The Lagrangian equations are a powerful set of differential expressions describing the motion of a complex system. With one equation for each component of the system, they would seem to offer a powerful expression of the relation of part to whole. They are, however, seriously ambivalent: they can be read in either of two opposite ways. They present, then, a stark problem for the art of interpretation, the highest branch of rhetoric, as it comes from Augustine to Bacon and Newton. The same statement becomes a watershed; it may belong to one world, or its opposite – but not both. Each is a containing frame, within which we picture, and live, our lives
Read in one way – the way most common today – they are seen as derived from Newton’s laws of motion, and thus adding nothing fundamentally new. From this perspective, they merely rephrase Newton in terms of the concept of energy, a mathematical convenience in certain circumstances but making no fundamental change in our understanding of the natural world. In this interpretation, they express what we today call mechanism, which sees the motion of any system as the mere aggregation of the motions of its individual parts. Causality flows upward; motions of the parts explain the motion of the whole.
Seen from the other side of the Lagrangian watershed, however, the same equations express a world of a totally different sort. Here, the same equations are derived from the Principle of Least Action – a concept which readers may recognize as one of the recurring themes of this website. The system itself as a whole, described in terms of potential and kinetic energy, becomes the primary reality and the source of the motions of the parts. Causality arises from the interplay of these energies, and flows in the reverse direction, from whole to part.
Within the world of mechanism – the first interpretation – there is no place for goalor purpose. These are concepts considered far too vague to meet the standard of objectivity, the signature of modern science.
Remarkably, however, Least Action reconciles purpose with quantitative objectivity. By means of the mathematical technique of variation, which considers all possible paths, this principle seeks the optimum path by which potential energy may, over he whole course of any natural motion, be transformed to kinetic. In this interpretation of Lagrange, then, our world-view is transformed. Science itself, while remaining strictly objective and quantitative, becomes at the same time goal-oriented – all at once!
More than this, however, science on the Least Action side of the Lagrangian divide becomes, at last, fundamentally organic. This arises from a further, crucial feature of Least Action: if a system as a whole moves in such a way as to minimize action,so also will, within the bounds of external constraints, every part of that system. The goal which belongs primarily to the whole, is pervasive: it is shared by every part.
It was important in stating this principle to add “within given constraints”, because a rigid part of a man-made machine has few options. By contrast, the myriad components of a leaf, or of a cell or enzyme within the system of a leaf, navigate among unimaginable options toward the common goal of turning sunlight into life, over the season of the leaf, the life of the tree, or the evolution of photosynthesis on earth.
It is this community of purpose, nested and shared, which renders a system trulyorganic – a living being, something fundamentally beyond any bio-molecular mechanism, however intricate.
It is hardly necessary to add that it is this sense of nested purpose and shared membership in natural communities which has been so lacking during the long reign of mechanism. Our so strongly-held worldview has diverted us from that other option, which has nonetheless long formed a strong alternative flow of thought and practice in science, mathematics, politics and the arts. Now in many ways, not least the earth’s biosphere itself, the demand is upon us to recognize that we do have an option of immense importance. Viewing this whole scene now, we might say, from the Lagrangian ridge-line itself, with both worldviews clearly in view, our task is truly dialectical: leaving none of the insights of the past behind, we are in a position to move forward into a new, far richer and wiser world.
That new world-view, which has appeared here as a richer interpretation of Lagrange’s equations, is the ongoing theme of this website – always with an eye to Maxwell’s turn to Lagrange as mathematical vehicle for the launch of his concept of the electromagnetic field, paradigm, if ever there was one, of that whole system of which we have been speaking.
[A brief introcution to the Principle of Least Action is given in my lecture, “The Dialectical Laboratory” .
It is important to add that in this thumbnail sketch, many nuances of the application of Least Action have been left without mention]