Quotes & Sayings


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 off 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

Monday, November 8, 2021

Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context - Session 3


The Alexandrian Solution


Untying the Gordian Knot:
Process, Reality, and Context

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



 * * * * * * * * *



Amazon Link


Untying the Gordian Knot
Process, Reality, and Context

by Timothy Eastman
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



* * * * * * * * *

Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot - Session 3
August 29, 2021



THE COBB INSTITUTE
In this session Tim Eastman provides an summary of the third chapter, and Ruth Kastner and Michael Epperson offer a response. 
00:00:07 - 00:03:04 - Welcome from Matt Segall

00:03:06 - 00:24:34 - Presentation by Tim Eastman

00:24:40 - 00:42:02 - Response by Ruth Kastner

00:42:10 - 00:57:08 - Response by Michael Epperson

00:57:36 - 01:13:53 - Conversation between Tim and respondents

01:13:54 - Open Conversation Meeting Chat Text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rdCj...
Chapter Summary, by Tim Eastman 
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

08:01:51 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Richard I feel an urge to put some of my overflow books into the shelf behind you lol

08:02:30 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
oh I didn’t realize that was virtual!

08:04:13 From  Weston McMillan  to  Everyone:
Good morning all - I’m on audio only for first 30-60min and will join video as soon as I’m able - great to see ya / be here

08:06:16 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
Jude, you could put your e-bppks there :)

08:06:23 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
books

08:07:01 From  María Guadalupe Llanes  to  Everyone:
good morning

08:25:34 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
Can you give us the citation for Kastner Epperson article  you just mentioned?

08:27:25 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.03595

08:27:37 From  David Milliern  to  Everyone:
Thanks, Matt.

08:27:45 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
whose? book on affect?

08:27:48 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1709.03595.pdf

08:27:54 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
that last link is the PDF

08:28:03 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
thx

08:28:41 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
and the affect book?

08:39:41 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
offer waves ad confirmation waves?

08:39:46 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
Question for later: the relationship between “emergence” as it is being discussed by Tim and Ruth, as distinct from or compared to ANW’s “creativity.” ANW has no theory of emergence as I read him. (Nor does he need one, I would argue.)

08:40:05 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
I’ve heard from McGilchrist that his new book engages with Whitehead at some length.

08:40:48 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
That’s a great point Randy, I hope we talk about that

08:41:54 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
People who use disparagement/mockery as argument thereby red flag all they say in my book

08:43:00 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
Thanks for that question, Randy. What do you make of Whitehead’s “doctrine of emergent evolution” (PR 229)? I’ve often heard him described by analytic panpsychists as an emergentist (rather than a constitutive panpsychist). In Whitehead’s cosmos, each occasion is “emergent” in the typical sense in which emergence is defined. Curious to hear more when we get to the Q and A!

08:43:43 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
McGilchrist’s new book: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/the-matter-with-things/

08:49:17 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
ANW’s point there is logical, not ontological. The term “emergent” is an odd choice, but it has nothing to do with the claim that possibilities are created, which is the way Tim and Ruth are using it. ANW’s point is that a generic contrast is a whole, not a collection of disjunctions, no matter how complex the contrast is.

08:50:06 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
I see. Thanks for clarifying, Randy. That helps me understand your question better.

08:56:18 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
I remember menus….we got food from them before covid right?

08:56:52 From  Kevin Clark  to  Everyone:
Yes, in the OLD days of 2019.

08:58:41 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
Can two different observers make simultaneous independent measurements?

08:59:28 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
I’d like to hear more about the various goods served by trying to formalize the relevance of all local environments to one another

09:02:10 From  iPhoneThandeka  to  Everyone:
Ruth, please further comment on mcgilchrist text The Master and hisEmissary claim that the western emphasis on the left hemisphere of The brain produces fixed, static,isolated, decontextualized. But ultimately lifeless. Findings.  Are you going deeper into the parallels with affective neuroscience and the brain as a management system of possibilities to ensure the organisms survival.

09:02:56 From  Philip  to  Everyone:
Yes, I think it may be possible to begin to define how some (particular) distant contexts may be more significant to the local occasion than others.

09:03:29 From  Philip  to  Everyone:
What could the criteria be for such selection.

09:04:51 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
Could Michael say more about how the global non-Boolean character of actualizations fits into his speculative suggestion that all processes might be interrelated (somehow entangled)?

