Think about it. Even the findings of modern science support this idea of process philosophy. Every object is defined as the interaction of smaller objects, which are in turn defined as the interaction of even smaller objects. Our bodies are an interaction of organs, while organs are an interaction of cells, which are an interaction of molecules, which are an interaction of atoms, which are an interaction of protons and electrons, etc. If objects are just interacting processes all the way down, then where are the actual objects or substances? Our minds are processes too. Each process operates at a certain frequency of change relative to the other processes in nature. Some processes operate at a frequency of change faster or slower relative to the process of our mind, which creates the illusion of persistent, static objects in our mind.
(cont.) Accordingly we find in the first two lines of a famous hymn a full expression of the union of the two notions in one integral experience: Abide with me; Fast falls the eventide. Here the first line expresses the permanence, ‘abide’, ‘me’ and the ‘Being’ addressed; and the second line sets these permanences amid the inescapable flux.
@xOnimpulsex I agree. He went on to say that matter is made up of energy and energy is the expression of a relationship. But, a relationship to what,if not some thing? I don't think he can say existence exists without saying that some thing must exist.
(cont.) Those philosophers who start with the first line have given us the metaphysics of 'sbustance'; and those woh start with the second line have developed the metaphysics of 'flux.' But, in truth, the two lines cannot be be torn apart in this way; and we find that a wavering balance between the two is a characteristic of the greater number of philosophers. (end)
I haven't read Whitehead, but this reflects my understanding of things from a 'complexity science' POV & what replaced Newtonian models with Relativity, & makes Descartes dualism obsolete & the whole Complex Adaptive Systems non-linear stuff ties closely to my understanding of the Tao / Buddhist models. Fascinating stuff! :D
Energy is dual to mass -- Einstein Dark energy is dual to dark matter Waves are dual to particles -- Quantum duality Generalization is dual to localization Alive is dual to not alive -- Schrodinger's cat Thesis is dual to anti-thesis -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic Certainty is dual to uncertainty -- Heisenberg Synthesis (error thesis) or reality, non duality is a result of conserving duality which is a process of change. Order is dual to randomness (change) Conserving order amid change is dual to conserving change amid order, this is duality!
A simple, if coarse, example may illustrate the point here. Consider a relationship between two people, who only know each other, and no one else. Clearly, the relationship is formed by the respective identities of the two people involved. But what formed their identities? Each other, obviously, since they know only each other. In other words, the relationship forms the identities, and vice versa. Now, extrapolate from that to an immense number of processes and interactions.
The custom is to read ANW's books in order and then have some help with Process and Reality, feeding in Leibniz and others along the way. Professor Rescher's books are good starts for the basics. (I recommend avoiding process theology and emphasizing process philosophy.) Thumbs up for using Speak It (I think)
@Barklord Whitehead correctly observed a hole in the Humean critique of causality which you cite. For even if we cannot observe causality of external objects, we can observe causality within ourselves. We know that change is real because we change over time. That is the problem with such Platonic intellectualism: It takes us out of our own picture.
Dear wider-world, Could "G-d" be the communication between each process? Psuedo-hypothetically, when I communicate meaning is not conveyed at 100 per cent efficiency though by process philosophy a product has been produced non the less. Therefore, a medium is what we could name, or define, as "G-d" Cheers, SF
@Barklord I'm reading a book right now by William James that answers your objections with precision. Such thinking is the consequence of our collective hypnosis by concepts we invented. We have this false dichotomy where everything is either completely one or "truly" separate. This of course ignores the many varieties and degrees of separation and connection that can exist. Also, there needn't be a "medium" of interaction. Interaction IS the medium.
@Israe5l Whitehead does have both eternal objects (univerals) and actual entity (particulars). But he does sort of shy away from talking eternal objects (while actual entity is substance). I don't understand the details of it. The bit about propositons, etc... There is a difference between process phliosophy and philosophy of organism. Process philosophy seems like a through going nonreductionism (and anti-mathematical). While philosophy of organism is taking the metaphor of organism.
silversoul7, Whitehead is actually pretty clear on this point, if not on many others! Process and Reality, p. 208-209 (1978 edition), states: The elucidation of meaning involved in the phrase ‘all things flow’ is one chief task of metaphysics. But there is a rival notion, antithetical to the former. I cannot at the moment recall one immortal phrase which expresses it with the same completeness as that with which the alternative notion has been rendered by Heraclitus.
