Maxwells field is the potential reality of electromagnetics

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The Maxwell field is the Aristotles potential reality of
electromagnetics


By George Mpantes mathematics teacher, www.mpantes.gr

Abstract .
The Aristotles potentiality and actuality, matter and form, defines a new ontology in
physics the reality of senses and the hidden reality that is grasped only by mind. This
distinction is clearly seen in the case of Maxwells electromagnetics. The forces are in the
apparent reality and the field in the potentiality. Physics works with concepts that are defined
operationalistically, the point of view of Bridgman, viz in the domain of the reality of senses
as the potentiality and forms are grasped only with mental energy (Aristotle). The Maxwells
field takes meaning from these two limit ontologies.
Aristotelian distinction of the reality.
One fundamental Aristotelian distinction in Aristotelian ontology, is the
matter-form distinction, which connects it with another key distinction,
between potentiality and actuality . This is the main topic of book of
Metaphysics.
A potentiality {Gk. [dynamis]} is the passive capacity of a
substance to be changed in other substances in determinate ways. An
actuality {Gk. [energeia]} is just the realization of one of these
potentialities, which is most significant when it includes not merely the
movement but also its purpose. Becoming, then, is the process in which the
potentiality present in one individual substance is actualized through the
agency of something else which is already actual. (Metaphysics IX) Thus, for
Maxwells field is the potential reality of electromagnetics
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Aristotle, change of any kind requires the actual existense of something which
causes the change (efficient cause). Actuality is to potentiality, Aristotle tells
us, as someone waking is to someone sleeping, as someone seeing is to a
sighted person with his eyes closed, as that which has been shaped out of
some matter is to the matter from which it has been shaped (1048b13).
Consider, for example, a piece of wood, which can be carved or shaped into a
table or into a bowl. In Aristotle's terminology, the wood has (at least) two
different potentialities, since it is potentially a table and also potentially a bowl.
The matter (in this case, wood) is linked with potentialty; the substance (in this
case, the table or the bowl) is linked with actuality. The as yet uncarved wood
is only potentially a table, and so it might seem that once it is carved the wood
is actually a table. Perhaps this is what Aristotle means, but it is possible that
he does not wish to consider the wood to be a table. His idea might be that
not only can a piece of raw wood in the carpenter's workshop be considered a
potential table (since it can be transformed into one), but the wood composing
the completed table is also, in a sense, a potential table.
Since Aristotle gives form priority over matter, we would expect him
similarly to give actuality priority over potentiality. And that is exactly what we
find (.8, 1049b45). But as regards temporal priority, by contrast, potentiality
may well seem to be prior to actuality, since the
wood precedes the table that is built from it, and the
acorn precedes the oak that it grows into. So the
field precedes the waves, as was indeed in
Maxwells procedure. The electric field is like the
wood, it is transformed into force when a charge is
displayed in the region, otherwise there is just as a
potentiality. It exists but potentially, no operation can reveal it.
What is the physical meaning of this dichotomy in the concept of reality
of Aristotelian ontology?
Actual reality is the reality of experience, and potential reality the
reality beyond the senses, the hidden reality. But this is a reality too.
Maxwells field is the potential reality of electromagnetics
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.one thing that does not exist but can exist, we say that exists really
or happened .Metaphysics 4

The new ontology in physics, operationalism .
Operationalism
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is based on the intuition that we do not know the
meaning of a concept unless we have a method of measurement for it. It is
commonly considered a theory of meaning which states that we mean by any
concept nothing more than a set of operations; the concept is synonymous
with the corresponding set of operations (Bridgman 1927, 5). That drastic
statement was made in The Logic of Modern Physics
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, published in 1927 by
the American physicist P. W. Bridgman. The operationalist point of view, first
expounded at length in that book, initially found many advocates among
practicing physicists and those inspired by the tradition of American
pragmatism or the new philosophy of logical positivism.
Bridgman's concerns about the definition and meaning of scientific
concepts were forged in the general climate of shock suffered by physicists at
that time from a barrage of phenomena and theoretical ideas that were
entirely alien to everyday expectations, culminating with quantum mechanics
and its Copenhagen interpretation. In a popular article, Bridgman wrote: if
we sufficiently extend our range we shall find that nature is intrinsically and in
its elements neither understandable nor subject to law (1929, 444).

From the Logic of Modern Physics:
.Hitherto many of the concepts of physics have been defined in
terms of their properties. An excellent example is afforded by Newton's
concept of absolute time. The following quotation from the Scholium in Book I
of the Principia is illuminating:
I do not define Time, Space, Place or Motion, as being well known to all.
Only I must observe that the vulgar conceive those quantities under no other notions
but from the relation they bear to sensible objects. And thence arise certain

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From Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy
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I have translated this paper on Greek www.mpantes gr
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prejudices, for the removing of which, it will be convenient to distinguish them into
Absolute and Relative, True and Apparent, Mathematical and Common.
(1) Absolute, True, and Mathematical Time, of itself, and from its own nature
flows equably without regard to anything external, and by another name is called
Duration .
Now there is no assurance whatever that there exists in nature
anything with properties like those assumed in the definition, and physics,
when reduced to concepts of this character, becomes as purely an abstract
science and as far removed from reality as the abstract geometry of the
mathematicians, built on postulates. It is a task for experiment to discover
whether concepts so defined correspond to anything in nature, and we must
always be prepared to find that the concepts correspond to nothing or only
partially correspond. In particular, if we examine the definition of absolute time
in the light of experiment, we find nothing in nature with such properties.

The field in the Aristotles and Bridgmans ontology .

This hidden reality is the Maxwells field and reality of senses are the
electromagnetic waves and electric and magnetic forces.
Things now look clean. As Newton's laws describe a mechanistic
theory of matter, Maxwell's equations described a non-mechanistic theory of
field. But when we leave the mechanistic description, everything then
becomes . metaphysics, so we are accustomed to think of science only in
mechanistic description.
In this metaphysical description field
is the potential reality of electromagnetics
. Maxwell worked on potentiality with the only
tool, the mathematical reasoning, and saw
through this the actuality, with models the
oldest laws of electricity (Coulomb, Faraday,
Ampere).
I believe that a critical examination will show
that the ascription of physical reality to the electric field
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is entirely without justification. I cannot find a single physical phenomenon or a single
physical operation by which evidence of the existence the field may be obtained intipedent(ly)
of the operations which entered into the definition..P.Bridgman
We note the words evidence of existence.But field is a potentiality,
hidden of the word of measurements and physical operations. How can we
study the anger when somebody is calm? As Planck says:
E is not the actual strength of the electric field at the point where the charge e is
situated , but rather the field-strength that would exist at that point if the charge e were not
present at all..Planck
Much can be said about the Aristotelian ontology of the field. The
actuality of the field is the Hertzian waves, with efficient cause the Hertzs
oscillator. The waves were contemplated with mathematical reasoning
because matter and form are separated only with mental energy.
The evolution of the concept of field, which is the first major ontological
revolution in physics, verifies the Aristotelian ontology as it doesnt accept any
mechanical interpretation, it is hidden. All remained, is its mathematical
interpretation, that is the interpretation of potential reality.

Sources .
Aristotles metaphysics, operationalism, Stanford encycopedia of
philosophy .
Electromagnetic theory: Alfred O Rahily Dover


George Mpantes mathematician www. mpantes.gr .





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