09:14:47 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Aside from ‘coherence’ and the benefits of ‘holism’, a key value to my mind is the ‘envisagement’ value that demands that we actively look beyond the limited findings/observations of any local system so as to strip away the delusion of complete understanding of limited facts. Enacted, visionary fallibilism in other words.

09:15:33 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
William James

09:16:51 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
re: “specious present”

09:16:54 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
could we get clarification of relation between the two kinds of non-Boolean relations: non-Boolean character of potentia and non-Boolean nature of actualizations globally?

09:21:21 From  jonmeyer  to  Everyone:
“non-Boolean” is itself already a boolean framing.

09:23:00 From  Gary Herstein  to  Everyone:
The possible fat man in the door way -- classic Quine

09:24:12 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
I have a bunch more questions, but we’ll see if it cycles back to me.

09:25:54 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
Uncreated is not the same as pre-given :)

09:26:11 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
for Whitehead possibilities can only become relevant or efficacious if there is "mentality" which just means that something finite/ discontinuous occurs (like a measurement maybe?) 

09:26:30 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
E.O’s are Non-temporal, hence not “pre” anything.

09:26:58 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Anderson, given the energy of the past as vectoral, isn’t there always ‘mentality’ afoot?

09:27:39 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
I get my shot next month on this :)

09:28:23 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
there has to be some discontinuity - a finite set of eos

09:28:53 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
Sure, and hence there must be order among e.o.’s that is uncaused.

09:29:56 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
I have now ordered all of Ruth’s books :)

09:31:06 From  Mikhail Epstein  to  Everyone:
Entanglement beyond physics: poetry, metaphors, synesthesia, etc. Entanglement of qualia is as real as quanta entanglement, when, for example, “eyes shine like stars”, the qualities of one object are manifested in another object.  Our consciousness and the  realm of free associations is exactly  the entanglement of qualia.

09:32:21 From  Gary Herstein  to  Everyone:
By the bye, replying to a couple msg's up, discontinuity does not require finitude.

09:32:22 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Love that, Mikhail!

09:32:51 From  Farzad Mahootian  to  Everyone:
Agree with Mikhail: semiosis of poetry, and really all language when you scratch the surface of any word.

09:35:13 From  Philip  to  Everyone:
A contemporary outcome is presumably entangled with or informed/influenced by ALL environmental conditions. But does this not also imply it is informed/influenced by all events of the past as well?

09:35:54 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
I'm basing that connection of discontinuity and finite hierarchy of EOs on W's discussion in SMW

09:36:22 From  Carol Richardson - she/her - Miwok Territory  to  Everyone:
Yes, thank you, Mikhail. With qualia, you may be addressing my question, which arises from a psychological perspective on relations: is it possible to move from a transactional view to a transformational view of what is happening at the quantum level? The qualia may be that method.

09:37:17 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Carol, I like that point about the difference between ‘transaction’ and ‘transformation’ vis a vis qualia

09:38:56 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
the poodle seems energized by the discussion of the cat in the box

09:39:03 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
I am good with the idea of grouping and hierarchy among e.o.’s for what that’s worth. It is part of what motivates my questions. The sense of the term “discontinuity” may need some sharpening.

09:40:18 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
The poodle has become non-local, however.

09:40:29 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
Cats cats cats my dog cresponds

09:42:22 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
poetry as mechanics of qualia…beautiful!

09:44:08 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
I’d like us to be able to think in a non-binary way about qualia and quantity but confess that may be a fantasy

09:46:23 From  Farzad Mahootian  to  Everyone:
Agree with Jude. A fantasy maybe, and difficult certainly, but worth it

09:47:23 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
That’s what fascinates me about ‘intensity’ in Whitehead. It strikes me as an attempt to describe things as both without invoking either explicitly

09:49:56 From  Gary Herstein  to  Everyone:
An article I never got around to writing was titled "The Ways of Mathematical Metaphor." A Hilbert 'space'? Mike's 'fibers'?

09:52:15 From  Farzad Mahootian  to  Everyone:
Yes to Jude! And “Intensity” applies well to metaphor and analogy as well.  The term gets across the definiteness importance of an idea without closing off further possibility

09:52:17 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
For Michael and Ruth: did I understand right that you are taking different sides on this? There are two ways ideas from quantum physics have been speculatively generalized. One way says the phenomena studied in quantum physics are absolutely unique to particle physics, but nevertheless (very likely) have implications for how we have to understand all of reality. The other way says from quantum phenomena we learn that things are not as we thought classically, but if we look with enlightened eyes at the world we will very probably see that the peculiarities of quantum phenomena are not unique to particle physics, meaning that  we can find the SAME problems and peculiarities in all aspects and levels of experience. Ruth is hewing to the former?

