R.E. Slater - The Wheel or the Anvil?

"Time and a Fox Turning the Wheel of Fortune with People of all Ranks to the Right" (c.1526)

Woodcut by Albrecht Dürer  (c.1471–1528)

The Wheel of Time
by R.E. Slater

The Wheel of Time turns,
as ages come and pass,
each leaving memories,
birthing legends long pass.

Legends fade to myths,
till myths were long forgot,
in Ages of long ago,
becoming legends once again.

R.E. Slater
June 19, 2021; rev August 9, 2021

*adapted fr. Robert Jordan

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved

poetry link

The Wheel or the Anvil?

by R.E. Slater

History has been shown

turning as a fated Wheel

when looking backwards,

steadily churning forwards,

slipping and grinding,

upwards or downwards,

on rising helical axial.

The Anvil too has been

a hardened, useful tool,
smashing and grinding,
unmade and made,
till all is remade
the reflecting pools
of one's Creator.

Myself, I wish to grow

life as it becomes, natural-like,
taking what is, or isn't,
forming what could be
from what can be, raising

what lies hidden within,
blazing passion's beauty.

R.E. Slater

June 19, 2021; rev August 9, 2021

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications

all rights reserved

To Understand Process is First to

Understand Processual Processes

by R.E. Slater

I know these past few months have seemed like a Hodgepodge of topics. I've covered Christian politics, LBTGQ, Feminism, BLM, Christian Humanism (=Social Justice), Ecological Civilizations, Evolution and Divine Love, Life in a Secular Age, Process Christianity and Religion (such as Islam), Quantum Physics, Open Theism, Relational Theism, Process Philosophy, Process Theology, Lent and Resurrection Sunday.

Needless to say we've covered a bit... but there's a reason I've been writing and posting so many diverse articles which I hope by now you may have discovered my reasons but if you haven't let me share them with you....

The What and Why of Processual Process Philosophy

Firstly, the study of process philosophy and theology is composed of many parts. These parts are not simply in the religious area... certainly it affects the spiritual life of the interior, one's faith and beliefs... but even as spirituality is everywhere and not simply within a person we must then offer to discuss society at large, how it cross-sects with itself and nature, and nature with living, and the many disciplines of science, arts, and the humanities. Spiritual is everywhere when thought of in the sense of a God and creation in process to itself. And if one is to be able to apprehend the orthology of process philosophy then one needs to be able to see it in all the world and not simply think of it in parochial terms of archaic phenomenological or existential expressionism.

Thus I posted quite a few articles on evolution and quantum physics to detail the naturalistic flow and movement of mass interacting with space and time. The psychedelic mushroom philosopher, Terrence McKenna, said it thusly (as heard through mine ears):

"...History grows through a nexus of completion. These nexi grow [and weave] themselves [together] towards a concrescence of extremely high novelty in whatever medium they are embedded within. This then shows that any localized state of high complexity can - and will - move through all lower orders of mediums while 

exerting a kind of attraction to, or from, itself.... That is, "as gravity draws us through space" so "time draws us through [relational] concrescence." Which is why things become more and more complex, [expressed] in faster and faster [historic cycles]...." 

 

The Foundation of Terence McKenna's Ideas -

Alfred North Whiteheads Concrescence and Process

From his talk entitled "The World and its Double"

Processual Process as Foundation

Without understanding the process-foundation of unique (or novel) elemental constructs in the universe we would have no us, no stars, no Earth. And I think the quantum sciences in particular show the exquisite flow of processes through time in space in which we live, and move, and have our being.

Another example can be found within the flow of biology (cf. Everything Flows) describing the processual nature of biologic life. We may see the macro worlds of nature but deep within its quantum cellular matrices are its elementals constructs which are never static, ever flowing and in relational rhythm with one other.

Our bodies are not merely composed of flesh and blood but deep within the body's organic substructures of cells can be found the quantum physics of its biology bound together in a macro entity we call our bodies constituting who we are and how we function. As humans, we flow as as the world of creation flows. We are no less, nor no more, than the cosmos around us... each flowing together, interacting with one another, all making us the "Us" which we know and perhaps love.

As such, Process Philosophy states that all events - whether biological, geological, or astronomical - are formed of foundational elementals compiled together and affecting one another from first to last in the cosmic batter of force, mass, and energy. That we live in a panexistential, panpsychic cosmos of "being and becoming". Never at rest. Always in motion. Always pulling together and pulling apart. It is the nature of life to be in chaos and randomized disorder.

And it is for this reason why Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism becomes so profound as the comic interplay of life moves through time and space in harmony - or in disharmony  - with itself. Either creating wellbeing and value or destroying the essence of the same. Ancient and modernized Asian philosophies and religious expressions have indicated the same in terms of  cosmopsychological metaphysics expressed in natural and human agency seeking to find personal or individuated harmony, balance, or rhythm. Whitehead calls these elementals as individuating prehending and concrescing moments of intake and outtake against all which is met through the restrictive or enhancing mediums we move through.

