Replies

Hi Jeanyne, sorry for late reply…yes, it is Sunshine eco-village, thank you for the sincere response.

warmly regards,
weidong

Dr. Davis, your comments provided me a clearer view of Whitehead’s unique contribution, also I like this reminder, “We see here already that a philosopher’s ‘context’ is always new–an important point to remember”, also it’s true that my context or everyone’s context is always new.

Thank you, Ben, for this good question!

Thank you, Jason, for the sharing…although I just read part of them, and decided to spend time on those course reading materials, since slow in reading English. But still, I’m inspired by your posts, especially this quotation:
“God’s role is not the combat of productive force with productive force, of destructive force with destructive force; it lies in the patient operation of the overpowering rationality of his conceptual harmonization. He does not create the world, he saves it: or, more accurately, he is the poet of the world, with tender patience leading it by his vision of truth, beauty, and goodness.”

Thank you, Eric and Charles, glad to know!

Thank you, Leslie, your post gave me a good opportunity to write something…I like the soup story and the implication for organizational or social development. I also relatively prefer organic way of approaching organizations, suggest business leaders to use more persuasive power instead of coercive one, multilateral dialogue, deep listening, coaching and mentoring, self-management and distributed power structure, etc. Recently, there’s an Organizational Evolution Forum in China, where I shared with participants organic philosophy and hope OD consultants and leaders could embrace the organic worldview in business, see organization as a living organism, not just a functioning machine.

I’d like to write a reflection about process thought and personal integrated transformation, which really a focus of my interest.

It might include the main attributes of process thought and process theology, such as:
+ process thought is an integrated movement…world views from isolated to relational, independent to interdependent, no-purpose to purposeful, instrumental value to intrinsic value, disenchantment to reenchantment
+ process theology: God or Sacred Being, persuasive power, a great companion and fellow-sufferer who understands.

Also those implications of process thought for personal integrated transformation, such as；
+ meaning for life
+ the relationship with sacred being, world and others
+ grow love, compassion, empathy, peace, easiness and humor
+ grow live wisdom in response to challenges
+ transcend the illusion of self, personal wealth and fame
+ a constructive way of living and engaging into the world

And since process thought imposes a profound influence on myself, I will try to weave the elucidation of those above with personal experience.

Hi Charles, I generally agree with your comments (or “feeling” in Whiteheadian way), yes, I always find many Chinese like intuitive way of thinking and receiving messages from different dimensions rather than analytical thinking, which could lead to a quite holistic mindset. Hense, many of us are inclined to sense the meaning in this life and in relationship, meanwhile feel and respect the Dao in nature and inner heart, which are manifested in the ideas of Daoism, Confucianism and even Chinese Buddhism especially in Zen.

[Lu Wei-dong]

wow, he replied to the mail very quickly, “Thanks for pointing this out to me, Carlo Rovelli “…which really resonate with what he wrote in the article, “perhaps this is precisely what ‘properties’ are: the effects of interactions. A good scientific theory (here should be a good metaphysics), then, should not be about how things ‘are’, or what they “do”: it should be about how they affect one another.”

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Lu Wei-dong.

After searching on the web, I find Carlo Rovelli, the author, is a very famous quantum physicist, who wrote several best-selling books, translated into Chinese too. I just wrote an email to him to introduce Whitehead’s work, in case he hasn’t encounter process-relational philosophy before.

Thank you, Rick, I like this article…especially this: “We understand reality better if we think of it in terms of interactions, not individuals. We, as individuals, exist thanks to the interactions we are involved in. This is why, in classic game theory, the winners in the long run are those who collaborate. Too often we foolishly measure success in terms of a single actor’s fortunes. This is both short-sighted and irrational. It misunderstands the true nature of reality, and is ultimately self-defeating. I believe, for example, that we make this mistake all the time in international politics. Prioritizing individual countries, or groups of countries, over the common good, is a catastrophic error. It leads to the devastation of war and prevents us from addressing the true challenges that all of humankind – a node in nature’s network – faces as a whole.”

Thank you, Charles, I really love your comments…e.g.”I much prefer this understanding of the meaning of life as the experience and odyssey of life itself, and maximizing its richness and intensity, to the conventional and religious concept of meaning as another shore to be reached.”

Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism, my favorite!

[Lu Wei-dong]

Thank you for referring Charles Taylor’s book THE SECULAR AGE, which’s also translated into Chinese, he is very famous here in China too.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 7 months ago by Lu Wei-dong.

oh, yes… it’s really lucky to have experience of miracles and wonders, which could leave more space and richness in our life. Thanks for your reply and sharing.

Hi Jason, your post resonates with me. We constantly receive those influences of social structures, which include economic system in your example, through the mode of causal efficacy, and I believe unconsciously or consciously we’d like to keep harmonious with them too, which might lead to human’s reification in the case of neo-liberal market economy. So, here this harmony out of prehension of experiences would be negative in terms of human’s well-being and community building in a long run. However, we could reflect upon that and even transform this unhealthy structure gradually if many of us were mindful about those after-effects, which probably might alter the content of causal efficacy and liberate us a bit from unconscious blind spots.