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Rudolf Steiner e.Lib
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Second Scientific Lecture-Course: Warmth Course
Rudolf Steiner e.Lib Document
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Second Scientific Lecture-Course: Warmth Course
Schmidt Number: S-4000
On-line since: 22nd May, 2002
Stuttgart, March 1st, 1920.
The present course of lectures will constitute a kind of continuation
of the one given when I was last here. I will begin with those
chapters of physics which are of especial importance for laying a
satisfactory foundation for a scientific world view, namely the
observations of heat relations in the world. Today I will try to lay
out for you a kind of introduction to show the extent to which we can
create a body of meaningful views of a physical sort within a general
world view. This will show further how a foundation may be secured for
a pedagogical impulse applicable to the teaching of science. Today we
will therefore go as far as we can towards outlining a general
introduction.
The theory of heat, so-called, has taken a form during the
19th century which has given a great deal of support to a
materialistic view of the world. It has done so because in heat
relationships it is very easy to turn one's glance away from the real
nature of heat, from its being, and to direct it to the mechanical
phenomena arising from heat.
Heat is first known through sensations of cold, warmth, lukewarm, etc.
But man soon learns that there appears to be something vague about
these sensations, something subjective. A simple experiment which can
be made by anyone shows this fact.
Imagine you have a vessel filled with water of a definite temperature,
t;
on the right of it you have another vessel filled with water of a temperature
t - t1,
that is of a temperature distinctly lower
than the temperature in the first vessel. In addition, you have a
vessel filled with water at a temperature
t + t1.
When now,
you hold your fingers in the two outer vessels you will note by your
sensations the heat conditions in these vessels. You can then plunge
your fingers which have been in the outer vessels into the central
vessel and you will see that to the finger which has been in the cold
water the water in the central vessel will feel warm, while to the
finger which has been in the warm water, the water in the central
vessel will feel cold. The same temperature therefore is experienced
differently according to the temperature to which one has previously
been exposed. Everyone knows that when he goes into a cellar, it may
feel different in winter from the way it feels in summer. Even though
the thermometer stands at the same point circumstances may be such
that the cellar feels warm in the winter and cool in the summer.
Indeed, the subjective experience of heat is not uniform and it is
necessary to set an objective standard by which to measure the heat
condition of any object or location. Now, I need not here go into the
elementary phenomena or take up the elementary instruments for
measuring heat. It must be assumed that you are acquainted with them.
I will simply say that when the temperature condition is measured with
a thermometer, there is a feeling that since we measure the degree
above or below zero, we are getting an objective temperature
measurement. In our thinking we consider that there is a fundamental
difference between this objective determination in which we have no
part and the subjective determination, where our own organization
enters into the experience.
For all that the 19th century has striven to attain it may
be said that this view on the matter was, from a certain point of
view, fruitful and justified by its results. Now, however, we are in a
time when people must pay attention to certain other things if they
are to advance their way of thinking and their way of life. From
science itself must come certain questions simply overlooked in
such conclusions as those I have given. One question is this: Is there
a difference, a real objective difference, between the determination
of temperature by my organism and by a thermometer, or do I deceive
myself for the sake of getting useful practical results when I bring
such a difference into my ideas and concepts? This whole course will
be designed to show why today such questions must be asked. From the
principal questions it will be my object to proceed to those important
considerations which have been overlooked owing to exclusive attention
to the practical life. How they have been lost for us on account of
the attention to technology you will see. I would like to impress you
with the fact that we have completely lost our feeling for the real
being of heat under the influence of certain ideas to be described
presently. And, along with this loss, has gone the possibility of
bringing this being of heat into relation with the human organism
itself, a relation which must be all means be established in certain
aspects of our life. To indicate to you in a merely preliminary way
the bearing of these things on the human organism, I may call your
attention to the fact that in many cases we are obliged today to
measure the temperature of this organism, as for instance, when it is
in a feverish condition. This will show you that the relation of the
unknown being of heat to the human organism has considerable
importance. Those extreme conditions as met with in chemical and
technical processes will be dealt with subsequently. A proper attitude
toward the relation of the unknown being of heat to the human organism
has considerable importance. Those extreme conditions as met with in
chemical and technical processes will be dealt with subsequently. A
proper attitude toward the relation of the heat-being to the human
organism cannot, however, be attained on the basis of a mechanical
view of heat. The reason is, that in so doing, one neglects the fact
that the various organs are quite different in their sensitiveness to
this heat-being, that the heart, the liver, the lungs differ
greatly in their capacity to react to the being of heat. Through
the purely physical view of heat no foundation is laid for the real
study of certain symptoms of disease, since the varying capacity to
react to heat of the several organs of the body escapes attention.
