Day 3: Incommoded by Prime Matter

It's hard thinking about something we can't see yet is part of every nanometer of us.

The wasteland that I complained about yesterday (sorry) is deep ontological reality. Okay, I get it. This isn’t supposed to be comfortable. I studied philosophy the last two years for a M.A. degree, and in the courses, I focused on learning. Now it’s time to master the content. It shattered my worldview. My understanding of atoms? The elements on the periodic table? What if they are not elements after all? Don’t get me wrong; I think this is good, so good that it should be prescribed for all scientists. But it simply hurts!

Take that word “simply.” I wrestled with this passage yesterday about generation in the context of act and potency, matter and form.

Because generation is a motion to form, there is a twofold generation corresponding to this twofold form. Generation simply speaking corresponds to the substantial form, and generation in a certain respect corresponds to the accidental form. When a substantial form is introduced, we say that something comes into being simply speaking: for example, we say that man comes into being or man is generated. But when an accidental form is introduced, we do not say that something comes into being simply speaking, but that it comes into being as this. For example, when man comes into being as white, we do not say simply that man comes into being or is generated, but that he comes into being or is generated as white. There is a twofold corruption opposed to this twofold generation: simply speaking, and in a certain respect. Generation and corruption simply speaking are only in the genus of substance, but generation and corruption in a certain respect are in all the other genera.

On the Principles of Nature, Chapter 1.5

“Simply” in Scholastic terminology means absolutely and without qualification, exactly as it is in the concrete whole, according to Bernard Wuellner’s Dictionary of Scholastic Philosophy, a resource I keep close by.

So, “generation simply speaking corresponds to the substantial form” means the generation of a new thing, like a new human, new dog, or possibly the baking of a cake when the ingredients react with heat, new actually existing things, although living things are closer to beings in the proper sense than cakes.

This is contrasted to generation of accidents, which are always attached to the substance. To generate a human with brown hair, or a dog maybe with no hair (my dream dog), or a chocolate cake is accidental generation. The “simply” disappears when we introduce more details, human as brown-haired, dog as hairless, cake as chocolate.

Corruption is the opposite of generation, so likewise there is “simply” and “in a certain respect” for the reverse process. In reference to the broader genus, we say “simply,” but in reference to particulars of a species, we say “in a certain respect.”

That isn’t too hard to understand. But now think of it in terms of atoms and molecules. “Simply” gets ambiguous. For a living thing, it’s clear. A new human or dog is generated when gametes unite. For any kind of reproduction, generation is clearly marked. Death is corruption, the cessation of the body as an integrated whole. But Aquinas is not just referring to living things.

He, like Aristotle, applies generation and corruption to all bodies, all things that exist. Perhaps when a beaver builds a dam, the dam is generated while whatever materials the beaver uses are corrupted as those things. Tree limbs become parts of the dam. If a man builds a house, it is the same idea, although this is an artifact (manmade thing).

All this inquiry in On the Principles of Nature seeks primary, first things, i.e., principles. In the case of materials, that would be the elements. Elements are the primary material cause. For Aquinas, the elements are earth, fire, water, and air. These are the first bodies or prime matter and form, simple, with no parts. (We know this is not true today.) Aquinas sees prime matter, ever in potency, as moving from one form to another primarily in the elements. When the form of one thing is generated, the form of another is corrupted, but the prime matter persists and moves from thing to thing, primarily in the elements as they mix.

Atoms do not fit the “no parts” criteria, of course, but if we set that aside, we can do generation and corruption all day long with the “simplest” chemical equations where a few reactants produce products. It is easy to see how the reactants disappear as the products are made. That also affects reaction rates.

A + B —> C + D

Chemical equations depicted this way are not realistic, however. We teach chemistry at the atomic level so students can understand the role electrons (which would fit the criteria of ‘element,’ by the way) play in the determination of which elements will bond with which other elements and with what rapidity. At the atomic level, nature is pretty much like playing with smart Legos (okay, “God’s Legos”). The individual elements on the periodic table have so many properties, that at least once a semester a student will opine that elements are almost like mini-personalities with names and families. Indeed, they are like that.

Just as soon as students grasp chemical reactions at the atomic level, however, I introduce them to kinetics and thermodynamics — which is all about systems of reactions occurring in concert. Nature at this level, just above the atomic realm but still beneath the macroscopic realm, is beautiful, but it is also extremely, inhumanly complex. Think weather patterns. Think…your own body.

The idea of prime matter in the elements, whatever they are, means these elements are receivers and givers of prime matter into new forms. Theologically, because God is the Creator, He is the form-giver, but not from without as if God tripped over nature and decided to arrange it — but from within as every detail plays out in the world around us. It’s not a mechanistic, Lego view. This view is one of Divine Action at scales of nature that humans don’t fully understand yet, always right there with us, with you right now in every heartbeat and breath your body makes. Trembling anyone?

Yet, something is missing. Elements today do not fit the definition of classical elements. (This is the topic of my thesis.) I am unsure how to cross this divide. Atoms are individual and indivisible units of the elements. Yet, atoms have parts. On the other hand, the subatomic particles are not found sitting around in nature, nor are they retrievable after generation and corruption of macroscale things. None of this would mean the Aristotelian metaphysical framework does not apply today. It means it may not apply as Aquinas thought, but that’s okay.

I’m still struggling with the concept of prime matter. “Simply” is a big word.

We can’t see it or measure it, but it is there beneath even the nano-scale in all we do. It’s also an answer for the definition of matter. In chemistry, matter is anything that has mass and takes up space, which is not too helpful philosophically. It’s funny. After all these years being fascinated with the atomic world, I never thought to ask what matter is.

And, thus, I am incommoded by prime matter, inconvenienced, distressed, disturbed. I don’t expect to make any case that ancient philosophy knew what chemistry and physics would discover someday, nor do I think this is a situation where philosophy should butt in and tell science what to look for. I simply (sorry to equivocate) think this is a reminder that 2,400 years ago for Aristotle and 750 years ago for Aquinas we all study the same universe. And I really, really want to make sense of it.

Meanwhile, God bless you and all your prime matter.