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A very interesting and engaging thread. Thanks to everyone. The whole-part relations deserves much more discussion that I have offered or, for that matter, than Whitehead offers. But Whitehead does recognize that there are many different kinds of wholes or, to use his language, different kinds of “societies.” He speaks of corpuscular societies, linear ordered societies, societies with regnant subjects or “dominant” occasions, structured societies, living persons, etc. And he uses the word nexus as a kind of category that includes all societies plus more: namely groups of occasions that are not necessarily linked by shared characteristics. If some are interested in this, and want a quick “take” on the different kinds of societies, I recommend John Cobb’s Whitehead Word Book. You can get it free as a PDF. See especially sections 27-30: titled respectively (27) Nexus, (28) Societies and Empty Space. (29) Enduring Objects or Personally Ordered Societies and Corpuscular Societies, (3) Structured Societies. For my part, I speak of two different kinds of wholes: mechanical wholes like rocks, and living wholes like living cells. For Whitehead, God is the living whole of the universe. Here’s the link to the PDF for Cobb’s Whitehead Wordbook: https://www.informationphilosopher.com/solutions/philosophers/whitehead/WordBookWeb.pdf

Daniel, I think you are right on everything here, and I really appreciate this comment. I’ve not mentioned this in class, but “decision” is, for Whitehead, the very essence of actuality: the cutting off of some potentials, in the actualizing of others. And it is indeed volitional, as you say. Thank you so much for bringing this up. Hope others have read your comment!

Evan, the word “God” is so charged for many people, that I can well understand your wish that Whitehead didn’t use it, much less capitalizing the “G.” All that I can say is that he wanted to point to an ultimate something by which each and all can be lured toward truth, goodness, beauty, adventure, and peace and which, in his view, is a great compassion in which all is enfolded. This something is quite beautiful, and thus worthy of an upper case “G”, and it can even be an object of worship and a subject of prayer. But it is by no means the Caesar-like entity that some associate with the word “God.” Hope you’ve had a chance to look at this page: https://www.openhorizons.org/whitehead-on-god-six-passages-from-process-and-reality.html. But also know that, if you’re inclined to think of yourself as part of the process family, but don’t like Whitehead’s approach to divinity, no problem. It’s but one of the twenty key ideas, and you’d not be alone in not finding it to your liking.

You all are way ahead of me when it comes to Hebrew and grammar. It is my understanding the Kaballah speaks of the “ultimate” as a formless mystery sometimes named Ein Sof. This would be what I was calling the Godhead or, to use Whitehead’s language, Creativity (as a kind of prime matter of which everything is an expression, albeit in no way passive). It is, thinks Whitehead, actual only in virtue of its instances, and those instances are the self-creativity of each actual entity along with the perishing of immediacy, such that there is a creative advance into novelty. Thus understood, it would not make sense to have faith in creativity, since it is not a something to have faith in, but it might make sense to awaken to it. It is arguable that different forms of mysticism are instances of that kind of awakening, as different from the love mysticisms that focus on awakening to God, the deep tenderness. A Whiteheadian approach is quite open to many forms of mysticism. I’ve spoken more about this in a page in Open Horizons called Eight Forms of Mysticism. Take a look if interested: https://www.openhorizons.org/eight-kinds-of-mysticism.html

This is a wonderful series of questions/remarks/wanderings. Thank you all. And here’s to holding humility and uncertainty in our hearts and minds. The Sufis sometimes speak of the holy bewilderment: a kind of knowing that emerges only when we are bewildered, tossed about in a sea of unknowing. And then there’s the well known 14 century mystical text in the West: the Cloud of Unknowing. Among process theologians, Catherine Keller and Roland Faber have perhaps done the best to speak for “unknowing” as an important part of religious and spiritual life. Here they join forces with many others in many traditions. Thanks, Hayden, for reminding us of the wisdom of the fourth impression – and of the depths that we can never fully sound.

This is a wonderful discussion, and I haven’t wisdom to offer that’s not already expressed. Whitehead speaks of a kind of existent in the universe which he calls propositions. They are one of the eight kinds of existents about which I speak in the video series. I think I also deal with them in my book. In any case, they are really important and ever-present. He speaks of them as “lures for feeling.” They are not necessarily linguistic. An image, an idea, a phrase, a gesture, a facial expression – all can be felt as “lures” for feeling. Advertisements are always giving such lures. They are proposals for how we might live in the world. As I understand Whitehead, “initial aims” — that is, fresh possibilities from God, moment by moment — are propositions. But we can and so experience many other propositions, not from God. We can experience propositions that are lures for hatred, or greed, or envy. Coffee and alcohol and other objects of desire can carry propositions, too. They promise a kind of satisfaction, and indeed give a kind of satisfaction, momentary or otherwise. They are “temptations.” In the spiritual life, people speak of the importance of discernment. Discernment is the internal act of distinguishing healthy propositions from destructive ones, as best we can. Not always easy. And Kathleen is right: simple dichotomies between healthy and unhealthy are probably problematic, too. Many lures for feeling may be healthy in some ways, in that they bring about beauty, while unhealthy in others. Life is ambiguous, filled with tragic beauty.

