QUANTUM METAPHYSICS - E-thesis

what followed. He considered attempts to divide thoughts into different ’atoms’ to be as artificial
as trying to understand a complete musical work by examining the series of different individual
notes at any specific moment. In a corresponding way, all other phenomena could be understood
as being processes which took shape in time, they constituted it, and did not need to be
visualised. Talking about the life of the soul in mechanical or chemical terms was something
Bergson considered to defy common sense. Spiritual manifestations of life could not be reflected
with physical terms, they were manifestations of reality, which was essentially different from the
world of matter. The world of the soul was revealed in creative work, which defied all
calculation and strict prediction. The dynamic continuity of events also belonged to the physical
world. It shut out categorical Atomism, because parts could only retain their identity by their
being embedded in an interactive cosmic web. According to Bergson, for example, the constant
influence exerted by atoms was a consequence of the fact that their internal processes, i.e.
vibration, took place in what was for humans an infinitely short interval of time. 347
Since no empirical foundation could be found to support the thoughts of these ’process’
philosophers, whose ideas aroused great interest, their fate in an academic context was similar to
those of Hegel in previous time. Speculative metaphysical overviews were rejected as unfounded
in both natural scientific and many philosophical circles. At the same time, however, both a
climate critical of science gained an increased footing in human culture and more radical
doctrines were developed. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) had already said that truth could not
be copied, it had to be created. In the 1900s, Irrationalism, Existentialism, Sceptical relativism
and the complex post-modern way of thinking began to attract an increasing number of people.
Influential philosophers such as William James, Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger rejected
the approach taken by natural science and emphasised the authentic character of people’s
phenomenal world and its many nuances in their writings. 348 This change in the centre of gravity
of ways of thinking can be seen as having similarities with the ending of the pre-Socratic era in
ancient times, or the Renaissance period in the 1500s.
3.3.4. Positivism and the analytical theory of science
Positivist outlook, which from the middle of the 1800s, has been popular with many scientists
347 Bergson 1964. Aspelin 1995, 520, 524.
348 Tarnas 1991, 174, 383.
349 Trusted 1991, 131.
131