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

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Thursday, March 24, 2022

Astrobiology, Exo-Philosophy and Cosmic Religion




REGISTER NOW



An exploration of the relevance of process philosophy to
astrobiological science and the search for extraterrestrial Intelligence.


About this event

The possibility of a truly biological universe has not ceased to haunt the human imagination. Over the past three decades, the discovery of thousands of exo-planets has spurred novel research programs integrating science, philosophy and theology in exciting new ways. A variety of stimulating proposals have drawn together convergent insights in physics, cosmology and astrobiology; metaphysics and the philosophy of mind; the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Ever-more-relevant questions as to the status and implications of wide-ranging life in the universe continue to be raised. These questions in turn spark deeper questions about the necessary philosophical assumptions or presuppositions of a bio-centric universe; and wider constructive considerations as to how theology, religion, and society must change in light of the impact of discovery.

Little attention, however, has been explicitly directed toward the valuable resources inherent in process philosophy when approaching these questions. What constructive dimensions do the organic philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Teilhard de Chardin and others sustain for the interrelated scientific, philosophical and religious dimensions of astrobiological research? What is the place of process, organism, temporality, novelty, experience, value, mind and intelligence in a more than human universe? How does process philosophy anticipate the creative evolution of philosophy, theology and religion beyond earth? Sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation and organized by the Center for Process Studies and the Whitehead Research Project, this conference is the first full-scale investigation of the relevance of process philosophy to extraterrestrial life. Visit https://www.processastrobiology.com/ for more information.


Date and time:

Thu, May 5, 2022, 4:00 PM –
Sat, May 7, 2022, 12:30 PM PDT


Location:

Willamette University
900 State Street
Salem, OR 97301







SPONSOR

Organizer of Astrobiology, Exo-Philosophy
and Cosmic Religion
The Center for Process Studies (CPS) is a faculty research center of Claremont School of Theology at Willamette University. CPS conducts interdisciplinary research guided by the view that interconnection, change, and intrinsic value are core features of the universe.

 


Conference Vision & Rationale

"[O]n a grand scale, our cosmology discloses a process of overpowering change, from nebulae to stars, from starts to planets, from inorganic matter to life, from life to reason and moral responsibility. We can no longer conceive of existence under the metaphor of a permanent depth of ocean with its surface faintly troubled by transient waves. There is an urge in things which carries the world far beyond its ancient conditions."–Alfred North Whitehead

The possibility of a truly biological universe has not ceased to haunt the human imagination. Over the past three decades, the discovery of thousands of exo-planets has spurred novel research programs integrating science, philosophy and theology in exciting new ways. Indeed, a variety of stimulating proposals have drawn together convergent insights in physics, cosmology and astrobiology; metaphysics and the philosophy of mind; the philosophy of religion and philosophical theology. Ever-more-relevant questions as to the status and implications of wide-ranging life in the universe continue to be raised. These questions in turn spark deeper questions about the necessary philosophical assumptions or presuppositions of a bio-centric universe; and wider constructive considerations as to how theology, religion, and society must change in light of the impact of discovery.

Little attention, however, has been explicitly directed toward the valuable resources inherent in the philosophies of Alfred North Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Henri Bergson and other process philosophers when approaching these questions. What constructive dimensions do pervasive themes of process, organism, temporality, novelty, experience, value, and mind, harbor for the interrelated concerns of astrobiology, philosophy, and theology? This conference proposes three core layers of investigation:

Astrobiology and Process Philosophies: Initial Connections

How should we frame the relationship between astrobiology and process philosophy?

  • What points of convergence and divergence does this relationship sustain and how might this differ from that of other sciences and philosophies?
  • In what ways does a “philosophy of organism” undergird affirmations of a “biological universe”? 
  • Do the developments of astrobiology also inform the development, reaches and/or limitations of process philosophies as differently put forth by Whitehead, Teilhard and Bergson?
  • What challenges emerge in and among these figures with respect to the goals of astrobiology?

 A Philosophy of Exo-Life: Origins, Experience, Mind

  • What must be assumed or presupposed metaphysically of a biological universe in the context of Whitehead, Teilhard and Bergson’s work?
  • Do these exo-philosophical assumptions inform or transform our understanding of cosmic origins and evolution; mechanism and organism; possibility and actuality; experience and freedom; life and mind; temporality and eternity?
  • How do theories of life’s origins and possible pervasiveness (e.g. panspermia) relate to process theories of mind and its possible pervasiveness (e.g. panpsychism)? Is mentality necessarily “living?” Does life necessarily imply “mind?”
  • What insights or challenges arise when considering the relationship between experience, life, and mind beyond particular planets, galaxies and perhaps even universes?
  • How might considerations of a “bio-centric” cosmological principle challenge and/or expand narrower “anthropic” commitments when situated within the cosmological visions of Whitehead, Teilhard, and Bergson?

 Cosmic Religion: Toward a Constructive Process Cosmotheology

Steven J. Dick’s “cosmotheology” calls for radically new conceptions of a natural God and a “religious naturalism” that uniquely support a bio-centric evolutionary cosmos. While he has stated that “No Thomas Aquinas for cosmotheology has yet appeared…,” he does hold that “In its emphasis on evolutionary becoming, Cosmotheology resonates well with Whitehead’s process theology…It also resonates with the Jesuit Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary cosmology…” These statements open unique spaces for considering more deeply the resources of these and other process philosophers for reframing theological and religious approaches to astrobiology:

