Concrescence —

The Australasian Journal of Process Thought

Whitehead: Relativity and Experience

Ronny Desmet
Centre for Logic and Philosophy of Science,
Brussels University, Belgium
ronald.desmet@vub.ac.be

Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) is well-known for
his Principia Mathematica collaboration with Bertrand
Russell, and also for his later speculative adventures,
especially as set forth in Process and Reality. However,
this paper does not focus on the mathematics of his
Cambridge epoch (1880–1910), nor on the metaphysics
he created after moving to the United States (1924–1947).
We put here on the hot seat Whitehead’s philosophy
of science, which is associated with the intermediate
period of his professional life in London (1910–1924).
Next to the impact of the idealism-realism debate of
the day, animating the London Aristotelian Society of
which Whitehead was an active member as of 1915, it is
above all else the British reception of Albert Einstein’s
theories in the second decade of the twentieth century
that has played a decisive role in the London period
of Whitehead’s life. A main result was Whitehead’s
non-Einsteinian interpretation of Einstein’s general
theory of relativity, for which he forcibly argues in The
Principle of Relativity (1922). From the perspective of its
mathematical formulae and experimental consequences,
Whitehead’s alternative theory of gravitation is almost
identical with Einstein’s original theory. However,
its importance lies in the interpretative divergences,
which enable us to draw a number of important
lessons, for example, on the difference between
applied mathematics and mathematical physics, on the
dialogue (or lack of dialogue) between adherents of
diverging paradigms, and on the competition between
philosophical interpretation and scientific success.
The lesson I want to highlight in this paper concerns
the relation between theory and experience. It is a
commonplace that a theory only receives the ‘scientific’
label after being put on trial, i.e., after being checked
against our experience. However, which criteria
empirical research has to satisfy in order to be adequate
remains an open question. A partial answer is offered
by the history of science. A theory sells itself (so
to speak) in the first place by its prediction of a
number of crucial experimental observations. The
general theory of relativity is a case in point. One
of its most important sales arguments was Einstein’s
prediction concerning light originating from stars. If
the starry sky is photographed twice, once by night,
and once during a solar eclipse, all other things being
equal, then, upon comparison, we will observe exactly
calculated shifts of starlight spots near the solar corona
imprint. The pictures taken by English astronomers
with reference to the solar eclipse on May 29, 1919,
seemed to confirm Einstein’s prediction, and they were
one of the major factors which caused an instant success
for Einstein and his general theory of relativity—at
least, after the observational results were made public
by Arthur Eddington on November 6, 1919, at a joint
meeting of the Royal Society and the Royal Astronomical
Society. Whitehead was present at this meeting, and in
an account published in Science and the Modern World,
he wrote:
The whole atmosphere of tense interest was exactly that
of the Greek drama: we were the chorus commenting
on the decree of destiny as disclosed in the development
of a supreme incident. There was dramatic quality in
the very staging:—the traditional ceremonial, and in the
background the picture of Newton to remind us that the
greatest of scientific generalizations was now, after more

Concrescence, 2009, vol. 10: pp. 3–9. ISSN: 1445–4297 © 2009 The Author
Published online by the Australasian Association for Process Thought, an affiliate of the International Process Network.
4 Ronny Desmet
than two centuries, to receive its first modification. Nor was rejects that they are initially given. Whitehead warns
the personal interest wanting: a great adventure of thought us for the fallacy of misplaced concreteness, which
had at length come safe to shore. [?, 10]
For Einstein, and for most physicists and philosophers,
testing a theory by means of a number of relevant
experiments is fully adequate. Not so for Whitehead.
The experimental test is indeed the ultimate arbiter in
the game of science, but it cannot be the only one. The
interface with experimental experience is too narrow,
and needs to be broadened. Whitehead demands that the
common ground between theory and experience is not
only fertilized by the creation of experimental facts, but
also by the coherence with ordinary sense experience.
Whitehead writes:
There are two gauges through which every theory must
pass. There is the broad gauge which tests its consonance
with the general character of our direct experience, and
there is the narrow gauge [of experiment] which is . . . the
habitual working gauge of science . . . The evidence is
two-fold, and is fatally weakened if the two parts are
disjoined. [?, 3–4]
Whitehead’s additional demand is an expression of his
protest against physicists and philosophers who promote
the bifurcation of nature in a scientific world of higher
mathematics, and a common sense world of ordinary
experience, the first, of course, being the real world,
and the second, nothing more than an obstinate illusion.