Today we are in no position to apply to the organic world the physical
views built up in the course of the 19th century on the
nature of heat. This is obvious to anyone who has an eye to see the
harm done by modern physical research, so-called, in dealing with what
might be designated the higher branches of knowledge of the living
being. Certain questions must be asked, questions that call above
everything for clear, lucid ideas. In the so-called exact
science, nothing has done more harm than the introduction of
confused ideas.
What then does it really mean when I say, if I put my fingers in the
right and left hand vessels and then into a vessel with a liquid of an
intermediate temperature, I get different sensations? Is there really
something in the conceptual realm that is different from the so-called
objective determination with the thermometer? Consider now, suppose
you put thermometers in these two vessels in place of your fingers.
You will then get different readings depending on whether you observe
the thermometer in the one vessel or the other. If then you place the
two thermometers instead of your fingers into the middle vessel, the
mercury will act differently on the two. In the one it will rise; in
the other it will fall. You see the thermometer does not behave
differently from your sensations. For the setting up of a view of the
phenomenon, there is no distinction between the two thermometers and
the sensation from your finger. In both cases exactly the same thing
occurs, namely a difference is shown from the immediately preceding
conditions. And the thing our sensation depends on is that we do not
within ourselves have any zero or reference point. If we had
such a reference point then we would establish not merely the
immediate sensation but would have apparatus to relate the temperature
subjectively perceived, to such a reference point. We would then
attach to the phenomenon just as we do with the thermometers something
which really is not inherent in it, namely the variation from the
reference point. You see, for the construction of our concept of the
process there is no difference.
It is such questions as these that must be raised today if we are to
clarify our ideas, or all the present ideas on these things are really
confused. Do not imagine for a moment that this is of no consequence.
Our whole life process is bound up with this fact that we have in us
no temperature reference point. If we could establish such a
reference point within ourselves, it would necessitate an entirely
different state of consciousness, a different soul life. It is
precisely because the reference point is hidden for us that we lead the
kind of life we do.
You see, many things in life, in human life and in the animal
organism, too, depend on the fact that we do not perceive
certain processes. Think what you would have to do if you were obliged
to experience subjectively everything that goes on in your organism.
Suppose you had to be aware of all the details of the digestive
process. A great deal pertaining to our condition of life rests on
this fact that we do not bring into our consciousness certain
things that take place in our organism. Among these things is that we
do not carry within us a temperature reference point we are not
thermometers. A subjective-objective distinction such as is usually
made is not therefore adequate for a comprehensive grasp of the
physical.
It is this which has been the uncertain point in human thinking since
the time of ancient Greeks. It had to be so, but it cannot remain so
in the future. For the old Grecian philosophers, Zeno in particular,
had already orientated human thinking about certain processes in a
manner strikingly opposed to outer reality. I must call your attention
to these things even at the risk of seeming pedantic. Let me recall to
you the problem of Achilles and the tortoise, a problem I have often
spoken about.
