We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater
There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead
Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater
The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller
The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller
According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater
Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater
Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger
Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton
I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII
Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut
Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest
We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater
People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon
Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater
An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater
Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann
Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner
“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”
Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton
The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon
The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul
The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah
If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon
Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson
We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord
Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater
To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement
Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma
It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater
God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater
In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall
Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater
-----
Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater
Below you will find a small sample of resources that we think you'll find valuable as you consider the many possible ways that process thought might be relevant to your understanding of and journey in faith. If you have suggestions that you would like us to consider, please let us know.
John B. Cobb, Jr., Ph.D, is a founding co-director of the Center for Process Studies and Process & Faith. He has held many positions, such as Ingraham Professor of Theology at the School of Theology at Claremont, Avery Professor at the Claremont Graduate School, Fullbright Professor at the University of Mainz, Visiting Professor at Vanderbilt, Harvard Divinity, Chicago Divinity Schools. His writings include: Christ in a Pluralistic Age; God and the World; For the Common Good. Co-winner of Grawemeyer Award of Ideas Improving World Order.
Position
Emeritus Professor, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate School
Co-director, Center for Process Studies; Process & Faith
Personal
Born in Japan, 1925.
Parents were Methodist missionaries.
Married to Jean L. Cobb.
Four sons: Theodore, Clifford, Andrew, Richard.
Education
Canadian Academy, Kobe, Japan, 1938-39
Newnan High School, Georgia, 1939-41
Emory-at-Oxford, Georgia, 1941-43
University of Michigan, 1944
University of Chicago, 1947-50
MA 1949 and Ph.D. 1952 from the Divinity School, University of Chicago
Past Positions
Young Harris College, Georgia 1950-53
Candler School of Theology, Emory U., 1953-58
Ingraham Prof., STC, l958-90
Avery Prof., CGS, 1960-1990
Fulbright Professor, U. of Mainz, 1965-66
Visiting Professor, Rikkyo U., Tokyo, 1978
Visiting Prof., Chicago Divinity School, 1980
Visiting Prof., Harvard Divinity School, 1987
Visiting Prof. Iliff School of Theology, 1991
Visiting Prof. Vanderbilt Divinity School, 1993
Honors
D.Theol., University of Mainz, 1968
Litt.D., Emory University, 1971
Fellow, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1976
Distinguished Alumnus Award, U. of Chicago, 1976
D.D., Linfield College, 1983
Alumnus of the Year, Chicago Divinity School, 1985
Litt.D., DePauw University, 1989
Books Written
Varieties of Protestantism, 1960
Living Options in Protestant Theology, 1962
A Christian Natural Theology, 1965
The Structure of Christian Existence, 1967
God and the World, 1969
Is It Too Late? A Theology of Ecology, 1971 (revised edition, 1995)
Liberal Theology at the Crossroads, 1973
Christ in a Pluralistic Age, 1975
with David Griffin, Process Theology: An Introductory Exposition, 1976 Theology and Pastoral Care, 1977
with Charles Birch, The Liberation of Life: from the Cell to the Community, 1981
Process Theology as Political Theology, 1982
Beyond Dialogue: Toward a Mutual Transformation of Christianity and Buddhism, 1982
with David Tracy, Talking About God, 1983
Praying for Jennifer, 1985
with Joseph Hough, Christian Identity and Theological Education, 1985
with Beardslee, Lull, Pregeant, Weeden, and Woodbridge, Biblical Preaching on the Death of Jesus, 1989
with Herman Daly, For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, Environment, and a Sustainable Future, 1989 (revised edition, 1994)
Doubting Thomas, 1990
with Leonard Swidler, Paul Knitter, and Monika Helwig , Death or Dialogue, 1990
Matters of Life and Death, 1991
Can Christ Become Good News Again?, 1991
Sustainability, 1992
Becoming a Thinking Christian, 1993
Lay Theology, 1994
Sustaining the Common Good, 1994
Grace and Responsibility, 1995
Reclaiming the Church, 1997
Postmodernism and Public Policy, 2002
The Process Perspective (edited by Jeanyne B. Slettom), 2003
Romans (with David J. Lull), 2005
The Call of the Spirit: Process Spirituality in a Relational World (with Bruce Epperly and Paul Nancarrow), 2005
A Christian Natural Theology, Second Edition, 2007
Whitehead Word Book, 2008
Spiritual Bankruptcy: A Prophetic Call to Action, 2010
The Process Perspective II (edited by Jeanyne B. Slettom), 2011
Books Edited
with James Robinson, The Later Heidegger and Theology, 1963
with James Robinson, The New Hermeneutic, 1964
with James Robinson, Theology as History, 1967
The Theology of Altizer: Critique and Response, 1971
with David Griffin, Mind in Nature, 1977
with Widick Schroeder, Process Philosophy and Social Thought, 1981
with Franklin Gamwell, Existence and Actuality: Conversations with Charles Hartshorne, 1984
Back to Darwin, 2008
Resistance: The New Role of Progressive Christians, 2008
As a career, I have served as a tech consultant, products vendor, software entrepreneur, innovator to small businesses, technology educator, a one-man service shop for all kinds of user needs, and have moved through 9 iterations of technology from the mid-1980s to 2015. Let's just say I've seen a lot of change in those 30 years.
