Since antiquity the philosophies of Democritus and Plato have vied with each other. The former argued that reality was built from the atom up while Plato argued visa versa. It was Plato however who won the day: that is until the Enlightenment. In 17th Century Galileo and Rene Descartes sided with Democritus toppling Plato's most impressive student Aristotle; the last thinker of the School of Athens. Two centuries later in 1925 that putsch was reversed.
A 24 year old particle physicist Werner Heisenberg while convalescing on the Baltic coast in 1925 experienced an epiphany. He envisaged a matrix mathematics describing the reality of the physical universe which cannot be perceived with the five senses nor imagined - only described using abstract mathematics. Elisabeth Heisenberg his wife recalls: “With smiling certainty, he once said to me ‘I was lucky enough once to look over the good Lord’s shoulder while He was at work’ That was enough for him, more than enough."
Heisenberg’s theory of matrix mathematics is based upon an array of probabilities represented as the elements of an infinite matrix. Dr Wolfgang Smith - mathematician, physicist and philosopher confides: "Unwieldy as the resultant matrix mechanics may be, it has now been in direct or indirect use for close to a century and has never yet yielded a false result."
It employs a description of reality known by physicists as superposition meaning a particle can be in more than one place at the same time. Moreover, this description has been confirmed experimentally.
The abstract mathematics underpinning Quantum Theory use waves to describe an invisible physical universe - imagine the atomic level and lower. However, these waves collapse when a physicist's apparatus measures them. Heisenberg himself pondered that 'behind the veil' the physical universe was reminiscent of Aristotelian 'Potency'.
AN ANALYSIS OF BEING might begin by the following division:
Substance - things that exist in themselves (primary); and
Attributes - things that exist in another (secondary).
Since SUBSTANCE is primary it’s necessary to break it down into the things ‘out of which’ substances are made starting with Primary Matter.
Aristotle took Primary Matter breaking it down as follows:
a) without being but with Potency (or potential) for such being, for example, the seed of a plant; and
b) with being, having fulfilled its potential by being brought into Act i.e. Substantial Form.
There are now therefore two components of Substance: namely,
However, an important clarification is that the ‘whatness’ or essence of a thing derives only from its Substantial Form but that the thing’s existence demands mutual inclusion of both 1) and 2) above.
St Thomas Aquinas’s master stroke over a thousand years later while reconciling Aristotelian thought with Catholic teaching was to see Substantial Form as a second kind of Potency, this time to an act-of-being.
Wolfgang Smith again: "The act-of-being belongs thus in the first place to God, who creates and sustains the universe; but yet it also belongs to created substance as its inner-most reality."
The Catechism of the Catholic Church s362 states:
"The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality in symbolic language when it affirms that "then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God."
Let the dust be Primary Matter and the LORD God's breath be Man's Substantial Form imbued with a rational soul, sanctifying grace and free will.
Niels Bohr a leading protagonist of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, along with Heisenberg and others, posited on Socratic grounds that we cannot know anything about the physical universe (at the level of atoms) because our knowing only begins when a scientific measurement is carried out causing the mathematical procession and randomness of that universe to end abruptly as it becomes part of our corporeal realm where we perceive through our senses.
The persuasiveness of Quantum Theory is derived from complex mathematical equations that predict probabilistically how and where that procession ends when measured. Via multiple observations the Law of Large Numbers or Averages matches up the predictions with observable outcomes achieving the highest levels of accuracy.
These are scientific findings at their very best; reconciled with Catholic teaching but not with the materialism of atheistic belief.
Mathematicians since Sir Issac Newton have been responsible for much of the ‘heavy lifting’ of the Scientific Revolution but it’s too often forgotten that they were standing on the shoulders of earlier Catholic giants of theology and scholasticism. Moreover, mathematical dominance has emboldened physicists to bifurcate nature between primary qualities that are measured mathematically and secondary things such as colour, sound, and taste that are not.