  • What kind of radical changes are required of our religious and theological visions in light of the discovery of intelligent alien life? Do process philosophies offer unique resources to this end?
  • What relevance or irrelevance do categories and distinctions of naturalism and supernaturalism; personalism and impersonalism; immanence and transcendence; monism and pluralism; creator and creativity actually have in a biological universe? Where do Whitehead, Teilhard and Bergson inform and/or transform these distinctions? 
  • In what ways do these and other distinctions aid the development of theological models suitable for a bio-centric cosmos: whether atheism, theism, pantheism, panentheism, transpantheism, or others?
  • Where do the strengths and weaknesses lie in current theological and religious proposals including: “cosmotheology” (S.J. Dick), “astrotheology” (T. Peters); “panoramic theology” (T. Walker & C. Wickramasinghe ); “biocosmic theology” (G. Genta) and others? How might they be critiqued, supplemented and improved in light of the philosophies of Whitehead, Teilhard, Bergson?
  • In what ways might exclusive, terrestrial religion be expanded to pluralistic visions of cosmic religion in a bio-centric universe? What resources and challenges do world religions harbor? What might extraterrestrial religions harbor?
  • Where are points of convergence and divergence when considering the roles and/or commonalities between human and extraterrestrial religion? What is the place of value, ethics, and morality; aesthetics and art; mathematics and science; doctrine and dogma in cosmic religion?

It remains a truly exciting time for science, philosophy and religion. Through exploration of the unique dimensions and themes of Whitehead’s, Teilhard’s, Bergson’s work, this conference aims to deepen human understanding and imagination by further uncovering the scientific, philosophical and religious implications of life beyond Earth.



Abstracts

“Astrobiology, Cosmotheology, and the Biological 
Universe: Implications for Religion and Theology”

by Steven J Dick

Recent discoveries in astronomy and astrobiology strongly indicate the need for a transformation of established theologies and suggest possibilities for new cosmically-oriented theologies such as cosmotheology. In particular the Biological Universe, the idea that intelligent life in the universe is common, necessitates a reconciliation of this new universe with dogmas of the Abrahamic religions in the same way that Thomas Aquinas tried to reconcile natural philosophy and Christianity in 13th century Europe. Other religions and their associated theologies will be less affected but still need to incorporate the cosmic perspective. In particular, discoveries in astronomy and astrobiology resonate with the dynamism of process theology in the sense that all theologies must take into account cosmic evolution and the possibilities of a biological universe in which life may be part of the very fabric of the universe. These discoveries also strongly suggest a denial of supernaturalism, a critical eye toward the epistemological status of revelation, and a rethinking of the nature of God and the sacred in the tradition of religious naturalism. In contrast to traditional theologies, human destiny is most universally couched in cosmic terms. The endeavor of transforming current theologies and creating new cosmic theologies is broadly characterized as astrotheology, a new and increasingly robust discipline that embraces the possibility of a more universal theology common to all intelligence in the cosmos. Astrotheology and its various flavors such as cosmotheology are part of a restructuring of our worldviews, a necessary endeavor as we internalize the realities of the new universe.



“Astrobiology, Astrotheology, and Cosmic Consciousness”

by Ted Peters

Like every natural science, astrobiology gathers objective data about the cosmos. But the data of astrobiology excites and even inspires the human soul. Astrotheology learns from astrobiological data while trying to account for its inspiring implications, for its subjective impact. Earthlings are growing in cosmic consciousness, at least in the minimal sense of being aware of possible intelligent consciousness living on exoplanets in the Milky Way. When contact with an extraterrestrial civilization is established, will the interchange of human and alien consciousness lead to a fusing of horizons, so to speak? Can we rightfully expect an expansion if not a deepening of human understanding, knowledge, and awareness? Might we test giving voice to a more intense cosmic consciousness with the physics of David Bohm and the metaphysics of Whiteheadian process theology?



“Religious Belief and the Discovery of Extraterrestrial Life:
What’s Worldview Got to Do with It?”

by Constance M. Bertka

Astrobiology studies life in the universe, exploring from the perspective of an interdisciplinary science three general questions: “Where did we come from?”; “Are we alone?”; “Where are we going?” As a defined discipline Astrobiology is relatively new, but these questions are old, popular with scholars, including theologians, and non-scholars alike. While we can’t currently answer the question, “Are we alone?” with a definitive “no,” over the last couple of decades astronomers have discovered that planets around other stars are common and that some are rocky planets in locations around their stars comparable to earth’s location to our sun. Our first extraterrestrial life discovery is an increasingly reasonable expectation. How might this discovery impact worldviews, particularly theological perspectives and religious belief? The discussion around this question is multilayered. Academics within theological traditions answer differently than academics outside of those traditions and the religious beliefs of those outside the academic environment are likely moved by other concerns.

The question of worldview impact also falls within the context of how the relationship between science and religion is viewed. Some argue that a new cosmic consciousness will be awakened by the discovery of extraterrestrial life, decentralizing humanity and threatening belief in a classical supernatural image of God. But process theologians have already proposed revision of the classical view of God and though they have been at work for decades, the more traditional view still thrives. Will the discovery of extraterrestrial life increase the popularity of process theology? Perhaps the answer will hinge in part on normalizing science and religion discussions, breaking down siloed worldviews. Not only theologians but the scientific community writ large needs to be concerned with a broader conversation and one that reaches beyond academia. Recent efforts by the scientific community to support this broader conversation are encouraging, conflict between science and religion is falling out of fashion but work towards integration, where significant worldview change might happen, is still elusive. Without this work we are likely to prefer a mental shortcut, seeking out and accepting information that accords with our prior beliefs while dismissing information that does not- protecting our worldviews.