@Barklord In short, I'm assigning you some homework: Go read "A Pluralistic Universe" by William James, and come back if you think he hasn't fully demolished the Parmenidean worldview.
Well this changes some things for me. So you could say in a way dynamic things exist but not static things? Within this idea could there be room for one underlying thing that is unbounded and never static which through it's unboundedness eventually gives rise to diversity and a universe like ours?
this is the ultimate category of Creativity, for Whitehead. Creativity is the unbounded, infinite source of all emergence & process. In the Buddhist philosophy, Emptiness is the ultimate source of this creativity & becoming.
the more "static-y" things are the habits of process. Whitehead also had a concept of "eternal objects" that provided some anchor points in all the process; universals that would be taken up into experience such as colour.
Within this philosophy you would be doing yourself a dis-service by identifying a 'thing' distinct from any other 'thing'. All 'things' are actually events, or entities that owe their existence to their own arising. That is, self-determination in its process is constituitive of its own realizations (Ideally), and also, realizations provide the impetus for growth within the organism itself - (Realistically or Actually). This metaphysic supports both positions and the all the movements between them. So alliant is right in that Whitehead does support the notion of an unbounded creativity, functioning as a sort of pull in the formation process, but, as a part of process and reality it is most decidedly no thing.
(cont.) This other notion dwells on the permanence of things -- the solid earth, the mountains, the stones, the Egyptian Pyramids, the spirit of man, God. The best rendering of integral experience, expressing its general form divested of irrelevant details, is often to be found in the utterances of religious aspiration. One of the reasons of the thinness of so much modern metaphysics is its neglect of this wealth of expression of ultimate feeling.
Actual occasions certainly do not bear any resemblance to substance. They are moments that prehend eternal objects as well as previous actual occasions. Whitehead threw out the idea of a continuity of becoming in favor of a becoming of continuity. This is a thorough rejection of substance. What you describe is closer to the process philosophy of someone like Deleuze or Bergson, but not Whitehead.
Process thinker keeps saying "no, no, no". Process philosophy does not exist without the philosophy of objects. Philosophy of object stands complete and independent. While process philosophy is always incomplete. But this train of thought must also be incomplete...if you want to be a process philosopher.
This gets Whitehead's process philosophy wrong in a pretty key way: Whitehead's key idea was a re-balancing of metaphysics away from substance as primary to a shared vision of substance in process, process in substance - NOT that there is no substance. The video is right that there is no "enduring" substance in Whitehead's philosophy (similar to Buddhism's "dependent origination"), but there IS still substance. A world of relationships upon relationships upon relationships is no world at all.
@xOnimpulsex You're so confused in your definitions that I don't know where to begin. An object is simply a counterpart to a subject. Objects of thought, of language, of logic, of imagination -- these are basic philosophical concepts. And just like physical objects, they are sets of relations. No substance required, even for physical objects.
newton - an object in motion stays in motion einstein - actually there's no such thing as objects newton - you must be fun at parties einstein - you died a bloody virgin!
I just like Aristotelian God. God is immutable. Everything else is a reaction from the immutable God. So God does transgress Process. But everything else is in motion.
The whole process philosophy and your reasoning is deeply fallacious. You define energy as relation between objects. The only problem is, the relationships are made of matter in our mind. In reality no relation exist per se. Ask yourself: Which relationship? Distance? But distance is nothing else but objects. The atoms of the ruler. You define energy as relation between objects. So if there is no objects you have no relation, no energy. Objects are made of energy and energy is made of objects and relation. O = E = O + R ??? R is ex nihilo falacy here. And also energy doesn't exist. The same as unit kg. 1 mol H2 is not composed of 2 g mass unit but of 2x 6.023 x 10exp23 atoms. You mix quantifies and real quantity.