How Does Process Philosophy Affect Christianity?

Now I say all this so that when we turn our minds to the bible and Christian theology (as have other world philosophies and religions have sought to do) we might begin thinking in terms of the divine-ever-evolving-creational moments of renewal, redemption, restoration, or resurrection.

Whenever God speaks, or moves, or creates actuality in the experience of the cosmos God is always doing so through His own Being and Essence which is essential a formed and forming processual ontological sense of spiritual evolving. Always in growth. Always in interaction with creation (as well as the Divine Self). And always forming and reforming in response to the agency fill world of creation granted by Divine Love to be and become.

God then is a processual Being. Not a far off, distant and transcendent sort of uncaring, diffident (shy), or holier-than-thou sort of Being. But a Divine Being in fullest pronounced interaction to the very creation S/He or TransGod has created. God is the Wholly Other who is Wholly embedded and enmeshed within the very creation begun by the offerings of His heart's songs to become, and then become again and again and again, ever and always. Thus creation can be described as inherently evolutionary from its very roots to its many possible worlds of being and becoming. Neither God, nor His creation, is ever limited.

So when Christians speak of God or of God's divine activity or of Jesus or of the Christian life of love and humanitarian outreach, we must thank in process terms of what this meant and means to our beliefs about Theology Proper, Christology, Theodicy (the problem of evil), Creation, Harmatology, Pneumatology, Ecclesiology, Bibliology, or even Eschatology. The entirety of Christian theology and outlook now changes. No longer held in static thoughts of eternal objects, places, and permanence, but in dynamic envisioning of the phenomenological and existential as real and practical when reflecting movement, flow, rhythm, and balance.

A Faith Conclusion

One's view of the Bible tends to structure one's thoughts about God and salvation, church and testimony, evangelical witness and faith expression. If God, heaven, church, love are simply stated in terms of static eternal objects such as expressed by Plato in ancient Greek society; or in terms of philosophical argument and logic as Aristotle did; or as each were then integrated by Aquinas into Catholic Thomistic thought and idiom; then we will miss the idea of processual creational processes uniquely embedding themselves into all of life, its evolving relationships, and yearning for love and wellbeing within a world of healing or harming agency.

The world of divine processes are not static. They do not consist as representations of eternal objects. But as present moments of events flowing, incorporating, building, growing, rejecting, removing, etc, lurching chaotically forward seeking a kind of divine resting place to be what it yearns and become what it is driven by. Divine creational presence of God and world are intermeshed transactions of synchronous moments reaching forward with the divine breath inhaling and exhaling momentary states of love and duty, letting go and putting on (ahem, the old man and new man, not the battle armor of sin and evil, but the guarding armor of love, mercy and forgiveness).

When we read of Christian biblical or systematic theology in the bible let us learn to read it in terms of process thought rather than the classic traditional political economics of death, guilt, isolation, and division. Whether in the bible or in real life today, God is evolving with us in seeking out a Christ-based redemptive level of being which may become more thoroughly than it is at presence.

And like the divine, we are as much in process as God is, each relationally experiencing the universal world from it's differing attitudes of secular or religious understanding stirred within life's depths and resounce. God said so Himself when He said,

Romans 8:37 "...But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loves us. 38) For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39) nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

If this is what was meant when Paul spoke to the Romans then we may think of Christ's atoning work in life and death as a divinely lived salvation working its way throughout all creational experiences of life. That God who is both different and alike, Other and presently present, is ever moving over the waters of time and through His Spirit of Divine Breath is drawing, calling, bidding, seeking all moments to become one in God's Living Self. We each, along with everything and everyone else, are daily bathed in the baptismal waters of divine love and presence drawing processual agency towards spiritual life and liveliness.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

June 9, 2021

The Process Metaphysics of

Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947)

Jan 10, 2016

A short introduction to the process philosophy & process theology of Alfred North Whitehead (*1861, †1947), containing several photos and 4 speakers, describing some core hypotheses of Whitehead's metaphysics. The speakers are: John B. Cobb, David Ray Griffin, Charles Hartshorne and Rupert Sheldrake.

A History of Philosophy | 61 Whitehead's Process Philosophy

NOTE: There is an issue with this lecture - 

the video (but not the audio) goes out at

12:33 and doesn't resume until 23:24.

A History of Philosophy 62

Whitehead and Process Theology

Jun 16, 2015

A History of Philosophy 63

Whitehead's "Science and the Modern World"

Jun 16, 2015

Everything Flows - Towards a Processual Philosophy of Biology

Amazon Link

Everything Flows - Towards a Processual

Philosophy of Biology

No longer think in terms of things, objects, statism. Nope. Everything and everyone are in fluxx, flow, and states of dynamism. Not Plato. Nor Aristotle. But Whitehead, Whitehead, Whitehead.

