Process Futures Grant Hope as well as Being

Process Futures Grant Hope as well as Being

R.E. Slater

Introduction

After 8 years of working from the bottom up through the Scriptures using a variety of evangelical tools, methodologies, and structures, I have concluded as of early last Fall of 2020 to purposely move more fully into process philosophy and theology and will now intentionally restructure this next phase of biblical exploration at Relevancy22 using process thought as the primary modus operandi (sic, a method or procedure) as fully as I can throughout biblical and systematic thinking.

Let me cite several reasons:

(i) Because I am convinced that biblical process thinking is an enhancement to all previous discussions, systems, and doctrines of God over the centuries, it is felt that it should be explored more fully.

(ii) That it leans into the doubt, uncertainties and questions today's contemporary religious, quasi-religious, and secular societies are facing.

(iii) And that it comports very well between the Christian faith and today's postmodern/metamodern sciences. In fact, extremely will.

All of which is to say that process thought seems very promising - especially as it can bridge the church and science gap so very well and does include all religions around the globe into its observations both richly and expansively.

As an example, as Christians learn to read the bible by a specific method, based upon a particular system, or a multiple set of doctrinal systems, those methodologies would influence how a reader might perceive the teachings of Scriptures thereby reinforcing those learned systems onto one's existential faith. If I had learned to read the bible through the quizzical, wonderous mindset of Dr. Suess, the children's book author, I would naturally read "Suessian Structure" throughout the bible. I wouldn't question my reading of the bible because I wouldn't have questioned the methodology by which I had learned to read the bible in my earlier contexts of faith formation.

Similarly, I wish to now learn to read the bible from a process theological perspective. A system which is more fully expansive of the Christian faith and more fully centered in the love of God through Christ Jesus our Lord. It would be more fully introspective and self-critical of its postulations, more open to doubt and uncertainty, and more willing to explore other avenues of thought without limiting conjecture or discussion (if properly done).

And if process thought is as much a part of our limited view of reality as it seems to show, then I would expect to find process theology throughout the pages of the bible as I read it. Why? Because the kind of perceived human experience I am having in today's present society should show up in the more ancient narratives of human experience. Woe, travesty, travail, hardship, disbelief, wonderment, beauty, and so on. To which I think we can all agree is as relevant today as it was in earlier individual experiences and societies.

But not only should I read of process reality in the bible but also find it embedded throughout past civilizations struggling with similar religious ideas, corruption of power, disinterest in altruism, or reflectivity to the harm mankind seems to always carry with it. Process reality should be found everywhere, in every era, and every human space of activity.

The bible recast in the form as Process Christianity should then lend even more insights to the extuant church doctrines of our day, the theodicy questions we have of God, and of our own experience, and what we might expect the future to hold. Process Thought might therefore be our best help and guide through doctrinal dead ends and Christian teachings straying away from God's love to poorly enacted instances of unloving human justice, justifying the ends by the means, if you will.

I was reminded of this the other day by an older, ex-minister of the CRC church, a Calvinist friend and trained graduate student from Calvin Seminary. He had asked me to share with him what process theology is and how it might be applicable to the Christian faith. Like the Apostle Paul on Mars Hill, I spent 90 minutes in personal tutorial and discussion until he felt sufficiently informed. At once, being enlightened, the old minister began quoting Scripture after Scripture to me, using process thinking. He was learning to see process theology everywhere he turned upon its pages. Now this didn't change his mind... which for me is ok. That's the Lord's job. But needless to say, we understood each other very well in the Spirit and the Fellowship of the Lord, which perhaps may have been the better result.

Process Theology is the New Big Boy on the Block

Let us begin. First, chose any "biblical" system you want - whether Catholic, Protestant, East Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever. Any-and-all theological or religious systems will be found to be subtended over and smoothed out in Process Theology when given a chance.

How do I know? In the Christian tradition when one spends time reading and parsing the bible we hope to pull from the lived realities we know into the texts we are studying. And when doing so, compare our bible studies to reality itself so that our faith is applicable to life's contexts. If our faith didn't measure up, then such a faith belief would be unhelpful and unnecessary.

Let me suggest then that in the face of Whiteheadian Process Philosophy and Theology this reality which is everywhere about us is a process relational reality found in all events, at all times, everywhere.

Pick the psychology, sociology, economic, politick, governance, science, or theology, and all human endeavors and disciplines will comply to the process paradigm of being and event. Of becoming and outcome.

Consequently, all past and future rubrics mankind has attempted to utilize to explain life may either help to further explain life or fail to capture life's sublimity. Process thought is a way of perceiving the world which will encompass some systems or reject others. Hence, Jungian Type-and-Archetype can be easily included. But the philosophical worlds of Platonism and Neo-Platonism will come crashing down against the newer eras of quantum possibilities.

Platonism Has Died

The Westernization of Plato has ended. After 2500 years we may be free of its grasp. The new philosophical theorem it must now interact with is process philosophy for the moment. Just as Newtonian physics gave way to Quantum physics so too must older constructs of the world give way to newer constructs of the world until such a time as they must be given up or restructured in some other way.

Even now, process philosophy is on the rise in the West, across the East, Indo-Asia, the Pacific Islands, the Middle-East, Africa, and the Americanas. All future beliefs, conjectures, and sciences will now have to deal with process thought even as they are currently working through what quantum events might mean across all areas of research, study, and application.