“Astrobiological Searches for Shared Knowledge”

by Chelsea Haramia

In this paper, I present arguments for the claim that humans and extraterrestrials will share common axiological and biological domains. I begin with a “partners in crime” argument that explores the partnership among biology, mathematics, and ethics. I outline important parallels between the scientific search for extraterrestrial life and pursuits of mathematical and ethical knowledge. These parallels justify an appeal for consistency in our reasoning. I identify and explain shared epistemic challenges in each of these domains, arguing that value is as real and as detectable as life and as mathematical truths. But the question remains: How real are these things? To answer this crucial question, I first address demarcation concerns regarding the difference between life and non-life. The puzzles produced by these concerns mirror some of the puzzles faced by those who posit robust intrinsic value in the universe or the objective truth of mathematical claims. I then propose the following avenue of response to these puzzles. We may assume that life and value are genuinely present in other areas of the universe in the same way that we may assume mathematics is genuinely present in other areas of the universe. That is, numbers, life, and value are non-observables the effects of which we may nonetheless recognize. Reorienting extraterrestrial searches with this in mind reveals overlooked commonalities in these domains, and it indicates that we may reasonably assume that at least some extraterrestrials could recognize these commonalities as well. This approach leaves open questions regarding the groundings or sources of non-observables, and it requires that we accept potentially significant limitations regarding our and others’ knowledge of non-observables. Ultimately, this view justifies claims of the reality of life and value in the cosmos and the assumption that, at least to some extent, our mathematical, biological, and axiological understandings will be shared by others.




"A Darker Forest?
The Fermi Paradox and Extraterrestrial Spiritual Life (ETS)”

by Roland Faber

One of the more fascinating solutions answering the Fermi Paradox is the “Dark Forest”-conjecture. It states that the universe is not only biotic (ETL), but full of intelligent life (ETI). However, since the probability that the encounter of ETIs will lead to mutual destruction rather than cooperation is “astronomical,” everyone hides as behind their tree in a dark forest, and any contact will passively or actively lead to the eradication of the communicator. Is the Earth doomed? This conjecture is based on an assumption that evolution is locked, in Darwinian terms, in the survival of the fittest, and that even cooperation, as on Earth, is, if not the exception, so merely a means for self-survival and -promotion. Other philosophical resources, such as Teilhard de Chardin, A. N. Whitehead and ‘Abdu'l-Baha, side with primary religious intuitions and desires for the function of cosmic religiosity to counter exactly this assumption. The question then becomes: How does the Fermi Paradox impact not only their acceptance that life is ubiquitous (ETL) and suggestive of the appearance of intelligent lifeforms (ETI) in our universe, but that evolution tends to foster the emergence of spiritual lifeforms (ETS) which actually strive to overcome this evolutionary, biotic condition of self-assertion and the survival strategies of competition and expansion?



"From Cosmological Negation to Metaphysical Exemplification:
A Deeper Whiteheadian Cosmotheology"

by Andrew M. Davis

For decades, Steven J. Dick has been a longstanding advocate of the development of “cosmotheology” as a scientifically rooted endeavor which uses our best understanding of nature to “inform a much broader range of theological discussion.” Cosmotheology as Dick defines it revolves around the use of our ever-expanding knowledge of the universe to “modify, expand or change entirely” current theologies. Central to these theological changes, Dick insists, is the rejection of anthropocentrism and supernaturalism: human beings are relegated to the cosmological periphery and there is nothing beyond the natural world. These commitments converge in Dick’s affirmation of both scientific and religious naturalism: nature is all there is and a creative evolutionary universe devoid of “God” suffices to inspire the reverence, awe and meaning traditionally assigned to the religious sphere. Dick’s six core “principles” of cosmotheology thus consist primarily in a series of cosmological negations of human existence and experience and ultimately, an ontological negation of God. While admitting that his proposal is perhaps better termed “cosmophilosophy” rather than “cosmotheology,” Dick ironically leaves open the possibility that advanced extraterrestrials in the “biological universe” may have something akin to the traditional theological attributes.

This paper argues that Dick’s laudable project can be considerably strengthened by Whitehead’s bio-centric cosmophilosophy (the “philosophy of organism”) which culminates in (rather than negates) a robust naturalistic cosmotheology that is actually deserving of the name. Demonstrating this requires showing how Dick’s cosmological negations can be transformed into metaphysical exemplifications. While Dick holds that the creative evolution at the heart of his own “cosmotheology” has limited resonance with Whitehead’s (and Teilhard de Chardin’s) process theology, a deeper investigation of Whitehead’s cosmotheological metaphysics effectively challenges and widens Dick’s proposal. For Whitehead, human experience while cosmologically peripheral is nevertheless metaphysically central: their existence and experience exemplifies fundamental metaphysical principles of an organic, experiential and axiological character that are essential to a creative evolutionary universe at all scales. Rather than being the great supernatural “exception” to metaphysical principles, “invoked to save their collapse,” Whitehead’s God is their “chief exemplification.” Whitehead’s wider naturalism coupled with his theological realism allow for imaginative metaphysical continuity in our reflection all the way “down” and all the way “up” the biological universe: from terrestrial and extra-terrestrial life to the culminating life of God. What is more, Whitehead’s vision arguably re-integrates and resolves outstanding metaphysical problems that remain unanswered by Dick’s proposal (and those of others). These problems surround the presuppositions of cosmic evolutionary novelty, including the metaphysical basis for objective rational, aesthetic, and ethical (or moral) values and their association with ontologically real possibilities in the nature of things. Whitehead therefore offers a wider cosmotheology that includes Dick’s naturalistic intuitions while also transcending his conceptual and explanatory limitations.