The world of the large is made up of the world of the small constantly and forever in motion with one another. Thus Whitehead's descriptive term speaking to the metaphysical cosmology of the "Philosophy of Organism" where everything is connected to everything and all are in continual momentum of flow and change with the other.

R.E. Slater

June 8, 2021

In biological terms, we may now think of biology through Whitehead regarding the flow of biology from the world of the small to the world of the large. From neurons and quantum strings to fleshly bodies and biotic societies. Everything and everyone in fluxx and flow together with the other for good or for ill, moving steadily forward in space and time towards healing or harm.

R.E. Slater

June 8, 2021

[Authors Blurb]

This collection of essays explores the metaphysical thesis that the living world is not made up of substantial particles or things, as has often been assumed, but is rather constituted by processes. The biological domain is organised as an interdependent hierarchy of processes, which are stabilised and actively maintained at different timescales. Even entities that intuitively appear to be paradigms of things, such as organisms, are actually better understood as processes. Unlike previous attempts to articulate processual views of biology, which have tended to use Alfred North Whitehead’s panpsychist metaphysics as a foundation, this book takes a [Whiteheadian] naturalistic approach to metaphysics. It submits that the main motivations for replacing an ontology of substances with one of processes are to be found in the empirical findings of science.

Biology provides compelling reasons for thinking that the living realm is fundamentally dynamic, and that the existence of things is always conditional on the existence of processes. The phenomenon of life cries out for theories that prioritise processes over things, and it suggests that the central explanandum of biology is not change but rather stability, or more precisely, stability attained through constant change. This edited volume brings together philosophers of science and metaphysicians interested in exploring the consequences of a processual philosophy of biology. The contributors draw on an extremely wide range of biological case studies, and employ a process perspective to cast new light on a number of traditional philosophical problems, such as identity, persistence, and individuality.

ResearchGate - Available ebook/PDF - 

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322836323_Everything_Flows_Towards_a_Processual_Philosophy_of_Biology

PDF File - 

file:///C:/Users/HP%20Envy%20X360/Documents/Downloads/EverythingFlowsPublished.pdf

https://www.animeherald.com/2016/03/03/crunchyroll-adds-she-and-her-cat-everything-flows/

彼女と彼女の猫 -Everything Flows- PV

Feb 27, 2016

Discussions in Whitehead and Process - Jay McDaniel, Richard Tarnas & Matt Segall

A Few Thoughts on Astrology

(where I wish to clarify the beauty of a process cosmos)

R.E. Slater

The subject of astrology comes up now-and-again with process non-Christians - and sometimes with Christians themselves. As a Christian, I do not look to the stars for my guidance and counsel. I would like to say simplistically, if not naively, that it comes from God and His Spirit through God's counsel with my heart and mind and soul through Scriptures, the people I meet, and how-and-what I discern in my daily readings and prayer life, etc.

Now perhaps in this regard when "listening" to the external world of God's creation through the physical, humanitarian, anthropological, and social sciences; or in the studies of earth history, its ecology and environmental responses; or in the many religions of the world such as found inherent in the Native American spiritualisms I observe every so often; or in the Eastern Oriental, Islamic, and Jewish religions around the world; or even more broadly, in those astronomical sciences of astrophysics, quantum universes, and cosmological studies, etc; or even more broadly still, the resultant "energies" intermixing and radiating from the cosmic universe, which we might include as some form of "astral energies" pervading the "cosmic energy" of the universe which so many auras (astrologers, not astronomers) speak of.... Where we might think as pervasively as possible as to what it may mean to "listen" to the external world of God, without getting tripped up over our own inner feelings, subjectivities, superstitions, local folklores, cultural mysticisms, and so on.

I mention all these considerations to say that for myself, as I suspect for so many others, when we come to the "cosmic mysticisms" of the ancient Semitic, African, Central & South American, astrology cultures there is good reason to step back and take a deep, healthy breath of skepticism in regards to these traditions. In many ways the sciences and enlightenment eras have shown good reason to disbelieve these religious "attitudes" as aural guides to our lives. Many religionists of differing faiths would also say the same.

But due to my own personal subjectivity on the matter, I need to remind myself once again that as a process theologian, God's "energy" does always reverberate throughout the cosmic structure of creation in the sense that it endlessly seeks to transform all spaces towards life, creativity, and wellbeing; especially in its relevance to its physical cosmic structures of quantum forces and energies (gravity, strong and weak nuclear forces, electromagnetic forces, boson forces, etc).

Perhaps this "energy" is what the more sensitive auras amongst us are feeling as they reverberate like "human tuning forks" to the creational energy radiating everywhere about us moment-by-moment from the trees and flowers, to the insects and birds, to the stars above our heads.

