Constituents of Matter / 6 / 6.2 / 6.2.1

6.2.1 Are Objects Of Explanation Real?

We have argued in this essay that the ontological difference between the two types of objects derives from the fact that, unlike objects of experience, objects of explanation are not self-subsistent; they are what they are only within the experiential context which they were conceived to explain. To speak of molecules as such, for instance, without explicitly considering the object of experience which they constitute, would be just as meaningless as to speak of a force without the objects of experience which interact with each other through that force, or to speak of a photon being absorbed by some object without also considering the object which had emitted it. Consequently, the degree of reality we associate with objects of explanation should be somehow related to that of the objects of experience whose behavior they explain. But objects of experience are real, that is, they are what they are independently of their having been encountered and observed by man. Therefore, the objects which would explain their behavior must also possess some degree of that reality, not a plain reality to be sure, but what one might reasonably call a ‘reflected reality’.

However, because we can always imagine that objects of explanation could stand alone despite the fact that they are invariably accompanied by the real objects whose behavior they were conceived to explain, this reflected reality can be, and has in fact often been, easily mistaken for plain reality. Indeed, when imagined as self-standing, the reality they borrow from the objects of experience with which they are involved would naturally appear to us as their very own. One may rightfully argue then that this distinction between reflected and plain reality is in fact a distinction without a difference; as long as the object of explanation does its explanatory job successfully, it should not matter what we think about its ontology. Under the circumstances, the debate between those who believe atoms to be real and those who don't, is merely an academic one and we may just as easily talk of them as real objects.

As long as we merely think about the ontology of an object of explanation, the debate concerning that ontology is thus both inconclusive and irrelevant. Things would stand quite otherwise though if we went beyond merely assuming that objects of explanation are real and chose instead to act upon that presupposition by trying to observe them in the same manner as we would an object of experience. The debate would then be highly relevant and, more importantly, dispositive. The matter stands thus. We can trace the difference between assuming and observing back to the fact that the latter would require a sensing apparatus to encounter the object under observation whereas the former would not. Encountering an object would however be plainly impossible if the object were not given to us. Any attempt to observe an object of explanation must therefore rest upon a tacit conviction on the part of the observer that he can encounter it, either directly or through the intermediary of an observing apparatus; he must believe that the object he intends to observe is real. And, in fact, when at the turn of the last century the scientific community first undertook observations of an object of explanation, they had no doubt whatsoever that they were trying to observe a real object. The reader will recall however what happened when Davisson and Germer thus threw electrons at a crystal, much in the way that one would throw real particles at some real target, and then watched how they scattered: the contradictory properties they were forced to assign to those ostensibly real entities belied their very reality. It would seem therefore that what had been until then a purely academic debate about the reality of an object of explanation should thereafter have been decisively resolved against such objects being plainly real.

Why is it then that most scientists are nevertheless still convinced that the electron is a real object? The fact that the debate has continued to this day, we suggest, is a consequence of our apparent ability to render an object of explanation manifest to our limited sensory capacity with the aid of a "magnifier" system. For instance, the trace which appears in a Wilson chamber serves as proof that a real electron has produced it by condensing the super-saturated vapor along its path. The same certitude results from viewing an atom with a scanning tunneling microscope. In either case, if one can thus ‘see’ an object of explanation, or so the argument goes, it must be real. The power of persuasion contained in this simple argument cannot be overestimated. We suggest, however, that all these observations, though purported to make visible to us objects which would otherwise be inaccessible to our senses on account of their size, do not in fact represent an act of seeing a real object at all and that it would therefore be wrong to infer the object's reality from them. If it was acceptable to translate reflected reality into plain reality when the object was merely used to explain experience, it is not acceptable to do so when the object is ostensibly being observed for its properties; objects of explanation must in that case possess only reflected reality.

The reason we reject the conventional view concerning the act of observing an object of explanation is the absence of any means of establishing that the object under consideration could ever have been given to us to observe. The ‘real’ electron which people are ready to assume has left that trace in the Wilson chamber was not simply there to be guided by us into the detector; it had to be deliberately manufactured by the observer, say by using an electron gun or a photoelectric cell. To say that the need for either of these manufacturing devices is irrelevant to the argument because they merely extracted from matter what was a pre-existing electron, is simply to beg the question of how we know that the electron was in fact there to be extracted in the first place. On the contrary, as we have extensively argued in this essay, the manufacturing is a crucial process through which we give the electron to ourselves by recreating any of the experiential contexts, be they electron guns or photoelectric cells, which had been successfully explained by an electron. In the end, what people are inclined to take as a 'having seen a real object with the aid of a magnifying system' is nothing but the process of explaining the behavior of the objects of experience which constitute such a magnifying system.