@TheNewRenaissance Yea a lot of people like to equate the word "information" with "energy". Taken from communication theory, it can certainly be used interchangeably, but I don't think it's an apt term when describing physical phenomena. I think as Whitehead would say, it falls under the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
@silversoul7 thought and logic are abstractions. object - anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form. I cant see thoughts. I dont know where you got objects of logic from
If there are no substances, then there are no objects. therefore, the statement "energy is a relationship between objects" is invalid in this mode of thinking
Concise and easy to understand. Well done and thank you.
I tried this argument in court when being sued for divorce (for infidelity). That judge has a lot to learn.
Think about it. Even the findings of modern science support this idea of process philosophy. Every object is defined as the interaction of smaller objects, which are in turn defined as the interaction of even smaller objects. Our bodies are an interaction of organs, while organs are an interaction of cells, which are an interaction of molecules, which are an interaction of atoms, which are an interaction of protons and electrons, etc.
If objects are just interacting processes all the way down, then where are the actual objects or substances?
Our minds are processes too. Each process operates at a certain frequency of change relative to the other processes in nature. Some processes operate at a frequency of change faster or slower relative to the process of our mind, which creates the illusion of persistent, static objects in our mind.
im not sure if thats what whitehead said but it does make logical sense
-'sorry for overturning your scientific paradigm.' - 'No worries, someday I will have my revenge.' Am I the only one who thinks this hilarious? XD
No, It is making me to consider this as hilarious. I process.
This lovely, clear and amusing conversation between Einstein and Newton opens the way to understanding Whitehead's theory of process as reality.
(cont.) Accordingly we find in the first two lines of a famous hymn a full expression of the union of the two notions in one integral experience:
Abide with me;
Fast falls the eventide.
Here the first line expresses the permanence, ‘abide’, ‘me’ and the ‘Being’ addressed; and the second line sets these permanences amid the inescapable flux.
Very well articulated.
Thank you! A very nice simple introduction to process philosophy for complete starters.
@xOnimpulsex I agree. He went on to say that matter is made up of energy and energy is the expression of a relationship. But, a relationship to what,if not some thing? I don't think he can say existence exists without saying that some thing must exist.
(cont.) Those philosophers who start with the first line have given us the metaphysics of 'sbustance'; and those woh start with the second line have developed the metaphysics of 'flux.' But, in truth, the two lines cannot be be torn apart in this way; and we find that a wavering balance between the two is a characteristic of the greater number of philosophers.
(end)
Great find, thanks for putting this out.
I haven't read Whitehead, but this reflects my understanding of things from a 'complexity science' POV & what replaced Newtonian models with Relativity, & makes Descartes dualism obsolete & the whole Complex Adaptive Systems non-linear stuff ties closely to my understanding of the Tao / Buddhist models. Fascinating stuff! :D
Energy is dual to mass -- Einstein
Dark energy is dual to dark matter
Waves are dual to particles -- Quantum duality
Generalization is dual to localization
Alive is dual to not alive -- Schrodinger's cat
Thesis is dual to anti-thesis -- The time independent Hegelian dialectic
Certainty is dual to uncertainty -- Heisenberg
Synthesis (error thesis) or reality, non duality is a result of conserving duality which is a process of change.
Order is dual to randomness (change)
Conserving order amid change is dual to conserving change amid order, this is duality!
A simple, if coarse, example may illustrate the point here. Consider a relationship between two people, who only know each other, and no one else. Clearly, the relationship is formed by the respective identities of the two people involved. But what formed their identities? Each other, obviously, since they know only each other. In other words, the relationship forms the identities, and vice versa. Now, extrapolate from that to an immense number of processes and interactions.
The custom is to read ANW's books in order and then have some help with Process and Reality, feeding in Leibniz and others along the way.
Professor Rescher's books are good starts for the basics. (I recommend avoiding process theology and emphasizing process philosophy.)
Thumbs up for using Speak It (I think)
great stuff. Thanks, Jonathan.