This kind of "creational energy" I wouldn't deny. But nor would I make more of it than what its is knowing that for any belief it can be one step away from introducing harm and suffering for others in its subjectivisms and superstitions (as even historically observed in much of Christianity by the assertion of its beliefs of God's wrath and punishment in unhealthy ways around itself in society).

Which is why here at Relevancy22 I caution again and again to lean towards love - God's love. And to portray love in action through humanitarian causes. And never towards judgment, exclusion, division, or hatred. If even in the very creational energy we sense "all around us" please know this energy is boundlessly good in its outlay and wellbeing for those around living within its organic structures. Not evil. Not harmful. Not destructive. But good. Healthy. Abounding. Novel. Loving.

Enter Process in its Astral Aspects

Since process philosophy states that all things are in synchronicity with all things I will allow astrology-under-the-category of archetypal energies without the (divine) fatalism, determinism, or prognostician which usually seems to come with the study of planetary transits, alignments, movement, etc. And also without the New Ageism beliefs which seem to lump along with astrology, including the various forms of human-mysticisms which so naturally seem to accompany the human religious psyche.

As said earlier, the cosmic energy of the universe is pervasively all around us. Everywhere we go, everything we consider, study, look at, or feel, is part of a vast cosmic mix across an energy matrix made up of physical forces and matter. From stars to rocks, from gaseous atmospheres to liquid seas of methane, from the smallest living cells to the vast scales found in more complex biological life. All is part of a complex energy matrix formed of forces and fermions. The spiritual which resides in these are no more or no less than what resides in each-and-every one of us. Not only are we "of the earth" but we are also "of the stars." The same force out there, or up there, is the same force which resides within us. It would be unnatural if we didn't reverberate with some sense of cosmic feeling and energy flow (sans the psychotic and mentally imbalanced elements which would inflict us to twist our imaginations into something more than they should be - says the skeptic within me).

Our Cosmic Journey

Having listened to Segall et al's discussion twice now, I found the first part to be very helpful but the second part I will admit does stretch me more than I wish to be in it's astral observations. However, when listening to the last 25 minutes or so I tried to hear the nuances that are being spoken over the stereotypes I normally lump everything into over the span of all my prejudices (as I had laid out above).

For myself, I think of process cosmology (PC) as requiring (i) panexistentialism (all things are relational to all things). As well as requiring (ii) a form of panpsychism (sic, a "cosmic feeling" of the universe) which is how Whitehead had initially described process cosmology - as a "philosophy of organism" {which some have interpreted as an "organic reality" (see last article further below)}. And (iii) we might add many more cosmic centers - such as a process cosmology bearing synchronistic archetypal energies (e.g., the cosmos feels itself throughout itself in its process organism in some sense or manner).

However, the "astrology" stuff is not how I wish to describe the synchronicities of the cosmos even as the mechanics of the trade do seem to give evidence to Whitehead's "organic" form of insight.

Sure, if I and others feel a certain personal enlightenment, or a personal darkness of spirit, the cosmos may be feeling similarly in some sense to how we are feeling... perhaps we are "sensing" it or it is "sensing" us. But as an astrological directive, or as a foretelling, a prognostication, a way to live my life. No.

The cosmic archetypal feeling being felt or transmitted is more like an expression of an cosmological organic feeling as a whole throughout its parts (not limited to our solar system alone).

And at the last I'll state that for me, this cosmic archetype seems more than coincidental but less than speculation into the future as the future is undetermined, open, and chaotic in process.

Process thought when conveyed in these metaphysical senses works well in incorporating the idea of "feeling" to a process-based cosmos but I'll still pray, seek the Spirit of God, ask for God's guidance, and look to human sensibilities, fellowships, counsels, and Christian experience as guides.

I will not do the same with any form of astrology, even though some say they are following this practice and finding help in it. Or, perhaps, there is some strand of "Christianized" astrology being practiced, which I' sure there is.

But in all these instances any form of astrology only lends itself to testifying to the psychological archetypes and philosophical cosmologies which process cosmology has identified within its greater structure.

So give a listen to the discussion and see what you think. I found it generally helpful while preparing my occasional cynical soul to entertain some form of witness to the mystics among us. Who, I will say, have provided a nice offset to our materialistic societies. The mystics around us balance us off neatly between the blinded real of reality and the unseen reality all around us in some sensible way.

But, at the last, if I'm going to move towards mysticism, it'll be through the process-kind of enlightened mysticism of the Spirit and not the New Ageism which appeals to some.

