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Whitehead did think that the “laws” of nature are actually just regularities, habitual ways of acting of actual entities, and that in a different “cosmic epoch” there might be different regularities, different laws of nature. But even if the regularities/laws of the universe were to change, what would be taking place would merely be the selection and actualization of different eternal objects by actual entities, not the evolution of the eternal objects that are currently preferred and actualized with regularity. Rather than a current “law” like E = mc2 itself evolving, it would be replaced with something else. That is, eternal objects themselves don’t change, it’s just our selection among them that changes.

I agree that our own subjective aim, to use Whitehead’s language, and our capacity for self-creative decision is a major factor in shaping our personal reality. But I would say that from a Whiteheadian perspective an individual’s reality involves a bit more; it involves the interplay of her/his own subjectivity, subjective aim, and the world. Neither our own intentions, nor the experiences that we prehend, are entirely determinative of an outcome. We make choices; but we’re not islands, we’re also conditioned by the rest of the world. In my view it’s therefore a mistake to overemphasize either personal responsibility, or external influences.

I genuinely think that process can be found just about everywhere (eternal objects would of course be exceptions, 1 + 1 = 2, and E = mc2 are admittedly not in process).

I see the connection too. I would just add a couple of thoughts. From 19th-century proponents of social Darwinism, to contemporary adherents of what used to be called sociobiology, and the selfish gene-centered version of evolutionism, a great many intelligent folks have, in my opinion, tragically drawn the wrong inferences and understandings from the theory of evolution. You astutely mentioned capitalism, and I would say that it’s in large measure the egoistic individualism endorsed by the ethos of capitalism, and by classical liberalism that inclines people to take evolution and try to turn it into a justification for selfishness and competition. If evolution had come up in a context of social-relational thinking; and Whiteheadian ontology, rather than substantialist individualism, I think that it instead would be widely recognized today that evolution can provide a rationale for caring, ecological community.

You very astutely zero in on Whitehead’s recognition of an aesthetic mode of knowing, and an aesthetic basis of morality. I’ll just touch on morality from a Whiteheadian perspective. Beauty, not mere cosmetic beauty, but rather harmonized contrastive complexity; integrative relations of actuality and creative possibilities, experience and values are, at least in my interpretation of Whitehead, what reality is a process and drive toward. The good then, in this interpretation, is actualizations of, and whatever conduces to actualizations of, this kalogenic (Frederick Ferré’s word) process. Evil is whatever is opposed to, or destructive of kalogenesis and beauty. Murder, for instance, is morally evil because it’s the destruction of the magnificent instance of creative complexity or beauty that is a human entity. Conversely, reverence for life is morally good because it supports the becoming and existence of embodiments of complexity, aka living creatures. And so forth. The upshot is that morality, in this view, fundamentally has to do with creative relationality, and kalogenesis. Is this also your view?

One Oxford definition of “harmony” is “the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole”. I think that the ontological interrelationality of the world makes for a consistent whole, and that being the case we can think and speak in terms of harmony and holism. However, some of what the cosmic whole comprises is not terribly pleasing, not at all pleasant. Personally I prefer other language, such as “interconnectedness”, “interrelationality”, or Whitehead’s “organic”, which doesn’t necessarily connote pleasantness. On the other hand, when Whitehead speaks about harmony I think that he’s often speaking technically about contrasts, and their integration. I don’t think that he ever says that contrasts are necessarily always pleasing, so if we’re speaking about harmony from a Whiteheadian perspective we’re not really implying pleasant harmony and we don’t have to rationalize describing the world as harmonious when there’s so much predation and competition and whatnot in it. In any event, the “harmony” of process thought is a bit complex and doesn’t reduce to a simple belief that the world is a pleasing whole. If we bear that in mind, then using the word “harmony” in the face of all of the conflict, dog-eat-dog cruelty, and other unpleasantness in the world becomes less problematic. At least it does for me.

Btw, I like your Star Trek: Discovery example. As for the question of what the new diet of the Ba’ul might consist of, well, humans don’t have any trouble finding other nutrition when they switch from being carnivores to being vegetarians, maybe we can just assume that the same is the case for the Ba’ul.