Let us assume we have the distance traveled by Achilles in a certain
time (a). This represents the rate at which he can travel. And here
we have the tortoise (s), who has a start on Achilles. Let us take
the moment when Achilles gets to the point marked 1. The tortoise is
ahead of him. Since the problem stated that Achilles has to cover
every point covered by the tortoise, the tortoise will always be a
little ahead and Achilles can never catch up. But, the way people
would consider it is this. You would say, yes, I understand the
problem all right, but Achilles would soon catch the tortoise. The
whole thing is absurd. But if we reason that Achilles must cover the
same path as the tortoise and the tortoise is ahead, he will never
catch the tortoise. Although people would say this is absurd,
nevertheless the conclusion is absolutely necessary and nothing can be
urged against it. It is not foolish to come to this conclusion but on
the other hand, it is remarkably clever considering only the logic of
the matter. It is a necessary conclusion and cannot be avoided. Now
what does all this depend on? It depends on this: that as long as you
think, you cannot think otherwise than the premise requires. As a
matter of fact, you do not depend on thinking strictly, but instead
you look at the reality and you realize that it is obvious that
Achilles will soon catch the tortoise. And in doing this you uproot
thinking by means of reality and abandon the pure thought process.
There is no point in admitting the premises and then saying,
Anyone who thinks this way is stupid. Through thinking
alone we can get nothing out of the proposition but that Achilles will
never catch the tortoise. And why not? Because when we apply our
thinking absolutely to reality, then our conclusions are not in accord
with the facts. They cannot be. When we turn our rationalistic thought
on reality it does not help us at all that we establish so-called
truths which turn out not to be true. For we must conclude if Achilles
follows the tortoise that he passes through each point that the
tortoise passes through. Ideally this is so; in reality he does
nothing of the kind. His stride is greater than that of the tortoise.
He does not pass through each point of the path of the tortoise. We
must, therefore, consider what Achilles really does, and not simply
limit ourselves to mere thinking. Then we come to a different result.
People do not bother their heads about these things but in reality
they are extraordinarily important. Today especially, in our present
scientific development, they are extremely important. For only when we
understand that much of our thinking misses the phenomena of nature if
we go from observation to so-called explanation, only in this case
will we get the proper attitude toward these things.
The observable, however, is something which only needs to be
described. That I can do the following for instance, calls simply for
a description: here I have a ball which will pass through this
opening. We will now warm the ball slightly. Now you see it does not
go through. It will only go through when it has cooled sufficiently.
As soon as I cool it by pouring this cold water on it, the ball goes
through again. This is the observation, and it is this observation
that I need only describe. Let us suppose, however, that I begin to
theorize. I will do so in a sketchy way with the object merely of
introducing the matter. Here is the ball; it consists of a certain
number of small parts molecules, atoms, if you like. This is
not observation, but something added to observation in theory. At this
moment, I have left the observed and in doing so I assume an extremely
tragic role. Only those who are in a position to have insight into
these things can realize this tragedy. For you see, if you investigate
whether Achilles can catch the tortoise, you may indeed begin by
thinking Achilles must pass over every point covered by the
tortoise and can never catch it. This may be strictly
demonstrated. Then you can make an experiment. You place the tortoise
ahead and Achilles or some other who does not run even so fast as
Achilles, in the rear. And at any time you can show that observation
furnishes the opposite of what you conclude from reasoning. The
tortoise is soon caught.
When, however, you theorize about the sphere, as to how its atoms and
molecules are arranged, and when you abandon the possibility of
observation, you cannot in such a case look into the matter and
investigate it you can only theorize. And in this realm you
will do no better than you did when you applied your thinking to the
course of Achilles. That is to say, you carry the whole incompleteness
of your logic into your thinking about something which cannot be made
the object of observation. This is the tragedy. We build explanation
upon explanation while at the same time we abandon observation, and
think we have explained things simply because we have erected
hypotheses and theories. And the consequence of this course of forced
reliance on our mere thinking is that this same thinking fails us the
moment we are able to observe. It no longer agrees with the
observation.
You will remember I already pointed out this distinction in the
previous course when I indicated the boundary between kinematics and
mechanics. Kinematics describes mere motion phenomena or phenomena as
expressed by equations, but it is restricted to verifying the data of
observation.