R.E. Slater

August 6, 2021

* * * * * * * * * *

Richard Tarnas & Matthew D. Segall – 

Journeying Within a Cosmic Journey

May 22, 2021

Maybe we’re not lost in the cosmos after all. Years ago the novelist Walker Percy wrote a book called Lost in the Cosmos, in which he showed how, overly shaped by a rigidly scientistic approach to life, we humans lack any rich connection with the universe of which we are a part and, by implication, with ourselves and our neighbors. We know a lot about the periodic table and the laws of thermodynamics, but not a lot about how to live and love, creating societies of creativity and compassion. Richard Tarnas, known for his The Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche, presents a needed alternative. He invites us to imagine the universe as an unfolding journey, filled with multiple dimensions, both physical and archetypal; and to recognize our own embeddedness in this beautiful and dynamic whole. We are journeying within a cosmic journey. In conversation with Matthew Segall and Jay McDaniel, Tarnas shows how Whitehead influenced his thinking. He invites us to consider how the movements of the planets, no less than the movements of our hearts, can help us find our way in a vast and creative universe. We can be found, not lost, in the cosmos.

YouTube - https://youtu.be/gJSvZ4Zjq5g

Podcast - https://cobb.institute/wp-content/uploads/podcast/CIP-E16.mp3

* * * * * * * *

#965: Primer on Whitehead’s Process Philosophy

as a Paradigm Shift & Foundation for Experiential 

matt-segall-process

December 10, 2020

https://voicesofvr.com/primer-on-whiteheads-process-philosophy-as-a-paradigm-shift-foundation-for-experiential-design/

Virtual reality has the potential catalyze a paradigm shift around our concepts about the nature of reality, and one of the most influential philosophers on my thinking has been [the British Philosopher] Alfred North Whitehead. His Process Philosophy emphases [the] unfolding [of] processes and relationships as the core metaphysical grounding rather than [that of] static, concrete objects. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry contrasts some of the fundamental differences to Western philosophy:

Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic, and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it . [And yet], even though we experience our world and ourselves as continuously changing, Western metaphysics has long been obsessed with describing reality as an assembly of static individuals whose dynamic features are either taken to be mere appearances or ontologically secondary and derivative…

If we admit that the basic entities of our world are processes, we can generate better philosophical descriptions of all the kinds of entities and relationships we are committed to when we reason about our world in common sense and in science: from quantum entanglement to consciousness, from computation to feelings, from things to institutions, from organisms to societies, from traffic jams to climate change, from spacetime to beauty.

Virtual reality is all about experiences that unfold over time, and the medium [itself] is asking to interrogate the differences between how we experience the virtual and the real. A slight shift of our metaphysical assumptions from substance metaphysics to process-relational metaphysics allows us to compare and contrast the physical to the experiential dimensions of our experiences. Process philosophy opens up new conceptual frameworks to look at the world through the lens of dynamic flux, becoming, and experience as core fundamental aspects of reality, rather than treating these processes as derivative properties of static objects.

tweet link

I think process philosophy makes a lot more sense when thinking about the process of experiential design. Human beings are not mathematical formulas, which means you have no idea how other people will experience your immersive [presence] until you [act it out in space and time, being and event].

There’s within game theory an inherent agile and iterative nature of game design, software design, and experiential design, where you have to test it lots of time with lots of people. This is different than the linear, waterfall approaches of building physical buildings or producing films where there’s clearly demarcated phases of pre-production, production, and post-production.

For Whitehead, these iterative processes aren’t just metaphoric at the human scale, but he’s suggesting that these processes reveal deep insights about the fundamental nature of reality itself as having a dynamic and participatory aspect of navigating non-deterministic potentials that’s really “experience all the way down.”

The thing that I love about Whitehead is that he was a brilliant mathematician that turned to philosophy later in his life, and so has an amazing ability to make generalizations that deconstruct the linear and hierarchical aspects of language [to create] more sophisticated models of reality. He [freelyl exchanges] physics as the fundamental science with biological organisms - or more abstractly, as unfolding processes which are in relationship to one other. This creates a scale-free, fractal geometrical way of understanding reality at the full range of microscopic and macroscopic scales.

Whitehead’s thinking has also impacted a wide range of areas including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology. Some specific examples include work in quantum mechanics, new foundations for the philosophy of biology, the psychedelic musings of Terence McKenna, and has opened up new pathways to be able to integrate insights from Eastern Philosophies, like Chinese Philosophy.

On October 31, 2020, I attended The Cobb Institute’s 2-hour program on Process Thought at a New Threshold, which brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, researchers, and practitioners where summarizing how Whitehead’s Process Philosophy was transforming their specific domains. One of the presenters was philosopher Matthew D Segall, who is one of my favorite Whitehead scholars who writes and shares videos on his YouTube channel.