What a good discussion. Many in the process tradition think of beauty as harmony, intensity, or a combination thereof. In PR Whitehead proposes that in every moment of experience there is an aim at what he calls “intensity.” Intensity thus understood is something “felt.” It is present in each experience, but experiences can be more or less intense. Intensity is increased through the cultivation of what he calls “contrasts” between elements of experience. Contrast need not mean tension, it can mean complementarity as in a yin-yang diagram. The elements contrasted can be data of experience or subjective forms (emotions) in the prehensions of those data. When satisfying contrasts emerge, we (and other actual entities) enjoy harmony amid the intensity: or harmonious intensities. For Whitehead, harmonious intensities are another name for beauty. The fact that (in his view) all living beings aim at harmonious intensity of experience as they interaxt with the world means that all aim at beauty. Even the living whole of the universe, even God, thus aims. The beauty at issue here is felt beauty. We can also speak of beautiful objects of experience, but this is a little different. Whitehead is interested in both felt beauty and beauty as a property of the world. He thinks that poets and artists, better than scientists, have an eye for beauty in the world, and that their perception of such beauty (e.g. the beauty of a sunset, a piece of music, a poignant act of love) has cognitive value. There really is something beautiful about the world, he believes. Thus beauty is, for him, objective as well as subjective. In both instances, however, it is relational. Objective beauty is incomplete unless perceived. The deep perceiver in all of this, I suggest, is the consequent nature of God: that is, the living whole of the universe, a subject in its own right.

Kevin writes: “For something (anything) to experience an event means only that it interacts with something else.” I think Whitehead would add that it interacts with something else from its own point of view. This means it has reality for itself, subjectively. Mesle is proposing that rocks may be composed of “actual entities” that have reality for themselves, but that they, as rocks, do not. Rocks are aggregates of experiencing actualities. For Whitehead, there are different kind of aggregates. Metaphorically, a “democracy” would be an aggregate with no presiding subject; whereas a “monarchy” would have a presiding subject or. in Whitehead’s words, “dominant occasion.” On this view, a rock would be a democracy and a living cell a monarchy. Of course there can be gradations therebetween. Is a plant a democracy or a monarchy. Some think democracy, some monarchy, and some think somewhere in between. Perhaps better metaphors here, avoiding political imagery, would be “network whole” and “living whole.” That’s my language….A word about consciousness. Whitehead offers a very specific understanding of consciousness in PR. He suggests that conscious experience emphasizes what he calls the affirmation/negation contrast: that is, a contrast between something that is truly present as a datum of experience, and thus noticed because the experiencer (concrescing subject) senses that it could not be present. “Here” is an elephant in front of me, or “here” is an idea in my mind, both of which would be absent. Given this view of consciousness, mush of our own experience is non-conscious or pre-conscious. Indeed, for Whitehead, consciousness is but a special, and in some ways specious, form of experience. Most human and non-human experience is non-conscious. So he thinks.

Yes…”community of communities of communities” is a nice metaphor. For me, it has many applications. A molecules is a community of communities of communities, as is a living cell, of which the molecule may be a part, as is a tissue in which that cell is situated. And perhaps even God is such a community: a living whole which is itself (himself, herself) composed of many wholes, each of which is composed of other wholes. Finally there’s the hope that our world can move past divisions and become more like a community of communities of communities. For process thinkers interested in ecological civilization, the fundamental wholes of such a civilization will be local communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. “Beloved communities” with ecology added.

Ah…the incomplete dictionary. What a nice metaphor for life. Our experience is always more than the words we or others have to describe it. And that “moreness” is not just abstract but concrete. Hence a relation between the fallacy of the perfect dictionary and that of misplaced concreteness. We think the concreteness is in the words, but its really in the momentary experiences. A word about the meanings of words. Whitehead was not influenced by Wittgenstein, but Wittgenstein’s idea in the Investigations that the meanings of words are context dependent, and a function of how they are used, enriches what you’ve said, Jeremy. A word can mean different things in different contexts, and there’s no univocal meaning. This means that “dictionary definitions” are themselves ever the more contingent. At least so it seems to me.

Chris, this is such an interesting idea: “Why am I not overwhelmed by the emotions of every being in the universe? Is this the limitation role God plays in restricting my prehensive environment?” It’s a good argument for negative prehensions: that is, prehensions that block out the emotions (subjective forms) of actual entities in the past actual world from further influence. Whether or not we are so lured by God, we are so lured by our bodies and our brains. They are filters and not just conduits; and they filter out as much if not more than they filter in. Still, Whitehead suggests that we can feel the feelings of others to some degree, and that there can be mind-to-mind connections – even amid the filtering. Interestingly, we have such connections even with God, whose feelings we feel. I hope this comment has not gotten “a bit lost in God talk.” Whqt a nice phrase and good example of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Thank you.