09:52:22 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
The work of George Lakoff and Mark JOhnson on metaphor is also relevant here

09:53:08 From  Matt Segall  to  Everyone:
Jude I think of Pythagorean analogies between music and math as one bridge between the qualitative and quantitative. Also a more archetypal understanding of numbers, each number having its own unique quality and meaning, etc.

09:55:05 From  Mikhail Epstein  to  Everyone:
In Hegel, the unity of quality and quantity is called “measure”.

09:55:36 From  Farzad Mahootian  to  Everyone:
Matt: your musical point is excellent! Color words, musical terms also carry this insight further

09:55:37 From  jonmeyer  to  Everyone:
Agreeing with Tim and Jude — one reason Whitehead adopts mereological whole-part language rather than boolean either-or language is to avoid the problem of the “non”. Saying “Non-binary” is already to inhabit a binary conceptual basis, since the root of boolean logic is “not”, and the primary distinction between A and Not-A. Using whole/part language is a trick to avoids this: To adapt this here: The aim is not to look for a non-binary way of thinking qualia, but to recognize that binary (analytical) thinking is only part of a broad spectrum of modes of thought.

09:55:40 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Mikhail, yes…but ‘feeling’ is (to my mind) absent from that construction

09:55:55 From  Carol Richardson - she/her - Miwok Territory  to  Everyone:
Doesn't meaning include both and join both?

09:56:26 From  Ruth Kastner  to  Everyone:
For Anderson: Actually, TI itself takes no position on non-quantum systems. I do view the extension to more general phenomena as speculative but I’m happy to entertain it

09:56:30 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
The other day I had a dream that involved in part the ‘chewing and tasting’ of music tablets.

09:56:58 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Jonmeyer, great point!

09:58:43 From  Monica DeRaspe Bolles  to  Everyone:
In some sense, if one is in within the transactional interpretation and logoi framework, do analogies become homologies?

10:02:47 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Have a great class Matt!

10:02:53 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
thanks!

10:02:56 From  Ruth Kastner  to  Everyone:
I’ll have to leave soon for my road trip, it’s been  great to chat with all of you!

10:03:05 From  Gary Herstein  to  Everyone:
I need to run as well. Thanks everyone!

10:04:14 From  randallauxier  to  Everyone:
I also have a noon meeting. Thanks Tim and all.

10:04:26 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
That goes back to my first question about the value of the formalization to meet a “way we WANT the universe to be"

10:05:12 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
sorry, I used Michael’s phrase just now to embellish the earlier convo, to be clear. It’s about WANTING (the feeling of importance)

10:06:18 From  María Guadalupe Llanes  to  Everyone:
Thank you all very much for this fantastic session. See you next month

10:06:54 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
We should also interrogate ‘authority’ and ‘formalism’ as much as we interrogate ‘speculation'

10:07:51 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
At another time I would love to hear you push back against authorities speaking out unchecked.

10:08:53 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
a virtue of ‘possibility’ is that it can undo ‘authority'

10:09:15 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
‘possibilism’ (autocorrect stinks lol)

10:10:20 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
I was impressed by the papers of Harold Pattee who wants to say that that there is complementarity at all levels and it's not a metaphor or loose analogy. that's the first time I took this kind of speculative extension seriously. his arguments in biology are impressive.

10:12:10 From  Farzad Mahootian  to  Everyone:
Yes to Thandeka: emotional grounding for intellectual speculation!

10:12:32 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
the abstraction of disciplinary separation is so problematic (tho of course it helps with depth of exploration)

10:12:49 From  Ruth Kastner  to  Everyone:
Gary Goldberg MD brought Iain’s McGilchrist’s work  to my attention

10:13:21 From  Kent Bye  to  Everyone:
Every neuroscientist I've ever met are staunch reductive materialists

10:13:50 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Kent I got some to admit that the reason for that is because “they want it to be that way for efficient research” lol

10:14:00 From  Kent Bye  to  Everyone:
Although embodied cognition & predictive coding theory of neuroscience are both very contextual and process-relational

10:14:23 From  Lynn De Jonghe  to  Everyone:
Thanks everyone for a wonderful discussion!

