Replies

Hi, Elvi,
I think it is anthropocentric when we try to understand the experience of animals by looking at our own experience, rather than trying to understand what the experience of an animal might be like. For instance, I’ve read that a dog has a sense of smell 47,000 times more sensitive than our own. To me that suggests that a dog must create some sort of vivid visualization in their mind based on what they are pretending through their nose. We can scarce even imagine what that would be like, but it is certainly not like our experience of olfactory sensation. The suggestion that this is a lower , or less important type of experience is what I would term “anthropocentric.”
Also, from the little exposure I have had to indigenous culture and religion, it seems this sense of interrelatedness may be pervasive among those peoples. Not just South American, but North American, African, Australian, and other first peoples seem to have had a grasp of the interrelatedness of all.

Thanks ;p

Rolla you make me laugh. And here I am without an emoji at hand.

Thank you Rolla. It is a cliche to say so, but the feelings are entirely mutual. I am excited about this journey, and I’m glad you are a fellow traveler.

Hi Charles, you raise some challenging questions here. I am struggling with ANW’s formulation of the “Ultimate” and am in a muddle. Apparently I have a difficulty with abstractions such that I can’t envision, or comprehend, what ANW means by “creativity.” I have trouble deciphering how something that is completely abstract can have any agency, and the thought that God is the primordial accident of creativity doesn’t clarify anything whatsoever for me.
I don’t expect you to answer my muddled questions, just letting you know that I found your thoughts intriguing.

I hope no one is offended here, but discussion of the quality of Jay’s voice has stimulated me to express my own thoughts. In a sense, his voice makes me think of Professor McDaniel’s presentation as the “Mr. Roger’s” of process thought. Always calm, alway reassuring, and presented in a way a beginner can understand.

Responding to Lawrence,
In Whitehead’s system there is no such thing as “Space” or “Time.” This is actually consistent with Einstein’s Special Relativity, but Einstein seems to have abandoned that notion in favor of “Spacetime” which permeates the universe and is affected (warped) by the presence of mass. For Whitehead time and space are abstractions from the extension of actualities. Thus, actual entities are extended both spatially and temporally.
This is clearly a gross simplification of the thought of both of these men, but it does point out that there is a clear distinction between Whitehead and Einstein in relation to their respective ontologies. Whitehead was highly skeptical of Einstein’s “spacetime” ontology.

Michael, the paper I’m referring to is one that we read in the Whitehead Research Group reading group. I must have a copy of it, but it’s beyond my grasp at the moment. Also, Mesle went into that subject in one the later chapters in his book, and I felt like I got additional clarity on CE from that reading.
ANW’s description includes space and time, but also an awareness of the bodily functions beyond mere sense data. The phrase he uses is “the withness of the body” (not typo of witness) the sense of our bodies in the present.

Hi Michael,
Whitehead writes somewhere that causal efficacy is memory, or as Charles paraphrases, memory of past actualities, and those memories (prehensions of the past) and how those memories impact (express their causality in) the present occasion.I will try to find the exact citation, but I’m trying to learn how to type and operate a mouse with two or three fingers on my left hand. Right arm in a sling.

Hi Rick, this article just pushed my happy button. Physics, particularly quantum physics is one of my favorite subjects. Thanks for posting this link.

😀

Hi Rolla, I would say the initial aim is the lure. That’s my take anyway.

Hi Jace, just a technical note on this:
Whitehead identifies two species of prehensions, positive prehensions in which the prehension is admitted into relevance for the concrescing occasion, and negative prehensions in which the prehension is, for whatever reason, eliminated from relevance to the occasion. This would be the reason that the memory fades as time passes, there are certain prehensions which are no longer relevant to the present occasion and no longer included in the concrescence.

To Lawrence, Charles and Eric:
First let me say, Eric, that I think you are onto something in your characterization of “process thought” in regard its relation to purely Whiteheadian philosophy of organism, and its assimilation of thoughts that have come from process theology. I don’t think that’s a bad thing though. What I see going on in the process thought community is an outreach to those who are, at least, restless in their faith communities, if not totally disillusioned, and disheartened. No, it is not Whiteheadian gospel, and in some cases transcends even the scope of Whitehead’s canon. But ANW did not see himself as the final arbiter of the philosophy of organism, and it may even be an error to try to make him that.
Second, Lawrence I have seen the argument put forward before that lower grade animals, single-celled animals and electrons cannot feel pain. I do, however, wonder sometimes what it feels like to an electron who is knocked out of its orbit around a nucleus of highly valuable (to the electrons anway) proton and neutrons because it has just gorged itself on one too many photons. Is it liberating or just an unwelcome shock?
Thirdly, Charles, your comment, “Whitehead’s elementary units of reality aren’t devoid of relatable liveliness, they merely aren’t portrayed as psychic homunculi, quanta-level bits of full-blown consciousness.” Bravo, and Bravo. I couldn’t agree more, and your skills with the turn of a phrase are just delightful. Scylla and Charybdis or not. 😀
Thomas

Indeed John, aren’t differences the essence of harmony.