Without an ontology that connects primary and secondary qualities, physics won't come up with an alternative, authentic and convincing explanation of the Measurement Problem. The Multi-verse explanation is a case in point.
Ontological Foundation
Von Neumann’s account is fundamentally dualistic: immaterial consciousness stands as a separate “ghost” interacting externally with physical systems through horizontal efficient causation, as though pulling a lever. Smith’s account is hylomorphic: the rational soul is the substantial form that intrinsically unifies body and matter. The intellective act (nous) vertically actualises potency from within the one substance (ST I, q. 76, a. 1).
Causation Type
Von Neumann proposes horizontal intervention: conscious observation “pushes” the wavefunction to collapse at the end of the measurement chain (Mathematical Foundations, 1932). Smith proposes vertical formal causation: the soul’s participated light (Nomen Dei) informs quantum potency teleologically, bestowing definiteness ab origine. There is no “push”; form structures matter (Quantum Reality, ch. 4).
Infinite Regress
Von Neumann’s chain extends indefinitely (device → observer → super‑observer), risking endless superposition without resolution, as seen in the Wigner’s friend paradox. Smith’s account terminates naturally: the rational soul is the principium unitatis, the principle of unity. No further observer is required because the human intellect hierarchically resolves what animals and devices can only propagate as potency; they lack nous.
Role of Consciousness and Measurement
Von Neumann requires deliberate human awareness — the act of “looking.” Automated devices or unconscious states cannot complete the collapse. Smith holds that the intellective act suffices through sensory integration (detector → phantasm → abstraction). No subjective intent is required; the mere background presence of a human knower, as corporeal extension of the soul, actualises potency through the soul’s ray.
Empirical and Interpretive Fit
Von Neumann effectively smuggles dualism into a materialist framework, leaving the mind–matter coupling unexplained. Smith offers a coherent metaphysical account: delayed‑choice experiments (Wheeler/Kim) express vertical teleology; in the double‑slit, the device registers potency but nous resolves act. No ghosts — only metaphysics: physical potency elevated into corporeal act.
Implications for “Flatland Escape” (Ch. 2.2)
Von Neumann reinforces a dualistic Flatland, where mind appears as an epiphenomenal glitch. Smith liberates the picture through a hierarchical pyramid: quantum behaviour as mineral potency awaiting higher forms — human, angelic — culminating in God. A strengthened chapter line: “Unlike von Neumann’s ghostly chain, vertical causation unifies observer and observed in the soul‑form, terminating regress metaphysically.”
Catechetical Edge
For Newman’s illative laity: “No Cartesian spectre — the soul forms the body as God forms the world.” This dismantles scientism and provides the precision needed for a renewed Penny Catechism.
Nous as Power of the Soul: Yes, Thomism unequivocally locates nous (intellect: agent and possible) as a power (potentia) of the rational soul—the substantial form of the body (ST I, q. 79, a. 1–11). It is immaterial, subsistent, and immortal (ST I, q. 75, a. 2), abstracting universals from phantasms (sensory images) via divine light participation (ST I, q. 84, a. 5).
No—cognition is hierarchical, not brain-localized:
Sensation, imagination, memory (phantasms; brain as organ, ST I, q. 78, a. 4). Abstraction, judgment, universals; uses but not bound to brain (ST I, q. 84, a. 7: intellect "does not use a corporeal organ").
Key Distinction: Brain/body enable sensitive cognition (phantasms as precondition); nous elevates vertically—resolves potency immaterially. Damage to brain impairs phantasms (e.g., coma), hindering intellect indirectly, but intellect per se transcends organs (e.g., death: soul cognizes God beatifically).
Smith/Vertical Tie: Quantum collapse via nous' formal act (soul's ray), not neural firings (brain potency). Binding problem: brain provides data; soul unifies consciously. Flatland reduces to brain; Thomism: soul's nous participates Nomen Dei.
Revival: Penny Catechism ("soul: spiritual, immortal") arms laity: intellect soul-bound, not brain-emergent—counters scientism, restores hylomorphic eschatology.