"Prospects for a Universal Philosophy of Organism"

by Derek Malone-France

There are a number of recent discoveries and developments in biology that seem evidently congenial from process philosophical and theological perspectives. Take for example, the discovery of “quorum sensing” functions and other anticipatory directive/non-random-adaptive environmental response phenomena in microbial societies, which may be interpreted as verifying essentially teleological (non-Darwinian, neo-Lamarkian) and cooperative-altruistic dynamics in the environmental responses of these individual and collective organisms. Increasingly—and often with real cogency—process thinkers are engaging with this new biology in order to make the case that process metaphysics can better explain these observational realities than can the dominant alternative philosophical perspectives (see the growing “biophilosophy” movement that is an outgrowth from contemporary process thought). This is an appropriate and productive response to this ongoing science. Yet, if we are to remain true to Whitehead’s conception of the proper function and mode of philosophical inquiry, we must also discipline ourselves, to maintain a certain degree of critical distance from these developments, and we must acknowledge that there are some other recent discoveries and developments that may be seen as potentially cutting against common principles or presuppositions of process thought. Take for example, elegant mechanistic modeling of the developmental pathways of the molecular regimes associated with the evolution of particular planetary chemical systems.

Moreover, if the ultimate aim is to demonstrate the ongoing relevance of Whiteheadian—or neoWhiteheadian—process thought as a universalizable metaphysical perspective, then we must also recognize the fundamental ways in which our biological and physical, as well as our philosophical and theological, concepts and categories necessarily, to some degree, reflect the contingent particularities of the evolution of the particular planet (and solar system) on (in) which we have emerged and by which we have been conditioned. Just as philosophy and theology have always needed to be mindful of the problem of anthropocentrism, we now understand, better and more specifically than ever before, the extent to which our thinking is also prone to the more generic problem of “terracentrism.”

One concrete implication of the recognition of our terracentric perspective is that we must look beyond “life” as a category around which we construct our most general claims. Over time, the concept of “life” has become, if anything, theoretically more, not less, problematic, especially in light of recent developments in a number of diverse (but increasingly intersecting) areas ranging from prebiotic chemical evolution and evolutionary virology, to planetary chemistry and astrobiology. I will argue, therefore, that the more general category of “organism,” as constructed in Whitehead’s thought, is not only a better candidate than “life” for universalizability, but also it has the additional advantage of reflecting the ultimate convergence (non-dualism) of both “physical” (non-biological) and “biological” phenomena, under the rubric of a more generic ontological category. This, in turn, allows for the ultimate clarification of both the common and the disparate elements characterizing what we refer to as “living” and “non-living” phenomena. It also suggests a cosmic application of this category with what I take to be productive theological implications.



"Cosmic Evolution Connected to Theory of Value
by Process-Relational Theology"

by Theodore Walker Jr.

Process-relational theologian John B Cobb Jr. encouraged developing “a richer account of evolution” in biology. Beyond biology, evolution more broadly considered embraces cultural evolution, stellar evolution, and cosmic evolution. Connecting cosmic evolution to theory of value is another enrichment that can be helped by process-relational philosophy and theology, including neoclassical metaphysics. For the sake of univocal references, the word “God” refers to the transcendent “all-inclusive whole of reality”; and unless explicitly qualified in ways indicating transcendence, the words “cosmos” and “universe” refer to the nontranscendent sum of all parts of reality.




"The Cosmological Context of the of the Hot Spring
Abiogenesis Hypothesis"

by Matt Segall & Bruce Damer

The question of how life on earth first arose has puzzled researchers since the inception of the modern science of biology around the turn of the 19th century. Advances in complex systems science and the study of non-equilibrium thermodynamics have helped close the gaps between physics, chemistry, and living organization, but many questions remain unanswered. This presentation will examine the cosmological context and metaphysical implications of a leading candidate for the origins of life in Astrobiology: the “Hot Spring Hypothesis for an Origin of Life.” Connections will be drawn between key concepts from Whitehead’s Philosophy of Organism and the astrophysical, geochemical, and protocellular processes described in the Hot Spring Hypothesis. For example, clear analogies are evident between the production of novelty via the process of concrescence and the liposomal combinatorial selection processes driven by wet-dry cycling in shallow freshwater ponds. Further convergence is seen in Whitehead’s account of the “sheltering” of living societies by environmental layers of social order and the importance of environmental rhythms and other conditions in making possible otherwise highly improbable chemical reactions. The question of whether the Whiteheadian notion of an “aim at satisfaction” may play any role in the emergence of self-organizing, self-producing protocells will also be explored. Finally, the social, ethical, and spiritual implications of our growing scientific knowledge of life’s origins will be discussed.



“What Is Life?
Panexperientialism, Cosmic Consciousness, and
Swami Vivekananda’s Religion of the Future”

by Jeffery D. Long

Is there life in the universe, or the multiverse, beyond the planet Earth? Responding to this question from the perspective of philosophies of process, such as that of Alfred North Whitehead, prompts us to raise another question, “What is life?” Is there finally anything which is not, in some sense, alive? The emergence of philosophies of process, as well as a growing sense amongst thinkers in the West that consciousness (or at least experience) is in some sense foundational to existence, and not something which evolves from an essentially material reality, puts the question of life in the universe on a different level from that of simply searching for entities like ourselves. It becomes not only an empirical question, but a fundamental question of ontology. Such a situation is already envisioned in many Indian philosophical traditions that both take consciousness to be foundational to existence and take for granted that there are many planes of existence inhabited by intelligent beings. We are therefore witnessing a convergence of Indian and Western thought, in our current period, as we reflect upon the question of life in the universe and the closely related question of the nature of life itself. Over a century ago, Swami Vivekananda envisioned this convergence when he spoke of religions to come in the future. This presentation will take up the interrelated questions of, first, the nature of life, experience, and consciousness as seen in the context of the search for extraterrestrial life, and secondly, the kind of religious sensibility that emerges from reflections of this kind. The demise of religion has long been predicted by scholars who have then proven to be premature in their claims. This presentation will suggest not that religion will be destroyed or superseded as humanity engages with the possibility, and eventually the reality, of extraterrestrial life, but that it will be radically transformed by this process.