While doing this I also paid attention to many of the tech heads of state of whose products I've used and sold. Bill Gates was one of those science-tech guys I paid attention to. Along with other Fortune 500 companies I continue to follow Bill in his many ventures to heal the world through startup businesses, investor foresight, societal justice, and innovation. Thus, my occasional nod in Bill's direction here at Relevancy22 on climate change, vaccinations, etc.
All ecological civilizations and societies have to start from somewhere. Bill, it seems, is starting in the middle and moving in all directions at once to see what sticks. God bless him. I admire his courage and fortitude amid tasks that will take all of our efforts to help restore the earth back to a healthy state of green and blue.
R.E. Slater
November 9, 2021
Partners in Climte Change
In Glasgow, I saw three big shifts in the climate conversation
Last week I spent three fantastic days at the global climate summit (known as COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland. My main impression is how much things have changed since the last summit, back in 2015—and I don’t mean because of COVID. The climate conversation has shifted dramatically, and for the better.
One big shift is that clean-energy innovation is higher on the agenda than ever. The world needs to get to zero carbon emissions by 2050. As I argue in the book I published this year, accomplishing that will require a green Industrial Revolution in which we decarbonize virtually the entire physical economy: how we make things, generate electricity, move around, grow food, and cool and heat buildings. The world already has some of the tools we’ll need to do that, but we need a huge number of new inventions too.
So at an event like this, one way I measure progress is by the way people are thinking about what it’ll take to reach zero emissions. Do they think we already have all the tools we need to get there? Or is there a nuanced view of the complexity of this problem, and the need for new, affordable clean technology that helps people in low- and middle-income countries raise their standard of living without making climate change worse?
Six years ago, there were more people on the we-have-what-we-need side than on the innovation side. This year, though, innovation was literally on center stage. One session of the World Leaders Summit, where I got to speak, was exclusively about developing and deploying clean technologies faster.
I also helped launch the Net Zero World Initiative, a commitment from the U.S. government to help other countries get to zero by providing funding and—even more important—access to experts throughout the government, including the top minds at America’s world-class national laboratories. These countries will get support with planning the transition to a green economy, piloting new technologies, working with investors, and more.
The second major shift is that the private sector is now playing a central role alongside governments and nonprofits. In Glasgow, I met with leaders in various industries that need to be part of the transition—including shipping, mining, and financial services—who had practical plans to decarbonize and to support innovation. I saw CEOs of international banks really engaging with these issues, whereas many of them wouldn’t even have shown up a few years ago. (It made me wish we could get the same kind of turnout and excitement for conferences on global health!)
I announced that three new partners—Citi, the IKEA Foundation, and State Farm—will be working with Breakthrough Energy Catalyst, a program designed to get the most promising climate technologies to scale much faster than would happen naturally. They’re joining the first round of seven partners we announced in September. It’s amazing to see how much momentum Catalyst has generated in just a few months.
I was also honored to join President Biden and his climate envoy, John Kerry, to announce that Breakthrough Energy will be the primary implementation partner for the First Movers Coalition. It’s a new initiative from the U.S. State Department and the World Economic Forum that will boost demand for emerging climate solutions in some of the sectors where it’ll be especially hard to eliminate emissions: aviation, concrete and steel production, shipping, and more.
The third shift I’m seeing is that there’s even more visibility for climate adaptation. The worst tragedy of rising temperatures is that they will do the most harm to the people who have done the least to cause them. And if we don’t help people in low- and middle-income countries thrive despite the warming that is already under way, the world will lose the fight against extreme poverty.
