Yet relation alone does not explain reality.
Relations are never static. They continually give rise to new possibilities, new organizations, new histories, and new forms of existence. Reality is not merely relational; it is generative. It continually becomes.
This insight has long stood at the heart of process philosophy. Alfred North Whitehead recognized that reality is not fundamentally composed of fixed substances but of dynamic acts of becoming. His philosophy challenged centuries of metaphysical thought by placing creativity, process, and the continual emergence of novelty at the center of philosophical reflection. Nearly a century later, these insights continue to shape contemporary conversations concerning emergence, ecology, complexity, systems thinking, and the relational character of existence itself.
The present essay continues that conversation. Rather than treating becoming as merely another word for change, we shall ask whether becoming names one of reality's most fundamental activities. Change describes differences between one state and another. Becoming asks how new realities come into existence at all. It is therefore not simply movement within reality; it is one of the ways reality continually generates itself.
This question also brings the present metaphysical investigation into closer dialogue with the earlier ontological work of Embodied Process Realism (EPR). There we described the recurring structures through which reality appears to organize itself. Here we ask what generative dynamics continually give rise to those structures. Ontology provided the vocabulary. Metaphysics now seeks the grammar.
The journey therefore continues. Having considered why relation comes first, we now turn to becoming itself - not merely as an event within reality, but as one of the primary ways reality continually unfolds into ever richer forms of coherence, embodiment, and participation.
Reality is not made of becoming.
Reality happens by becoming.- R. E. Slater
Few ideas have shaped process philosophy more profoundly than becoming. Yet the word itself often suffers from misunderstanding. In ordinary conversation, becoming is frequently treated as little more than another word for change. Things change. Seasons change. People change. Civilizations change. If becoming means only that reality is continually changing, then it contributes little beyond what common experience already tells us.
A process-relational metaphysics proposes something far more fundamental.
Change presupposes that something already exists which subsequently becomes different. Becoming asks a prior question. How do new realities emerge at all? How do galaxies arise from expanding matter? How do organisms emerge from living cells? How do languages, cultures, ecosystems, friendships, and communities come into existence? Becoming concerns not merely alteration within reality but the continual emergence of reality itself.
This distinction is subtle but profound. Change describes differences between one state and another. Becoming describes the generative activity through which new forms of existence arise, stabilize, and enter into further histories of relation. Reality is therefore not simply a world in motion. It is a world continually coming into being.
Everywhere we look, reality bears witness to this generative character. Stars are born, mature, and eventually transform into new cosmic structures. Living organisms continually develop through growth, adaptation, and reproduction. Ecosystems reorganize themselves in response to changing conditions. Languages evolve through countless acts of human communication. Cultures inherit traditions while simultaneously creating new possibilities. Even our own identities emerge through histories of relationship, memory, and experience that remain forever unfinished.
Becoming therefore reaches across every scale of existence. It is as evident within cosmology as within biology, as present in ecological systems as in human societies, and as active in personal growth as in the evolution of civilizations. Reality does not merely contain processes of becoming. It continually expresses itself through processes of becoming.
To observe becoming is therefore to observe one of reality's most universal characteristics. Nothing simply remains what it has been. Nothing remains the same. Nor does reality dissolve into meaningless flux. Becoming continually gives rise to new forms of coherence through which enduring worlds emerge, participate, and themselves become the conditions for further becoming.
The question is therefore no longer whether becoming occurs. It is whether becoming belongs to the very grammar of reality itself.
Process is not an aspect of reality;
it is the very mode of its existence.- Nicholas Rescher
This generative character appears across every scale of existence. Cosmology reveals an expanding universe in which stars, galaxies, and planetary systems emerge through long histories of transformation. Biology discloses life continually adapting, diversifying, and discovering new ecological possibilities. Human cultures generate languages, institutions, technologies, works of art, and moral traditions that could not have been predicted from earlier stages alone. Everywhere reality exhibits a remarkable capacity for producing genuine novelty without abandoning continuity.
A process-relational metaphysics therefore understands becoming not as random change but as the continual generation of new possibilities through relation. Relations do not merely preserve existing realities. They create the conditions from which previously unrealized forms may emerge. Most possibilities remain unrealized. Others briefly appear before dissolving. A few achieve sufficient coherence to endure, entering history as relatively stable embodiments capable of further participation.
This understanding helps distinguish becoming from simple succession. Time alone does not explain becoming. Events may follow one another endlessly without generating anything genuinely new. Becoming, by contrast, forms the creative emergence of realities that enrich the possibilities available to the future. The history of the universe therefore becomes more than a sequence of moments. It becomes a continually unfolding adventure of relational creativity.
Here the insights of Alfred North Whitehead remain profoundly significant. Whitehead described reality as the creative advance into novelty, emphasizing that actuality is never merely repeated but continually renewed. An open relational process metaphysics gladly receives this insight while expressing it within a contemporary relational grammar. Becoming is the activity through which relations continually generate new possibilities, some of which achieve coherence, stabilize into embodiment, and contribute to the future as enduring participants within reality's ongoing history.
Reality is therefore not generative because an external force periodically interrupts its ordinary course. Reality is generative because relational becoming belongs to its ordinary course. Novelty is not an exception to reality. It is one of reality's most characteristic expressions.
Coherence is not the absence of change.
It is the achievement of relation.
- R.E. Slater
What endures is not what refuses to change,
but what continually renews itself through relation.