“Astrobiology without Biology:
Will AI be Our Emissary or Our Bottleneck?”

by Noreen Herzfeld

Given the difficulties of space travel for biological beings, it seems likely that our first contact with another intelligence will be through their and/or our technology. AI offers the opportunity for a presence in space that is both dynamic and functional. Thus, AI might be the best emissary to other worlds. Yet Fermi’s paradox persists. If intelligent life is out there, why have we not encountered their technology? The answer may lie in a paradox of evolutionary biology. The very nature of biological evolution may mean that technological advancement always outstrips a society’s ability to control that technology. While AI might be our best avenue to space exploration, it might also be the technological bottleneck that precludes that exploration.



“Extending the Noosphere into Intergalactic Life:
Teilhard de Chardin and the Third Axial Age”

by Ilia Delio

In 1949 Karl Jaspers described a global breakthrough in human consciousness, which he described as the “axial age,” a term which has served as a heuristic marker of consciousness and human development, including the depth dimension of religion. Ewert Cousins described a second axial age ushered in by the new science and mass communication. This new age is marked by ecology, community, divine immanence and global consciousness. Teilhard de Chardin said that evolution is the rise of consciousness and described a process of theistic evolution grounded in second axial consciousness. He proposed that life is unfolding from simple, biological material life, to complex interconnected life, empowered by a divine presence, following Henri Bergson’s élan vital. Evolution continues in and through human development and is accelerating with technology toward the maximization of conscious life marked by the symbol of Omega.

This paper will examine the evolution of consciousness toward Omega by using the axial age as a paradigm of development. Attention will be given to Teilhard’s ideas on consciousness and matter and argue that the inextricable link between consciousness and matter, the drive to complex consciousness, and the development of the noosphere and computerized planetary consciousness, render the search for conscious intergalactic life the next logical step in the evolution of the Christic toward Omega. In this respect, Teilhard’s notion of the Noosphere marks the beginning of the third axial age, which will continue with interstellar exploration and the expansion of human consciousness into other life forms, a development consistent with the fecund symbol of Omega.




“The Organic Universe and Otherworldly Lives:
Bergson and Sagan”

by Wahida Khandker

In his 1985 Gifford Lectures on Natural Theology at the University of Glasgow (published posthumously as The Varieties of Scientific Experience), the physicist Carl Sagan reflects on the spectroscopic analysis of comets that reveal that what is “out there” (a range of organic molecules in the tails of passing comets) is very close to what is “in here” (the organic molecules in living organisms on Earth). He finds in this molecular affinity between our own bodies and the stars a reason for humility and a greater sense of continuity with other living organisms, both on this planet and in the potential forms they may take on other planets. This will form the first part of the paper. The second part will turn to Henri Bergson, for whom the fundamental connection between the material and the biological enjoyed by organisms is both a necessity of life and a critique of the limitations of the function of the intellect. This motivates the entire project of Creative Evolution, which is at once a theory of life and a theory of knowledge. Bergson sets out to identify the structures that inform our everyday knowledge of the world, including life, and to speculate on the conditions of their formation, not in a priori structures of the intellect, but rather in the evolved conditions, in a fully biological sense, of our physiological interactions with our environment. What Bergson names “the double form of consciousness,” or the intuitive and intelligent aspects of conscious life reflects the material and vital aspects of reality. Accordingly, the long history of the study of nature (phusis) has tended to divide itself into the studies of physics and biology (material nature on the one hand, and the natural world on the other), but the history of physics is, it could be said, plagued by the resistance of living beings to its principles. The final part of this paper considers features of life that have evolved in the deepest parts of our oceans, and that have only recently become accessible with the development of technologies able to navigate ecosystems at these otherwise inhospitable depths. There, we discover forms of life capable of evolving and flourishing in the absence of sunlight, sustained by chemosynthesis, mirroring obliquely the development on land of ecosystems founded upon photosynthesizing plants. In summary, this paper explores varied perspectives on the challenges of traversing vast distances in space, in evolutionary time, and between land and the deep sea, and how all of these endeavors might enhance our understanding and appreciation of our own imperiled “habitat.”



“Multiplicity without Tyranny:
The Nonviolent Telos of Process and Jainism”

by Brianne Donaldson

Ethical-aesthetic terms within process philosophy, such as “beauty” and “intensity,” often aim to preserve the role of contrast, conflict, and inevitable loss as essential aspects of an ecological planetary multiplicity toward an open-ended future. In these views, exclusionary valuations, and even destruction, are accepted as a necessity, even if a tragic one, of a worldview that ascribes some level of self-determined creativity to all actual entities. If, as Whitehead states of the natural world in general, “Life is robbery” (PR 105), then suggesting nonviolence as a valuable aim could smuggle in a loophole of exceptionalism wherein homo sapiens’ morality is somehow different from that of “nature.” Moreover, any kind of telos could suggest a predestined future. Finally, nonviolence, if interpreted as passivity or sacrificial paralysis, could result in a stultified, rather than dynamic, universe.

While these concerns, and the (often) ecological sensibilities that motivate them, offer an important metaphysical and realist intervention in anthropocentric accounts of the universe, proponents often overlook a normative aspect of Whitehead’s religious and metaphysical vision of a possible future characterized by less, or perhaps no, loss. Utilizing the metaphysical framework of Jainism, an ancient Indian tradition centered on ethical experiments in nonviolence, as a comparative case study, I will provide an account of Whitehead’s ethical aim as a telos of nonviolence. Technical concepts in Whitehead’s works, such as “unison of immediacy,” the “many” and the “one,” the potentiality of “eternal objects” or the “subjective aim,” the “lure,” his description of the “khora,” and even his use of the term “peace,” present a vision of social and ecological nonviolence for an unfolding future. In this view, harm reduction and social ecology need not be at metaphysical odds. Rather, nonviolence is, I argue, part of the structure of becoming in a process metaphysics, not only for certain exceptional beings, but ultimately for all existent entities.