I wanted to get a full primer of Whitehead, his journey into philosophy, as well as how his thinking could facilitate a fundamental paradigm shift that the world needs right now. My experience is that VR (virtual reality) and AR (artificial reality) can provide an experiential shift in how we relate to ourselves and others. But Process Philosophy brings a whole-other-conceptual-level that has the potential to unlock a lot more radical shifts in all sorts of ways [and means]. I also think that the spatial nature of VR and AR is particularly suited in order to produce [fuller] embodied experiences of process-relational thinking [while also helping] artists and creators [towards a fuller] cosmological grounding that [would] help them connect more deeply to their own creative process of unlocking flow states [as they use their artful] medium to communicate about their experiences in new ways.

* * * * * * * * * *

The Philosophy of Organism

https://philosophynow.org/issues/114/The_Philosophy_of_Organism

Peter Sjöstedt-H introduces Whitehead’s organic awareness of reality

The philosophy of organism is the name of the metaphysics of the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Born in Kent in 1861, schooled in Dorset, Alfred headed north and taught mathematics and physics in Cambridge, where he befriended his pupil Bertrand Russell, with whom he came to collaborate on a project to develop logically unshakable foundations for mathematics. In 1914, Whitehead became Professor of Applied Mathematics at Imperial College, London. However, his passion for the underlying philosophical problems never left him, and in 1924, at the age of 63, he crossed the Atlantic to take up a position as Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University. He died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1947. His intellectual journey had traversed mathematics, physics, logic, education, the philosophy of science, and matured with his profound metaphysics, a complex systematic philosophy that is most comprehensively unfolded in his 1929 book, Process and Reality.

The philosophy of organism is a form of process philosophy. This type of philosophy seeks to overcome the problems in the traditional metaphysical options of dualism, materialism, and idealism. From the perspective of process philosophy, the error of dualism is to take mind and matter to be fundamentally distinct; the error of materialism is to fall for this first error then omit mind as fundamental; the error of idealism is also to fall for the first error then to omit matter as fundamental. The philosophy of organism seeks to resolve these issues by fusing the concepts of mind and matter, thereby creating an ‘organic realism’ as Whitehead also named his philosophy. To gain an overview of this marvelous, revolutionary, yet most logical philosophy, let’s first look at what Whitehead means by ‘realism’, then at the meaning of its prefix, ‘organic’.

Realism

‘Realism’ has a number of meanings in philosophy, but with regard to Whitehead’s interests, a realist essentially adopts the view that we perceive reality as it really is.

Although this idea may seem to many to be common sense, it is considered naïve by many in non-realist philosophical traditions. Their anti-realist stance supplants realism with representationalism – the notion that rather than directly perceiving reality itself, we perceive an indirect representation of reality – that our experience of light, say, is but a representation of waves of photons hitting our retinas.

Idealist and materialist anti-realist positions ultimately owe their mistakes to dualism, the notion that mind and matter are distinct substances. Whitehead singles out the prime dualist René Descartes (1596-1650) as the figure responsible for inaugurating the fall into anti-realism, and the consequent problems at which we arrive in modern philosophy. The Catholic Descartes attributed mind, as ‘soul’, only to humankind. The rest of nature he classified as purely mechanical, and thus explicable by means of mathematics. As a result of Descartes’ ideas, today, science and (non-process) philosophy cannot overcome the problem of solipsism – not being able to conclusively demonstrate that our experiences are truly representative of an external reality – nor interwoven issues, including the hard problem of consciousness: how mind could emerge from or be related to the activity of the brain. Further related issues concern the problems of free will and mental effort: how mind could influence matter (specifically the brain and body) if all material causality is mechanical; the problem of causality itself; why consciousness should exist at all if it has no power; why we have aesthetic tastes for music or abstract art, and so on.

The philosophy of organism’s solutions to these problems begin by rejecting the bifurcation of nature into mind and matter. With an acknowledged debt to the French philosopher Henri Bergson (1859-1941), Whitehead rejects such a dualism through his reformulation of perception. The underlying erroneous presupposition of anti-realism is that perception is only the representation of an object, or in general terms, of an external world. Whitehead dismisses this presupposition and replaces it with the notion that perception is part of the object or of the world. He names this reformulated notion prehension. Concisely put, such perception does not stand in relation to the world as representation-to-object, but as part-to-whole. To give a human example, the light which emanates from a star changes the eye seeing it, the optic nerve, the cortex, possibly the mouth muscles (speech); and so part of the star – its electromagnetic radiation – becomes part of me. However, as a process philosopher, Whitehead rejects the existence of solid things with fixed attributes, and asserts, as Heraclitus did in ancient Greece, that all is change, flux: a mountain is a wave, given enough time. So for Whitehead a star is only its activity, including its radiance, and its electromagnetic energy continues its activity within us – there is no absolute delineation of activity. So a part of the whole star has become part of our perception. Thus one aspect of the realist element of his philosophy is that the real object and the real subject are partially fused. We are not only made of stardust, but also of starlight. Contra solipsism, we know that we perceive reality because our perception is part of that reality and not a mere representation of it.

