In each fleeting moment,
all things touch,
alive with the pulse of experience,
woven in a web of becoming.
- re slater
Each spark of feeling,
from stone to star,
joins the dance of the world—
we are all in relationship
from stone to star,
joins the dance of the world—
we are all in relationship
from atomic force to sentient being.
- re slater
In the heart of process,
each is both subject and object,
bound in a web of shared experience,
becoming, always becoming....
each is both subject and object,
bound in a web of shared experience,
becoming, always becoming....
- re slater
[All brackets are mine] - re slater
Panexperientialist theologies begin with the idea that experience is fundamental to the whole of things. Long before there was life on earth, and before the evolution of the earth itself, there was something like experience. The entire ongoing of the evolution of the cosmic universe is an evolution of experience. Experience is not consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent property just as time is [e.g., cosmic space creates time, thus making of time an emergent property of physical space].
Some experience is conscious but much not. Experience is the activity of "prehending something other" and being influenced by what is prehended. This page outlines one version of a panexperientialist theology rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Others can likewise be developed: indigenous theologies, Hindu theologies, Buddhist theologies, Jewish theologies, Muslim theologies, and Christian theologies. All would begin with the shared idea that experience is everywhere and that the universe itself is, in some deep sense, a "living cosmos" that is new at every moment.
- Jay McDaniel
The universe hums with feeling,
from the smallest atom to the deepest soul,
experiencing, creating, in
from the smallest atom to the deepest soul,
experiencing, creating, in
endless flows of connection.
- re slater
All things feel,
all things are touched,
all worlds unfold in the
all things are touched,
all worlds unfold in the
meeting of things,
hearts and minds.
- re slater
In every pulse of time,
there is a meeting of souls,
as all things arise together -
there is a meeting of souls,
as all things arise together -
in symphonies of shared
experience.
- re slater
Panexperiential Theology
A Living Cosmos and the
Perpetual Newness of God
by Jay McDaniel
In the flow of process,
we are neither fixed nor free,
but woven in the fabric of the now,
experiencing each other’s becoming.
we are neither fixed nor free,
but woven in the fabric of the now,
experiencing each other’s becoming.
- re slater
What is Panexperientialism?
Panexperientialism is the idea that "experience" is not confined to human consciousness but extends throughout the depths of matter and into the vast reaches of the galaxies. Understood in this way, "experience" need not involve consciousness as in clear perception (e.g. visual awareness). Nor need it involve intellectual awareness as in the conscious reflection on ideas, memories, or goals. Experience can be non-conscious and non-intellectual but still be "experience." It is the activity of feeling or "prehending" something other and being influenced by it in some way. Wherever energetic transactions occur between entities—whether among living cells, atomic events, or stellar processes—experience is present, as it is, of course, in human beings and other animals, serving as the connective tissue between entities. It carries an element of interiority or "subjective immediacy," suggesting that something akin to subjectivity exists universally. Consequently, the objective world we see, hear, and touch is an expression of this pervasive subjectivity. The objective world, then, is an objectification of subjective experience.
One value of this way of looking at things is that it encourages us to live with respect and care for the whole of the material world, both biological and trans-biological. Another is that it invites us to imagine sacrality itself as part of, not apart from, a panexperiential world.
Entire theological frameworks--panexperientialist theologies—can be constructed on this foundation. They begin with the idea that experience is fundamental, not simply to human life but to the whole of things. This page outlines one version of a panexperientialist theology rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Others can likewise be developed: indigenous theologies, Hindu theologies, Buddhist theologies, Jewish theologies, Muslim theologies, and Christian theologies. All would begin with the shared idea that the universe, one way or another, is alive with subjective immediacy, valuable in its own right.
Outline of a Whiteheadian Approach
Cosmic Evolution and the Emergence of Life
The universe, approximately 14 billion years old, has evolved through stars, galaxies, and planets, eventually giving rise to life on Earth. It is still evolving. Conventional vs. Panexperiential Views of Experience
A common view holds that early cosmic processes were devoid of experience, with subjective awareness emerging only later with biological life. Whitehead offers a different perspective, suggesting that experience—however primitive—has been present from the universe’s beginning.