“The Connection-Action Principle:
A Basis for Process Philosophy and Cosmic ‘Creativity’”?

by Mark Lupisella

A centerpiece of contemporary Western process philosophy is Alfred North Whitehead’s “principle of process,” which features creativity as an important element. The modern science of cosmic evolution can be interpreted to suggest a highly “creative” universe—perhaps increasingly creative over time. In asking how the universe’s creativity arises, or increases, we can appeal to a wide range of approaches from scientific empiricism to more theoretical, conceptual, metaphysical, and philosophically speculative approaches—many of which arguably relate to the principle of process. In a book published in 2020, Cosmological Theories of Value: Science, Philosophy, and Meaning in Cosmic Evolution, I explore a kind of relational-action metaphysics in the form of a “connection-action principle” (CAP) suggesting, in its simplest form, that the universe’s (or multiverse’s) property of connectedness is instantiated as relations and actions. Drawing heavily from that book, this paper will explore how the connection-action principle may provide a basis for process philosophy and how it may relate to the universe’s apparent creative tendencies, with a particular focus on the emergence of life, intelligence, and meaning in the universe.



“Whitehead, Kalogenesis, & Cosmocentrism"

by Brian G. Henning

Environmental philosophers have for half a century debated whether ethics is anthropocentric, biocentric, or ecocentric. Yet even the most capacious of these theories typically have difficulty thinking beyond our own planet and its distinct evolutionary history. As humans consider “colonizing” other planets, mining asteroids, and interacting with extraterrestrial life, it is urgent that we develop an adequate extra-terrestrial ethic, a cosmocentric ethic. Just as Europeans’ latent metaphysics and ethics defined what was morally defensible in their colonization of this planet, our species’ latent metaphysics and ethics define whether certain actions require moral justification. We take our ethics—and our metaphysics—with us as we move into and beyond the solar system. In this paper I defend the view that, grounded in Whitehead’s philosophy of organism, it is possible to conceive of a cosmocentric ethic whose ultimate duty is beauty. Reality is fundamentally kalogenic; each drop of actuality is a unique achievement of beauty and value. “The teleology of the Universe,” Alfred North Whitehead tells us in Adventures of Ideas, “is directed to the production of Beauty.”




Tuesday, March 22, 2022

R.E. Slater - Quotes & Sayings on Whiteheadian Metaphysical Cosmology




Alfred North Whitehead
 Quotes & Sayings on Whiteheadian Metaphysical Cosmology

by R.E. Slater

Whitehead questioned Western philosophy's most dearly held assumptions about how the universe works — but in doing so, he managed to anticipate a number of 21st century scientific and philosophical problems and provide novel solutions." - Wikipedia

Who is the metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead?

Alfred North Whitehead OM FRS FBA (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He is best known as the defining figure of the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which today has found application to a wide variety of disciplines, including ecology, theology, education, physics, biology, economics, and psychology, among other areas.

In his early career Whitehead wrote primarily on mathematics, logic, and physics. His most notable work in these fields is the three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910–1913), which he wrote with former student Bertrand Russell. Principia Mathematica is considered one of the twentieth century's most important works in mathematical logic, and placed 23rd in a list of the top 100 English-language nonfiction books of the twentieth century by Modern Library.

Beginning in the late 1910s and early 1920s, Whitehead gradually turned his attention from mathematics to the philosophy of science, and finally to [cosmological] metaphysics. He developed a comprehensive metaphysical system which radically departed from most of Western philosophy. Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. Today Whitehead's philosophical works – particularly Process and Reality – are regarded as the foundational texts of process philosophy.

Whitehead's process philosophy argues that "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 consequences for the world around us." For this reason, one of the most promising applications of Whitehead's thought in recent years has been in the area of ecological civilization and environmental ethics pioneered by John B. Cobb.

Amazon link
One of the major philosophical texts of the 20th century, Process and Reality is based on Alfred North Whitehead’s influential lectures that he delivered at the University of Edinburgh in the 1920s on process philosophy.

Whitehead’s master work in philosophy, Process and Reality, propounds a system of speculative philosophy, known as process philosophy, in which the various elements of reality [exist in a consistent relationship to one another.] It is also an exploration of some of the preeminent thinkers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Descartes, Newton, Locke, and Kant.

The ultimate edition of Whitehead’s magnum opus, Process and Reality, is a standard reference for scholars of all backgrounds. 
 

On the value of curiosity and speculation
when working with scientific facts...

"Imagination is not to be divorced from the fact;: it is a way of illuminating the facts. It works by eliciting the general principles which apply to the facts, as they exist, and then by an intellectual survey of alternative possibilities which are consistent with those principles. It enables men to construct an intellectual vision of a new world." - A.N. Whitehead

"This is my journey into the world of men. In its study of the bible, church, church history, tradition, and folklore. Of literature, anthropology, psychology, even that of intersectional sociology (as referring to the interrelational web of humanitarian, ecological, economic, political, and legal interaction of societies with one another). 