10:14:47 From  Anderson Weekes  to  Everyone:
thanks everybody!

10:14:49 From  Weston McMillan  to  Everyone:
Thanks all ! Appreciate the time !

10:14:54 From  Ruth Kastner  to  Everyone:
thanks Tim

10:14:59 From  Jude Jones  to  Everyone:
Thanks everyone!


Untying the Gordian Knot: Process, Reality, and Context - Session 2


The Alexandrian Solution


Untying the Gordian Knot:
Process, Reality, and Context

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



 * * * * * * * * *



Amazon Link


Untying the Gordian Knot
Process, Reality, and Context

by Timothy Eastman
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



* * * * * * * * *

Tim Eastman Unties the Gordian Knot - Session 2
July 23, 2021



THE COBB INSTITUTE
In this session Tim Eastman provides an summary of the second chapter, and Randall Auxier, Michael Epperson, and Elias Zafiris offer a response.
00:00:07 - 00:02:53 - Welcome from Matt Segall
00:02:54 - 00:17:20 - Presentation by Tim Eastman
00:18:18 - 00:33:07 - Response by Randall Auxier
00:33:38 - 00:46:51 - Response by Michael Epperson
00:47:27 - 01:01:11 - Response by Elias Zafiris
01:01:13 - 01:38:11 - Conversation between Tim and respondents
01:38:12 - Open Conversation Meeting
Chat Text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1K-mT...
Chapter Summary, by Tim Eastman
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

00:25:08 Weston McMillan: Good morning all - I’ll be audio only for about 30 min - great to be here ! Happy Saturday!

00:33:10 Gary Herstein: I hadn't heard about George -- that's very sad news indeed.

00:47:29 Gary Herstein: And they still gave us 30,000 more words than they were normally prepared to accept.

00:48:19 Anderson Weekes: pls send us the paper!

00:48:50 Kevin Clark: YES, plz send the paper asap!

00:48:55 Gary Nelson: Yes, please send the paper

00:48:56 Matt Segall: I’ll be sure we distribute Prof. Auxier’s paper to the group.

00:53:00 Benjamin Snyder: Aren't actual entities in their objective immortality also potential? Potential = potential datum for prehension, so not just eternal objects, though they are the "pure" potentials (but still defined as an existence in terms of potential relevance for functioning in a concrescence).


00:56:44 Benjamin Snyder: Whitehead's theory of propositions as given in P&R entails that reference to actuality (indicative feeling of the logical subject) is still involved in any logic/algebra, right? Eternal objects as pure potentials on their own have no truth-value.

01:00:28 Randall Auxier: Thanks Benjamin. From the standpoint of a proposition there must be reference to something actual. Possibilities and their order do not depend upon any propositional lure.

01:02:11 Guadalupe: Anselm ontological argument for God existence

01:08:42 Mikhail Epstein: Thank you for the most interesting discussion. Unfortunately, I have to leave (a speaking  engagement).

01:09:46 Anderson Weekes: Der Einzig Moegliche Beweissgrund des Daseins Gottes/Only Possible Proof of the Existence of God

01:10:49 Matt Segall: Thanks, Anderson.

01:24:15 Richard Livingston / Cobb Institute: From Thandeka: Schleiermacher is called the Kant of religion because he delineated pure potentiality as feeling, gefuehl. Tim affirms this state as feeling but misnamed it ultimacy. Schleiermacher defined pure potentiality as the experience of the infinite universe in a finite moment of one’s life.

01:25:52 Benjamin Snyder: My current understanding of some terms being discussed in relation to Whitehead: pure potential = an eternal object as datum for feeling; real potential = an actuality as datum for feeling (thus with its contingent, particular conditions); probability = real potentiality with a social order that therefore gives some regularity to the behavior of actual entities in the society (thus, what allows for inductive judgments).

01:26:20 Randall Auxier: I agree with Jon Meyer.

