What you think to be "Quantum Physics" and "contemporary scientific knowledge" is not a science and not a knowledge. It is a pseudo-science placated upon some correct equations of evolution.

These correct equations are strictly undulatory and strictly deterministic, but contradict the infantile fairy tales that the QM teachers teach to the students.

On a given idea, always look in the mouth.

www.researchgate.net/publication/317605373_Fifteen_surreptitious_copenhaguist_and_corpuscularist_postulates_we_do_not_more_accept

Seventeen surreptitious postulates, indeed.

I made a study of this question two years ago. I was surprised to see how close Whitehead's descriptions came to a new theory that I had stumbled into. So I was curious how well his idea would hold up to the latest research, especially in relation to quantum mechanics.

Whitehead's ideas are consistent with what was known about quantum mechanics at the time when he wrote his book, Process and Reality, but some discoveries that came later show that there is a gap in his theories.

For example, Whitehead’s description appears, from what I can see, to begin with the space-time universe as if it always existed. He does a masterful job of explaining how events are based on the influence of prior events, and how these influences come together to form a new expression of the world. Thus, the current state of the world evolves from previous states. He also explains why these new outcomes are never fully determined by the past because "prehension" is only about influence, not cause and effect. All of this agrees with my own theory, but this falls short of explaining what reality looks like before actualized events take place (before the quantum wave function collapses). In other words, he can't explain how space and time emerge.

In the same book where he introduced the term, prehension (Science and the Modern World), Whitehead devoted a chapter to “The Quantum Theory.” He does a good job of explaining the dual wave/particle behavior of particles and the fact that all energy and matter are quantized. However, his insights don’t add much to untangling the quantum puzzle. In fact, they seem quite dated. This shouldn’t be surprising, considering that his book was written just shortly after the wave nature of matter was discovered and long before many important discoveries were made.

The key downfall of his theory is that he only deals with space-time events. This is the only reality his theory acknowledges. In fact, as Leemon McHenry's book shows, "The Event Universe: The Revisionary Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead," everything happens as relational events, according to Whitehead. Unfortunately, this does not explain the coherent pure quantum states that exist before events take place.

Whitehead also makes it clear that events prehensively influence later events and that this only happens forward in time, never backwards. This explanation falls apart with quantum delayed choice experiments. In these experiments, there are clear cases where it appears as if the influence happens retroactively. This is still one of the most baffling quantum experiments.

Whitehead can easily be excused for missing this because delayed choice quantum eraser experiments weren’t discussed until John Archibald Wheeler proposed them in the late 1970’s.

If you find this interesting, you might want to compare Whitehead's ideas with the paper I recently published through a peer-review journal:

Article The Lenses of Perception Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

In response to Doug, who says "Whitehead’s description appears...to begin with the space-time universe as if it always existed." This is inaccurate. "Process and Reality" describes the process whereby space-time (or in Whitehead's terms, the extensive continuum) emerges from the collective activity of his ontological primitive, actual occasions of experience. These occasions are modeled on quantum events. So Whitehead's view of spacetime is closer to quantum gravity approaches that view spacetime as emergent from quantum events. For more on Whitehead's relevance to contemporary scientific cosmology: https://matthewsegall.files.wordpress.com/2019/01/physics-of-the-world-soul-third-edition-1.pdf

Matthew Segall,

Thanks for your comment, and for sharing your book. Can you point me to the best section in your book to get a better sense of what you are describing?

Also, I would like to clarify the point I was making because I have a feeling you may have misunderstood.

I agree with you that Whitehead painted a picture about how spacetime might emerge from events. It looks like you have studied Whitehead's philosophy in a lot more detail than I have. So I would like to learn what I can from you. However, the point I was making was not that Whitehead believed spacetime did not emerge, but that the picture he paints is only of a spacetime that is continually emerging.

Let me put this another way, so you can see why this is important from the standpoint of physics. If what Whitehead proposes is indeed a true model to use for how spacetime emerges, such as what quantum gravity physicists are looking for, then we should be able to go back in time to the first moments, before any sign of spacetime existed. And then, from this moment, we should be able to see how spacetime emerges from what you call occasions of experience.

The problem I ran into was that the experiential events that you say are the source always seemed to take place in spacetime. In other words, I could never see how spacetime emerges using Whitehead's model, only how spacetime is continually recreated.

Do you see what I mean? If you see a way around this, I would love to hear it. But if you agree with me on this, then it shows that, in fact, his model can't actually be the true source of spacetime. For something to emerge from some other activity or events, that means those events or activities must exist before the moment of emergence. Every time I looked for such a solution from Whitehead's model, I only found him offering cases where spacetime already exists. In fact, history from previous events plays a crucial role in the shaping future events in his model. If this is true, then what happens before there is any history? There would be nothing to shape future events, which would leave spacetime no way of emerging.

I think it is fair to say, as a philosophy, that Whitehead offers a model for how spacetime emerges. But, as a physicist, it is not satisfactory unless we can use his model to show a state before spacetime existed, and to show how spacetime actually emerges into existence from that state. That was the point I was trying to make.

If you can show me where Whitehead offered such an explanation, I would love to hear it.

Doug Marman, "before time" is a contradiction in terms; that which is not subject to time is timeless; and that which is timeless is unchangeable, immovable -- which disqualifies every natural phenomenon as the ultimate source of all phenomena.