In process relational terms, quantum events may be recast as "timeful processes of temporary moments" which come as quickly as they pass. This is the new reality. A quantum reality circumscribed by process event.

Moreover, there are no eternal objects as Platonism had decreed and has flooded into our Westernized thinking over the centuries as we think about the world, God, and life in general. Instead, we now must restructure our thinking to include momentary experiences hinting at future process outcomes. Outcomes that give rise to actualities which give rise to further occasions of becoming. But nowhere in this process can there be eternal objects of the kind and type we were raised to comprehend. More on this in a moment....

Hence, Whiteheadian Process Thought may be understood in this greater philosophical context as an Integral Theory of all things. Thinking in mathematical terms of set theory, such designated theories are the greatest set of all subtending subsets proceeding from them, or contained within them. Process Thought is the greatest Set of all other sets that includes everything including itself. This then is how we might describe a philosophical Theory or Everything, or Integral Theory.

Process Theology Is Found In All Previous Systems

Biblical Theological Systems attempt to act as all-inclusive theories. Attempting to describing God as fully as they can from the narratives of the bible, found in history, in the sciences, and in our everyday experiences. Some theologians like to call these testimonies as the four witnesses: (i) the bible, (ii) church history and tradition, (iii) natural  theology of nature including anthropological studies of man and human societies, and, (iv) our life experiences.

Classic Calvinism (as found in the Reformed Churches) has come-and-gone, morphing nowadays into  the more restrictive evangelical conservative churches across America in newer forms of neo-Calvinism with its Trumpian emphasis on personal liberties over that of other people's liberties. Not caretake or concern for others as could be displayed in the simple act of mask wearing during these times of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. But care and concern for themselves, their beliefs, their religious laws, and condemnations.

In comparison, Classic Arminianism (Wesleyans, Methodists, Baptists) has transitioned towards an expanded form of itself as Open and Relational Theology which is composed of equal parts open theism (the future is open, not closed, predestined or foreordained) and relational theism (all in God and in the world are relational and relatable).

Need another example? Salvation theories revolving around Christ continue to reposition themselves through our human experience of hope, despair, abandonment, imprisonment, betrayal, lostness, and so forth. Early Church Hellenism, Catholic Church Scholasticism, Sectarian, if not Cultic forms of Gnosticism, and even Jewish Rabbinic readings of the OT Law into today's contemporary societies are all forms of biblical theological systems attempting to make sense of one's faith and the world.

Looked at another way, there have been (and still is) many proposed historical schematics described in terms of (i) occupation periods of imperial empires, or (ii) by world crisis events (disease, pandemics, weather), or (iii) the failure or success of human governance, comportment, or congeniality. We've moved from the Dark Ages, to the Renaissance Era, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, Modernism, Postmodernism, even Metamodernism, and whatever else will be forthcoming.

In all these descriptions - whether by religious doctrine or by historical period - one could further describe each one in terms of process relational events irrespective of their qualities or characteristics. They have come-and-gone exactly as we have lived them out. A different choice here, a different act there, by an individual or a group, and the outcomes would either differ by degree or altogether by the event itself.

Reality is a Process Reality

Life, whether in the bible, or in the world, is an event process. What we read of in ancient literature tells us this is so. As a Christian, I should like to take this newest Integral Theory of Process Events and further describe it in theological terms using metaphysics, ontology, and cosmos-centric experiences.

As it has been state that all reality can now be understood in terms of Whiteheadian process theory as an overall integral theory of all previous systems theories both secular or biblical. And that whether we read the narratives of the bible or the comparative literatures of the world, all observe a form of process event as part of creation's relational realtiy.

More so, every philosophy, every theology, every cultural anthropology, every scientific observation will observe process, process, process.

Westernized Platonism use to described the world we live in by eternal objects. No longer. Those objects are secondary objects to the human experience itself. In effect, they are unreal. Objects we give reality to by our inquiring thoughts and speculations. But ethereal objects serving at best as descriptors to the real events of process experience.

Eternal Objects Are No More

Essensentially, all eternal objects are derivative effects of event processes proceeding along temporal lines of spacetime acting upon each other while giving the phenomenological occurence of newer occasions and actualities we may surmise into meta-events but are consequential to our human experience.

Platonism believed eternal objects to be real. As separate and outside of timeful history. Process Thought says they are not but a consequence to the acts of process events. That there is nothing which is separate nor outside of timeful history as immaterial, unsubstantive ontological objects unless we posit God Himself. Which, in the Christian system, as in many other religions, we will and we do.

Otherwise, these descriptor objects simply inform us of our experience living within a process-based universe or momentary spacetime with its matter and forces and consequences.

As example, we think of the universe as eternal. It was until it wasn't any longer. From its Big Bang beginnings (as some conjecture), to perhaps its Big Crunch ending (as some conjecture); or whether it will be absorbed into another multiverse even as it was birthed by a previous multiverse (as some conjecture), the universe is not static but living and dying moment-by-moment. Its eternality lies in its endless streams of birth and death events.

So too may we describe our reality. A reality entirely dependent upon the antecedent past colliding with the ever forming present as it morphs and reshapes in response into future processes repeating themselves over and over, again and again.

What is Eternality?

Eternality is actually the repetition of the eternal moment. It is a time-and-event dependent process to give it shape and form found within its deep interactivity with its relational organism.

Process Theology takes these process events of life - regardless of their cosmological, metaphysical, or ontological antecedents and recasts them into the fabric of temporality of the human experience.