Materialists may edge in here and say that they accept the causal line of star radiation to physiological alteration, but then they feel the need to add a new mysterious causal line, from brain alteration to conscious representation – from matter to mind. But with this unnecessary and mystical addition come all the problems of representationalism. Organic realism keeps the original causal line pure. But this purity and parsimony entail a rather radical refashioning of what one understands reality to be, in order to explain how physiological change already involves sentient perception. This brings us to the ‘organic’ prefix.

Organicism

For Whitehead the bifurcation of the world into organic and inorganic is also false. Consider descending a line of complexity from Homo sapiens to starfish, to cells, to DNA molecules, to less complex molecules, to atoms, and then to the subatomic. For Whitehead this descent is towards what he calls ‘actual entities’ or ‘actual occasions’, or ‘occasions of experience’, which we might think of as ontologically non-composite events.

Whitehead asserts everything to be organic. As he succinctly puts it: “Biology is the study of the larger organisms; whereas physics is the study of the smaller organisms” (Science and the Modern World, VI, 1925). The in/organic division is then ultimately false, sanctioned by the purported mechanical universe idea, once again resulting from Descartes’ mind/matter split. Most importantly here, to Whitehead, actual entities have a degree of sentience – of awareness, feeling and purpose – as do systems, or ‘societies’ as he names them, that are organically constructed from actual entities. Consciousness as we humans have it is therefore a complex nested system of subordinate sentiences: the redefined ‘organisms’ we traced in the path from Homo sapiens to subatomic particles, each of them being self-organising systems, are also sentient to degrees, according to the integrated complexity involved. Each cell in our body is such an instrument of sentience – instruments which focus their effects in the hall of the skull. Such consciousness requires a human brain because the brain channels together the awarenesses of the subordinate entities. Where actual entities have formed into non-self-organising aggregates – such as doors and windows – there is no unified sentience associated with the aggregate itself – only the myriad lesser sentiences of which the aggregate is composed: the sentiences of the molecules, atoms, and subatomic particles. Note the implication that although a brain is required for high-level animal-type consciousness, a brain is not required for mere sentience. Analogously, although an orchestra is required for a symphony, an orchestra is not required for a violin solo. Sentience, or experience, already exists as part of reality.

The concept of universal sentience is known as panpsychism, or as it is called with respect to the philosophy of organism, panexperientialism. Although panexperientialism may seem extreme to many of us raised in a post-Cartesian culture, it is arguably the most logical and parsimonious outlook on the nature of reality. The hard problem of how sentience evolutionarily emerged from insentience is resolved by denying the existence of insentience. Sentience has always existed, only its complexity evolved – a change in degree rather than the problematic change in kind.

To support Whitehead’s thinking about this, it may be noted that we have no evidence demonstrating that (so-called) matter is insentient. It may be retorted that we neither have evidence that (most) matter is sentient – a leveling that has no immediate default position. But the panexperientialist position is more parsimonious and able to resolve many traditional problems in the philosophy of mind, and so is the plausible account. It is parsimonious in that it reduces a dualism to a monism: matter and mind are one, that is, the same thing – both terms are merely abstractions from a unified concrete reality. Or we might say, matter is mindful – emotive and creative. This position also eliminates any mysterious causal connections between mind and matter (as seen, for instance in epiphenomenalism), and it fully adopts the causal efficacy of the mind as well as of matter, since they are of the same kind. So-called mechanical causes as such, involving physical force, are but abstractions from the concrete reality that includes the associated mentality. In this respect, Whitehead is akin to Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) with his idea of Will as the inner affect of observed external forces, or Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) with his notion of the Will to Power. Wielding Occam’s Razor, in organic realism we directly perceive causality because perception is causality: it’s the flow of so-called ‘external objects’ fusing into, and thereby altering, the subject. This makes David Hume’s ‘Problem of Causality’ – that we do not perceive causality itself – false; and therefore it makes Immanuel Kant’s critical project (that is, his whole later metaphysics) based on Hume’s purported problem of causality redundant. It seems Kant woke from his dogmatic slumber into an axiomatic blunder.

Organic Realism

Returning to realism, Whitehead’s metaphysics argues that perception involves the partial fusion of object and subject, of the world and the perceiving organism. In Whitehead’s words, ‘The philosophy of organism is mainly devoted to the task of making clear the notion of “being present in another entity.”’ (Process and Reality, 79-80.) There is no absolute dichotomy and magical transformation of matter into mind via some unknown causal line, as is the common concept today. Rather, the elements of the world are already sentient, so that such subject-object fusion is not merely the alteration of the organism, but the fusion of panexperiential reality with oneself. We thus do not simply perceive reality – we become one with the emotive, purposive, creative reality operating around and through us:

“Thus, as disclosed in the fundamental essence of our experience, the togetherness of things involves some doctrine of mutual immanence… We are in the world and the world is in us.” (Modes of Thought, VIII, 1938)

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© Peter Sjöstedt-H 2016

Peter Sjöstedt-H is pursuing his PhD at Exeter University. He is the author of Noumenautics, and an inspiration for the new incarnation of Marvel philosopher superhero Karnak. He can be contacted via his website, www.philosopher.eu.