Yes, I think that we can say that the self is created and destroyed in a moment-to-moment oscillation between the creative processes of concrescence and transition. Each actual occasion in the series of actual occasions that is a self comes to completion and perishes. You could say that its perishing is its destruction. It’s then objectified in its successor, so it’s not completely destroyed; rather, it feeds into the next moment of creative process in the self, making for the continuity of the self. So, the process of processes that is the self is characterized by moment-to-moment concrescent creativity, destruction/perishing, transition, and continuity. At least this is how I currently understand the self in process terms.

I think that you’re right, there’s definitely a family resemblance between certain Buddhist metaphysical doctrines and process thought. For instance, I think that the Buddhist doctrine of anatta-vada and Whiteheadian ontology are compatible. From my personal Whiteheadian perspective I’d say that yes, we’re anatman; that we don’t have an intrinsic, independent, noncomposite self (i.e., we don’t have a substantial self). Rather, we have a relational, synthetic self (technically a series of actual occasions of experiential-creative process that constitute a processive self that’s being created moment-to-moment). And, although I wouldn’t quite say that there’s an ego self-transcendent self dichotomy, I would say that there’s being a relational self at different levels of recognition of the relational and nonsubstantial nature of self. These levels range from just about complete, abject ignorance of our relational interdependence (egoism) to living in full self-awareness of our real relational mode of existence (Buddhist enlightenment). Anyway, that’s my understanding.

Thank you very much for a reply that’s rich in both information and food for thought. I’ll definitely incorporate it into my thinking on the subject. I would just clarify one thing, which perhaps might be misunderstood (you might not need this clarification, but others here might), namely, my use of the words “sentience” and “sentient”. Modern science fiction literature and television has unfortunately popularized the incorrect use of the term “sentience” as a synonym for “consciousness”. I don’t use it to mean consciousness. “Sentient” actually means sensitive, responsive, having a capacity for feeling rather than conscious perception or thought. Since Whitehead’s prehensions are feelings, and actual entities are quanta of feeling and responsiveness I sometimes use the terms “sentience” and “sentient” to describe them. I hope that no one thinks that I’m attributing full-fledged consciousness to actual entities. I know that Whitehead made a point of distinguishing the experience of actual entities from consciousness.

Yes, unity and harmony are admittedly not always in evidence at the meso and macro levels. At those levels we’re often presented with individual entities that don’t seem to play well with others, so to speak. But even those individual entities, despite their individualistic behavior, are not ontologically discrete, not independent and noncomposite individuals. They’re actually integrations of other entities, interconstituted with other entities, and interdependent with the rest of the universe. An ontology of interrelationality is still there in even the most asocial entities. Their constitution is still a product of, and their existence is supported by a social and synthetic process.

What’s more, from my personal process perspective interrelationality is only one side of the coin of process or creativity. The other side is differentiation and individuation. Creativity is a process of the relational creation of individual entities. It’s a process of the unification of some of the universe’s actuality and possibilities, but unification into distinct individuals (“The many become one, and are increased by one”). That is, sometimes unity ≠ amicability or selflessness, because it’s also a process of individuation, the synthesis of some of the universe’s diversity into individuals. As a consequence, nature doesn’t just feature harmony or unity, it also features a drive for individuality, which can manifest in competition and violence and whatnot. But that competitive and destructive individualism is still just the other face of the same process that also manifests in sociality, mutuality, caring, and compassion. They’re complementary, not mutually exclusive aspects of process. At any rate, that’s my current understanding.

You’re very welcome.

I’ve also wrestled with the question is Whitehead’s metaphysics a kind of idealism. I think that it helps to distinguish between idealism and panpsychism. To me the term idealism suggests a mind-only monism, in which mind is ultimately the only reality. Panpsychism, on the other hand, is the view that mentality or subjectivity is to be found in all of the entities that populate the world, but not necessarily the only ontologically basic mode of their being. Whitehead’s actual entities are dipolar, they have both a mental and a physical aspect. They’re a process that involves both mental and physical relationality, the synthesis of both experience and actuality. They don’t reduce to just mind. So I would say that it’s more apt to describe Whiteheadian metaphysics as panpsychist than idealist, even though Whitehead never used the term panpsychist.