From the ancient days before homo sapien man was, to their primal cultures, then their ancient societies of which the bible and other ancient literature speak, our human experience is receiving, reshaping, and retelling its hopes and dreams of a future outcome. Outcomes generally seeking goodness and wellbeing in the midst of suffering and tragedy.

In postmodern - or metamodern - terms, Process Relational Theory is redescribing philosophy, theology, literature, science, and human ecological civilization. Process societies are remeasuring themselves in terms of relational goodness and wellbeing to the creative ecological order which they have pushed away and now are re-embracing in novel and formative restructuring of ecologically-driven postmodern societies.

And where is God in all this? God is right here with us and with creation.

God is a Process God of Novel Relationships

God, who has breathed upon the formless void of matter, has breathed His process-substance into its deeps. Disturbing its structures. Recasting its formless matter. Has given it His eternal Personage as the only real eternal object ever existing.

God has imbued Himself into the void's creational structures by His Image and by His Essence. God is the ontological difference that gave to formless matter its process event constitution. And thereby recast its constitution to house within its physical structures God's own metaphysical Being. The divine wind which carries the re-constitution of matter along into spacetime process relations is the same divine wind which is carried within these self-same structures.

When we think of creation we must think of the God who formed creation within the very processes of Himself. Both as an active exterior force as well as a divine presence within creation's very structures. 

Structures which bear God's Essence of relationality to all things. God's creativity. God's goodness. God's wellbeing. Each-and-all of these qualitative differences have been birthed from God's divine Self into the formless primordial oozes (or densely hot plasmic forces) of pre-creational mass.

And because God's Self is love so we may expect creational freewill agency to part of this divine love flowing through creation's veins. It beats within every part of its divinely energized creation. Not by divine fiat but by God's presence of Self within and without the creational process. Note too, that we speak not of pantheism but panentheism. As God is ontologically different from creation He is also intricately a part of creation's process relational events.

Process Theology and Theodicy

Similarly, when evil arises, it comes not from God who is good, but from creationally-imbued freewilled agency as an aftermath of God's Self imparted into creation. God is a freewilled Being. He is a relational Being. We therefore should expect, and do find, creation to have relational agency within and without itself as it moves through time and space. God's Image has been not only stamped or imprinted upon creation. It is it's lifeblood. It's energy force. What drives it and makes it go.

God is good. God can do no evil. Though death and destruction is a part of life it is not an evil unless it is formed as an evil by the freewill agency of creation itself. Creational processes are birthed and they die. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes explosively. This is its process. But where human sentience (and that of the sentience of the animal kingdom) come into play, the normal interplay of life and death may become something more ruinous, more evil. This is not of God. It is of a freewill agency stepping beyond God to be its own godlike force.

Is there a hell? Not by God who is good. Nor does God cast sinful mankind into hell. Whatever hells there may be God is in the life-giving, heavenly restructuring of harm into care and wellbeing where and when He can in an agency driven cosmos.

Evil is a part of the creational process. It is an agency-driven event impacting other relational events within a complex process structure of intra- and inter- process activity.

God Is the Future

One last...

The future is a concept, a process concept which arises from past processes forming current processes and thereby affecting "future" processes. These processes and their effects carry with them many possible futures but each future is contingent upon every other possible event process.

God should not be conceived as an eternal object controlling spacetime contingency  - though God does breathe into creation it's continuity. This contingency is given to creation as its own future to write by the kind of constitution it has been formed as previously explained.

What this means is that God does not control creation's destiny. He cannot. God has imbued creation with Himself. Creation is driven by God's Essence. His Being. Creation has been imbued with freewill agency. A relational agency affecting all of its organism, or parts.

But rather than saying God is controlling the future, or its destiny, we may quite freely state that God is  affecting creation's future destiny with goodness and wellbeing through imbued processes events urging to creation to come into fellowship with the Divine Essence it was birthed by and formed in.

Though these processes may or may not obey their nature of godliness, it will strive within itself to become what it is or further separate towards a less fulfilling image or identity. Christians speak to this event as either hearing and being drawn to the Spirit of God in spiritual penitence and transformation or fleeing from the Spirit of God call to them to repent and be saved.

In-and-through of the process events of life the Spirit of God strives against the agency of creation calling it from death back to life when moving towards process events which are less than fulfilling, less than good, less than what it was made to be.

Process Futures are Dynamic

We may also say that such futures will be good or bad dependent upon the processes we as mankind chose to initiate. Even so, we cannot know the future anymore than God can know the future. The future is unknowable (open theism based upon Process Theology).

The future holds many possible outcomes each affecting other possible occasions and actualities towards many other possible outcomes. We might call this the Physics of Possible-lism.

Yet the future is formative. It is not set. Not predetermined. Not known.

The future may lean Godward as much as it leans away from God. But God has given creation agency to it. An agency He cannot control because it bears His Image. His Essence. His Being of freewill.

Yet strangely - if not strangely hopeful - the very processes of creation bears God's Self, His Imprint, His Urging.

God is Imbued in all Process Futures 

The future does not need to be known nor determined as God's Self is the future in this process world of being and becoming.

Even as creation continues to expand or retract - or be absorbed by another creational process perhaps that of a multiverse - in all those futures to come God is there, with it, with us, ever and always.

God in this manner has no need to know or determine the future because the future is essentially formed in God through the very process God has birthed and birthed Himself into.