Energy as Feeling
For Whitehead, energy and feeling are inseparable; even subatomic events involve basic forms of attraction, repulsion, and responsiveness. Every transfer of energy involves not just physical force but also a rudimentary kind of subjective experience, or "prehension."
Quantum Events and Human Experience
Whitehead suggests a continuity between quantum events and human experiences, where both involve moments of responsiveness without requiring self-awareness. Human experience consists mostly of preconscious sensations, emotions, and bodily awareness—similar in essence to quantum interactions.
Spontaneity and Self-Creativity
Neither quantum events nor human experiences are entirely determined by the past; each involves spontaneity and creativity. Whitehead describes this as “self-creativity,” where unfulfilled possibilities shape the present and help guide it toward novel outcomes.
Prehension as Felt Connections
Prehension is the process by which events integrate past influences and potential futures into each unfolding moment. This process involves more than information transfer—it includes a felt connection with possibilities, guiding each moment toward satisfaction and fulfillment.
Seeking Intensity through Contrasts
Both quantum events and human experiences seek intensity, achieved through the integration of contrasting elements. This contrast fosters novelty and depth in human emotions and in cosmic processes, enriching the creative advance of the universe.
Inanimate Objects and Prehending Events
Even seemingly inanimate objects, like rocks, consist of prehending events at the quantum level, though they lack spontaneity and self-organization. Whitehead distinguishes between mechanical unities (e.g., rocks) and organic unities, where interactions create emergent complexity and self-organization.
Value as Intrinsic to the Universe
Experience inherently carries value, with each moment seeking satisfaction and self-enjoyment. Value exists in the act of becoming itself, independent of consciousness, and is woven into the evolving universe from the very beginning.
The Universe as a Creative Advance into Novelty At the heart of Whitehead’s process philosophy is the idea that the universe is a continual creative advance into novelty. Reality consists of moments of experience that, through their spontaneous self-creativity, add something new to the unfolding process of time. Creativity, in this view, is not merely a property of particular beings but the ultimate reality underlying all things. It is through this ceaseless creativity that both order and novelty emerge in every moment of the universe. This advance into novelty makes life unpredictable, opening space for innovation and transformation at every level—from quantum events to human choices.
God as the Lure of Beauty
God participates in the unfolding cosmos by offering potentialities—called "eternal objects"—that guide events toward beauty and fulfillment. As both a source of new possibilities and a receptive presence for all experiences, God embodies a dynamic relationship with the universe, inviting every moment to contribute to the evolving harmony of creation.
The Perpetual Newness of God. God is evolving is that new events that happen in the universe, given its creative advance into novelty, add contents to the life of God that not exist to be felt or known theretofore; and in the sense that these new events add new potentials to God, to lure the universe and to enjoy contrasts, that did not exist theretofore, even for God.
Further Discussion
The Universe as a Process of Becoming
We are told that the universe as we know it is approximately 14 billion years old. It has been evolving ever since—into stars, galaxies, planets, moons, and, at least on our planet (and probably elsewhere), what we call life. "Life" has many definitions, but for now, let us assume that to be alive is to possess something like feeling or experience.
It is tempting to believe that, before a certain stage in cosmic evolution, there was no experience at all—no interiority, no emotion, no prehending, no attraction or repulsion, no feeling. According to this view, the early universe consisted solely of energy and force transfers, devoid of any subjective dimension. Consciousness and experience would have emerged only later, perhaps with the advent of biological complexity. Until that point, the universe would have been a realm of purely physical interactions, lacking any trace of interiority or feeling.
The Whiteheadian Alternative: Energy = Feeling
Alfred North Whitehead offers a radically different view. He proposes that what we call "energy" at the subatomic level is not distinct from experience but is itself a primitive form of feeling. Energy, in this view, is not merely an objective force exchanged between particles—it is a form of prehension. Wherever there is energy, there is some degree of feeling, however rudimentary. The interactions of subatomic particles are not devoid of experience but involve basic forms of attraction, repulsion, and responsiveness. Energy transfers, therefore, are not merely physical events but also moments of subjective experience—simple, unconscious feelings, or "prehensions."