So it was great to hear President Biden and other leaders repeatedly raising the importance of adaptation. I got to join the president, along with officials from the United Arab Emirates, to launch a program called Agricultural Innovation Mission for Climate. It’s designed to focus some of the world’s innovative IQ on ways to help the poorest people adapt, such as new varieties of crops that can withstand more droughts and floods. More than 30 other countries, as well as dozens of companies and nonprofits (including the Gates Foundation), are already supporting it.
As part of that effort, I joined a coalition of donors that pledged more than half a billion dollars to support the CGIAR’s work to advance climate-smart innovations for smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.
Some people look at the problems that still need to be solved and see the glass as half-empty. I don’t share that view, but this is what I would tell anyone who does: The glass is being filled up faster than ever. If we keep this up—if the world puts even more effort into innovations that reduce the cost of getting to zero and help the poorest people adapt to climate change—then we’ll be able to look back on this summit as an important milestone in avoiding a climate disaster.
What an honor it is to hear from the second generation of process theologians and philosophers now in their late 80s and 90s still able to share their journey with us of the third and fourth generations. The Cobb Institute, as well as many other process organizations and websites like Relevancy22, have been dissecting and weaving together their dialogues, discussions, books, journals, and podcasts over the years so that they are not lost to history, and quite open for exploration and discovery by future generations of process Whiteheadians.
Do take advantage of these living souls in their late years. It is with great honor that these several process theologians continue to share their personal journeys into the realms of the biological, quantum and psychological/sociological sciences.
Lastly, thank you to all those in the process community who have been willing to make time and effort to share their separate process insights from their respective disciplines! Each thought, each soul, helps create depth to a very complex philosophy of cosmology.
As introduction to these series, earlier this past summer the Cobb Institute began an 8-part series discussing and distinguishing substantive philosophies and sciences from those of the process variety. Hosted by Matt Segall, John Cobb, and Tim Eastman each explore Eastman's book written in December 2020 on untying the Gordian Knot of physics. Enjoy.
R.E. Slater
October 31, 2021
Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context
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 - (1) 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, (2) 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, (3) 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, (4) 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.
* * * * * * * * *
The Gordian Knot is an intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot ("cutting the Gordian knot"). - Wikipedia
00:33:03Douglas Tooley:Is perception of time, at the human level and lower, a 'semiotic' function?
00:47:40Mikhail Epstein:Yury Lotman. Semiosphere.
00:49:12Farzad Mahootian:Mikhail’s last point on God’s auto-communication through cosmic and material sign is very neoplatonc!
00:50:03Mikhail Epstein:Vassily Nalimov. In the Labyrinths of Language
00:51:54Mikhail Epstein:Mikhail Epstein. A Philosophy of the Possible: Modalities in Thought and Culture. Boston, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2019.
01:08:26jonmeyer:The term information is frequently used as a concrete entity - yet the notion already presupposes concepts of imminence (“in”), forms, and processual activity(“ation”). What Whitehead (and also Bradley) does so beautifully is show how notions such as information are already high abstractions that can easily lead us into fallacies of misplaced concreteness. I like that George points out that information is a technology and not a science…
01:16:25Lynn De Jonghe:When George Strawn finishes his paper, we would like to have a reference to it!
01:16:47Farzad Mahootian:1. isn’t capitalism an inevitable outcome of evolution via complex system dynamics and manipulation of information flows? and given 2. capitalism’s inherent instability (of “growth” economies), the fact that it causes instabilities which it then benefits from its (growth), then, 3. if 1 & 2 are true, is capitalism ever surmountable?
01:17:26Gary Herstein:Theories will involve "recipes" because of the need for testability requires a robust method of constructing said test(s). However, I don't see it necessarily running the other way. One can literally prepare a food recipe w/o having a deep understanding of food preparation.
01:19:10Gary Nelson:Can we ask Michael Heather to comment on the role of Heyting Logic, Category Theory and our discussion of non-Boolean logics
01:19:55Gary Herstein:Alternatively, one can construct an effective computer program w/o having much (if any) underlying grasp of the theory of computability, or issues of complexity such as P<>NP? or PH.
01:20:02Matt Segall:Right, Gary. So in the case of quantum physics, there are a baker’s dozen interpretations of what is being pulled out of the experimental oven!