The moment we pass over from kinematics to mechanics where force and
mass concepts are brought in, at this moment, we cannot rely on
thinking alone, but we begin simply to read off what is given from
observation of the phenomena. With unaided thought we are not able to
deal adequately even with the simplest physical process where mass
plays a role. All the 19th century theories, abandoned now
to a greater or lesser extent, are of such a nature that in order to
verify them it would be necessary to make experiments with atoms and
molecules. The fact that they have been shown to have a practical
application in limited fields makes no difference. The principle
applies to the small as well as to the large. You remember how I have
often in my lectures called attention to something which enters into
our considerations now wearing a scientific aspect. I have often said:
From what the physicists have theorized about heat relations and from
related things they get certain notions about the sun. They describe
what they call the physical conditions on the sun and make
certain claims that the facts support the description. Now I have
often told you, the physicists would be tremendously surprised if they
could really take a trip to the sun and could see that none of their
theorizing based on terrestrial conditions agreed with the realities
as found on the sun. These things have a very practical value at the
present, a value for the development of science in our time. Just
recently news has gone forth to the world that after infinite pains
the findings of certain English investigators in regard to the bending
of starlight in cosmic space have been confirmed and could now be
presented before a learned society in Berlin. It was rightly stated
there the investigations of Einstein and others on the theory of
relativity have received a certain amount of confirmation. But final
confirmation could be secured only when sufficient progress had been
made to make spectrum analysis showing the behavior of the light at
the time of an eclipse of the sun. Then it would be possible to see
what the instruments available at present failed to determine.
This was the information given at the last meeting of the Berlin
Physical Society. It is remarkably interesting. Naturally the next
step is to seek a way really to investigate the light of the sun by
spectrum analysis. The method is to be by means of instruments not
available today. Then certain things already deduced from modern
scientific ideas may simply be confirmed. As you know it is thus with
many things which have come along from time to time and been later
clarified by physical experiments. But, people will learn to recognize
the fact that it is simply impossible for men to carry over to
conditions on the sun or to the cosmic spaces what may be calculated
from those heat phenomena available to observation in the terrestrial
sphere. It will be understood that the sun's corona and similar
phenomena have antecedents not included in the observations made under
terrestrial conditions. Just as our speculations lead us astray when
we abandon observation and theorize our way through a world of atoms
and molecules, so we fall into error when we go out into the macrocosm
and carry over to the sun what we have determined from observations
under earth conditions. Such a method has led to the belief that the
sun is a kind of glowing gas ball, but the sun is not a glowing ball
of gas by any means. Consider a moment, you have matter here on the
earth. All matter on the earth has a certain degree of intensity in
its action. This may be measured in one way or another, be density or
the like, in any way you wish, it has a definite intensity of action.
This may become zero. In other words, we may have empty space. But the
end is not yet. That empty space is not the ultimate condition I may
illustrate to you by the following: Assume to yourselves that you had
a boy and that you said, He is a rattle-brained fellow. I have
made over a small property to him but he has begun to squander it. He
cannot have less than zero. He may finally have nothing, but I comfort
myself with the thought that he cannot go any further once he gets to
zero! But you may now have a disillusionment. The fellow begins
to get into debt. Then he does not stop at zero; the thing gets worse
than zero. It has a very real meaning. As his father, you really have
less if he gets into debt than if he stopped when he had nothing.
The same sort of thing, now, applies to the condition on the sun. It
is not usually considered as empty space but the greatest possible
rarefaction is thought of and a rarefied glowing gas is postulated.
