Replies

Hi Rick, I sympathize with you on reading Process and Reality. I failed miserably in my first attempt, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few others in this class who had a rough go of it the first time.
I will only say this, Rick, try again, it’s so worth it when it begins to just filter into your thoughts.
Happy readings,
Thomas

Hi Kevin. I am so sorry for your injury and resulting loss, but I’m glad to see you here. I think you’ll find sympathy and resonance in this group with your journey into process thought.
Thomas

Hi Nancy, my wife and I get blessing opportunities with our 18 month (goin’ on 15 years) old grandaughter. I also resonate with your assessment of Christian Theology, so you’re not alone in that regard.
Glad you’re here,
Thomas.

Hi Elizabeth,
I am glad to see you here, from your description of your background, I’m guessing we’ll be hearing good things from you.
Welcome
Thomas
P.S. I think there’s a lot of us who are a bit behind in our homework. I just keep plugging away in between things (life).

Hi Rick, thanks for your thoughtful comments. Since you brought it up:
When I say I am a Nemophilist I mean it in the sense of “one who haunts forests”, not in the sense of a “spirit which inhabits the forest.”
If there is another meaning to that word, I am unaware.
As for Shinrin Yoku that is a practice originating in Japan late Twentieth Century. The words in literal English translation would be “forest bath.” In its simple form it is merely the “bathing” in the atmosphere of the “forest.” Some would like to take it beyond that point, but I do not.
Are there any poets you like in particular? I have written a few verses, but I haven’t paid much attention to the classics, unless that includes T.S. Eliot. Most of the poetry I read is from living poets.
Thanks for stopping,
Thomas

Thank you both, Jace and Jay, for your responses. In the light of what you wrote, Jay, I believe I need to think more deeply about this. I still stand by what I wrote about a Whiteheadian view of time as opposed the view propounded by Einstein. But I will certainly admit that there may be something in this whole conversation that has gone over my head for my own lack of understanding.
I need to think about this further.
Thanks again for your conversation.

Hi Kent,
I have to admit that I did not find the practice of forest bathing, and subsequently begin to practice, as much as I discovered several years ago that there were people who were making a practice of something I had been doing for the previous forty years. I do have a little book by M. Amos Clifford about the Japanese practice of Shinrin yoku, but it doesn’t supply a lot of detailed information.
There is a growing organization (acronym ANFT) that is promoting training and certification as a forest therapist for a healthy chunk of cash, and a residency at one of their camps, but to me it’s just a commercialization of something that doesn’t really require another human being to guide you through a process.
I’ll send you a link to the book (if I can find it), but there is no real training on how to forest bathe. You just get out there and drink it in through all of your senses. Make friends with the flora and fauna, but the relationship is with the forest not the details. And it’s not about exercise either. 1mph is a quick speed for forest bathing. At three miles an hour you need to slow down and just absorb the environment by whatever senses you are able.
I look forward to any discussion you may like to have on this. You can email me thomas.royce@aol.com. I find email and forums like this an easier way to communicate with others than phone calls. Although I have been kind of getting into zoom meetings lately.

I can identify with the notion that god’s initial aim for each actuality is like a prayer. But to really understand that proposition it would be necessary to help me understand what you mean by “God” and what you mean by “prayer.”
Setting aside the notion of “God” for the time being, I think it’s important to have a clear understanding of what, in fact, “prayer” is.
For my thinking, I understand “prayer” as intensely focused thoughts and feelings. [You know, like politicians do after a school shooting]. But seriously, I believe thought does not end where the pre-frontal cortex meets the skull. That my thoughts may be transmitted to another individual utilizing no other media than “thin air”. That what we call “space” is, in fact, a stochastic neural network that is capable of transmitting thoughts over vast distances instantly. I’ll refer you to Reginald Cahill who has developed an intriguing model of reality based on this stochastic neural network in his theoretical work on “Process Physics.” (You can Google it).
I think I’m going to skip the clear understanding of “God” for now.

Hi Jace, I was with you until your last sentence there. The notion that time is the moving image of eternity is thoroughly contradictory to Whitehead’s thought. The phrase infers that the events of which time is made are already actual, and we are merely encountering them as we pass through time. Like it’s already in the can. This is the Einsteinian interpretation of time. The Whiteheadian interpretation of time is that the future has not yet become actual. Although his occasions are often compared to the frames of a movie, the simile breaks down in that the frames of the entire movie are already actual, whereas Whitehead’s occasions become only in the present and are objectively immortal only in the past.

I got the sense that what ANW was referring to in that statement was like our impulses to destroy complex societies and consume them as nourishment. Whether we are omnivores or herbivores we’re destroying complex societies with their own intrinsic value.
I am not suggesting that we should stop eating, but maybe we should find ways to mitigate the damages we do. As a carpenter, I am repeatedly confronted with the destruction of the grandest living beings of all in the cause of creating shelter for people.
Certainly there are better ways.

Thanks, Kent, for your thoughtful and thorough answer. The reason I focused on analytic philosophy is the close association between Whitehead and Russell, who was so instrumental, even seminal, in the genesis and growth of analytic philosophy. So I took the statement as something of a dig at Russell with whom he was, at times, a bit peeved.

I liked this discussion. I have to say, Charles, that I am beginning to enjoy your “long-winded explanations.” Keep it up. 🙂

It seems I may have gotten this topic in the wrong place, I meant for it to go into the Session One Topics. Maybe Richard can work some magic, and get it where it belongs.

Hi Charles,
I agree with you about the negative connotation with “hierarchy.” I tend to use the concept of a “gradation of actualization” in order to distinguish between entities that may be structured a bit more “loosely” than what we refer to as a “unified subject.”
That aside, I would love to hear your understanding of the term “axianoetic.” I’ve been unable to find it listed in any of the usual places I look.

I appreciated your comments regarding the supernatural. It occurs to me that once having ditched dualism, to then turn around and speak of the supernatural is to re-embrace dualistic thinking.