To this journey we must have a working knowledge of religion, the sciences, philosophy, and importantly, theology itself. Like a working poet, without imagination, without creativity, there can be no movement within the transdisciplinary education and beliefs of men and societies, or into any possible constructionism for the future." - R.E. Slater

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"Whitehead regarded metaphysical investigations as essential to both good science and good philosophy." Let's also include Christianity, religion in general, and all our beliefs, opinions, folklores, superstitions, common logic, and such like. Without investigation, critique, and unorthodox thinking nothing good may come however sincere or deeply believed." - R.E. Slater

"You cannot step twice into the same stream. All things change. It is in their nature." - Heraclitus

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The Ontology of Reality, of Beingness, of Becoming


The Ontology of Being

by R.E. Slater


"We are of the earth, the skies, the heavens.
All that we are was already present."
- re slater


Reality is as indefinable without event
as Time and Conscience are as byproducts
of particulate forces dancing around
interacting with each other
as the unreal consequences
of relational event.

Event depends upon relationality to be real.
Each, taken together, create
a cosmic processual organism in
intra/inter-relational complex of
panexperiential,
panrelational, and
panpsychic
transient processes...
all in motion...
all in intricate dance...
all dependent on one another.

Processual reality,
like processual events,
are incomplete in themselves alone.
Each require the other,
and without the other,
there is neither event nor reality.

These insubstantive elementa
we may call particle, force, or quanta,
are the building blocks
of creation,
the cosmos,
the world.
One cannot simply say the
fundamental forces of the cosmos
are the foundational structures of reality.

No. That was yesteryear.
These quanta bits of
forces,
energies, and
matter,
whizzing around
smashing into one another
mixing chaos with wonder
must interact which each other
else they are not,
ever,
not even alone. 

Nor may the form of our universe,
or relational world,
or that of nature itself,
possibly form the structures
we know as the cosmos today
invested in momentary motion
giving life to that which dances.
without a nature of beingness
devoted to dance.


R.E. Slater
March 22, 2022

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved



Process philosophy, as described by Alfred North Whitehead, might be stated as the "Metaphysics of ontology in the process of becoming." Or, more simply, the state of relational processualism resulting from events in motion" moving from states of being-ness to states of becoming-nessR.E. Slater



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Process philosophy, as described by Whitehead, might be stated as the "Metaphysics of ontology in the process of becoming." Or, more simply, the state of relational processualism with events in motion" moving from states of being-ness to states of becoming-ness. - R.E. Slater

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The Metaphysics of Being and Becoming

Excerpts from Wikipedia:
  • Process philosophy is an approach to cosmological metaphysics which identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects or [immaterial] thoughts) as abstractions from - or ontological dependents on - processes.
  • In opposition to the classical view of "change as illusory" (as argued by Parmenides) or "accidental" (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.
  • Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.
  • "Process philosophy is sometimes classified as closer to Continental philosophy than analytic philosophy, because it is usually only taught in Continental departments. However, other sources state that process philosophy should be placed somewhere in the middle between the poles of analytic versus Continental methods in contemporary philosophy.
  • Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as...
  • "Process thought describes truth as "movement" in and through substance (Hegelian truth), rather than substances as fixed concepts or "things" (Aristotelian truth). Since Whitehead, process thought is distinguished from Hegel in that it describes entities that arise or coalesce in becoming, rather than being simply dialectically determined from prior posited determinates. These entities are referred to as 'complexes of occasions of experience'. It is also distinguished in being not necessarily conflictual or oppositional in operation. Process may be integrative, destructive or both together, allowing for aspects of interdependence, influence, and confluence, and addressing coherence in universal as well as particular developments, i.e., those aspects not befitting Hegel's system. Additionally, instances of determinate occasions of experience, while always ephemeral, are nonetheless seen as important to define the type and continuity of those occasions of experience that flow from or relate to them."
  • "In his book 'Science and the Modern World' (1925), Whitehead noted that the human intuitions and experiences of science, aesthetics, ethics, and religion influence the worldview of a community, but that in the last several centuries science dominates Western culture. Whitehead sought a holistic, comprehensive cosmology that provides a systematic descriptive theory of the world which can be used for the diverse human intuitions gained through ethical, aesthetic, religious, and scientific experiences, and not just the scientific....Whitehead's influences were not restricted to philosophers or physicists or mathematicians...."
  • "... Actual entities are spatiotemporally extended events or processes. An actual entity is how something is happening, and how its happening is related to other actual entities. The actually existing world is a multiplicity of actual entities overlapping one another...."
  • "...The ultimate abstract principle of actual existence for Whitehead is creativity. Creativity is a term coined by Whitehead to show a power in the world that allows the presence of an actual entity, a new actual entity, and multiple actual entities. Creativity is the principle of novelty."
  • "The one exceptional actual entity is at once both temporal and atemporal: God. God is objectively immortal, as well as being immanent, in the world. He is objectified in each temporal actual entity; but He is not an eternal object" in the process sense of non-Platonic eternal "objects". God is however, persistently eternal (Thomas Oord perfers the term, 'everlasting') and is eternally informing, urging, partnering with creational concresences of being towards a valuative becoming of wellbeing in the events taking place within an indeterminate, freewilled creation. All of which requires a relentlessly churning pan-en-theistic (not pan-theistic nor classic theistic) structure of operative consequence across events, aesthetics, ethics and being. Consequently, free will is essential and inherent to a panentheistic universe of panexperiential, panrelational, and panpsychic experience of itself in response to the very God whose "imago dei" dwells within its indeterminate and freewilled structure, essence, forms, compositions, or reulting telos. The hope of the cosmos rests not only in its relationship to the divine but in the very indwelling of the divine throughout all its everlasting spaces and concreascing realities as given to it by its Maker.
  • Beginning with an examination of religious (or mythological) cosmologies vs. philosophical cosmologies, the logical synthesis is that of a philosophic theology leaning equally into both perspectives dependent upon the approach used.
  • "Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology.
  • "Philosophical cosmology deals with the world as the totality of space, time and all phenomena. Historically, it has had quite a broad scope, and in many cases was found in religion. In modern use "metaphysical cosmology" addresses questions about the Universe which are beyond the scope of science. It is distinguished from religious cosmology in that it approaches these questions using philosophical methods like dialectics. [Meta]modern metaphysical cosmology tries to address questions such as:
    • 1- "What is the origin of the Universe? What is its first cause? Is its existence necessary? (see monism, pantheism, emanationism, creationism, [and panentheism]);
    • 2 - "What are the ultimate material components of the Universe? (see mechanism, dynamism, hylomorphism, atomism);
    • 3 - "What is the ultimate reason for the existence of the Universe? Does the cosmos have a purpose? (see teleology);
    • 4 - "Does the existence of consciousness have a purpose? How do we know what we know about the totality of the cosmos? Does cosmological reasoning reveal metaphysical truths? [See panpsychism]."