But what we must do is to go to a condition of emptiness and then go
beyond this. It is in a condition of negative material
intensity. In the spot where the sun is will be found a hole in
space. There is less there than empty space. Therefore all the effects
to be observed in the sun must be considered as attractive forces not
as pressures of the like. The sun's corona, for instance, must not be
thought of as it is considered by the modern physicist. It must be
considered in such a way that we have the consciousness not of forces
radiating outward as appearances would indicate, but of attractive
force from the hole in space, from the negation of matter. Here our
logic fails us. Our thinking is not valid here, for the receptive
organ or the sense organ through which we perceive it is our entire
body. Our whole body corresponds in this sensation to the eye in the
case of light. There is no isolated organ, we respond with our whole
body to the heat conditions. The fact that we may use our finger to
perceive a heat condition, for instance, does not militate against
this fact. The finger corresponds to a portion of the eye. While the
eye therefore is an isolated organ and functions as such to objectify
the world of light as color, this is not the case for heat. We are
heat organs in our entirety. On this account, however, the external
condition that gives rise to heat does not come to us in so isolated a
form as does the condition which gives rise to light. Our eye is
objectified within our organism. We cannot perceive heat in an
analogous manner to light because we are one with the heat. Imagine
that you could not see colors with your eye but only different degrees
of brightness, and that the colors as such remained entirely
subjective, were only feelings. You would never see colors; you would
speak of light and dark, but the colors would evoke in you no response
and it is thus with the perception of heat. Those differences which
you perceive in the case of light on account of the fact that your eye
is an isolated organ, such differences you do not perceive at all in
the case of heat. They live in you. Thus when you speak of blue
and red, these colors are considered as objective. When the analogous
phenomenon is met in the case of heat, that which corresponds to the
blue and the red is within you. It is you yourself. Therefore you do
not define it. This requires us to adopt an entirely different
method for the observation of the objective being of heat from the
method we use of the objective being of light. Nothing had so
great a misleading effect on the observers of the 19th
century as this general tendency to unify things schematically. You
find everywhere in physiologies a sense physiology. Just
as though there were such a thing! As though there were something of
which it could be said, in general, it holds for the ear as for
the eye, or even for the sense of feeling or for the sense of heat. It
is an absurdity to speak of a sense physiology and to say that a sense
perception is this or that. It is possible only to speak of the
perception of the eye by itself, or the perception of the ear by
itself and likewise of our entire organism as heat sense organ, etc.
They are very different things. Only meaningless abstractions result
from a general consideration of the senses. But you find everywhere
the tendency towards such a generalizing of these things. Conclusions
result that would be humorous were they not so harmful to our whole
life. If someone says Here is a boy, another boy has given him a
thrashing. Also then it is asserted Yesterday he was whipped by his
teacher; his teacher gave him a thrashing. In both cases there is a
thrashing given; there is no difference. Am I to conclude from this
that the bad boy who dealt out today's whipping and the teacher who
administered yesterday's are moved by the same inner motives? That
would be an absurdity; it would be impossible. But now, the following
experiment is carried out: it is known that when light rays are
allowed to fall on a concave mirror, under proper conditions they
become parallel. When these are picked up by another concave mirror
distant form the first they are concentrated and focused so that an
intensified light appears at the focus. The same experiment is made
with so-called heat rays. Again it may be demonstrated that these too
can be focused a thermometer will show it and there is a
point of high heat intensity produced. Here we have the same process
as in the case of the light; therefore heat and light are
fundamentally the same sort of thing. The thrashing of yesterday and
the one of today are the same sort of thing. If a person came to such
a conclusion in practical life, he would be considered a fool. In
science, however, as it is pursued today, he is no fool, but a highly
respected individual.
It is on account of things like this that we should strive for clear
and lucid concepts, and without these we will not progress. Without
them physics cannot contribute to a general world view. In the realm
of physics especially it is necessary to attain to these obvious
ideas.
You know quite well from what was made clear to you, at least to a
certain extent, in my last course, that in the case of the phenomena
of light, Goethe brought some degree of order into the physics of that
particular class of facts, but no recognition has been given to him.