Such a good conversation, Ryan and Joel. I’ll put in my two cents. The process idea that God works in the world as in inwardly-felt lure toward goodness, truth, beauty, adventure, and peace means much to many people, and speaks to their experience of God as a calling presence. So does the idea that the One who calls shares in the suffering of each and all, as a companion to suffering and, let me add, joy. Such a God is not in the business of leading us into temptation, if that means luring us toward evil. This does not mean that God always lures us toward happiness. God lures us toward richness of experience and depth in relationships, which may well include shared suffering. So where do the counter-lures come from? The temptations. Most process thinkers say that they come from the independent self-creativity of creatures in the world as they seek their own well-being. By creatures I do not means human beings alone, but also living cells and other animals. Is it possible that some of these creatures may inhabit other dimensions of existence? Yes, it’s possible. And is it possible that some among them may aim at destruction, as in fallen angels? Yes, it’s possible. There is no need to dismiss such possibilities as mere nonsense. And certainly we meet and know people whom are “possessed” by such inclinations: that is, overhelmed by hatred, greed, envy, addiction, and impulses to harm others. Evil is not merely the absence of good; it has power of its own, and even God must combat it, although with love not force. Many process thinkers try to explain the origins of these impulses by appeal to evolution. Marjorie Suchocki is among them. She argues that the impulse toward violence has evolutionary origins and that, at one time, such impulses may have been necessary for survival, but not now. I still must ask: but why didn’t God stop with the amoebas? Why not stop luring the world into forms of sentience that do less harm? I have no simple answer. Cobb and Birch in The Liberation of Life propose that God kept luring because, even amid terrible suffering, there is also intensity of experience and that this is good. I’m not sure. What I do know, though, is that the God to whom process thought points is “a fellow sufferer who understands” and might well wish, sometimes, that “he” or “she” could stop what cannot be stopped, because the world, too, has self-creative power. This is a God of love, not control.

Kathleen has put her finger on what, for me, is one of the most interesting passages in Process and Reality. There is a continuity of becoming but no becoming of continuity. I think Whitehead’s point is that we know two things from personal experience: (1) that yesterday has already happened will not return as it, because its immediacy has perished and (2) that today includes yesterday. The first speaks to the discontinuity of past and present: the fact that something has perished. The second to the becoming of continuity through the concrescence in the present, such that part of the past still exists in the present. His aim is to be honest to discontinuity and continuity; to perishing and continuation; to the falling away and the moving on.

What a good post, Eric. Just for the record, there is a disagreement among Whitehead scholars on whether norms such as truth, goodness and beauty are eternal objects. John Cobb thinks not. He thinks eternal objects are colors and shapes (objective species), moods and emotions (subjective species) – but not values such as truth, goodness, beauty, adventure, and peace. He thinks the latter are indeed divine values, inasmuch as we are lured by them, but that they emerge out of the dynamics of divine-world relations, as divine responses. Andrew Davis, your next teacher, thinks that they are eternal objects, which brings Whitehead closer to Plato, where “the Good” was a form in its own right. I myself lean in Cobb’s direction. But we all agree that one way people experience God is through such ideals, wherever they happen to be prior to our experience of them. Nevertheless (and I like your phrase) there are, as it were, infernal objects, too: that is, lures that we experience within our own lives for destruction, self-destruction and otherwise, Lures toward greed, hatred, and envy, for example, and for hiding from our responsibilities to others. See, for example, my short essay in Open Horizons: https://www.openhorizons.org/8203the-devil-as-moral-anaesthesia-ursula-le-guins-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.html. The fact that we can be lured by such devilish possibilities is one reason process thinkers are so insistent in saying that God is not all-powerful and that the self-creativity of actual entities transcends God in many ways. The internal lures originate, they believe, in the interstices of creaturely self-creativity, not in God. Still, it is true that, so they believe, God lured the world into forms of life that are capable of such infernal acts. God could have stopped with the amoebas. Griffin proposes that, in order for there to be heightened forms of life, there had to be the risk of suffering and moral evil. Wherever we land on such issues, one positive feature of process thought, it seems to me, is that the divine is present in our lives as the power of renewal and creative transformation in a positive direction, whatever devils inhabit us. Prevention of evil? No. But a certain kind of exorcism? Yes.

Thanks, Thom. I’ve been thinking about Heaven (Tian) as well. Maybe this page will interest you? https://www.openhorizons.org/the-cosmic-significance-of-being-polite-in-daily-life-a-note-on-process-and-confucianism.html.

To be sure, Heaven in a Confucian context can be interpreted in so many ways: a place where the ancestors dwell and the Harmony in which all is enfolded, for example. I think you’re leaning (in this comment) in the second direction. Right? If so, Heaven may sound a bit like Whitehead’s notion of the consequent nature of God, the subjective unity of the universe, always unfolding, never coercive, but embracing each and all as (when combined with the primordial nature) a lure towar goodness, truth, beauty, and respect for life/.