God has internalized His Self into the very fabric of the process relational event. Where it goes He goes. Where it ends up He ends up. The Future and God are one and the same. Even as God inhabits the past and the present God so then inhabits the future. Not by determination nor control but by His being which is ever becoming in the becoming events of relational process transactions.

"I AM Who I AM" says God. He is who He is coming to Be. What God was He will Be Something Else in the Future, regardless of where the Future goes. Why? Because is there with it, driving it, forming it back to Himself. God is the Future, as God was the Past and now our Present. God Is. And God Will Be and Become. Let us follow God's example. Let our beings become usurping all possible worlds and worldly outcomes urging each element towards love by the divinely driven redemptive processes of salvific reformation.

R.E. Slater

April 17, 2017

*My apologies as my metaphors have clashed with the theological presentation of panentheism. I have attempted to expand its structures without confusing the ontology of the Creator with His Creation. Like Jesus' parables let's go with what I've written and take away what may be helpful in healing ourselves and the worlds we interact with. I, myself, would like to see goodness define our worlds rather than sin. In this regard I've attempted to emphasize goodness over sin. Yes, there is sin. No, sin isn't what defines God's creation. Creation is imaged in God. So are we. We, like it, bear God's imprimatur through Christ. Peace and grace to you till the end of days. - res

Re-Reading Scripture Through Process Eyes

ADDENDUM

After writing this post yesterday I happened to listen to Tripp Fuller and Peter Rollins last night discuss nearly the same subject on-an-off during a podcast they made a couple days earlier which I had missed.  I met Peter once or twice through Rob Bell and Mars Hill Church when Pete occasionally spoke there and have followed him ever since. I especially enjoy his Jack Caputo-like approach to radical theology (the weakness of God, the death of God) and ability to update the philosopher Hegel from the Continental Philosophical tradition into Jack's (and Peter's) application of it into the atoning work and resurrection of Christ and what this means for the church today.

Anyway, about 30 minutes in Tripp and Pete tag into process theology and what this means about God and how we think about God (I believe it releases God from our confining religious holds upon Him granting God permission to be God's Self). Then later, about 25 minutes near the end of they're conversation, they mention it again.

Needless to say, those both in the process camp, and those outside of it, who are working with process metaphysics and Hegelian philosophy carried through in the tradition of Continentalism are feeling the productive energy of process thought and are responding in some way according to their backgrounds and studies. Here it is...

R.E. Slater

April 18, 2021

Peter Rollins: friends are friends forever

https://trippfuller.com/2021/04/17/peter-rollins-friends-are-friends-forever/

April 17, 2021 By Tripp Fuller

Peter Rollins returns to the podcast and we have a bunch of fun.

Pete’s past visits:

• Peter Rollins Casts Out a Demon & Plans a Middle School Purity Retreat #theologybeercamp
• Tony Jones & Peter Rollins on #TheGreatDebacle
• Soapbox Blabbery with Peter Rollins & Tony Jones
• Paul w/ Daniel Kirk & Peter Rollins
• Paul: Rupture, Revelation, & Revolution [High Gravity class w/ Peter Rollins]
• Plundering Religion with Kester Brewin, Peter Rollins, & Barry Taylor #Mutiny
• Bootlegged Christianity with Philip Clayton, Jack Caputo, Bill Mallonee, Peter Rollins, & Jay Bakker
• #PodcastDay Surprise with @PeterRollins
• Revelation of Darkness LIVE Event: Taylor’s F-it Theology, Rollins reaches behind the curtain
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Tim Eastman - Untying The Gordian Knot

Untying the Gordian Knot:

Process, Reality, and Context

(Contemporary Whitehead Studies)

by Timothy E. Eastman (Author)

Publication Date: December 10, 2020

Amazon Link

In Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context, Timothy E. Eastman proposes a new creative synthesis, the Logoi framework—which is radically inclusive and incorporates both actuality and potentiality—to show how the fundamental notions of process, logic, and relations, woven with triads of input-output-context and quantum logical distinctions, can resolve a baker’s dozen of age-old philosophic problems. Further, Eastman leverages a century of advances in quantum physics and the Relational Realism interpretation pioneered by Michael Epperson and Elias Zafiris and augmented by the independent research of Ruth Kastner and Hans Primas to resolve long-standing issues in understanding quantum physics. Adding to this, Eastman makes use of advances in information and complex systems, semiotics, and process philosophy to show how multiple levels of context, combined with relations—including potential relations—both local and local-global, can provide a grounding for causation, emergence, and physical law. Finally, the Logoi framework goes beyond standard ways of knowing—that of context independence (science) and context focus (arts, humanities)—to demonstrate the inevitable role of ultimate context (meaning, spiritual dimension) as part of a transformative ecological vision, which is urgently needed in these times of human and environmental crises. 

Editorial Reviews

"Timothy Eastman, eminent space scientist associated for many years with NASA and an important philosopher of science, has here produced a work of enormous significance. Cutting through a "Gordian Knot" of philosophical and scientific problems ranging widely from the mind-body issue, the nature of consciousness, freedom of the will, and the reality of temporal process, to the nature of quantum theory and the quantum measurement problem (to name a few), Eastman shows how an emphasis on physical context and employment of what he calls the relational logoi framework resolves such problems in a parsimonious and elegant way. The book displays astounding erudition producing a "consilience" of streams of evidence across numerous scientific and philosophical disciplines. Process philosophers and scholars working in the American pragmatist tradition will be especially drawn to this project as it resonates profoundly with central ideas found in Whitehead, Hartshorne, and Peirce."

