Things, Somethings and Someones

What is it that makes a thing into a ‘something’? A thing in general into some particular thing? It’s a tricky question, but one that leads into a lot of thoughts on the meanings of such topics as ‘matter’, ‘form’, ‘substance’ and ‘essence’. As such, I’m hoping the journey will prove worthwhile. So let’s begin with the rather disturbing observation that we cannot ever know a thing as it REALLY is. All we can see of a thing is the qualities it displays to the world. It used to be that qualities were divided into primary and secondary. Primary qualities were such things as extension in space and endurance through time. Secondary qualities were things that depended on an observer – for instance, colour, taste and smell. But we can note that even the primary qualities rely on someone being there to do some kind of measurement. We can simply say that all of the qualities need some kind of RELATIONSHIP. Either they must be compared to other objects in order to deduce their size and shape and how old they are. Or they need to be sensed by an observer who can experience colour, smell, taste and so on. We can ask, what is the most basic of things? There are just a limited number of fundamental particles, for instance, so surely these are the most basic things we can properly call a ’thing’. What’s more, at least it is assumed, all fundamental particles of a particular kind are identical. For instance, all electrons are identical. The fundamental particles make up atoms, the atoms combine into molecules, and still we must presume a sameness. Aren’t all water molecules or all salt molecules identical? So we seem justified in calling them ‘things’ and not ‘somethings’. ‘Somethings’ implies some kind of uniqueness. But if we go on adding molecule to molecule, do we not just create things that could, in theory, be replicated exactly, just by putting together the same set of basic elements? In fact, if the universe is infinite, are we not in a position of being able to replicate any arrangement of matter? So nothing could make a claim to uniqueness. In which case, the cut-off point of what is just a thing and what qualifies as a ‘something’ just seems arbitrary, or at least, based solely on how difficult it would be to replicate something in ACTUALITY, rather than just in theory. But, wait up! Let’s go back to what was said about the qualities of an object. All qualities are relationships of some sort. And we can quickly conclude that EVERY object must have a unique set of relationships. Every object is in fact a ‘something’ rather than a thing. I get the impression, dear reader, that science would very much prefer our first option – everything is a thing – to our second. Physics certainly accepts the reality of everything being known only through relation. But physics – and science more generally – finds this situation intolerable. Scientists long for some ‘real’ thing that will ground reality and keep it from being merely about the qualities of the things we perceive. They long for what they call a ‘substrate’ – something that exists in its own right and can be shown to exist. In fact, we would be best to call it an ‘ultimate substrate’. It would not be just another step in an infinite regress of trying to discover what things are made of. It would be the ultimate ground, the primary stuff of the universe, the final destination, the ‘thing-in-itself’. In short, and perhaps surprisingly, what science seems to be looking for bears a striking resemblance to the ancient notion of essence. Essence though is a concept equally as difficult as substrate. To approach it, we are best to examine a few other words that had specific meanings in ancient thought – often different meanings to the way we understand the terms today. Let’s start with substance. What is a substance? Well, to modern thinking, it’s just what I’ve described above as a thing. But the ancients generally did not see it this way. The ancients took substance to mean ‘matter plus form’. There’s a great many ideas that spring from this simple statement. First, we can note that the word ‘form’ might be used here with one of two different meanings. The more straight-forward meaning is to see form as we would use it in everyday speech today – that is, as a three-dimensional arrangement or shape. On this meaning, the formula – substance equals matter plus form – accords very well with our modern understanding of substances. We need, for instance, a particular arrangement of fundamental particles in order to get the atoms and molecules that make up the chemical elements and chemical compounds. Form, then, is critical in making things. And form, of course, is also a relationship. But there is another understanding of the word form that gives us a very different perspective on things, as well as affording us a possible route into an understanding of essence and substrate. Form, in this second sense, means some kind of external pattern for the way things should be in the world. For Plato, ‘the forms’ are perfect – they are the ‘Realm of Being’, as opposed to our flawed world of imperfect substance – the ‘Realm of Becoming’ – the contingent world of everyday reality. More generally, this mysterian understanding of the word form has form residing in Heaven, or bestowed on us by God. Form then, in this understanding, is