- R.E. Slater
- Relation is primary (essay 13).
- Relation generates becoming (section I).
- Becoming forms new realities (section II).
- Becoming forms new possibilities.
- Coherence gradually integrates those possibilities into stable relational organizations.
- Embodiment marks the historical achievement of that coherence within the continuing adventure of reality.
Reality is not finished.
Every moment inherits a world and contributes a new world.- R. E. Slater
This openness should not be confused with randomness. An open future is not a future without structure. Every new becoming inherits the achievements, constraints, and possibilities formed by the histories that precede it. Reality remembers. Every embodiment carries forward the relational accomplishments from which it arose. Yet inheritance never eliminates novelty. Every new relation creates opportunities that did not previously exist in precisely the same way.
Here the universe reveals one of its most remarkable characteristics. Stability and creativity continually cooperate rather than compete. Stable worlds provide the conditions within which new possibilities may emerge, while new possibilities continually reshape the worlds from which they arise. Reality therefore advances neither through rigid determinism nor through unrestricted chaos, but through the ongoing interplay of continuity and novelty.
Contemporary science increasingly recognizes this dynamic. Cosmology describes an evolving universe rather than a finished one. Evolutionary biology understands life as an ongoing history of adaptation, innovation, and ecological interaction. The Extended Evolutionary Synthesis emphasizes reciprocal causation, developmental plasticity, niche construction, and the continual participation of organisms in shaping the environments that subsequently shape them. Complexity theory likewise demonstrates how new levels of organization emerge from relational interactions that cannot be fully predicted from their individual components alone.
These scientific developments do not prove an open relational metaphysics. They do, however, resonate remarkably well with one. Together they suggest a universe whose history is neither mechanically predetermined nor merely accidental, but continually enriched through relational becoming.
Reality may therefore be understood not as a universe completely completed at its beginning, but as one continually achieving greater coherence through its own unfolding history of relational becoming. The remarkable order we observe throughout the cosmos need not be interpreted solely as the consequence of fixed initial conditions (fine tuning arguments). Rather, it may reflect reality's ongoing capacity to discover, stabilize, and embody increasingly coherent forms of organization across its evolutionary history.
Within this metaphysical grammar, openness is therefore not an exception to reality. It is one of reality's defining characteristics. Every coherent embodiment inherits a past while simultaneously enlarging the horizon of possible futures. The future remains genuinely unfinished because reality itself continually generates possibilities through relation, becoming, coherence, and embodiment.
Reality does not simply move through time.
Reality continually creates evolving history.
Reality does not merely continue.
It continually becomes more than it has been.- R. E. Slater
This understanding transforms the way we think about history itself. History is not merely a chronological record of events. It is the accumulated achievement of countless moments of relational becoming. Every enduring reality carries within itself the histories that made it possible while simultaneously contributing something genuinely new to the realities that follow.
The universe may therefore be understood as a continuing adventure of relational achievement. Galaxies embody histories of gravitational coherence. Ecosystems embody histories of biological adaptation. Human societies embody histories of language, culture, imagination, and moral development. Even philosophy participates in this unfolding adventure, continually refining its understanding as reality discloses new dimensions of itself.
The history of reality is not merely the preservation of what has endured. It is equally the continual discovery of new forms of coherence through which reality becomes capable of achievements that were once only possibilities.
Within this perspective, failure of becoming assumes a new significance. Not every relational possibility achieves coherence. Countless pathways remain unrealized. Others emerge only briefly before dissolving into new configurations of relation and becoming. Such failures should not be understood merely as defects within reality but as part of the openness through which new possibilities continually arise. A universe capable of genuine novelty must also remain capable of incompletion.
This insight resonates remarkably well with contemporary understandings of emergence, complexity, and the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis. Evolution does not proceed through uninterrupted success. Rather, the history of life reveals continual experimentation, adaptation, extinction, renewal, and increasingly sophisticated forms of relational organization. The remarkable coherence we observe throughout the living world appears not as the inevitable consequence of fixed beginnings but as the historical achievement of countless generations of attempted, but failed, relational becoming.
An open relational process metaphysics therefore understands becoming as more than perpetual motion. Becoming forms histories. Those histories generate coherence. Coherence stabilizes into embodiment. Embodied realities become participants within an unfinished universe whose future remains genuinely open to further creativity, deeper relation, and new possibilities yet unrealized.
Reality therefore does not simply move forward.
It continually becomes.
This understanding also brings the present metaphysical investigation into closer dialogue with the earlier ontological work of Embodied Process Realism (EPR). Ontology described the recurring patterns through which reality appears to organize itself. Metaphysics has now begun exploring the generative dynamics through which those patterns continually emerge.
Together they suggest a common grammar:
Relation → Becoming → Coherence → Embodiment → Participation
Each movement prepares the next.
Relation generates becoming.
Becoming forms coherence.
Coherence stabilizes into embodiment.
Embodiment opens new possibilities for participation and further relation.
Reality therefore appears neither as a collection of isolated substances nor as perpetual, undifferentiated flux. It continually forms enduring realities through histories of relational becoming whose achievements remain open to further transformation.
This grammar does not conclude our inquiry. It opens it. The next essay therefore turns to embodiment itself. For if becoming continually forms coherent realities, we must now ask how those achievements acquire persistence, identity, and historical presence within an unfinished universe.
Reality is not made of becoming.
Reality happens by becoming.
And through that becoming, reality continually becomes more than it has been.
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