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Hence they are not vacuous or purposeless. The stubborn value-facts in eternal objects (abstractions) are steeped in possibilities that become ingredients in the Becoming — many become one and are increased by one. This is how I understand it…

Dear Bill, Thank you for your presence here and the quote from Whitehead which I am saving.

I have been noticing that my lifeworld encounter with Whitehead’s writings and thoughts (via others who have written about his philosophy) is itself a Creative process, a novelty. It is emerging insights of my worlds that was always there in the everyday, but I dismissed it as “culture”. For me this encounter is a decolonial process– an unfolding in a way that was not in my awareness before.

I also find myself thinking about the “Unity in Diversity” essay we Indian students would inevitably have to write in school. I recognise why that phrasing was unhelpful. Unity presupposed disunity and there concerned with parts rather than “many become one and increased by one.” If we had felt into and grown through that, how differently my land would have viewed our multi-faith worlds.

I am also wondering what role Whitehead had in influencing systems thinking as we know of it today. To me, the “The many become one and is increased by one” read like the law of requisite variety (Gregory Bateson) and how emergence happens when required complexity is reached.

Apologies– using the forum to create a space for me to swirl with the thoughts and make sense over time. Any and all of your inputs are welcome into this swirl.

Feeling into these thoughts:
Davis book:
“The many become one, and are increased by one.”
“…that everything is in everything in the process of becoming.”
“each happening is a factor in the nature of every happening”
Hosinski book:
“…the occasions in nature occur in three-dimensional space and do not inherit in a strict, one dimensional personal order; their inheritance is multi dimensional.”

And I am thinking of Prarabdha Karma– this moment is shaped by the ripening of some aspect of Sanchita Karma (gathered consequences(debts) of multiple events in multiple lifetimes). How I respond to this moment will decide if the old debts continue in new ways or I transcend that debt (agami Karma). And this set along with another verse, “Aham Bramhasmi”– I am That.

Reflecting further: Inheritance is not only what I (as an individual) inherits through various experiences but also the inheritances I am born into and the legacies I leave behind each moment as well as end of life. Many become one and is increased by one…sitting with this

Combining above extracts with ones from Holsinski:
“The analysis of human experience allows us to say that in the initial
phase of a moment of experience there is something to be received
(which Whitehead always refers to as the “objective datum” or, more
simply, the “datum”); and there is an act o/receiving. Whitehead uses
three different terms for this act of receiving. He uses the word “inheritance”
or “inheriting.”

“”the philosophy of organism attributes ‘feeling’ throughout the actual
world. It bases this doctrine upon the directly observed fact that ‘feeling’
survives as a known element constitutive of the ‘formal’ existence
of such actual entities as we can best observe.” (PR 177)”

“To think ofthings as “dead matter” being pushed
or prodded by external forces can be a useful abstraction, both in
Newtonian physics and in common sense; but it is an abstraction from
the full complexity of concrete actuality”

“”Feelings are ‘vectors’; for they feel what is there
and transform it into what is here.” (PR 87)”

“The Receptacle, as he interprets it, has the sole function of the imposition of unity upon the events of nature by providing the locus or “place” for them to be together. There is a unity to the events of nature simply by the fact that they have the Receptacle as a common locus, and their emplacement
within that locus is the source of their actuality.”

“the occasions in nature occur in three-dimensional space and do not inherit in a strict, one dimensional personal order; their inheritance is multi dimensional.”

“It is true that in our day-to-day lives we are not ordinarily conscious of this multi-dimensional inheritance at the base of our experience. What
dominates our awareness is the other type of inheritance, the onedimensional
personal order in which we inherit the preceding moments
of personal experience”

I watch so much swirl as I read. For example, Yoga Sutras of Patanjali where Patanjali is NOT a human. But a human-snake combination. And the snake is also mythical snake Seshnag who provides a lounging spot for Vishnu (who maintains the universe). And the qualities of the snake (flexibility and firmness) along with the larger myth of the cosmos comes together with the human-birth-experience to emerge the Yoga Sutras. “Inheritance refers to the fact that you are always inheriting into your experience the established world.” “The many become one and are increased by one.”

I am also wondering about Gregory Bateson’s idea of the Mind as being immanent in the system and not a container in the body or an organ of consciousness. “…that everything is in everything in the process of becoming.”

The idea of systematic togetherness is so intense a sensation– I feel expanded and fragmented and never ever one and edgeless. For me it is an extraordinary statement. So is mutual immanence.

I feel weird and wise at the same time.

I am soaking in your reflections –of the imagery of prism itself, your spiritual journey, the art that came through it and light itself.

And I am wondering about time…

Thanks for your post, Christie. “Wonder scholar”– this is first I have heard someone say so. It is just so beautiful.
On your post, actually, I was surprised to discover that metaphysics was considered taboo. My understanding of what-is-called “Hinduism” is essentially metaphysical. And for me, it has been normal to “critic abstractions.” I have been baffled why one would not do so.