01:21:00michael Heather:The logic of potentiæ is just the free functor
01:25:22Douglas Tooley:This may be too tangential, a question for George Strawn - Are you familiar with the work of Terrence Sejnowski and others combining 'technologist' AI and Neuroscience?
This is a quick summary of his most recent thinking:
By way of introduction I've heard Mr. Sejnowski, as I have Dr. Segall. I've just listened to your first two Gordian Knot sessions this morning.
01:25:38Douglas Tooley:Speak in Telluride
01:27:13Gary Herstein:Google labs has made some extravagant claims, but they've carefully avoided sharing any peer-reviewed evidence to substantiate their claims
01:28:06Gary Herstein:QC essentially renders the P<>NP? puzzle moot, which also makes all forms of encryption formally ineffective.
01:28:13Kevin Clark:LOTS here I do not understand yet...gotta go build 3D triadic raised beds w/ drainage 'context'!
01:34:07John Buchanan:Love the Sorcerer’s Apprentice metaphor.
01:35:31Anderson Weekes:Could Mikhail say a little bit about "modality as basis of historical development"? Eg, what is a quick outline of the proposed periodization?
01:38:35Spyridon Koutroufinis:Question on p. 178 of Ch. 5: anticipatory systems "counteract the second-law of thermodynamics and maintain order through the minimization of outstanding parameters" Could you please explain what the "outstanding parameters" are and how they can be minimized?
01:38:37Gary Herstein:(Actually, I don't believe Darwin ever used the term "survival of the fittest.")
01:38:54Gary Herstein:(That might have been Thomas Huxley.)
01:39:03jonmeyer:“Context denialism” is a somewhat less geeky way of saying “fallacy of misplaced concreteness”
01:39:58Douglas Tooley:A corporation is a hybrid of the public and private, the public's portion is exactly the land it utilizes???
01:40:06Monica DeRaspe-Bolles:And isn't it "survival of the fit"?
01:40:13Gary Herstein:Context denialism in economics (and business specifically) translates into refusal to take "externalities" into account.
01:41:39Gary Herstein:By the bye, "market system" is independent of "Capitalism." We've seen command system forms of capitalism (Nazi Germany, S. Korea under the military junta) and market system forms of Socialism (Hungary before the fall of the wall, Sweden.)
01:43:01Gary Nelson:Structured Analysis and Design Technique (SADT) conceives functional block with input==>output subject to context (mechanism) and constraints (controls)
01:44:15Gary Herstein:An ecology as a community of interpretation a la Peirce?
01:45:32Matt Segall:Farzad, are you familiar with “social threefolding” developed by Rudolf Steiner? He’s a, erm, complicated figure, but his ideas about disentangling the political, economic, and cultural spheres is quite original and bypasses all the usual ideological positions while still incorporating insights from capitalism, socialism, and anarchism.
01:47:13Gary Nelson:The IMF has recently done a report about subsidies to Fossil Fuel industries—about $6T in2021 as I recall. Nancy Reagan wisdom— just say no!
01:48:31Farzad Mahootian:John Cobb’s symbiosis of American and Chinese Capitalism could be GREAT!
01:54:43Gary Herstein:The "Beaver Colony" theory of time? (One dam thing after another.)
01:55:42Farzad Mahootian:@Matt - I hadn’t and “bypasses all the usual ideological positions while still incorporating insights from capitalism, socialism, and anarchism.” sounds very promising. Thanks!
01:59:44matt switzer:Contextualized by extensive mining no doubt!
02:03:13Gary Herstein:Van Fraassen has argued that laws in physical science all come back to symmetry of some form. (Mathematically, this means that they are represented by Group Theoretic techniques.)
02:11:20Matt Segall:which invites a conflation between “fit” as in fitting into a niche and “fit” as in “strong” etc
02:12:28Matt Segall:oops, that above comment was meant for Gary H. not the whole group : )
02:13:30jonmeyer:Bruno Latours Down to Earth is a super essay on the ecological crisis we face from an outlook that resonates from a process philosophy standpoint.
02:15:26Gary Nelson:As I recall, Robert Rosen posits that Anticipation is present in all living entities.
02:15:50jonmeyer:On Michael Heathers point. Whitehead (in Harvard Lectures as captured by Bell) writes `This comes down to problem of Inductive Logic… How can one fact be relevant to another fact which is not contained in t? Science collapses if you assume an independent atomic of facts. 2) You don't get out of the difficulty by introducing "probabilities". (3) you don't get out of the difficulty by saying "nobody doubts it." (4) no help to be got by basing your trust on past Experience.` — asserting there is only symmetry doesn’t get out of the difficulty either
02:17:12Gary Nelson:I sent Matt a paper Amoebae Anticipate Periodic Events.
