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| Illustration by R.E. Slater and ChatGPT |
ESSAY FOUR
Preface
... that reality is not best understood as a collection of independent substances, but as a relational process in which coherence gives rise to persistence, and persistence stabilizes into embodied form.
This progression - from relation, to coherence, to embodiment - has sought to clarify how the world holds together as a structured, intelligible whole. What appears as an object has been reframed as a stabilized expression of relational coherence, sustained across time through ongoing integration.
Yet this account, while structurally complete, remains incomplete in another sense.
For it describes reality from the outside.
It explains how relations persist, how forms emerge, and how systems stabilize. But it leaves unaddressed a further question - one that arises not from speculation, but from the very logic of coherence itself:
whether that which is integrated is also, in some minimal sense, internally held.
This question has often been avoided or deferred. In modern discourse, any appeal to “experience,” “feeling,” or “interiority” is quickly associated with psychology, subjectivity, or human consciousness. As a result, ontology has frequently restricted itself to what can be externally described, measured, or modeled.
The present essay does not depart from ontology into psychology.
Rather, it asks if ontology itself is incomplete if it excludes the possibility that coherent systems possess an interior dimension - not as reflective awareness, nor as emotional life, but as the structured manner in which relations are registered, integrated, and carried forward.
To speak of interiority in this context is not to humanize reality, but to extend the account of coherence to its necessary implication.
For if relations are not merely present but integrated -if they are gathered into unities that persist -then the question is not only how such unities appear,but how they are internally constituted as unities at all.
This essay, then, introduces the concept of interiority as a continuation of the argument already begun.
If embodiment names the formation of coherent form,interiority names the depth through which such form is lived,sustained, and renewed within the ongoing process of becoming.
Introduction
Relations give rise to coherence.Coherence enables persistence.Persistence stabilizes into form.
Yet a question remains - simple in its formulation, but far-reaching in its implications:
whether form, once established, is purely external,or whether it also possesses an interior dimension.
What we encounter in experience are not merely arrangements of structure, but presences, forms of interiority - entities that endure, interact, and respond. Even at the most basic levels of organization, systems do not merely exist; they register, integrate, and react to their environments in ways that suggest more than passive extension.
The introduction of interiority does not imply that all things are conscious, nor that reality is reducible to mind. It does not attribute human qualities to non-human processes, nor does it replace physical explanation with subjective interpretation.
Rather, it proposes that wherever relational coherence is sufficiently integrated to produce a stable form, there exists a corresponding interior dimension: a structured responsiveness through which that coherence is maintained.
This interiority is minimal, but not trivial.
It does not consist in reflection, intention, or awareness as ordinarily understood. Instead, it names the way in which a system takes up its relations - how it incorporates the past, integrates the present, and contributes to the continuation of process (embodied process realism as an updated concept to Whitehead's prehension, concrescence, and actual occasions).
In this sense, interiority is not an addition to reality, but a clarification of what coherence entails.
For coherence is not merely the arrangement of relations;it is their integration into a unity that holds together...
And what holds together must, in some sense, hold itself.
The task of this essay is to develop this claim.
To show that interiority is not a projection imposed upon reality, but a feature arising from the very conditions that make coherence, embodiment, and persistence possible at all.
I. From Coherence to Interiority
If coherence names the condition under which relations persist, and embodiment names the stabilization of that coherence into form, a further implication follows:
that coherence, once integrated, is not merely arranged,but internally constituted.
For coherence is not a passive alignment of relations. It is an active integration - an ordering in which multiple relational inputs are gathered into a structured unity capable of persistence. Such integration does not occur externally to the system in which it appears; it is realized within the very process that holds those relations together.
To say that a system is coherent is therefore to say more than that its parts are well-related. It is to say that those relations are taken up, organized, and sustained as a unity.
This “taking up” does not imply reflection or awareness. It does not suggest that the system stands apart from itself as an observer. Rather, it indicates that relational multiplicity has been brought into a form that maintains itself through ongoing integration.
In this sense, coherence already implies a minimal interior.
For without some mode of internal registration - some manner in which relations are gathered and retained - coherence would collapse into mere adjacency. Relations would remain external to one another, never achieving the unity required for persistence.
Interiority, then, is not an additional property imposed upon coherent systems. It is the internal dimension of coherence itself.
II. Integration as Internal Process
To clarify this further, it is helpful to distinguish between relation and integration.
Relations may be described externally: one entity interacting with another, one state influencing the next. Such descriptions belong to the domain of structure and are indispensable for scientific explanation.
But integration refers to something more specific.
It names the process by which multiple relations are brought into a unified configuration that can function as a single, coherent system. This unification is not merely spatial or structural; it is organizational. It involves the selection, weighting, and coordination of relational inputs into a pattern that can persist and act.
A system that integrates does not simply receive relations - it incorporates them.
It carries forward aspects of its past, modulates its present state, and contributes to its own continuation (Whiteheadian concrescence or embodying processual realism). In doing so, it exhibits a form of internal responsiveness that cannot be fully described in terms of external arrangement alone.
This responsiveness is not yet consciousness. It does not involve deliberation or self-awareness. But neither is it reducible to passive mechanism.
It is, rather, the minimal condition under which coherence becomes operative as a unity.
Where relations are integrated, there is an inside - not as a hidden substance, but as the locus of integration itself.
III. Degrees of Interiority
If interiority follows from integration, then it does not appear suddenly or exclusively at the level of human consciousness. Instead, it exists in degrees, corresponding to the complexity and coherence of the systems in which it arises.