This perspective suggests that the universe has always contained an element of subjectivity—an interior dimension present from its earliest moments. Prehension did not emerge with life; it has been present all along, shaping the evolution of the cosmos at every level. Energy and feeling, as Whitehead sees it, are inseparable aspects of the same process of becoming.
Quantum Events and Human Experience
If this panexperiential view is correct, it implies that quantum events—occurring deep within atoms just after the Big Bang—are of the same kind as moments of human experience. Both, in their way, are alive.
What connects a moment of human experience to a quantum event? Neither is conscious in the traditional sense. They do not involve perceiving objects with the clarity of human sight, nor do they engage in self-reflection. Quantum events, like most of our everyday experiences, lack conscious perception or reflective awareness. Even when we are awake, moments of clear perception are rare. Much of our experience consists of bodily sensations, emotions, desires, and preconscious memories.
To grasp the connection between quantum events and human experiences, we need to move beyond conventional ideas of consciousness. Neither requires self-awareness or the sense of being distinct from the world. Both unfold in response to what came before, shaped by prior influences. Whitehead describes this responsiveness as experience in the mode of causal efficacy.
Spontaneity and Self-Creativity
Yet, neither quantum events nor human experiences are fully determined by the past. There is always an element of spontaneity—what Whitehead calls self-creativity. In both cases, experience arises from the intersection of past influences and spontaneous aliveness. Unfulfilled possibilities from the future also shape the present, acting as attractors, much like probabilities in quantum theory, drawing events toward particular outcomes.
Prehension and Subjectivity
Whitehead introduces the concept of prehension to describe how events—whether human or quantum—incorporate past influences and future possibilities. Prehension is not a conscious process but a way of feeling both what has been and what could be. It integrates the past and potential futures into each unfolding moment.
Prehension involves more than just information transfer; it entails a felt connection. Both quantum events and human experiences respond to relevant past influences and potential futures. These potentials serve as lures or subjective aims, guiding events toward certain outcomes.
Every experience, whether human or quantum, contains what Whitehead calls subjective immediacy: an inner aliveness unique to the present moment. Both human experiences and quantum events are moments of experience—or actual occasions—each with its own subjective immediacy. There is an ontological continuity between them: both involve prehension, and both seek some form of satisfaction in the process of becoming.
The Aim Toward Intensity and the Role of Contrast
What do quantum events and human experiences seek? According to Whitehead, they seek intensity—or, more precisely, satisfying intensity. Both aim to achieve a kind of fulfillment unique to their moment. This pursuit introduces novelty into the world, contributing to the ongoing creative advance of the cosmos.
Contrast plays a key role in generating intensity. In human experience, contrasting emotions or perspectives deepen awareness and amplify meaning. Similarly, quantum events achieve intensity by integrating past influences with unrealized future possibilities. Without contrast, experience would lack the tension necessary to generate novelty and richness.
In human life, this felt preference for certain influences over others manifests as emotions. Even at the quantum level, Whitehead suggests that events have subjective forms—a rudimentary form of emotion or responsiveness. Emotions, contrasts, and prehensions are not exclusive to humans but are present throughout the cosmos. Subjective forms, the "clothing" of prehensions, embody the contrasts that give rise to intensity.
What About Rocks?
Some objects—like rocks—seem devoid of agency. It may seem odd to suggest that rocks are alive in any meaningful way. Whitehead acknowledges this intuition, explaining that rocks are not themselves prehending realities but aggregates of prehending events. These aggregates, or nexuses, are complex groupings of countless events where prehension occurs at the quantum level.
Whitehead distinguishes between mechanical and organic unities. Rocks, as aggregates, are mechanical wholes—the sum of their parts, lacking spontaneity and self-organization. In contrast, organic wholes have emergent unities, where the interaction of parts creates something more than their sum.