02:17:25Douglas Tooley:Any single cell epistemology would be chemical, as would any plant epistemology?
What an honor it is to hear from the second generation of process theologians and philosophers now in their late 80s and 90s still able to share their journey with us of the third and fourth generations. The Cobb Institute, as well as many other process organizations and websites like Relevancy22, have been dissecting and weaving together their dialogues, discussions, books, journals, and podcasts over the years so that they are not lost to history, and quite open for exploration and discovery by future generations of process Whiteheadians.
Do take advantage of these living souls in their late years. It is with great honor that these several process theologians continue to share their personal journeys into the realms of the biological, quantum and psychological/sociological sciences.
Lastly, thank you to all those in the process community who have been willing to make time and effort to share their separate process insights from their respective disciplines! Each thought, each soul, helps create depth to a very complex philosophy of cosmology.
As introduction to these series, earlier this past summer the Cobb Institute began an 8-part series discussing and distinguishing substantive philosophies and sciences from those of the process variety. Hosted by Matt Segall, John Cobb, and Tim Eastman each explore Eastman's book written in December 2020 on untying the Gordian Knot of physics. Enjoy.
R.E. Slater
October 31, 2021
Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context
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 - (1) 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, (2) 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, (3) 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, (4) 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.
* * * * * * * * *
The Gordian Knot is an intractable problem (untying an impossibly tangled knot) solved easily by finding an approach to the problem that renders the perceived constraints of the problem moot ("cutting the Gordian knot"). - Wikipedia
In this session Tim Eastman provides an summary of the fourth chapter, after which Alex Gomez-Marin, George Lucas, and Anderson Weekes offer a response.
This series of conversations is provided by the Cobb Institute. Please consider supporting this program and others like it by giving: https://cobb.institute/donate/
CHAT TEXT
00:19:06 Gary Herstein: We need to know where to RSVP.
00:19:42 Weston McMillan: Good morning all - good to see you all - I’ll be joining video in about 30-40 min
00:20:48 Richard Livingston / Cobb Institute: Gary, I will send email reminders to everyone with the links to RSVP. But the main link is always: https://cobb.institute/events/
00:48:25 Gary Herstein: Obviously Randy and myself had a few words to say about reducing Whitehead's metaphysics to QM.
00:50:03 Lynn De Jonghe: I wonder if Whitehead “abandoned” physics for biology or expanded his vision to include biological processes.
00:51:22 Matt Segall: Seems more like Whitehead extended the understanding of organisms as self-organizing to the rest of Nature (just as Schelling had done before him)
00:52:01 Matt Segall: Robert Rosen makes an even more rigorous case for this sort of extension (biology as more generic than physics, etc.)
00:52:38 Jude Jones: I agree Matt; perhaps the replacement or abandonment is really a reversal: biology is the more comprehensive model, rather than physics
00:53:45 Jude Jones: Precisely because it manifests the activity of com-prehending in the most evident way (i.e. concrescence)
00:54:10 Lynn De Jonghe: Perhaps Tim’s work should be described as a “theory of everything and its possibilities.”
00:54:32 Jude Jones: A Theory of Everything & Everything Else?
00:56:02 Gary Herstein: It is worth recalling that Whitehead came up not only before GR and QM, but before the atomic theory itself. The major early influence on his thinking was Clerk-Maxwell's electromagnetic *field* theory. A field is a pretty holistic way of approaching matters, and lends itself fairly naturally to that kind of holism we call "organic."
00:56:43 Timothy Eastman: I agree with Gary’s point here - thanks Gary!
00:57:12 Gary Herstein: 👍
01:00:43 Ben Snyder: If I recall correctly, when Whitehead was working on something more like a philosophical underpinning for physics earlier in his philosophy, he was already aware he was engaged in only a limited project that in some sense bracketed mind and left questions out, so I'd think he was already aware there was a wider framework that wouldn't necessarily be based on physics, though maybe not that it would be the kind of panbiologism he came to. So I'm not sure he abandoned or reversed a position so much as fleshed it out.
01:03:43 Jude Jones: But Ben, wasn’t part of that work an intense awareness that the act of conception had to be accounted for in understanding the physical world, hence there was an implicit presence of concern for mind?