01:26:27 Anderson Weekes: question for Tim: I've gotten myself into a knot!
1. Possible worlds are rejected (e.g., p. 51) bc they are only theoretical constructs—by definition there can be no actual evidence for actual beings in another possible world than our own (to which we have zero epistemic access).
2. Hidden variables are rejected (e.g., p. 33) bc they are only theoretical constructs—there can be no actual evidence for variable that are by definition hidden.
The obvious question is why the actualists can’t turn the tables and say “potentiae” are only theoretical constructs—that there can’t be actual evidence for something that is, by definition, not actual.
However, if I understand correctly, the main claim of this chapter is that this response is not possible—that quantum phenomena offer actual evidence for potentiae. This come-back won’t be effective if the actualists can plausibly say the same evidence is equally well explained by their hidden variables or other possible worlds.
01:26:36 Anderson Weekes: That would mean potentiae, hidden variables, other worlds are all equally theoretical. For the argument of this chapter to work, these options can’t be equally theoretical. So the argument for potentiae in this chapter seems to rest on a claim that the actual evidence of quantum phenomena breaks in favor of potentiae.
Here’s my problem: doesn’t the claim that everything actual will be Boolean and “look” classical conflict with the claim that something actual gives us evidence that breaks in favor of the potentiae theory?
Is there a paradox here? If not, perhaps I could get a “for dummies” explanation of the telltale evidence—how it’s actual, but points to potentiae, and not to hidden variables or other worlds?

01:27:15 jonmeyer: The shift to category theory doesn’t address the heart of problem, it merely kicks the can down the road. The heart of the difficulty is that what when dealing with addressing non-deterministic or triadic notions of potentiality, these are not reducible to formal systems. Even category theory requires ultimately on making a decisive split between two kinds of entity: either something is a morphism or it is an object. It is precisely this kind of decisive splitting that Whitehead resists in PR.

01:28:26 Michael Heather: Potentiality in category theory is just the free functor valued category.
Types of potentially are in the pullback of existence along any arbitrary universe .

01:30:48 Farzad Mahootian: @Elias— So: instead of elements that are members of sets, we have clusters to topologies/neighborhoods via shared constraints and conditionality. The shared space of aims at minimization of Boolean phrases and maximization of (and here’s my question) what?  And: geometric faces that allow for congruence and interference.

01:32:03 jonmeyer: “Im not a mathematician I’m a logician” - I like this.

01:32:42 Guadalupe: logos spermaticos are actual and potencial from diferent points of view. they are potential because of the form that they will be. But they are actual with respect to the prime matter

01:34:58 Gary Herstein: The identification of (or reduction to) logic to a kind of formal mathematics is a fairly recent development in philosophy, that can be traced pretty much to the publication of the Principia (R&W, not Newton's). Old school folks with a background in American philosophy will tend not to make that reduction/identification.

01:44:56 Randall Auxier: possibility is not pure potentiality, nor is it “nothing” in my view

01:48:15 Benjamin Snyder: Didn't you say Whitehead's theory of eternal objects was concerned with possibility, Randall? Those are pure potentials in Whitehead's terms. Maybe there's a distinction I'm missing there.

01:48:48 Randall Auxier: Pure potentials in one perspective on possibilities, it is actuals.

01:49:13 Randall Auxier: Possibilities are uncreated, however, and hence independent of all actuality, including divine actuality.

01:49:22 Randall Auxier: Whitehead is clear on this point.

01:50:36 Clinton Combs: Missing from today’s discussion is an emphasis on the subject / object distinction. Eternal Objects are objects for some subject. It is a mistake to talk about the independent existence of an object because it has to be an object of some subject. (This is being overlooked.) The subject is primary. It is in the subject that objectification happens.

01:51:16 Randall Auxier: Whitehead makes it clear that possibilities have subjective order. I cite this in my paper Matt will send out.

01:56:03 Benjamin Snyder: I'm not sure what subjective order means there. In what sense do eternal objects have anything subjective apart from actual entities or where does Whitehead talk about that?

01:59:45 t-mahootian: Tim, can you relate your discussion in Chapter 2 about symmetry and asymmetry to C.G. Jung & Pauli’s discussion about this notion? Thanks!

01:59:52 Benjamin Snyder: Isn't Whitehead's metaphysical scheme by definition the necessary structure that is a must outside our own cosmic epoch?

02:00:49 Gary Herstein: I need to step out for 5 -- 10 min (take care of Toni's dogs).

02:01:07 Matt Segall: My question, framed in Whitehead’s terms, would be whether unexemplified possibilities are felt in the primordial nature? If so, they are not entirely outside the domain of the actual. If not, who is feeling them?

02:03:09 Randall Auxier: My answer would be that some of them are.