In the field of heat the difficulties that confront us are especially
great. This is because in the time since Goethe the whole physical
consideration of heat has been plunged into a chaos of theoretical
considerations. In the 19th century the mechanical theory
of heat as it is called has resulted in error upon error. It has
applied concepts verifiable only by observation to a realm not
accessible to observation. Everyone who believes himself able to
think, but who in reality may not be able to do so, can propose
theories. Such a one is the following: a gas enclosed in a vessel
consists of particles. These particles are not at rest but in a state
of continuous motion. Since these particles are in continuous motion
and are small and conceived of as separated by relatively great
distance, they do not collide with each other often but only
occasionally. When they do so they rebound. Their motion is changed by
this mutual bombardment. Now when one sums up all the various slight
impacts there comes about a pressure on the wall of the vessel and
through this pressure one can measure how great the temperature is. It
is then asserted, the gas particles in the vessel are in a
certain state of motion, bombarding each other. The whole mass is in
rapid motion, the particles bombarding each other and striking the
wall. This gives rise to heat. They may move faster and faster,
strike the wall harder. Then it may be asked, what is heat? It is
motion of these small particles. It is quite certain that under the
influence of the facts such ideas have been fruitful, but only
superficially. The entire method of thinking rests on one
foundation. A great deal of pride is taken in this so-called
mechanical theory of heat, for it seems to explain many
things. For instance, it explains how when I rub my finger over a
surface the effort I put forth, the pressure or work, is transformed
into heat. I can turn heat back into work, in the steam engine for
instance, where I secure motion by means of heat. A very convenient
working concept has been built up along these lines. It is said that
when we observe these things objectively going on in space, they are
mechanical processes. The locomotive and the cars all move forward
etc. When now, through some sort of work, I produce heat, what has
really happened is that the outer observable motion has been
transformed into motion of the ultimate particles. This is a convenient
theory. It can be said that everything in the world is dependent on
motion and we have merely transformation of observable motion into
motion not observable. This latter we perceive as heat. But heat is in
reality nothing but the impact and collision of the little gas
particles striking each other and the walls of the vessel. The change
into heat is as though the people in this whole audience suddenly
began to move and collided with each other and with the walls etc.
This is the Clausius theory of what goes on in a gas-filled space.
This is the theory that has resulted from applying the method of the
Achilles proposition to something not accessible to observation. It is
not noticed that the same impossible grounds are taken as in the
reasoning about Achilles and the tortoise. It is simply not as it is
thought to be. Within a gas-filled space things are quite otherwise
than we imagine them to be when we carry over the observable into the
realm of the unobservable. My purpose today is to present this idea to
you in an introductory way. From this consideration you can see that
the fundamental method of thinking originated during the
19th century, begins to fail. For a large part of the
method rests on the principle of calculating from observed facts by
means of the differential concept. When the observed conditions in a
gas-filled space are set down as differentials in accordance with the
idea that we are dealing with the movements of ultimate particles,
then the belief follows that by integrating something real is evolved.
What must be understood is this: when we go from ordinary reckoning
methods to differential equations, it is not possible to integrate
forthwith without losing all contact with reality. This false notion
of the relation of the integral to the differential has led the
physics of the 19th century into wrong ideas of reality. It
must be made clear that in certain instances one can set up
differentials but what is obtained as a differential cannot be thought
of as integrable without leading us into the realm of the ideal as
opposed to the real. The understanding of this is of great importance
in our relation to nature.
For you see, when I carry out a certain transformation period, I say
that work is performed, heat produced and from this heat, work can
again be secured by reversal of this process. But the processes of the
organic cannot be reversed immediately. I will subsequently show the
extent to which this reversal applies to the inorganic in the realm of
heat in particular. There are also great inorganic processes that are
not reversible, such as the plant processes. We cannot imagine a
reversal of the process that goes on in the plant from the formation
of roots, through the flower and fruit formation. The process takes
its course from the seed to the setting of the fruit. It cannot be
turned backwards like an inorganic process. This fact does not enter
into our calculations. Even when we remain in the inorganic, there are
certain macrocosmic processes for which our reckoning is not valid.
Suppose you were able to set down a formula for the growth of a plant.
It would be very complicated, but assume that you have such a formula.
Certain terms in it could never be made negative because to do so
would be to disagree with reality. In the face of the great phenomena
of the world I cannot reverse reality. This does not apply, however,
to reckoning. If I have today an eclipse of the moon I can simply
calculate how in time past in the period of Thales, for instance,
there was an eclipse of the moon. That is, in calculation only
I can reverse the process, but in reality the process is not
reversible. We cannot pass from the present state of the earth to
former states to an eclipse of the moon at the time of Thales,
for instance, simply by reversing the process in calculation. A
calculation may be made forward or backward, but usually reality does
not agree with the calculation. The latter passes over reality. It
must be defined to what extent our concepts and calculations are only
conceptual in their content. In spite of the fact that they are
reversible, there are no reversible processes in reality. This is
important since we will see that the whole theory of heat is built on
questions of the following sort: to what extent within nature are heat
processes reversible and to what extent are they irreversible?
Last Modified: 02-Nov-2024
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