It’s also important to note that matter takes many forms—not just solid objects like rocks. Matter can exist as liquids, gases, plasmas, and other dynamic states. Some forms, like fluids, contain seeds of self-organizing creativity absent in solids. Whitehead’s view invites us to move beyond the idea of matter as static, recognizing that all matter participates in processes of becoming.
Value in the Universe
Our universe consists of experiential moments and the aggregates (nexuses or societies) they form. But what about value? Is value inherent in the universe?
For Whitehead, the answer is yes. Value resides in the act of experiencing itself—in the self-enjoyment that arises from each moment of becoming. Every momentary experience seeks satisfaction, and this pursuit of value is intrinsic to its being. The universe, in evolving, is also evolving in value—developing capacities for feeling, enjoyment, and satisfaction.
Importantly, value does not depend on consciousness. Experience has been present in the universe from the beginning, while consciousness emerged later. Value precedes consciousness and is woven into the fabric of existence.
God, Beauty, and Eternal Objects
At the heart of the universe is God—understood as the complex unity of the cosmos, a living whole with a life of its own. God is not separate from the unfolding process of becoming but actively participates in it, luring the universe toward heightened forms of value wherever possible. God offers possibilities that align with each moment’s circumstances, always seeking beauty in the form of harmonious intensity.
Integral to this process are eternal objects—timeless potentialities that exist within the mind of God. These eternal objects are not merely abstract possibilities; they represent forms of value, beauty, and meaning that are always available to the universe. However, they are only made relevant "in due season"—that is, they become available to particular events when conditions align, guiding the universe toward new possibilities. These eternal objects act as divine lures, drawing creation toward more profound expressions of harmony, novelty, and satisfaction.
Beauty
If we see one word to name the subjective aim of the the living whole of the universe, of God, it might be Beauty.
Beauty, in this sense, is more than aesthetic pleasure—it is the harmonious integration of contrasting elements into satisfying forms of intensity. Every moment of beauty achieved in the universe is retained within the ongoing life of God, who serves as an empathic receptacle for all that happens. God holds the joys and sorrows of every occasion, weaving them into a larger pattern of meaning and value.
Two forms of Beauty that are especially important in human life, and perhaps in other forms as well, are Truth and Goodness. Truth is not an object to be attained, It is a name for the act of experiencing and responding to the world in a way that is responsive to the way the world truly is. Truth is the activity of seeking rapport, or correspondence, with how things stand, however they stand. Goodness is a name for seeking to foster the well-being of life. One ultimate expression of Goodness, thus understood, is Love.
This dynamic relationship between God and the the living cosmos is not coercive but persuasive. God offers possibilities—lures toward beauty—but their realization depends on the cooperation of each moment and its circumstances. As the universe unfolds, beauty emerges wherever contrasting elements are synthesized into enriching forms of intensity, contributing to the greater whole.
God, as both the source of eternal potentialities and the receptive heart of all experience, embodies a dual role: offering the world new possibilities while receiving and preserving each moment of experience. In this way, the universe is both a creative adventure and a profound act of participation in divine beauty. Every experience, no matter how small or fleeting, contributes to the ongoing evolution of beauty and value within the life of God.
Whitehead's Metaphysics
Actual Entities
An actual entity is a moment of concrescence—a moment of experience in which the many entities of the past actual world are felt and gathered into the unity of a subjective whole. In each actual entity, "the many become one, and are increased by one." This gathering includes the self-creativity and self-enjoyment of the entity, as it unifies influences from the past and brings forth something new. Actual entities are multiple and thus different from one another. Each entity arises with its own distinct characteristics, shaped by its unique prehensions and subjective forms. Once completed, an actual entity perishes as a subjective experience but continues to exist objectively, contributing to future moments of experience. This process exemplifies the dynamic nature of reality—each actual entity participates in the ongoing creative advance of the universe by transforming the past into novelty.