- George W. Shields, University of Louisville

“We rightly marvel at the achievements yielded by the evolution of physics, from the Aristotelian paradigm to the mechanical paradigm to the field paradigm and finally to our current, stubbornly bipolar paradigm of quantum mechanics and relativity theory—that infamously double-edged instrument by which we define nature’s innermost and outermost extremes via mutually exclusive ontologies. This book charts a novel and compelling path forward toward a coherent relation of these incompatible fundamental theories—a path whereby naïve object-oriented realism is redefined as inherently contextual and relational—a groundbreaking synthesis of the ideas of Peirce, James and Whitehead along with modern physics, complex systems, information theory, semiotics and philosophy.”

- Michael Epperson, California State University Sacramento

"Timothy Eastman's book draws from and draws together many sources, from the humanistic to the scientific, inspired especially by the process philosophy of Whitehead and the semiotic vision of Pierce. Calling on these sources and inspirations, it presents an informed and informative synthesis in an integrative approach. It illuminates its fundamental notions of process, logic, and relations in a wide-ranging exploration; yet it is marked by a spirit which grants our fallibility, even as it proposes an ordered vision of things. It is engaging and illuminating in its impressive range of reference. Here we find a very thoughtful and synthetic voice that speaks in a constructive spirit. It witnesses to a new adventure of ideas, calling on the work of many thinkers who are cooperators in the field of constructive thought. Crossing boundaries between disciplines often kept apart, it is engaging and illuminating in its impressive range of reference."

- William Desmond, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

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website link

BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS

Timothy E. Eastman

Sciences and Exploration Directorate - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Director, Space Physics and Plasma Sciences - Plasmas International

Dr. Timothy E. Eastman is a senior scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and a consultant in plasma science. He has more than 40 years of experience in research and consulting in space physics, space science data systems, space weather, plasma applications, public outreach and education, and philosophy of science. This work included serving as a research scientist at Los Alamos National Lab, Branch Chief for the Magnetospheric Physics at NASA Headquarters, senior research scientist and faculty at both the University of Iowa and the University of Maryland, and Program Director for Magnetospheric Physics at the National Science Foundation.

Dr. Eastman discovered the Low-Latitude Boundary Layer (LLBL) of Earth’s magnetosphere (1976), and discovered gyro-phase bunched ions in space plasmas by analyzing energetic ion distribution functions near Earth’s bow shock (1981). The LLBL work, in particular, was further explored by two major multi-spacecraft missions – the Cluster spacecraft mission of the European Space Agency and NASA’s current Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission. He has published over 100 research papers in space physics, philosophy, and related fields.

In addition to an extensive research career, Dr. Eastman provided key leadership of the nation’s research programs in space plasma physics while program manager at NASA Headquarters (1985-1988) and NSF (1991-1994). For such program leadership, he was co-developer of key foundations for major international and interagency projects, including the International Solar Terrestrial Physics program, the Interagency Space Weather Program, and the Basic Plasma Science and Engineering program. He created and maintains major Web sites for plasma science and applications at plasmas.org and plasmas.com, and is lead editor of a book in philosophy of physics entitled Physics and Whitehead, published in 2004 by SUNY Press. Dr. Eastman’s interest in philosophy and philosophy of science extends over three decades with several journal publications in philosophy in addition to the SUNY volume; further, he is on International Advisory Boards for Process Studies and Studia Whiteheadiana (Poland), and is lead editor of a new volume entitled Physics and Speculative Philosophy scheduled for publication in 2015 with DeGruyter Press.

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Physics and Whitehead: Quantum, Process, and Experience

Leading scholars explore the connections between

quantum physics and process philosophy.

(Suny Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought)

Publication Date: January 8, 2009

Amazon Link

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Physics and Speculative Philosophy:

Potentiality in Modern Science

(Process Thought Book #27) 

by Timothy E. Eastman  (Editor),

Michael Epperson  (Editor),

David Ray Griffin (Editor)

Publication Date: Feb 22, 2016

Amazon Link

Through both an historical and philosophical analysis of the concept of possibility, we show how including both potentiality and actuality as part of the real is both compatible with experience and contributes to solving key problems of fundamental process and emergence. The book is organized into four main sections that incorporate our routes to potentiality: (1) potentiality in modern science [history and philosophy; quantum physics and complexity]; (2) Relational Realism [ontological interpretation of quantum physics; philosophy and logic]; (3) Process Physics [ontological interpretation of relativity theory; physics and philosophy]; (4) on speculative philosophy and physics [limitations and approximations; process philosophy]. We conclude that certain fundamental problems in modern physics require complementary analyses of certain philosophical and metaphysical issues, and that such scholarship reveals intrinsic features and limits of determinism, potentiality and emergence that enable, among others, important progress on the quantum theory of measurement problem and new understandings of emergence

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Big Bang: A Critical Analysis

by Hilton Ratcliffe (Author),

Timothy E. Eastman (Author),

Ashwini Kumar Lal (Author),

R. Joseph (Author)

Publication Date: October 26, 2011

 

