the cricket world cup, your birth and mine. It also contains the moment you’ll stub your toe against the coffee table next week and coastal cities becoming inundated by the rising seas. Everything that will ever happen to you until you die is already in space-time, connected as a string of already existing events. Physicists call it your world line.

Is this really how time works? Has everything that is yet to happen already happened? This theory is sometimes referred to as chrono-geo-determinism. It is an example of a metaphysics that grew out of a scientific theory. It is the exact sort of overreach Bergson was warning against.

What do I make of Bergson’s claims? I haven’t read enough of him to offer an educated opinion. In his words, I find echoes of ancient Indian philosophies. The Sankhyan philosophers of India described space and time as outcomes of matter interacting with consciousness. The Vedantins describe a substratum of reality that is the very source of matter and consciousness. Regardless of how I feel about Bergson, I am convinced of his argument that we should keep physics aside from metaphysics. Physicists have a way of turning abstractions such as equations, data, and observations into real things that exist in the world. Sure, physics is getting closer in its pursuit of Truth. But, the closer it gets, the further it remains from knowing the ultimate answer. That is the conundrum of a measurement based, objective experimental approach that relies on recorded sensory experiences to understand experience itself.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an anti-physicist. Far from it. Physics and philosophy are undoubtedly two of mankind’s greatest pursuits. But, there is the raw experience of “being” that neither a philosopher nor a physicist can capture with words or equations. In the rush to make science the final adjudicator of all questions, we have left behind the philosopher. The Bergson v Einstein debate is important not because of the personalities involved or even the ideas that clashed. It marked a turning point in western society. It was the moment Science won and Philosophy lost. It didn’t have to be that way. Rest in peace, Monsieur Bergson. You “lost” to a worthy opponent, but your question lives on.

There is a relationship between the understanding of the world that physics brings and the knowledge that it is we who do the understanding. What does it mean to be a conscious being having personal, subjective experiences? This question, which lies at the heart of everything, is perhaps the most beautiful of nature’s mysteries. Science is one route to get to Truth, but not the only route.