However, what does Whitehead mean with ordinary
sense experience? And how can a scientific theory be
coherent with it?
Whitehead’s analysis of sense experience stems from
the idea that our experience is a stream of experiential
moments in which each moment is initially determined
by its past. Each perceptual moment of experience is
a synthesis of many, initially vague feelings of all past
things which exercise a causal influence on this present
moment, a synthesis which is further characterized by
a process of clarification and of symbolic reference.
This point of departure is at odds with the point of
departure taken by David Hume and Immanuel Kant.
These philosophers start with the clear feelings which
Russell later called sense data. They hold our sense
experience to be a synthesis of colors, odors, tastes,
and so on, into spatial and causal objects, a synthesis
characterized by habit (Hume) or conceptual activity
(Kant). Whitehead does not deny that sense data play
an important role in our sensory experience, but he
takes abstractions as more concrete than the reality
from which they were abstracted. For him, the spatial
presentation of sense data is the immediate result of
an internal abstraction-process, which starts with real
causal influences, and ends with symbolic reference in
which clear feelings usually refer to causal feelings.
Whitehead distinguishes three modes of perception in
each of our perceptual moments of experience: the pure
modes of causal efficacy and presentational immediacy,
and the mixed mode of symbolic reference. It is
hard to illustrate these three modes. Usually, we are
only conscious of the latter mode, especially in the
case of visual experience. I open my eyes, and I see
my garden, the description of which would require a
novel. A multiplicity of causal influences originates from
my environment, including my body, and constitutes
an immense influx, which, however, is immediately
integrated into an accomplished perceptual moment
of experience. Hence, I’m not aware that the influx
involves my eyes, my nerves, and my brain, and yet, the
events immediately preceding the perceptual moment
of experience are of utmost importance. Whitehead
emphasizes
. . . that the predominant basis of perception is perception
of the various bodily organs, as passing their experiences
by channels of transmission and of enhancement . . . The
human body is to be conceived as a complex ‘amplifier’—to
use the language of the technology of electromagnetism. [?,
119]
But if we forget that there is no sense experience without
sense organs, the overly hasty conclusion reads that the
basis of our visual experience of the garden is nothing
more than the immediate show of patches of color in a
space-theater, which we ourselves turn into a garden. In
the latter case, sense perception is unjustly reduced to
presentational immediacy, and the door is left wide open
for all kinds of skepticism and idealism to enter. That is
why an example of tactile experience is more appropriate
to illustrate Whitehead’s realistic vision, for when we
touch something, we always also feel our own skin, even
if the other bodily influences remain unconscious.
I open my front door, and a joker throws a bucket of
water at me. Caught by surprise, I have not seen what
happened, and initially only feel the painful impact. At
 Whitehead: Relativity and Experience 5

that moment, causal efficacy is dominant. Then I feel experience. If I do not notice that the rear wall of the
that my face is wet. Now presentational immediacy shop I entered is a mirror wall, then my visual experience
becomes dominant, because the spatial presentation refers to continuing shelves, whereas the shelves end at
of wetness is being formed. And finally I conclude the rear wall. Further experience, in the worst case by
that water hit my face. The clear feeling of wetness bumping against the mirror, can correct this mistake. If
becomes a symbol referring to the causal feeling of a patient feels his or her amputated left hand, this is a
impact. In other words, symbolic reference becomes clear case of mistaken reference. One look is sufficient
dominant. To avoid misunderstanding: all three modes evidence. If I see the sun go down, my experience
of perception play their role in each moment of the refers to a flat earth. Satellite pictures illustrate that this
perceptual stream of experience, and in this sense the reference is erroneous. I also consider the sun I see
example is misleading. However, it does clearly show at present as simultaneous with my experience, but if I
that with symbolic reference the possibility of error is take into account the science of my distance to the sun,
introduced. I cannot doubt my direct feelings, such as and of the finite speed of light, I realize my mistake.