@Barklord Whitehead correctly observed a hole in the Humean critique of causality which you cite. For even if we cannot observe causality of external objects, we can observe causality within ourselves. We know that change is real because we change over time. That is the problem with such Platonic intellectualism: It takes us out of our own picture.
Dear wider-world,
Could "G-d" be the communication between each process?
Psuedo-hypothetically, when I communicate meaning is not conveyed at 100 per cent efficiency though by process philosophy a product has been produced non the less. Therefore, a medium is what we could name, or define, as "G-d"
Cheers,
SF
For his revenge, Newton should've thrown an apple at Einstein's head and said, "Space/time THIS!"
That was so dang good!
I watched this quite high. Room for improvement i gotta say..
@Barklord I'm reading a book right now by William James that answers your objections with precision. Such thinking is the consequence of our collective hypnosis by concepts we invented. We have this false dichotomy where everything is either completely one or "truly" separate. This of course ignores the many varieties and degrees of separation and connection that can exist. Also, there needn't be a "medium" of interaction. Interaction IS the medium.
Pure Buddhism - except that through Buddhism you come to experience this directly and not simply accept it as a philosophical concept.
Mad ideas throughout
This reminds me of Tao. In fact, every philosophical doctrine I am drawn to reminds me of Tao.
Tao and taffy
That was awesome! Thanks.
@Israe5l Whitehead does have both eternal objects (univerals) and actual entity (particulars). But he does sort of shy away from talking eternal objects (while actual entity is substance). I don't understand the details of it. The bit about propositons, etc...
There is a difference between process phliosophy and philosophy of organism. Process philosophy seems like a through going nonreductionism (and anti-mathematical). While philosophy of organism is taking the metaphor of organism.
silversoul7, Whitehead is actually pretty clear on this point, if not on many others! Process and Reality, p. 208-209 (1978 edition), states:
The elucidation of meaning involved in the phrase ‘all things flow’ is one chief task of metaphysics.
But there is a rival notion, antithetical to the former. I cannot at the moment recall one immortal phrase which expresses it with the same completeness as that with which the alternative notion has been rendered by Heraclitus.
Would it be by Parmenides who believed that change is illusory?
@@imustkeepremindingmyselfofthis Yes.
What channel did you get this video from?
@Barklord In short, I'm assigning you some homework: Go read "A Pluralistic Universe" by William James, and come back if you think he hasn't fully demolished the Parmenidean worldview.
Systems Theory, Holism, and Process Philosophy ftw
Is it me or Newton’s voice sounds like John Lennon’s?
Good explanation, clearly you know your stuff. but in my opinion this metaphysic is very resistent to ordinary language. You have to read Whitehead.
thanks for this!
Well this changes some things for me. So you could say in a way dynamic things exist but not static things? Within this idea could there be room for one underlying thing that is unbounded and never static which through it's unboundedness eventually gives rise to diversity and a universe like ours?
this is the ultimate category of Creativity, for Whitehead. Creativity is the unbounded, infinite source of all emergence & process. In the Buddhist philosophy, Emptiness is the ultimate source of this creativity & becoming.
the more "static-y" things are the habits of process. Whitehead also had a concept of "eternal objects" that provided some anchor points in all the process; universals that would be taken up into experience such as colour.
Within this philosophy you would be doing yourself a dis-service by identifying a 'thing' distinct from any other 'thing'. All 'things' are actually events, or entities that owe their existence to their own arising. That is, self-determination in its process is constituitive of its own realizations (Ideally), and also, realizations provide the impetus for growth within the organism itself - (Realistically or Actually). This metaphysic supports both positions and the all the movements between them.
So alliant is right in that Whitehead does support the notion of an unbounded creativity, functioning as a sort of pull in the formation process, but, as a part of process and reality it is most decidedly no thing.
(cont.) This other notion dwells on the permanence of things -- the solid earth, the mountains, the stones, the Egyptian Pyramids, the spirit of man, God.
The best rendering of integral experience, expressing its general form divested of irrelevant details, is often to be found in the utterances of religious aspiration. One of the reasons of the thinness of so much modern metaphysics is its neglect of this wealth of expression of ultimate feeling.