A Word of Caution: The book, "Big Bang: A Critical Analysis," which I have listed under Tim Eastmen's name asks questions of modern day contemporary science. But rather than painting the study of cosmology as an area of "conspiracy theory" I would much rather approach sundry Cosmological Theories such as "The Big Bang" as one of many theoretical options which science is working through in answering contemporary queries of speculative science. The questions being asked in this book are no different than the ones being asked elsewhere amongst cosmologists, metaphysicians, quantum physicists, astrophysicists, etc. There is no "deep state" holding back information or forcing information into earlier molds of scientific theories. Hence, I personally feel the book's blurb should not be couched in the language of conspiracy but in the language of continual scientific inquiry as new ideas, instrumentations, technologies, and sciences comes out to play with older and newer data sets. Thank you. - Russ Slater

Book Blurb 

The theory that has come to be known as The Big Bang was originally proposed by a Catholic Priest, to make the Bible scientific. Critics have subsequently referred to the Big Bang theory as religion masquerading as science. Nevertheless, the Big Bang model is the generally accepted theory for the origin of universe. Nonetheless, findings in observational astronomy and revelations in the field of fundamental physics question the validity of the 'Big Bang' model, including the organization of galactic superstructures, the Cosmic Microwave Background, distant galaxies, gravitational waves, red shifts, and the age of local galaxies. Admittedly, the Big Bang research program has generated considerable research and there has been some confirmation for many hypotheses. However, outstanding questions remain and substantial alternative cosmology models, which also have been fruitful, remain viable and continue to evolve. Unfortunately, there has been a concerted effort to prevent research into alternate cosmologies. The Big Bang has become a sacred cow; which must not be questioned. One of the greatest challenges facing astrophysics is derivation of remoteness in cosmological objects. At large scales, it is almost entirely dependent upon the Hubble relationship between apparent brightness and spectral redshift for large luminous objects. However, this data has questionable validity. The assumption of scale invariance and universality of the Hubble law allowed the adoption of redshift as a standard calibration of cosmological distance. A major problem is the Big Bang model implies the existence of a creator. Why the Universe should have had a beginning, or why it would have been created, cannot be explained by classical or quantum physics. To support the Big Bang, estimates of the age & size of the cosmos, including claims of an accelerating universe, are based on an Earth-centered universe with the Earth as the measure of all things, exactly as dictated by religious theology. However, distance from Earth is not a measure of the age of far away galaxies. The Big Bang cannot explain why there are galaxies older than the Big Bang, why fully formed galaxies continue to be discovered at distances of over 13 billion light years from Earth, when according to Big Bang theory, no galaxies should exist at these distances. To support the Big Bang, red shifts are purposefully misinterpreted based on Pre-Copernican geo-centrism with Earth serving as ground zero. However, red shifts are variable, effected by numerous factors, and do not provide measures of time, age or distance. Nor can Big Bang theory explain why galaxies collide, why rivers of galaxies flow in the wrong direction, why galaxies clump together creating great walls of galaxies which took from 80 billion to 150 billion years to form. Big Bang theory requires phantom forces, constantly adjusted parameters, and ad hoc theorizing to explain away and to cover up the numerous holes in this theory. Finally, if at first there was a singularity, then the Big Bang was not a beginning, but a continuation.

Table of Contents

1. Big Bang? A Critical Review A. K. Lal, and R. Joseph, 2. Cosmic Agnosticism, Revisited Timothy E. Eastman, 3. Anomalous Redshift Data and the Myth of Cosmological Distance Hilton Ratcliffe, 4. Multiverse Scenarios in Cosmology: Classification, Cause, Challenge, Controversy, and Criticism Rüdiger Vaas, 5. An Infinite Fractal Cosmos R. L. Oldershaw, 6. Different Routes to Multiverses and an Infinite Universe. B.G. Sidharth 7. The Origin of the Modern Anthropic Principle, Helge Kragh, 8. Cosmos and Quantum: Frontiers for the Future. Menas Kafatos, 9. Infinite Universe vs the Myth of the Big Bang: Redshifts, Black Holes, Acceleration.

 

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RELATED READINGS

Amazon Link

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(Routledge Studies in American Philosophy) 1st Edition

by Randall E. Auxier (Author)

Publication Date: March 21, 2019

The Quantum of Explanation advances a bold new theory of how explanation ought to be understood in philosophical and cosmological inquiries. Using a complete interpretation of Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophical and mathematical writings and an interpretive structure that is essentially new, Auxier and Herstein argue that Whitehead has never been properly understood, nor has the depth and breadth of his contribution to the human search for knowledge been assimilated by his successors. This important book effectively applies Whitehead’s philosophy to problems in the interpretation of science, empirical knowledge, and nature. It develops a new account of philosophical naturalism that will contribute to the current naturalism debate in both Analytic and Continental philosophy. Auxier and Herstein also draw attention to some of the most important differences between the process theology tradition and Whitehead’s thought, arguing in favor of a Whiteheadian naturalism that is more or less independent of theological concerns. This book offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to Whitehead’s philosophy and is an essential resource for students and scholars interested in American philosophy, the philosophy of mathematics and physics, and issues associated with naturalism, explanation and radical empiricism.

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The Philosophy of Hilary Putnam

(Library of Living Philosophers #34)

by Randall E. Auxier (Editor)

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Publication Date: June 30, 2015

Hilary Putnam, who turned 88 in 2014, is one of the world’s greatest living philosophers. He currently holds the position of Cogan University Professor Emeritus of Harvard. He has been called “one of the 20th century’s true philosophic giants” (by Malcolm Thorndike Nicholson in Prospect magazine). He has been very influential in several different areas of philosophy: philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of science. This volume in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers series contains 26 chapters original to this work, each written by a well-known philosopher, including the late Richard Rorty and the late Michael Dummett. The volume also includes Putnam’s reply to each of the 26 critical and descriptive essays, which cover the broad range of Putnam’s thought. They are organized thematically into the following parts: Philosophy and Mathematics, Logic and Language, Knowing and Being, Philosophy of Practice, and Elements of Pragmatism. Readers also appreciate the extensive intellectual autobiography.