the painful impact and the wetness I feel, but how certain Should the sun disappear at once, I would observe this
can I be that it is not wine instead of water that hit my disappearance no sooner than eight minutes later.
face? Further perception might resolve the issue. For
This sequence of examples allows us to draw some
example, by smelling, or by licking my lips, I can test my
conclusions. First, wrong symbolic reference does not
conjecture that water is involved, and not another liquid.
render our direct feelings invalid or unreal. Not even in
The possibility of wrong symbolic reference is not the case of phantom pain. The pain is real, but the patient
purely negative. In Symbolism: Its Meaning and Effect, is mistaken about the cause. Whitehead writes:
Whitehead writes:
We all know Aesop’s fable of the dog who dropped a piece The word ‘delusive’ is all very well as a technical term;
of meat to grasp at its reflection in the water. We must but it must not be misconstrued to mean that what we
not, however, judge too severely of error. In the initial have directly perceived, we have not directly perceived.
stages of mental progress, error in symbolic reference is the Our direct perception . . . remains an ultimate fact. Our
discipline which produces imaginative freedom. Aesop’s inferences are at fault. [?, 64]
dog lost his meat, but he gained a step on the road towards
Secondly, science can reveal the true causes of our direct
a free imagination. [?, 19]
feelings. A human person is not a dog barking all
And in Process and Reality, Whitehead repeats: life long at his or her mirror image, and the laws of
When human experience is in question, ‘perception’ almost optics can help him or her to have the perceived mirror
always means ‘perception in the mixed mode of symbolic image refer more exactly to what happens in front of the
reference.’ Thus, in general, human perception is subject to mirror. The neurologist has a hypothetical explanation
error, because, in respect to those components most clearly of phantom feelings. The unconscious process in the
in consciousness, it is interpretative. In fact, error is the cerebral cortex, which processes bodily signals, did not
mark of the higher organisms. [?, 168] In sense-perception
yet fully adapt to the reality of the left hand amputation.
we have passed the Rubicon, dividing direct perception
from the higher forms of mentality, which play with error Cerebral tissue aches for sensorial input, and hence,
and thus found intellectual empires. [?, 113] signals from nearby cerebral regions, which originated
in other bodily parts, are attracted by the region that was
Hence, we might add that—ironically—science, our causally effective as processor of the left hand stimuli
contemporary detector and corrector of erroneous sense prior to the amputation. That’s why the slightest touch
perceptions, originated from the possibility of error of the patient’s left cheek can cause a sensation of
in symbolic reference, as all products of the free the amputated left thumb. Thirdly, and finally, these
imagination do. examples prove that a scientific theory does not have
Some further examples of wrong symbolic reference to be at odds with ordinary sense experience. The
bring us closer to Whitehead’s notion of passing the optician can explain perfectly why we see the mirror
broad gauge, in other words, closer to what it means for image the way we do, the astronomer—for example, by
a scientific theory to be coherent with ordinary sense means of a scale model—why we see the sunset the
6 Ronny Desmet

way we do. As a matter of speech, wrong symbolic language of the theory of electromagnetism. Dealing
reference is a consequence of myopia. A more inclusive with the generalization of perception in the mode of
view on the world is possible; a scientific view enabling causal efficacy, Whitehead writes:
to explain our ordinary sense experience, including its
In the phraseology of physics, this primitive experience is
wrong references. ‘vector feeling,’ that is to say, feeling from a beyond which
The latter is Whitehead’s answer to the question of how is determined and pointing to a beyond which is to be
a scientific theory can be coherent with our ordinary determined. [?, 163] In the phraseology of mathematical
physics a [causal] feeling has a ‘vector’ character. [?, 231] In
sense experience. With his requirement of coherence,
a [causal] feeling there is a vector character which transfers
Whitehead does not claim that our scientific worldview the cause into the effect. [?, 237]
must never contradict and correct our common sense
worldview. A spherical earth is not flat. The sun now Dealing with the generalization of perception in the
is not the sun eight minutes ago. But Whitehead does mode of presentational immediacy, Whitehead writes:
claim that our ordinary sense experience needs to receive In the language of physical science, the ‘scalar’ form
its due place in our scientific worldview, even when overwhelms the original ‘vector’ form: the origins become
sense perceptions are involved, which amount to wrong subordinate to the individual experience. The vector form
symbolic references. To include the sun of eight minutes is not lost, but is submerged as the foundation of the scalar
ago in my present perceptual moment of experience, as superstructure. [?, 212]
if it is simultaneous with this moment, may be wrong, It is Whitehead’s aim to make sure that his analysis
but it is a perfectly explainable error, and the finitude of of ordinary sense experience, as well as his later
the speed of light prohibits our organism, and even our metaphysical analysis of all experiential moments the
most sophisticated equipment, to obtain a more accurate world consists of, “agree with the general principles
perception from earth. according to which the notions of modern physics are
The original source of inspiration of Whitehead’s framed.” [?, 116]
philosophy of science was James Clerk Maxwell’s theory According to Whitehead, each new scientific theory
of electromagnetism. In Maxwell’s theory the spatial constitutes a challenge for our ordinary sense experience.