There’s also another term that used to be used to describe Whitehead’s metaphysics (I think that it’s passé now), “neutral monism”. As I understand it, neutral monism posits that there’s ultimately one kind of reality, but that it’s neutral in the sense that it’s neither mental nor physical. Rather, it’s a reality that may have mental and physical aspects, but that doesn’t metaphysically boil down to either of these two aspects. I think that neutral monism is an apt characterization of Whiteheadian ontology if we take creativity to be Whitehead’s ultimate reality, since Whiteheadian creativity can’t be explained in just mentalistic or just physicalistic terms. In any event, personally I don’t think that idealism is the most accurate descriptor to use when talking about process philosophy.

(In an old Handbook of the History of Philosophy that I sometimes refer to it says that Whitehead: “developed a doctrine which has been classed as Aristotelian, as panpsychist, and as a form of idealism”. So yes, apparently some people have considered Whitehead’s metaphysics to be a form of idealism. So I guess that the real answer to the question is Whitehead’s metaphysics a kind of idealism is that whether it is or not depends on who you ask.)

There are of course the folks in the various sciences who still haven’t gotten the memo about Newtonian materialism being defunct thanks to quantum physics. They can’t take onboard the panexperientialist and theistic dimensions of process thought. And of course from its early days Whitehead’s philosophical work and conceptuality was negatively received by academic philosophers. Anglo-American philosophy was in the process of taking its linguistic, analytic turn, and Whitehead’s exploration of cosmological and ontological questions was out of sync with the new mindset about what philosophy’s proper task should be. What’s more, not only was Whiteheadianism dismissed as a “system” by professional philosophers, it was a “system” that included God, which made it doubly disagreeable to them. But including God hasn’t meant that process thought and the traditional confessions are simpatico. The traditional confessions go in for a supernaturalistic theism and balk at the naturalistic theology that Whitehead’s naturalistic cosmology and idea of God undergirds. For the same reason neither have New Agers flocked to process thought. Many of them prefer supernaturalism and forms of esotericism, and so Whiteheadian naturalism doesn’t appeal to them. If I’m not mistaken, for some time the Whiteheadian base consisted mostly of theologically liberal Protestant students of Whitehead’s thought, and just about everyone else was either ignorant of, or not favorably inclined toward it. So sadly process thought has had to face plenty of opposition, rejection, and negativity, from all quarters. But it’s persevered because it’s on to some profound insights about reality, and today its base is no longer confined to American liberal Protestant theologians. It’s enjoying popularity in China, in philosophical circles in Europe, among evangelicals of the open and relational variety, and elsewhere. Our little movement has hung in there, and is growing, despite its various “enemies”.

The first two that leap to mind are Joseph Bracken’s The Divine Matrix: Creativity As Link Between East and West. A wonderful little book in which Father Bracken explores, from his Whitehead-influenced perspective, the question of creativity as a metaphysical and religious ultimate (in various traditions, Western and Eastern). Like Nobo, Bracken is very much an original thinker and not quite in the mainstream of process thought. He described himself in an email as a “Whiteheadian who dares to question the thought-processes and conclusions of the master”—so reading him will definitely help you to expand your own process perspective.

Another wonderful book is David Ray Griffin’s Primordial Truth and Postmodern Theology. Actually it’s David Ray Griffin’s and Huston Smith’s book. It’s a conversation, and friendly debate between Griffin and Smith, in which Griffin makes a case for process philosophy and theology; and Smith makes a case for the primordial tradition, the perennial philosophy. I love Huston Smith. I think that he’s spiritual in the best ways, in reflective, intelligent, pluralistic, caring, compassionate ways. However, and I’m admittedly biased, frankly David Griffin makes a much better case, and in the process presents a great exposition of process thought that will definitely deepen your understanding of it.

For anyone interested in exploring the possible political applications of Whiteheadian thought, here’s a link to an article originally published in the journal Process Studies, which will supply some valuable food for thought:

A Political Vision for the Organic Model