a kind of magic ingredient that gives real existence to the world. In fact, this view of form could be a stand-in for substrate, if only science could cope with the magic! We can reach an initial understanding of essence by a kind of intermediate step. There was, for the ancient Greeks, the idea of a ‘quintessence’ – a fifth element – that sat along with air, fire, earth and water. The quintessence was again a kind of magic ingredient that delivered to things their crucial grounding in the real world. But quintessence was not necessarily from a heavenly realm or an abstract world of perfect forms, or from God. Quintessence could be earth-bound. It was form in its mundane sense that allowed air, fire, earth and water to take on the properties of the various substances we know in the world. Quintessence delivered something else. An essential character, we could say. And often this involved some kind of moral aspect. The fifth element is often known as love. Does this help in the scientific quest for a substrate? Probably we are forced to say – not yet! Too much magic in quintessence, even without Heaven or God. So let’s press on to consider the meaning of essence. I’ll consider two meanings provided by ancient philosophy: What’s left of a substance when all its qualities are removed. And: The thing about a substance that makes it unique from other substances. (I’ve used the word substance in these definitions, but its probably not crucial to the argument if we were to substitute ‘thing’ or ‘something’.) Taking the first of these definitions, clearly this was the dilemma posed at the start of this essay. There seem to be only qualities, so for now we seem forced to conclude, on this basis, that essence does not exist. But the more mysterian definition of form offered a solution to the ancients, as well as some later philosophers. Or we could say that quintessence is the thing that is beyond our everyday qualities – that quintessence delivers essence. But it’s the second definition of essence that perhaps offers us greater scope. What is it that is unique to a thing? What makes a thing into a something? It is relationship. Every object has a unique relationship to its surroundings and to other objects. ‘Relation’ may be just another quality, but it is the quality that cannot be removed. It has to be unique to every ‘something’ — and therefore, by our definition, relation is a ‘something’s’ essence. And we could say that this exists even if no-one observes it. Every something has an essence. Being is the same as essence, according to Duns Scotus. As such, individual things can differ from each other in terms of form, but not in terms of matter. This, I think, is as close a description as we can get of the principles that are being explored here. This of course still does not help physicists in their search for a substrate. But there is more to tell! Let’s move on to ‘someones’. What is it about a creature that makes it a ‘someone’ rather than a ‘something’? In other words, what difference does consciousness make? Two things come to mind. Someones HAVE a body rather than just BEING a body. And someones have agency – or at least the illusion of agency. We can act on the world. So, for someones, two new types of relation are added – relations that mere somethings do not have. We OWN our bodies, whilst somethings just ARE bodies. We ACT ON the world, whilst somethings are just ACTED UPON. We could say that the definition of a something is: Body plus way of being in the word (relation). And the definition of a someone is: My body, my agency plus my way of being in the world. If we go right back to our initial deliberations about things and somethings – remember that the first attempt at finding a threshold between the thing and the something was to build up complexity until we achieved a uniqueness specific to a something. A similar argument is usually applied to the thresholds of life and consciousness. Make something complex enough and it achieves these things by default. But, just as it was relationship that played the crucial role in distinguishing things and somethings, could we not also deploy relationship in distinguishing someones? The relations involved for things are just a given – an immediately obvious fact about the way the world is. But could not the same thing be said for those relations we added for someones? Are we not immediately conscious of owning our bodies, and having agency in the world? In fact, isn’t this more obvious to us than the way the world outside of us is structured? We could, of course, go on to consider what makes someone uniquely a someone – in other words, what constitutes their essence? And again, we could deploy our mystical notion of ‘form’, or quintessence here and argue, for instance, for an immaterial soul. But, I’d suggest, there is no need for such an argument. Again, it is our relations that supply our uniqueness and thus our uniqueness is adequate as a definition for soul – without invoking supernatural additions. My soul is my body, my agency and my way of being in the word. It’s enough to be someone. It’s enough to be unique. It’s enough to be considered ensouled. So, in a world that is ‘the many’ as well as ‘The One’, perhaps it is foolish to look for some ultimate substrate. Perhaps essence based on relations is all that we should expect.