spread of charge is coupled to the causal flux of But he holds the reverse to be true as well: each
electromagnetic events. Expressed a bit more technical: analysis of our ordinary sense experience challenges
Maxwell’s theory is characterized by the mathematical the natural sciences. Indeed, according to Whitehead,
coupling of the scalar field of charge to the evolution ultimately, the scientific vector-adventures of scalars
in time of the electromagnetic vector field. Scalar field (charges, masses, etc.) should be able to explain the
and vector field are both abstractions of which the ordinary instances of sense perception of objects. If
interplay constitutes the theory of electromagnetism. I add that the concept of ‘tensor’ is a generalization
Compare Whitehead’s analysis of sense experience with of the concept of ‘vector,’ nobody will be surprised to
Maxwell’s analysis of electromagnetism, namely, the learn that Whitehead’s alternative theory of gravitation
spatial presentation of sense data with the scalar field is an electromagnetism-like theory, in which the
of charge, the causal feelings with the electromagnetic tensor-adventures of masses are coherent with the
vectors, and the symbolic reference (from presentational analysis of our ordinary sense experience in terms of
immediacy to causal efficacy) with the mathematical Whitehead’s three modes of perception.
expressions relating scalar field and vector field. The
Whitehead emphasizes, again and again, that a theory
similarity is no coincidence. Whitehead requires and
of natural science must be coherent with the uniformity
engineers similarity, consonance, and coherence.
required and exhibited by the spatial presentation of
In all his writings, Whitehead remains faithful to his sense data in presentational immediacy, and by the
early Maxwellian inspiration. For example, when symbolic reference of this immediate presentation to
speculatively generalizing his analysis of a perceptual the causal efficacy. Many complex pages of Whitehead’s
moment of experience to any moment of experience in oeuvre aim to show that the required coherence with the
Process and Reality, Whitehead still takes recourse to the uniformity which is essential for our sense experience,
 Whitehead: Relativity and Experience 7

can only be realized if the scalar, vector, and tensor fields the spontaneous mistake of referring the mirror image
of physics are defined in terms of a uniform space-time of a real star to a virtual star that emits its light to me in
geometry. Whitehead writes: a straight line from behind the mirror, I wrongly refer
the photographic image of a real star to a virtual star
It is inherent in my theory to maintain the old division
that emits its light to me in a straight line passing the
between physics and geometry. Physics is the science of the
contingent relations of nature and geometry expresses its eclipsed sun. Whitehead’s interpretation that starlight
uniform relatedness. [?, v–vi] is bent when passing near the sun is coherent with our
ordinary sense experience, and it allows me to detect
As Einstein’s general theory of relativity does not satisfy and correct my incorrect symbolic reference. This can
this requirement, according to Whitehead, it is marred be visualized by means of the following figure (Fig. 1),
with a lack of coherence with our ordinary sense which pictures both the error, and its correction, both
experience. And he writes the virtual star P ′ with its rays of light P ′ FE that are not
. . . that our experience requires and exhibits a basis of bent by the sun S, and the real star P with its rays of light
uniformity, and that in the case of nature this basis exhibits PQFE that are bent by S.
itself as the uniformity of spatio-temporal relations. This
conclusion entirely cuts away the casual heterogeneity of
these relations which is the essential of Einstein’s . . . theory.