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Whitehead was among the first initiates into the 20th century's new cosmological story. This book bring's Whitehead's philosophy of organism into conversation with several components of contemporary scientific cosmology-including relativistic, quantum, evolutionary, and complexity theories-in order to both exemplify the inadequacy of the traditional materialistic-mechanistic metaphysical interpretation of them, and to display the relevance of Whitehead's cosmological scheme to the transdisciplinary project of integrating these theories and their data with the presuppositions of human civilization. This data is nearly crying aloud for a cosmologically ensouled interpretation, one in which, for example, physics and chemistry are no longer considered to be descriptions of the meaningless motion of molecules to which biology is ultimately reducible, but rather themselves become studies of living organization at ecological scales other than the biological.

Linus Learning Link

"Hi Russ. I just finished a logic book of the sort you describe, although it does incorporate the Boolean —but remember Whitehead gave Boole an algebraic interpretation in 1898, and Langer expressed Whitehead’s theory of extensive connection as an algebra that melded with his interpretation of Boole in 1937. I have operationalized that system adding set-theoretical functions and bringing it into a regimentation process of natural language that Langer and Whitehead do not have." - Randall Auxier

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Tim Eastman - Untying The Gordian Knot

Process, Reality and Context of the Quantum Theoretical Process

ZoomCast held on April 13, 2021

Introduction by Russ Slater

Today's zoom cast went well as I sat in and listened. I didn't expect to be introduced to 65+ scholars from all kinds of process fields. Nor be asked several times to contribute some of my thoughts I had typed on the chat bar to Tim Eastman and the group (many thanks to Randall Auxier for his helpful insights.) In my group introduction I spoke out what I hoped I would find in today's meeting held by John Cobb and the Cobb Institute. I discovered that relational process logic was actually being applied into quantum computing logic which, of course, will have a lot of import for greentech ecological societies. Especially as contra the reductionistic, Boolean science effort taking place appling silicon logic into quantum fields logic.

R.E. Slater

April 13, 2021

For the lecture itself Tim Eastman provided a summary of his discussion which is shown below. My own notes I don't believe would be as helpful as Tim's notes as I am presently learning and self-educating. Overall, my question was how to apply Whitehead's Process Relational Thought into the area of Relational Quantum Computing Logic. Essentially, it is being researched but as the technology medium is in the early stages of application it will be growing into itself over the next 100 years. Hopefully by utilizing all which Process Thought may provide to perceived reality, time studies, possibility and actuality, etc, within the quantum realm of quarks+ and light. - res

Notes - Russ Slater

Tim Eastman's discussion spoke to current studies in the Quantum Theoretic Process as opposed to transactional-based old-order Logic Systems. It is to be remembered that Alfred North Whitehead was first an English Mathematician before becoming a philosophical thinker who developed process philosophy and theology.

In any Semiotic System there will always be the Problem of Perspective: How to apply it to ontology (causation --> emergence) and epistemology (re constraints of knowledge).

SpaceTime - Is it a derivative of relationality? In process thinking it is. Therefore, "Yes".

The problem of Scientism - The postulation that science is complete in itself as a closed-end system; in Whitehead it is not:

Kurt Godel's Incompleteness theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - res

As in Science, so too Life events, Philosophy, Theology, Psychology, and Sociology, etc., are always circumscribed within existential, phenomenological, epistemological, and contextual roots or contexts. Can anything ever be free of context? Frankly, "No." As such, it is important to identify and acknowledge applicable contexts.

Generally, one must always ask the question, what is the context of the area of study:

• Science - claims to be context free but is contextualized by its area of study
• Similarly the Arts and Humanities are contextualized within the Anthropological realm
• Spiritual/Religious contexts will always be found in questions of cosmological metaphysics and ontology

Dyatic (sp?) Logic based in Boolean Logic - forces Quantum spin as either up or down, 1 or 0, yes or no. But a transactional Boolean system is never both. Boolean Logic does not negotiate the "Excluded Middle" nor do "Double Negations". These areas are neglected in it.

Non-Boolean Logic may be known as "Free Logic" (Question: Is this similar to "Fuzzy Logic"?? No. But there are similarities between each including the area of "Free Association") where potential relations correlate with potential outcomes.

As an example, Limited Potential Relations run through Constrained Contexts will have Limited Potential Outcomes.

Basically we are describing Process Logic by: "The Physics of Potentiality or Possibility to that of the Actaul Actuality." This is how Whitehead would describe "The Real". As the Physics of the "Possible-lism".

Question 1. When we quantumize measured or non-measured outcomes do we limit the quantum relational process transaction?? This would be described as a Transactional Process

Question 2. Or do we approach Quantum Logic by not limiting it to the transactional process at all? This would be describes as the Possibilist Process

How is Plasma Physics different from Quantum Physics? The former speaks to the electro-magnetic realm; the latter to the additional quantum realms of matter and force (besides EM there is gravity, the weak and strong nuclear forces, and possibly a fifth quantum force).

Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter:

Bottom line George Boole did not include states for potentiality and possibility (in Whiteheadian terms prehension and conscreascence). These give us the theory of potency, involving the ability to measure general actuality or Real Time. All real events have potentiality for possibility.

We might redescribe Real Time as Relational Realism (per my comment to the group - res).

• SpaceTime --> The World is not a collection of things but a collection of events.

• There are three Categories of Events:
• Momentary or Temporal Events,
• Limited Duration Events,
• Persistent Events.

• Real Time is contextualized in the subject matter event in relationship
• to all corresponding previous and contemporaneous events

• Remember to include the panpsychic and panexistential root/context
• with any real process system

• Methodology must not limit ontology

Restated, the possible-actual proceeds the actual-actual. Similar to Stephen Hawking's description of a photon of radiation which travels to its destination before it actually travels to it, then looks back on the path it traversed, to then actually commit from its stage of potentiality to its stage of actuality. This is the weirdness of quantum physics. 

Quantum Stages of Development

• Standard or Fundamental Quantum Physics to  -->
• Anticipatory Quantum Systems to -->
• Model-Dependent Systems.

Summary: Memory-based, anticipatory complex systems --> Interleaved Complext Possibilities

Context? The process-relational perspective

Definitions

Wikipedia - Semiotics (also called semiotic studies) is the study of sign processes (semiosis), which are any activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, where a sign is defined as anything that communicates a meaning that is not the sign itself to the sign's interpreter. The meaning can be intentional such as a word uttered with a specific meaning, or unintentional, such as a symptom being a sign of a particular medical condition. Signs can communicate through any of the senses, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactory, or gustatory (sic, feelings].

The semiotic tradition explores the study of signs and symbols as a significant part of communications. Unlike linguistics, semiotics also studies non-linguistic sign systems. Semiotics includes the study of signs and sign processes, indication, designation, likeness, analogy, allegory, metonymy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication.

Semiotics is frequently seen as having important anthropological and sociological dimensions; for example, the Italian semiotician and novelist Umberto Eco proposed that every cultural phenomenon may be studied as communication. Some semioticians focus on the logical dimensions of the science, however. They examine areas belonging also to the life sciences—such as how organisms make predictions about, and adapt to, their semiotic niche in the world (see semiosis). In general, semiotic theories take signs or sign systems as their object of study: the communication of information in living organisms is covered in biosemiotics (including zoosemiotics and phytosemiotics).

Semiotics is not to be confused with the Saussurean tradition called semiology, which is a subset of semiotics.

(1986) Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language - PDF, General Editor, Thomas A. Sebeok, Indiana University Press

Human Machine Symbiotics: On Control and Automation in Human Contexts

Abstract - The human-machine symbiotics, in its wider conception extends beyond the production game. It is about the symbiosis of hand and brain, a productive interplay between the user and the machine, and an interactive interplay between the objective knowledge and the tacit dimension. Central to this conception is the design of 'machines with purpose', an alternative vision to that of the instrumental rationality embedded in the computer. The paper reflects back upon the 1970s conception of symbiotics, exploring its evolution over the last four decades. As we now enter the world of cyber realities and fragmented selves on the one hand, and the world of cultural diversities and pluralities on the other, we ponder on whether neuroscience offers a route to a holistic symbiotics, which is even more relevant to the digitally mediated world we live in.

Contextualization

In computer science, contextualization is the process of identifying the data relevant to an entity (e.g., a person or a city) based on the entity's contextual information.

Definition

Context or contextual information is any information about any entity that can be used to effectively reduce the amount of reasoning required (via filtering, aggregation, and inference) for decision making within the scope of a specific application. Contextualisation is then the process of identifying the data relevant to an entity based on the entity's contextual information. Contextualisation excludes irrelevant data from consideration and has the potential to reduce data from several aspects including volume, velocity, and variety in large-scale data intensive applications (Yavari et al.).

Usage

The main usage of "contextualisation" is in improving the process of data:

Reduce the amount of data: Contextualisation has the potential to reduce the amount of data based on the interests from applications/services/users. Contextualisation can improve the scalability and efficiency of data process, query, delivery by excluding irrelevant data.

As an example, ConTaaS facilitates contextualisation of the data for IoT applications and could improve the processing for large-scale IoT applications from various Big Data aspects including volume, velocity, and variety.

Systems Theory

Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, which are cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent parts that can be natural or human-made. Every system is bounded by space and time, influenced by its environment, defined by its structure and purpose, and expressed through its functioning. A system may be more than the sum of its parts if it expresses synergy or emergent behavior.

Changing one part of a system may affect other parts or the whole system. It may be possible to predict these changes in patterns of behavior. For systems that learn and adapt, the growth and the degree of adaptation depend upon how well the system is engaged with its environment. Some systems support other systems, maintaining the other system to prevent failure. The goals of systems theory are to model a system's dynamics, constraints, conditions, and to elucidate principles (such as purpose, measure, methods, tools) that can be discerned and applied to other systems at every level of nesting, and in a wide range of fields for achieving optimized equifinality.

General systems theory is about developing broadly applicable concepts and principles, as opposed to concepts and principles specific to one domain of knowledge. It distinguishes dynamic or active systems from static or passive systems. Active systems are activity structures or components that interact in behaviours and processes. Passive systems are structures and components that are being processed. For example, a program is passive when it is a disc file and active when it runs in memory. The field is related to systems thinking, machine logic, and systems engineering.