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As a metaphysical cosmology, "Process Philosophy and Theology" does this very thing providing to all religions - including that of Christianity - with a number of real world sympathies and perspectives as a better explanation than can be found elsewhere in lesser, non-integral, philosophies. Which is why Whiteheadian thought may be ascribed the place of an Integral Theory of all things, whether Western, Continental, African, Middle Eastern, or Oriental. - R.E. Slater

 

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The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field (XDF) was completed in September 2012 and shows the farthest galaxies ever photographed. Except for the few stars in the foreground (which are bright and easily recognizable because only they have diffraction spikes), every speck of light in the photo is an individual galaxy, some of them as old as 13.2 billion years; the observable universe is estimated to contain more than 2 trillion galaxies.


For other uses, see Cosmology (disambiguation).

Cosmology (from Ancient Greek κόσμος (kósmos) 'world', and -λογία (-logía) 'study of') is a branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term cosmology was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's Glossographia, and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher Christian Wolff, in Cosmologia Generalis.

Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation myths and eschatology.

In the science of astronomy it is concerned with the study of the chronology of the universe.

Physical cosmology is the study of the observable universe's origin, its large-scale structures and dynamics, and the ultimate fate of the universe, including the laws of science that govern these areas.

It is investigated by scientists, such as astronomers and physicists, as well as philosophers, such as metaphysicians, philosophers of physics, and philosophers of space and time.

Because of this shared scope with philosophy, theories in physical cosmology may include both scientific and non-scientific propositions, and may depend upon assumptions that cannot be tested.

Physical cosmology is a sub-branch of astronomy that is concerned with the Universe as a whole. Modern physical cosmology is dominated by the Big Bang theory, which attempts to bring together observational astronomy and particle physics; more specifically, a standard parameterization of the Big Bang with dark matter and dark energy, known as the Lambda-CDM model.

Theoretical astrophysicist David N. Spergel has described cosmology as a "historical science" because "when we look out in space, we look back in time" due to the finite nature of the speed of light.

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For other uses, see Metaphysics (disambiguation).

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility.

It includes questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship between mind and matter, between substance and attribute, and between potentiality and actuality.

The word "metaphysics" comes from two Greek words that, together, literally mean "after or behind or among [the study of] the natural". It has been suggested that the term might have been coined by a first century CE editor who assembled various small selections of Aristotle's works into the treatise we now know by the name Metaphysics (μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, meta ta physika, lit. 'after the Physics ', another of Aristotle's works).

Metaphysics studies questions related to what it is for something to exist and what types of existence there are. Metaphysics seeks to answer, in an abstract and fully general manner, the questions:
  • What is there?
  • What is it like?
Topics of metaphysical investigation include existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility.

Metaphysics is considered one of the four main branches of philosophy, along with epistemology, logic, and ethics.






“Philosophy is akin to poetry, and both of them seek to express that ultimate good sense which we term civilization. In each case there is reference to form beyond the direct meanings of words. Poetry allies itself to metre [to music!], philosophy to mathematical pattern.” – Alfred North Whitehead, Modes of Thought, 174


Process philosophy

Process philosophy, also ontology of becoming, or processism, is an approach to philosophy that identifies processes, changes, or shifting relationships as the only true elements of the ordinary, everyday real world. It treats other real elements (examples: enduring physical objects, thoughts) as abstractions from, or ontological dependents on, processes.

In opposition to the classical view of change as illusory (as argued by Parmenides) or accidental (as argued by Aristotle), process philosophy posits transient occasions of change or becoming as the only fundamental things of the ordinary everyday real world.

Since the time of Plato and Aristotle, classical ontology has posited ordinary world reality as constituted of enduring substances, to which transient processes are ontologically subordinate, if not denied [completely]. If Socrates changes, becoming sick, Socrates is still the same (the substance of Socrates being the same), and change (his sickness) only glides over his substance: change is accidental, and devoid of primary reality, whereas the substance is essential.

Philosophers who appeal to process rather than substance include Heraclitus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Alfred North Whitehead, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Iain McGilchrist, Thomas Nail, Alfred Korzybski, R. G. Collingwood, Alan Watts, Robert M. Pirsig, Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Charles Hartshorne, Arran Gare, Nicholas Rescher, Colin Wilson, Tim Ingold, Bruno Latour, William E. Connolly, and Gilles Deleuze. In physics, Ilya Prigogine distinguishes between the "physics of being" and the "physics of becoming". Process philosophy covers not just scientific intuitions and experiences, but can be used as a conceptual bridge to facilitate discussions among religion, philosophy, and science.

Process philosophy is sometimes classified as closer to Continental philosophy than analytic philosophy, because it is usually only taught in Continental departments. However, other sources state that process philosophy should be placed somewhere in the middle between the poles of analytic versus Continental methods in contemporary philosophy.