[?, v]
Here, I drop the complexity of Whitehead’s account in
an attempt to illustrate this lack of coherence with an
example in which first Whitehead’s interpretation will be Figure 1.
discussed, and then Einstein’s interpretation.
This figure dates from 1920, and is taken from [?].
Our point of departure is the comparison of two
pictures of the starry heaven I evoked earlier. The first Eddington, however, discusses Einstein’s theory, not
picture is taken at night, the second one during a solar Whitehead’s. But, if Eddington, and in his trail, most
eclipse (all other things being equal). The comparison authors expounding the general theory of relativity,
(supported by measurement, but I leave that aside) interpret the experimental observations during the
entails the observation that a number of starlight spots famous 1919 solar eclipse the way Whitehead does, can
near the solar corona imprint have shifted (relative to we still hold that a difference exists between Whitehead’s
the non-shifted starlight spots further away from the interpretation and Einstein’s? Can we still hold that
corona). Whitehead interprets these shifts as caused Einstein’s theory does not cohere with our ordinary sense
by the bending of starlight when passing near the sun, experience? According to Whitehead, we can indeed.
and his scientific interpretation is coherent with our True, Einstein’s predictions of the shifts we observe when
ordinary sense experience. The moment I see the first comparing the two pictures of the starry heaven also
picture, this two-dimensional spatial presentation of follow from a comparison of the star light paths by night,
starlight spots is immediately, and largely unconsciously, and during the solar eclipse, but in his theory these paths
being processed into a three-dimensional presentation are exactly calculated geodesics (maximal straight lines)
(presentational immediacy) of stars instead of spots in a variably curved space-time, where the curvature
(symbolic reference). To go short: I immediately see a is determined (among other things) by the mass of
starry heaven. The same holds for my visual experience the heavenly bodies which are present. Abstracting
of the second picture. However, when I compare my from time, and from the effect of heavenly bodies on
second experience with my first, I notice that a number time, we can say that the space in between earth and
of starts have assumed another position in the starry photographed starry heaven is less curved by night than
heaven. Since I know that the position of faraway stars during the daytime, during the solar eclipse, because in
cannot depend on a contingent eclipse in our solar the first case the sun is not present, but in the second case
system, I conclude that my second visual experience is it is. Furthermore, light travels as straight as possible.
marred by incorrect symbolic reference. As in the case of Consequently, the starlight will follow a geodesic path by
8 Ronny Desmet
night in a less curved space than by day. And since the
nightly three-dimensional region and the solar eclipsed
three-dimensional region are differently curved, instead
of equally or not curved, we cannot visually compare
them, not with the help of Eddington’s Fig. 16, and not
even with a three-dimensional model.
In Einstein’s interpretation the curvature of space
is variable, the nature of space depends upon the
contingent presence of heavenly objects. Consequently,
our knowledge can no longer rely on our ordinary sense
experience, and meaning can no longer be based on
our ordinary symbolic reference. Whitehead writes
that in philosophy in general “the failure to lay due
emphasis on symbolic reference . . . has reduced the
notion of ‘meaning’ to a mystery.” [?, 168] In line
with this aphorism, focusing on Einstein’s interpretation,
Whitehead writes:
I cannot understand what meaning can be assigned to
the distance of the sun from Sirius if the very nature of
space depends upon casual intervening objects which we
know nothing about. Unless we start with some knowledge
of a systematically related structure of space-time we are
dependent upon the contingent relations of bodies which
we have not examined and cannot prejudge. [?, 58–59]
Notice that this does not imply that we can no longer
compare the two pictures of the starry heaven. This
experimental observation is still reliable according to
Einstein’s theory, because both pictures register the
local impact of starlight, and locally, Einstein’s variably
curved space-time is an identical twin of the uniform
space and time required and exhibited by our ordinary
sense experience. So, even though Eddington’s crucial
experiment (like all experiments) still invokes our
ordinary sense experience, it remains a valid experiment
in Einstein’s interpretation. The issue is not a local one,
but a global one. Because we want to picture the situation
globally, conform our ordinary sense experience, and
hence, because we want to picture the starry heaven,
via presentational immediacy and symbolic reference,
against the background of a uniform space, a usually
unnoticed problem of incoherence arises. Einstein’s