02:03:27 Matt Segall: I agree there is a metaphysical order of pre-spatial/temporal extension (determinate or indeterminate) that is beyond any particular cosmic epoch, but Whitehead himself seemed reluctant to claim he had arrived at this order.

02:05:53 Jeroen (Jerome) van Dijk: When trying to model the process of nature, we typically seem to smuggle in a pre-formulated "alphabet of expression" (or what Elias Zafiris called elements). In so doing we are tacitly dissecting the process of nature into "a priori-like constituent elements". It seems to me that the multiplicity of frames in category theory  still suffers from this problem, unfortunately. I think that a bootstrap methodology (especially the one in Reg Cahill's process physics) is to be preferred, because it seems to be capable of giving rise to a fully unified "actuality-potentiality-prehension network" -- all as one integrated process ... Thereby lifting into actuality the fore- and background patterns of nature as one relational network of connectivity … (hope this makes sense within the present discussion).

02:08:02 Gary Nelson: What is the relationship between “other cosmic epochs” and other universes in multiverse concepts

02:09:41 Anderson Weekes: Could Michael explain a simple example of an asymmetrical relation that is internal for both relata?

02:11:09 Randall Auxier: @Gary Nelson the Everett hypothesis is an actuals hypothesis, governed by mathematical and logical necessity. This has no constructive relation to ANW’s theory of cosmic epochs. Gary and I cover this in chs. 7-9 of The Quantum of Explanation.

02:13:01 Randall Auxier: @Jerome —this is the smuggled presupposition I try to avoid in my rendering of extensive connection in the Logic book, chi. 19-23.

02:13:38 Randall Auxier: I am with Michael on ontologizing concepts.

02:18:16 Benjamin Snyder: Whitehead says his metaphysical scheme applies to all cosmic epochs: "There can be no cosmic epoch for which the singular propositions derived from a metaphysical proposition differ in truth-value from those of
any other cosmic epoch" (PR 197).

02:19:08 Randall Auxier: @Benjamin That is essentially part of what I was saying

02:19:38 Randall Auxier: But only part. It means that anything that holds in one cosmic epoch holds for all of them

02:20:15 Matt Segall: We will make sure the chat is saved and distributed following this session.

02:20:33 Randall Auxier: The one this he thinks will hold is that there would be a quantum, a principle of least change that distinguishes what is actual for that cosmic epoch from what isn't

02:21:06 Randall Auxier: But change in other cosmic epochs may not presuppose time as it does in our cosmic epoch

02:21:28 Randall Auxier: @Jerome yes

02:21:58 Jeroen (Jerome) van Dijk: Thanks, Randall!

02:23:43 Randall Auxier: I agree with Elias, but we disagree when he uses “independence” to mean total independence from all actuality.


Introducing SuperScholar Diana Butler Bass



 
Diana Butler Bass (Ph.D., Duke) is an award-winning author of eleven books, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America's most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality, especially where faith intersects with politics and culture.
Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and in multiple global news outlets.
Her website is dianabutlerbass.com and she can be followed on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She writes a twice-weekly newsletter - The Cottage - which can be found on Substack.

Amazon Link


How can you still be a Christian?

This is the most common question Diana Butler Bass is asked today. It is a question that many believers ponder as they wrestle with disappointment and disillusionment in their church and its leadership. But while many Christians have left their churches, they cannot leave their faith behind.

In Freeing Jesus, Bass challenges the idea that Jesus can only be understood in static, one-dimensional ways and asks us to instead consider a life where Jesus grows with us and helps us through life’s challenges in several capacities: as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence.

Freeing Jesus is an invitation to leave the religious wars behind and rediscover Jesus in all his many manifestations, to experience Jesus beyond the narrow confines we have built around him. It renews our hope in faith and worship at a time when we need it most.

The Grassroots Movements which preserved Jesus's message of Social Justice for 2,000 years and it's impact on the Church today.

For too long, the history of Christianity has been told as the triumph of orthodox doctrine imposed through power. Now, historian Diana Butler Bass sheds new light on the surprising ways that many Christians have refused to conform to a rigid church hierarchy and sought to recapture the radical implications of Jesus's life and message.