01:04:49 Matt Segall: Agreed, Ben. I’m reminded of a comment he makes in “Function of Reason” about reversing the typical mode of explanation in science in light of the cosmic extent of evolution. Why explain the later more complex forms by reduction to the earlier less complex forms? Why not reverse the order, looking at e.g. life and mind to see how they amplify aspects of the physical that would otherwise slip our notice?
01:07:31 George Lucas: Well put observations, Matt, Jude, Ben and Gary. The Hersein/Auxier book, itself quite challenging, does a superb job of developing these points in terms of the quantum of explanation.
01:12:58 Ben Snyder: Jude, I had in mind Whitehead's claim in Concept of Nature that he was limiting himself to nature as what is disclosed in sense-perception and leaving to metaphysics the synthesis of knower and known. There may be other context and history to Whitehead's thought I'm leaving out though.
01:16:38 Jude Jones: Fair enough Ben, but the perspectivalism that already starts to emerge in that context prefigures things that the full metaphysics of knower and known will play out
01:19:04 Ben Snyder: I agree, it already has strong implications for his later metaphysics
01:21:37 Matt Segall: it’s hard to read “Concept of Nature” and not be left with the impression that Whitehead had every intention of blowing up the powder keg he carefully avoided for the purposes of scientific epistemology. You can definitely see he was already on his way to bringing mind back into nature in a more generic metaphysical scheme. But he wanted to make sure the special sciences were unburdened by such metaphysics (and make sure that philosophy was unburdened by confused bifurcated scientism!)
01:22:42 Ben Snyder: On the point of comparing Whitehead and Kant as Anderson brought up: there's a solid logical parallel to Whitehead's physical prehensions and Kant's intuitions too, in that they provide the indexical reference (for Whitehead, the "indicative feeling" of the "logical subject") in the propositional content of a judgment. The conceptual pole that provides the predication is, as the subjective aim, perhaps in some ways similar in function to Kant's synthetic unity of apperception.
01:25:18 Matt Segall: I like that comparison, Ben. Though despite his critique of Descartes substantial subject, Kant still seems to imply that the transcendental ego is there in advance, a priori to experience; whereas I read Whitehead as offering a picture of subjectivity as emergent from its feelings.
01:28:32 Ben Snyder: I think the subject exists first as its initial aim (i.e., its feeling of God's proposition for it) which then partially constitutes what feelings it will have (and then from there the subjective aim is, at least in some instances, further freely developed).
01:28:33 Philip: Alex asked how description of fruitfly would be different than a rock. One difference is that a fruitfly has an (individual( agenda it tries to impose on the physical world. Why is there no discussion of the agenda of one that experiences and thus participates in the coming into being of form?
01:28:58 George Lucas: Famously, "For Kant, the World emerges from the (synthesis of experiences of the transcendental) Subject, while for the Phil of Organism, the subject emerges from the (flux of experience which IS) the World."
01:31:18 George Strawn: Could Tim say a little more about the relation between emergence and causation
01:31:34 Jude Jones: The future evokes itself into being as provoked by the actualized past
01:33:32 Jude Jones: I agree with Thandeka—the future is the creative realization of what has become possibly actualized because it was not actualized in the past—the energy of creative, intensive vibration
01:35:01 Jude Jones: But new DIVISIONS of the past are possible, and the ground of possible novelty
01:35:14 Matt Segall: Whitehead talks about this in terms of an occasion’s hybrid prehension of God’s initial aim, I think? The past is totalized in each occasion but also includes the potential of the divine ideal yet to be realized. ?
01:35:46 Jude Jones: The present is the past evoking the future through it
01:37:21 Farzad Mahootian: Wonderful. Thank you, Thandeka! Assimilate, determine, i.e., you must and do REFRAME the past. The therapeutic consciousness is a good model for this.
01:39:42 Lynn De Jonghe: Years ago Imre Lakatos in “Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge described a process in which anomalous information leads to rexesmanination of “known understanding” and finding lacunae and then asking new questions based on these gaps. I believe Thandeka has described a similar process.
01:41:19 Farzad Mahootian: Agreeing also with Jude. I think of it as affirming (rendering positive, and making ”visible”) old negative pretensions.
01:41:30 Kevin Clark: Could we get Tim's response to all this via UGK?
01:41:44 Monica DeRaspe-Bolles: He said, "Becoming happens because potentiality is a real force... I impending future pressing in."