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Islam

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Islam (/ˈɪslɑːm/;^[A] Arabic: اَلْإِسْلَامُ‎, romanized: al-’Islām, [ɪsˈlaːm] (listen) "submission [to God]")^[1] is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion teaching that Muhammad is a messenger of God.^[2][3] It is the world's second-largest religion with 1.9 billion followers or 24.9% of the world's population,^[4] known as Muslims.^[5] Muslims make up a majority of the population in 51 countries.^[6] Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique,^[7] and has guided humanity through prophets, revealed scriptures, and natural signs.^[3][8] The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, believed to be the verbatim word of God, as well as the teachings and normative examples (called the sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith) of Muhammad (c. 570 – 632 CE).^[9]

Muslims believe that Islam is the complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times before through prophets, including Adam, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.^[10] Muslims consider the Quran in Arabic to be the unaltered and final revelation of God.^[11] Like other Abrahamic religions, Islam also teaches a final judgment with the righteous rewarded in paradise and the unrighteous punished in hell.^[12] Religious concepts and practices include the Five Pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, as well as following Islamic law (sharia), which touches on virtually every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment.^[13][14] The cities of Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem are home to the three holiest sites in Islam.^[15]

From a historical point of view, Islam originated in early 7th century CE in the Arabian Peninsula, in Mecca,^[16] and by the 8th century, the Umayyad Caliphate extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus River in the east. The Islamic Golden Age refers to the period traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century, during the Abbasid Caliphate, when much of the historically Muslim world was experiencing a scientific, economic, and cultural flourishing.^[17][18][19] The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and states such as the Ottoman Empire, trade, and conversion to Islam by missionary activities (dawah).^[20]

Most Muslims are of one of two denominations: Sunni (85–90%)^[21] or Shia (10–15%).^[22][23][24] Sunni and Shia differences arose from disagreement over the succession to Muhammad and acquired broader political significance, as well as theological and juridical dimensions.^[25] About 12% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority country;^[26] 31% live in South Asia,^[27] the largest percentage of Muslims in the world;^[28] 20% in the Middle East–North Africa, where it is the dominant religion;^[29] and 15% in sub-Saharan Africa.^[29] Sizable Muslim communities can also be found in the Americas, China, and Europe.^[30][31][29] Islam is the fastest-growing major religion in the world.^[32][33]

Etymology

See also: Muslims § Etymology

The Kaaba in Mecca is the direction of prayer and destination of pilgrimage

In Arabic, Islam (Arabic: إسلام‎, "submission [to God]") is the verbal noun originating from the verb سلم (salama), from triliteral root س-ل-م (S-L-M), which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, sincerity, safeness, and peace.^[34] Islam is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means "submission" or "total surrender". In a religious context, it means "total surrender to the will of God".^[1][35] A Muslim (Arabic: مُسْلِم‎), the word for a follower of Islam, is the active participle of the same verb form, and means "submitter (to God)" or "one who surrenders (to God)." The word Islam (submission) sometimes has distinct connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as an internal spiritual state: "Whoever God wills to guide, He opens their heart to Islam."^[i][35] Other verses connect Islam and religion (dīn) together:^[ii]

"Today, I have perfected your religion for you; I have completed My blessing upon you; I have approved Islam for your religion."^[ii]

Others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith.^[iii] In the Hadith of Gabriel, Islam is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān (faith), and ihsān (excellence).^[36][37]

The word silm (Arabic: سِلْم‎) in Arabic means both peace and also the religion of Islam.^[38] A common linguistic phrase demonstrating its usage is "he entered into as-silm" (Arabic: دَخَلَ فِي السِّلْمِ‎) which means "he entered into Islam," with a connotation of finding peace by submitting one's will to the Will of God.^[38] The word "Islam" can be used in a linguistic sense of submission or in a technical sense of the religion of Islam, which also is called as-silm which means peace.^[38]

Islam was historically itself called Mohammedanism in the English-speaking world. This term has fallen out of use and is sometimes said to be offensive, as it suggests that a human being, rather than God, is central to Muslims' religion, parallel to Buddha in Buddhism.^[39] Some authors, however, continue to use the term Mohammedanism as a technical term for the religious system as opposed to the theological concept of Islam that exists within that system.

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The History & Religion of Islam

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