Actual occasions certainly do not bear any resemblance to substance. They are moments that prehend eternal objects as well as previous actual occasions. Whitehead threw out the idea of a continuity of becoming in favor of a becoming of continuity. This is a thorough rejection of substance. What you describe is closer to the process philosophy of someone like Deleuze or Bergson, but not Whitehead.
if we apply godel's theorums, yes.
Process thinker keeps saying "no, no, no". Process philosophy does not exist without the philosophy of objects. Philosophy of object stands complete and independent. While process philosophy is always incomplete. But this train of thought must also be incomplete...if you want to be a process philosopher.
omg perfect.
This gets Whitehead's process philosophy wrong in a pretty key way: Whitehead's key idea was a re-balancing of metaphysics away from substance as primary to a shared vision of substance in process, process in substance - NOT that there is no substance. The video is right that there is no "enduring" substance in Whitehead's philosophy (similar to Buddhism's "dependent origination"), but there IS still substance. A world of relationships upon relationships upon relationships is no world at all.
@xOnimpulsex How so? Are there objects of thought? Objects of logic? I think one thing lacking substance here is your argument.
Not full explanatory
Circular argument
Whitehead's model has no substance.
Christian Roberts bravo.
he is in the continual process of refining his model however
@xOnimpulsex You're so confused in your definitions that I don't know where to begin. An object is simply a counterpart to a subject. Objects of thought, of language, of logic, of imagination -- these are basic philosophical concepts. And just like physical objects, they are sets of relations. No substance required, even for physical objects.
So … Buddhism? Sounds like the basics of The Middle Way to me.
I love jsus
@sdrawkcabgnipytmi Yeah, I got a little lazy on that point. I should've just shortened it to "matter is energy."
A fascinating essay on Whitehead can be read here
www3.sympatico.ca/rlubbock/ANW.html
So there's no place for substance in Whitehead's model - fortunately there's still plenty of room for it in everyday experience.
newton - an object in motion stays in motion
einstein - actually there's no such thing as objects
newton - you must be fun at parties
einstein - you died a bloody virgin!
Insane. I figured this "out" when I was about 16 lol. Never knew there was a legitimate philosophy behind it.
All is doing.
I just like Aristotelian God. God is immutable. Everything else is a reaction from the immutable God. So God does transgress Process. But everything else is in motion.
no solidity exists? thats a bad argument to make.
Can't wait for zombie Newton to rise from the dead to destroy metaphysics by instilling absolute time, absolute space and 17th century atoms.
watch?v=EvLBQJljaf4
don't tell the pope!
The whole process philosophy and your reasoning is deeply fallacious. You define energy as relation between objects. The only problem is, the relationships are made of matter in our mind. In reality no relation exist per se. Ask yourself: Which relationship? Distance? But distance is nothing else but objects. The atoms of the ruler.
You define energy as relation between objects. So if there is no objects you have no relation, no energy. Objects are made of energy and energy is made of objects and relation. O = E = O + R ??? R is ex nihilo falacy here.
And also energy doesn't exist. The same as unit kg. 1 mol H2 is not composed of 2 g mass unit but of 2x 6.023 x 10exp23 atoms. You mix quantifies and real quantity.
This view is incoherent. Substance change, change doesnt change. If events are real, then they would be the substance under a process ontology.
Philosophers should really stop daydreaming on a shitter and start asking questions to nature rather than to their own neurons.
beauty of whitehood lies in his process theology.
NO
It strangely prove that philosophy is futile ! Brilliant :)
@TheNewRenaissance Yea a lot of people like to equate the word "information" with "energy". Taken from communication theory, it can certainly be used interchangeably, but I don't think it's an apt term when describing physical phenomena. I think as Whitehead would say, it falls under the fallacy of misplaced concreteness.
@silversoul7 thought and logic are abstractions. object - anything that is visible or tangible and is relatively stable in form. I cant see thoughts. I dont know where you got objects of logic from
If there are no substances, then there are no objects. therefore, the statement "energy is a relationship between objects" is invalid in this mode of thinking
The book is monstrous. Video is 2 minutes.