01:42:39 Ben Snyder: I think Matt was right with one of his suggestions, within Whitehead's scheme it's God's primordial nature that allows potentiality beyond the determinacy of the actual world to be real. All novelty in forms of definiteness beyond the conformal physical prehensions of the actual world occurs through conceptual prehensions of eternal objects derived from the initial prehension of God.
01:44:05 Matt Segall: Thanks, Ben. If the primordial nature of God is a “fiction,” then so are the rest of Whitehead’s categories!
01:44:57 Matt Segall: Of course it could be possible, in some alternative scheme, to account for what Thandeka is saying without a God function. But in Whitehead’s scheme, this is the role of God’s primordial nature
01:45:12 Jude Jones: I see the consequent nature as the more “fictional”. Primordial is a necessary posit for the logic of possibility, or something like it
01:45:18 Ben Snyder: Yes, and I suppose they inevitably are a fiction to some extent, which he would've been comfortable admitting. Just hopefully not entirely haha
01:45:23 Jeroen (Jerome) van Dijk: Question: Does the distinction between the Boolean and the non-Boolean (between actuality and potentiality) perhaps impose the language of actuality to what we think of as the realm of potentiality? Could there be a risk of 'historical inversion' between the actual and the potential? A historical inversion in that we may presuppose the alphabet of expression that relates to 'the Actual' as being applicable to a prior realm of potentiality as well?
01:53:27 Kevin Clark: Adjointness: <=>
01:57:59 Matt Segall: I wonder if Jerome’s question has something to do with the difference between Possibility and Potentiality. The latter has an essential relation to Actuality, while the former is untouched by the actual and so cannot be accessed without immediately collapsing its purity. Is this getting close, Jerome?
02:00:04 Jude Jones: Matt, got the link for that?
02:00:15 Jeroen (Jerome) van Dijk: You could be right with your observation, Matt. I need to look into the subtle difference between the concepts of possibility and potentiality. Thanks for noting!
02:00:56 Matt Segall: https://youtu.be/17jymDn0W6U
02:01:25 Matt Segall: That’s one example of the sort of “cosmic map” I’m talking about. The map is not the territory!
02:01:29 Gary Nelson: I think we often conceptualize the “past actual world” (PAW) as only physical stuff. If the PAW retains physical and mental poles, then It is plausible that we can affect our mental future by reinterpretation of our personal past.
02:01:39 Gary Herstein: Orders of Ten -- there was a book in the "Scientific American Library" many years ago.
02:02:00 Lynn De Jonghe: Eames “Powers of Ten” we now see one limited perspective
02:02:29 Gary Herstein: "Powers" not "orders"
02:03:54 Gary Nelson: Spatialization of the PAW assumes physical only.
02:05:05 George Lucas: Thanks to all for great questions and wonderful discussion, and to Tim and Matt for hosting a splendid discussion. Grateful to have been able to join in! Farewell for now,
02:05:11 Farzad Mahootian: Powers of Ten view of cosmos is incomplete, not false… unless it claims completeness. PS: truth and falsity as tools are highly over-rated ;)
02:05:22 Anderson Weekes: Thandeka: Is this your point? The possibility of totalizing the past as the set of all the things I experience, although this was in some sense already a possibility in the past (as a future event), is itself the possibility that transcends the past and changes what possible?
02:06:29 Lynn De Jonghe: Perhaps we do not need a new symbol but a realization and respect for the limitations of all symbols and metaphors, “Metaphors do not run on all fours!”
02:06:46 Gary Nelson: I think of the PAW as the habits of the organic universe.
02:09:00 Jude Jones: Anderson, I like that as an abstract description, curious what Thandeka will say. What needs to be added to the description is the active, feeling/affective dimension of it
02:09:52 Jude Jones: One difference between a fruitfly and a rock is that a fruit fly dies
02:10:12 Farzad Mahootian: “Strategies” of a fruit fly = Whiteheadian Propositions of a fruit fly ?
02:11:06 Jude Jones: The experience that ticks have are fascinating to consider
02:12:58 Jude Jones: Is life anything besides constant transformation? Memory is inherently reconstructive
02:12:58 Farzad Mahootian: Tick: I suck, mostly.
02:14:14 Anderson Weekes: Gary: Do we want to say there were possibilities in the past that we were not aware of, or that the possibilities of the past changed after the fact?