Prehensions
Prehensions refer to the ways actual entities relate to and "take account of" one another. This concept captures how an entity feels or grasps another entity—not conceptually, but experientially. Prehensions are the building blocks of relationships, with each actual entity prehending others through positive (inclusive) or negative (exclusive) feelings. These prehensive relations allow all things to participate in one another’s becoming, embodying the interconnectedness of all entities.
Nexus (or Nexūs)
A nexus is a network of actual entities related through shared prehensions, forming structured webs of interconnected experiences. Some nexūs take on enduring forms called societies, where occasions of experience inherit common characteristics from one another, creating patterns of continuity.
Corpuscular societies: These consist of relatively stable entities, such as atoms or molecules, which persist across time by maintaining coherence.
Personally ordered societies: These are sequences of experiences that form personal identities, such as the stream of consciousness that constitutes a person’s life. Each occasion builds on its predecessors, creating personal continuity and coherence over time.
Nexūs and societies reveal how individual occasions of experience participate in larger patterns of becoming, connecting everything from microscopic particles to human lives in an ongoing process of transformation.
Subjective Forms
Subjective forms refer to the emotional or qualitative tone that shapes how an entity experiences the world. These forms influence how prehensions are integrated, giving each experience a unique emotional quality. For example, one person might feel rain as melancholic, while another experiences it as refreshing. Subjective forms guide how entities respond to and integrate the influences they prehend, adding emotional depth to experience.
Eternal Objects
Eternal objects are pure potentials—abstract qualities or possibilities that actual entities can take up in their becoming. They are not confined to any specific event but exist as timeless potentials. For example, the quality "redness" is an eternal object that can manifest across different instances and contexts. Eternal objects provide the abstract building blocks that influence the unique character of each experience.
Propositions
Propositions are lures for feeling—imaginative suggestions that invite actual entities to explore certain possibilities. They function as speculative invitations, guiding the creative process by proposing how things might be. A proposition is not merely a factual statement but a suggestion for novelty and change. For example, an artist may consider a proposition that offers a new way to combine colors. Propositions help entities integrate new potentials, influencing both artistic creation and practical problem-solving.
Multiplicities
Multiplicities are diverse entities that exist in disjunction from one another. They may consist of actualities (such as actual entities) or potentialities (such as eternal objects). As truly distinct, multiplicities are not yet unified into the togetherness of an actual occasion of experience. A particular moment of experience (or actual entity) gathers these disparate elements into unity, but outside such unification, the universe remains a multiplicity. In this sense, multiplicities represent the richness of possibilities that are yet to be integrated.
Contrasts
Contrasts refer to patterns of difference or opposition that are either harmonized or remain in tension within experiences. These contrasts give shape and complexity to reality by bringing together opposing elements. For example, a melody is enriched by contrasts between high and low notes, and a life story is enriched by the interplay of joy and sorrow. Contrasts are essential to the depth and texture of experience, embodying both harmony and tension within each moment.
Creativity
Creativity is the “ultimate of ultimates,” the underlying activity expressed in all actualities. It manifests as the self-creativity of each actual entity through concrescence—the integration of many influences into a unified moment of experience. This process also involves transition, where the subjective immediacy of an entity perishes but lives on as objectively immortal in the experiences of future entities. Creativity is the driving force behind the novelty in the universe, enabling the ongoing process of becoming through which the past transforms into something new.
God
God encompasses three aspects, offering a relational and evolving presence in the universe:
- Primordial Nature:
- This is God's conceptual aspect, holding all eternal objects as pure possibilities. It represents the timeless realm of potentiality, offering the raw materials from which new experiences emerge.
- Consequent Nature:
- This is God’s empathic reception of all that happens, integrating every experience into the divine life. God feels the world, weaving all joys and sufferings into a coherent whole, continuously expanding in response to the world's becoming. God’s consequent nature ensures that no moment of experience is ever lost, as every event contributes to the unfolding divine reality.
- Superjective Nature:
- This is God's influence on the world, luring creatures toward new possibilities. The superjective nature represents the way God inspires and persuades actual entities toward greater beauty, truth, and harmony, without coercion. God’s power lies not in domination but in invitation—offering new possibilities and guiding the world toward creative advance.