At the most basic levels, interiority may be understood as minimal responsiveness: the capacity of a system to register relational inputs and respond in a manner consistent with its structure.
As systems increase in complexity, this responsiveness becomes more differentiated. Integration occurs across multiple scales, allowing for more nuanced forms of coordination, adaptation, and persistence.
In biological systems, interiority becomes more pronounced. Organisms not only respond to their environments but regulate internal processes in ways that sustain viability across changing conditions.
In conscious beings, interiority reaches a further level of articulation, becoming reflective and self-aware. Here, the internal dimension of coherence is not only operative but accessible - it becomes experience in the familiar sense.
Yet these higher forms do not introduce interiority into reality; they intensify and elaborate a condition already present in more minimal forms.
To say that interiority exists in degrees is not to flatten distinctions, but to situate them within a continuous framework.
The difference between minimal responsiveness and reflective awareness is profound -but it is a difference of degree and organization, not of absolute kind.
IV. Interiority and Identity
The introduction of interiority also clarifies the nature of identity.
If entities are understood as stabilized patterns of relational coherence, then identity cannot be grounded in static substance. It must instead be understood as the continuity of integration across time.
What persists is not a fixed core, but a pattern of coherence that maintains itself through ongoing internal organization.
Interiority provides the basis for this continuity.
For a system to remain identifiable, it must not only maintain structural relations externally, but also sustain an internal mode of integration through which those relations are carried forward. Without such continuity of integration, persistence would fragment into discrete, unrelated moments.
Identity, then, is not something that exists prior to process. It is something that emerges within it.
a continuity of becoming that maintains recognizable formwhile remaining open to transformation.
V. Clarifying the Ontological Claim
At this point, it is important to restate the scope of the argument.
To speak of interiority is not to attribute human qualities to all things. It is not to suggest that reality is fundamentally mental, nor that scientific explanation should be replaced by subjective interpretation.
The claim is more modest, but no less significant:
that wherever relational coherence is integrated into a persistent unity,there exists a corresponding interior dimension -a structured responsiveness through which that unity is maintained.
This interiority is minimal at lower levels, increasingly complex at higher ones, and fully articulated only in certain forms of life. But it is continuous across the range of embodied systems.
To exclude interiority altogether would be to describe coherence without integration, persistence without continuity, and form without depth. Such an account would remain externally complete, but internally unfinished.
VI. Transition Forward
The question of interiority is neither inappropriate nor resolved -
yet it does mark a trajectory: whether reality exhibits interiority.If reality is relational then it must achieve coherence.Where coherence is sustained, it stabilizes into form.And as form develops, however minimally, it will beginto hold within itself the further unfolding of reality.Because of these elements, persistence is not merelya continuation of structure,but the ongoing integrationof relational coherence...
one that may give rise to,and in some measure exhibit,relational interiority.- R.E. Slater
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With the introduction of interiority, the account of reality now includes -
What is Reality?
- relation (the field of interaction)
- coherence (the condition of persistence)
- embodiment (the formation of structured presence)
- interiority (the internal dimension of integration)
What remains is to consider what follows from this assertion that reality bears interiority.
For if reality is not only structured but internally responsive,
then questions of value, meaning, and direction can no longer
be treated as external additions.
They must be understood as emerging from within the process itself.
The next essay will take up this development directly.
Process Philosophy and Metaphysics
Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: Free Press, 1978.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press, 1967.
Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought. New York: Free Press, 1968.
Cobb, John B., Jr., and David Ray Griffin. Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1976.
Griffin, David Ray. Unsnarling the World-Knot: Consciousness, Freedom, and the Mind-Body Problem. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.
Rescher, Nicholas. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1996.
Philosophy of Experience, Interiority, and Mind
James, William. Essays in Radical Empiricism. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1996.
James, William. A Pluralistic Universe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977.
Langer, Susanne K. Mind: An Essay on Human Feeling. 3 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967–1982.
Nagel, Thomas. Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Nagel, Thomas. “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” The Philosophical Review 83, no. 4 (1974): 435–450.
Strawson, Galen. Realistic Monism: Why Physicalism Entails Panpsychism. Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2006.
Chalmers, David J. The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Systems Theory, Biology, and Complexity
Bertalanffy, Ludwig von. General System Theory: Foundations, Development, Applications. New York: George Braziller, 1968.
Maturana, Humberto R., and Francisco J. Varela. Autopoiesis and Cognition: The Realization of the Living. Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1980.
Kauffman, Stuart A. The Origins of Order: Self-Organization and Selection in Evolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Deacon, Terrence W. Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. New York: W. W. Norton, 2012.
Morin, Edgar. On Complexity. Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2008.
Physics, Information, and Relational Ontology
Rovelli, Carlo. The Order of Time. New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
Rovelli, Carlo. Reality Is Not What It Seems: The Journey to Quantum Gravity. New York: Riverhead Books, 2017.
Wheeler, John Archibald. “Information, Physics, Quantum: The Search for Links.” In Complexity, Entropy, and the Physics of Information, edited by Wojciech H. Zurek, 3–28. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley, 1990.
Vedral, Vlatko. Decoding Reality: The Universe as Quantum Information. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Seager, William, ed. The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism. London: Routledge, 2020.
Bridging Works (Process, Science, and Interiority)
Clayton, Philip. Mind and Emergence: From Quantum to Consciousness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Clayton, Philip, and Paul Davies, eds. The Re-Emergence of Emergence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Murphy, Nancey. Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
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