Amazon Link

Diana Butler Bass, one of contemporary Christianity’s leading trend-spotters, exposes how the failings of the church today are giving rise to a new “spiritual but not religious” movement. Using evidence from the latest national polls and from her own cutting-edge research, Bass, the visionary author of A People’s History of Christianity, continues the conversation began in books like Brian D. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity and Harvey Cox’s The Future of Faith, examining the connections—and the divisions—between theology, practice, and community that Christians experience today. Bass’s clearly worded, powerful, and probing Christianity After Religion is required reading for anyone invested in the future of Christianity.







The Cottage

Drop in. Sit down. This is a place to explore faith and spirituality. Especially for those who feel dissatisfied, discomforted, or uncertain about religion — and who need a different angle, a new view of things of the spirit. Here you’ll find both inspiration and thoughtful commentary. My door is open.

Notice: this space isn’t The Sanctuary or The Parsonage or even The Retreat. This is The Cottage. That’s because I’m not a clergy person or a paid religious professional. I’m a writer, speaker, and itinerant teacher.

And The Cottage is a real place in my backyard where I write, think, reflect, and even meditate and pray.

Virginia Woolf famously wrote that a woman needed a room of her own to write. My house is too modest for a separate office (I wrote two of my early books in my family room!), so we built this cottage in our yard to accommodate my library and my work. From here, I’ve written blogs, articles, essays, and books – and these days it serves as a makeshift television and recording studio! I look out of the Cottage to the garden and from there out to the world, which means that I view spirituality, religion, and faith from my backyard.

But unlike Virginia Woolf, I didn’t want to keep the cottage as my “own.” I wanted to open it up, invite in my friends and readers, to share the magic and the hard work of this space — and so I created The Cottage on Substack. Here, I’ll share what I’m writing, what trends I see, how faith is growing and changing, issues of concern, and things that I find interesting or challenging or beautiful. And, as The Cottage community grows, I’ll host conversations and threads so we can get to know each other — and share our questions, concerns, hopes, and gratitudes. It is good to have friends in these hard days. To feel less alone.

And, by way of full introduction, I am a Christian (even though that label is more than a bit awkward these days) and I write from that perspective, with a generous heart toward wisdom wherever it is found. The “creed” that guides me most closely aligns with these 1,000 year old words from the mystical poet Ibn Arabi:

There was a time I would reject those
who were not of my faith.
But now, my heart has grown capable
of taking on all forms.
It is a pasture for gazelles,
An abbey for monks.
A table for the Torah,
Kaaba for the pilgrim.
My religion is love.
Whichever the route love’s caravan shall take,
That shall be the path of my faith.

Or, in the simple words of Jesus: “Love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Wherever you are on your journey, I’m glad your route has led to The Cottage.





Diana Butler Bass, Ph.D., is an award-winning author, popular speaker, inspiring preacher, and one of America’s most trusted commentators on religion and contemporary spirituality.

Diana’s passion is sharing great ideas to change lives and the world—a passion that ranges from informing the public about spiritual trends, challenging conventional narratives about religious practice, entering the fray of social media with spiritual wisdom and smart theology, and writing books to help readers see themselves, their place in history, and God differently. She does this with intelligence, joy, and a good dose of humor, leading well-known comedian John Fugelsang to dub her “iconic,” the late Marcus Borg to call her “spontaneous and always surprising,” and Glennon Doyle to praise her “razor-sharp mind” and “mystical heart.”

She holds a doctorate in religious studies from Duke University and is the author of eleven books. Her bylines include The New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN.com, Atlantic.com, USA Today, Huffington Post, Spirituality and Health, Reader's Digest, Christian Century, and Sojourners. She has commented on religion, politics, and culture in the media widely including on CBS, CNN, PBS, NPR, CBC, FOX, Sirius XM, TIME, Newsweek, Rolling Stone, and in multiple global news outlets. In the 1990s, she wrote a weekly column on religion and culture for the Santa Barbara News-Press, which was distributed nationally by the New York Times Syndicate.

Her work has received two Wilbur Awards for best nonfiction book of the year, awards from Religion News Association for individual commentary and for Book of the Year, Nautilus Awards Silver and Gold medals, the Illumination Book Award Silver medal, Books for a Better Life Award, Book of the Year of the Academy of Parish Clergy, the Frank S. and Elizabeth D. Brewer Prize for Church History, Substack Fellowship for Independent Writers, and Publishers Weekly’s Best Religion Book of the Year.

She and her husband live in Alexandria, Virginia, with their dog and their sometimes-successful backyard garden.