Yet relation alone does not explain reality.
Relational reality is never without dynamism. Through becoming, new possibilities, organizations, histories, and forms of existence continually arise. 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 names the generative dynamism through which new realities, organizations, and possibilities continually arise. It is therefore not simply movement within reality; it describes the ongoing generative activity of relational reality itself.
This question also brings the present metaphysical investigation into closer dialogue with the earlier ontological work of Embodied Relational Reality (ERR). There we described the constitutive architecture through which relational reality becomes embodied, coherent, persistent, and identifiable. Here, within Open Relational Process Metaphysics of Becoming (ORPMOB), we ask how that relational reality dynamically unfolds through becoming. Ontology provides the vocabulary. Metaphysics 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 the generative dynamism through which new possibilities for coherence, embodiment, and participation continually arise.
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 raises a deeper question. How do new realities and forms of organization 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 new forms and possibilities within relational reality.
This distinction is subtle but profound. Change describes differences between one state and another. Becoming describes the generative activity through which new forms and possibilities arise; coherence describes how some of those relational possibilities become sufficiently integrated to persist and achieve embodiment. Reality is therefore not simply a world in motion. It is a world continually coming into new forms of 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 generates new relational possibilities, some of which achieve sufficient coherence to become enduring embodiments capable of participation and 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 within relational reality. Relations constitute the conditions through which becoming occurs, while becoming generates possibilities 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, describes the creative emergence of new realities and possibilities that may enlarge what becomes possible in the future. The history of the universe therefore becomes more than a sequence of moments. It becomes a continually unfolding history 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 generative activity through which relational reality continually opens new possibilities, some of which achieve coherence, become embodied, 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
Having established that
- Relation is constitutive (Essay 13).
- Becoming is the generative dynamism of relational reality (Section I).
- Becoming continually opens new possibilities, some of which may achieve coherence (Section II).
we must next ask, “How do some emerging realities achieve sufficient coherence to endure?”
If becoming continually generates new possibilities, another question immediately arises. Why do some emerging relational possibilities achieve coherence and endure while countless others disappear almost as quickly as they arise? Reality continually generates novelty, yet only a comparatively small number of these novelties become sufficiently integrated to shape the ongoing history of the universe.
- Becoming generates new possibilities.
- Coherence gradually integrates some of those possibilities into stable relational organizations.
- Embodiment marks the historical achievement of that coherence within the continuing adventure of reality.
The movement may therefore be understood as a developing relational grammar rather than a necessary sequence.
Relation constitutes the conditions of becoming. Becoming generates new possibilities. Coherence emerges as some relational possibilities become sufficiently integrated to persist. Embodiment gives those coherent achievements relatively enduring historical form while opening possibilities for further relation and becoming.
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 need not exhaust the possibilities of what may follow. Within relational becoming, new configurations may open possibilities 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 may therefore be understood neither as rigidly predetermined nor as unrestricted chaos, but as an 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 may be understood neither as merely mechanical nor merely accidental, but as continually developing through relational becoming.
Reality may therefore be understood not as a universe completed at its beginning, but as one whose history continually unfolds through relational becoming. The remarkable order we observe throughout the cosmos need not be interpreted solely as the consequence of fixed initial conditions or fine-tuning arguments. Rather, it may also reflect reality's ongoing capacity to generate possibilities from which sufficiently coherent forms of organization may emerge, stabilize, and become embodied 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 participating in the formation of what may follow. The future remains genuinely unfinished because relational becoming continually generates possibilities that may achieve coherence, become embodied, and contribute new conditions for further becoming.
Reality does not simply move through time.
Reality continually creates evolving history.
Reality does not merely continue.
It continually becomes other 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 inheritance 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 new dimensions of reality become available to inquiry.
The history of reality is not merely the preservation of what has endured. It is equally the continual emergence 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 unrealized or dissolving possibilities need not be understood merely as defects within reality, but as expressions of the openness within which multiple trajectories of becoming remain possible. 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 the emergence of diverse 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 relational becoming, including trajectories that persisted, transformed, or eventually disappeared.
An open relational process metaphysics therefore understands becoming as more than perpetual motion. Becoming generates possibilities and forms histories. Within those histories, some relational possibilities achieve sufficient coherence to persist and become embodied. Embodied realities then participate within an unfinished universe, contributing new conditions and possibilities for further becoming.
Reality therefore does not simply move forward.
It continually becomes.
This essay has proposed that becoming is more than change. It is the generative dynamism through which new possibilities continually arise within relational reality. Some of those possibilities achieve sufficient coherence to persist, become embodied, and participate in the ongoing history of the universe.
This understanding also brings the present metaphysical investigation into closer dialogue with the earlier ontological work of Embodied Relational Reality (ERR). Ontology describes the constitutive architecture through which relational reality becomes embodied, coherent, persistent, and identifiable. Here, within Open Relational Process Metaphysics of Becoming (ORPMOB), metaphysics explores the generative dynamics through which relational reality continually becomes.
Together they suggest a common grammar:
Relation → Becoming → Coherence → Embodiment → Participation
The movements describe a developing relational grammar rather than a necessary sequence.
Relation constitutes the conditions of becoming.
Becoming generates new possibilities.
Coherence emerges as some relational possibilities become sufficiently integrated to persist.
Embodiment gives those coherent achievements relatively enduring historical form.
Embodied realities participate in further relations, contributing new conditions and possibilities for becoming.
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 some possibilities generated through relational becoming achieve sufficient coherence to endure, 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 other than it has been.
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