Replies

Thank you for this contribution Scott. I too appreciate the way Chris explored how we can’t lump all indigenous people and their traditions together, but how each is reflective of their specific relationship to the land they live on and its ecosystem.

Great contribution! Thank you Charles. I appreciate the link.

Thank you for this contribution Elvi! Fascinating.

Thank you Kyle and and Gordon for these reflections. I so appreciate your bringing in the various media examples.
I, too, feel a great sense of absence in our not looking at Taoism and Confucianism, as both would be great additions!

I very much appreciate this reflection, Jace. I often think that process thinkers overly stress the relational piece of Whitehead’s thinking with nary a mention of his points about solitariness.

And yes, we must confront that aloneness.

Mike,
Are you asking about something that Chris Daniels wrote in his articles about nonsensory perception?
The theory that there are two kinds of perception is central to Whitehead’s system. He describes sensory perception as “presentational immediacy” and nonsensory perception as “causal efficacy.” In causal efficacy, the past world is actually internalized by the concrescing occasion, and it is this type of perception that is primordial to any processing of sensory data. It is also unconscious and is the basis for his claim that everything is interconnected and related. Causal efficacy is responsible for the transfer of the data from, say, our retinas to the brain for processing into what we typically refer to as “perception.” We feel the body’s feelings unconsciously.

There’s a good explanation of it in Thomas Hosinski’s book Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance.

Very nice, Bill. I’m glad to hear that the readings really spoke to you!

Thank you, Jace, for this discussion of Peace. I also very much appreciate the Whitman poem.
Someone else mentioned Tillich’s book The Courage to Be, and it’s coming to my mind now, as something that may speak to this question of the tragedy of life and how to deal with it existentially.

I’ve been meaning to ask – you’ve used the word supraject several times. I’m familiar with Whitehead’s use of the term superject. What are you intending to convey with the term supraject?

Thanks Elizabeth! I was unaware of that other book by Thich Nhat Hahn. Sounds very good!

I love that insight, Rolla! Seems a key point to me too.

Yes, Ben, that’s a great reflection on Whitehead and Buddhism. I think that closeness between the two is why there has been such fruitful dialogue with Buddhism.

Thanks for this thread Jason, and for your comments Kent.
As I’m thinking about Kent’s question, I’m wondering about the ways in which we might understand all religions and worldviews as a result of the divine energy within everything expressing itself _through_ the particular land, culture, people in a place. So the symbols _must_ take on a particular flavor. Anything that might be a universal “truth” is real, like eternal objects are real, but only become actual through the localized manifest expression, which can’t avoid taking on particularities of context.

Thanks Scott. I was also going to recommend the Knitter book.
Thich Nhat Hahn also has Living Buddha, Living Christ.
Good stuff.

Very fun thread!

Thanks for these thoughts Elvi! Much appreciated.