interpretation is at odds with the visual representation
by means of which Eddington, and Einstein himself,
spontaneously interpreted this 1919 experiment. Early in
1920, Whitehead writes:
The detailed deductions [of Einstein’s general theory of
relativity] are important, because unless our colleagues
the astronomers and the physicists find these predictions
to be verified we can neglect the theory altogether. But
we may now take it as granted that in many striking
particulars these deductions have been found to be in
agreement with observation. Accordingly the theory has
to be taken seriously and we are anxious to know what will
be the consequences of its final acceptance. Furthermore
during the last few weeks the scientific journals and the
lay press have been filled with articles as to the nature of
the crucial experiments which have been made and as to
some of the more striking expressions of the outcome of
the new theory. ‘Space caught bending’ appeared on the
news-sheet of a well-known evening paper. This rendering
is a terse but not inapt translation of Einstein’s own way of
interpreting his results. I should say at once that I am a
heretic as to this explanation and that I shall expound to you
another explanation based upon some work of my own, an
explanation which seems to me to be more in accordance
with our scientific ideas and with the whole body of facts
which have to be explained. [?, 58–59]
Together with Einstein we might say: forget the
whole body of facts, it is sufficient that the theory of
relativity conforms with the facts created by our scientific
experiments. Our ordinary sense experience, in general,
does not correspond with reality, but fortunately it does
in the particular circumstances of our survival, and
also of our scientific experiments. For our daily life,
the wrong symbolic references of our sense experience
are usually not harmful, but for our scientific life, they
are, and have to be replaced by the more trustworthy
symbolic references of our mathematics. Einstein—the
same man who unified space and time, as well as
mass and energy, in the special theory of relativity, and
who then unified space-time geometry and gravitational
physics in the general theory of relativity—splits our
world in two: we live in two separate worlds, the
common sense world of our ordinary experience, and the
scientific world of our higher mathematics.
Whitehead decisively rejects this bifurcation of nature.
For him, Einstein’s lack of coherence must be remedied.
For him, experimental success is not sufficient, and the
theory of relativity must be made to cohere with our
ordinary sense experience. For Whitehead, the fact that
Einstein neglects the spatio-temporal uniformity that is
required and exhibited by our ordinary sense experience
is a bridge too far. Whitehead holds:
In investigating the laws of nature what really concerns us
is our own experiences and the uniformities which they
 Whitehead: Relativity and Experience
exhibit, and the extreme generalities of the Einstein method
are only of value in so far as they suggest lines along which
these experiences may be investigated. (Whitehead apud [?,
193])
Fifty years after Whitehead, Ilya Prigogine, in line with
Whitehead’s vision, held that it is equally unacceptable
that Einstein degraded the temporal irreversibility to
being an illusion, for the irreversibility of time is
essential for our experience as well. Anyway, for
Whitehead, ultimately, all symbolic references, whether
they are linguistic or mathematical, must be based on
the symbolic reference that is proper to our perceptual
experience. All of Whitehead’s philosophical writings
can be read as a philosophical analysis of our perceptual
moments of experience—and more generally: as a
speculative analysis of all experiential moments—which
intends to root each proposition, unconscious or
conscious, linguistic or mathematical, in the reality of the
experiential moment.
In his philosophy of science, Whitehead limits
9
himself to a reinterpretation of Einstein’s mathematical
propositions until they are coherent with our ordinary
sense experience. The general relational framework
created in his philosophy of science, however, is
sufficiently broad to accommodate quantum mechanics
as well, and to guarantee the consonance of (a variant
of) Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics
with the character of our ordinary sense experience.
Here, I cannot deal with the latter claim, but instead of
taking Whitehead’s philosophy of science as the work
of a reactionary who could not digest Einstein’s idea
of a variably curved space-time, this claim supports
my belief that it is better to conceive of his work as an
invitation to reconsider the relation between science and
experience. “In any case,” Whitehead writes, “language
and algebra seem to exemplify more fundamental types
of symbolism than do the Cathedrals of Medieval
Europe.” But, he adds: “There is [a] symbolism more
fundamental than any of the foregoing types.” [?, 2] And
with this latter phrase, Whitehead does indeed aim at
the symbolism of our ordinary sense experience.