Origins & Critique: The Problem of "Feeling" in Whitehead's Metaphysics

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2024

The Problem of “Feeling” in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

by Michael A. Flannery

University Of Alabama At Birmingham

flannery@uab.edu

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An Observation

Historical background is always necessary to have pertaining to the origins of ideas however the datedness of yesteryear's discussion seems passe to the current force of Whiteheadian thought in process philosophy and theology.

I, like others, are not adverse to processual "feeling" all the way down into nature and the cosmos finding in it a necessary descriptor when so much of Christian thought would separate man from the animal, the flora and fauna, the inorganic kingdoms, when asserting man as unique and without peer. A Whiteheadian Process Philosopher and Theologian bears no such artificial divisions. 

Too, the early post-cursors of Whiteheadian thought over the years has only deepened with the additions of process-based panexperientialism and panpsychism to that of panrelationalism. Hence, despite the engagements of past philosophers to their contemporaries ideas and their own academic generations in context with other relevant philosophies and "noetics", we might find these discursives as but helps and aides to Whitehead's own experimentations in speaking more frankly about the voids of the current day's metaphysics. 

Whitehead's organic onus is now on the present generation of process thinkers to continue to work out the many paths and divergencies of process thought in relation to contemporaneous philosophical, psychoanalytic, and socio-cultural thought today: 1) in formalistic terms and, 2) in practical terms whereby civilizations may be aided in their language between one another.

- RE Slater, Nov 9, 2024

The Problem of “Feeling”

in Whitehead’s Metaphysics

article link

by Michael A. Flannery

Fall 2024

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When Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) left England for the United States in 1924 to serve as Harvard’s newest lecturer in philosophy, the department and university administration were delighted to have the co-author of the massive and masterful Principia Mathematica (19101913) on their faculty. Although he had an early foray into philosophy and metaphysics with the Tarner Lectures delivered at Trinity College in November 1919 (published as The Concept of Nature [1920]), it wasn’t until after he turned to the temporal and teleological ideas of Henri Bergson and formulated them into a whole system of thought that he became known as the purported “father” of modern process philosophy. With the publication of his magnum opus Process and Reality (1929), process thought was alleged to have begun, proof that academic pedigree often determines one’s fame.

But Whitehead was not the only one to introduce process philosophy. Swedish-American John Elof Boodin (1869-1950), coming as he did from the Midwest (first at Grinnell College in Iowa, then at the University of Kansas, followed by Carleton College in Minnesota) before moving to the fledgling UCLA, only recently promoted as an independent institution from its former status as the Southern Branch of the University of California, was destined for obscurity despite the fact that he already developed his own system of process philosophy. Boodin’s career as a process thinker shouldn’t be surprising given the fact that Josiah Royce, to whom Boodin was devoted, is regarded as America’s first true process philosopher (Auxier 2013, pp. 40, 63).* Armed with what he had learned from his dissertation supervisor and mentor, Boodin worked out his own process thought in A Realistic Universe in 1916, three years before Whitehead’s Tarner Lectures, four years before his Concept of Nature, nine years before his Science and the Modern World, ten years before

*Randall Auxier points out that Royce’s process philosophy can be traced to an unpublished essay, “On Purpose in Thought,” written in 1880. This was developed further in Royce’s essay, “The Problem of Job,” published in Studies of Good and Evil: A Series of Essays Upon Life and Society (New York: Appleton, 1898). Richard Hocking (1906-2001), son of idealist philosopher and student of Royce, William Ernest Hocking (1873-1966), noted this too. He observed that Royce “expressed . . . his conviction that human existence is at once thoroughly time-immersed as a sequence of practical actions and, in its rational power, capable of grasping forms of order and lawfulness which are true throughout the relativities of the temporal flux. Royce is a kind of process philosopher” (Hocking 1963, pp. xivxv). All of these elements are more fully developed in Boodin’s oeuvre.

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Religion in the Making, and eleven years before his Gifford Lectures that would become Process and Reality (1929), his magnum opus.

As with any major system or theory, differences over origination, emphasis, definition, interpretation, and consequences are common among its adherents. At the time, Boodin identified himself a creationist, which he defined as someone who believes in “the occurrence of new forms, characters and stages under the guidance of an actuality which controls and animates the course of history.” As interpreted, “creation is epigenesis or emergence (in recent terminology) together with control from a higher level” (Boodin 1934c, p. 14). On the other hand, Boodin considered Whitehead a preformationist, meaning “that evolutionary development is latent in the process so that later forms and stages are really an unfolding or making explicit what is already present in the earlier stages of the same history” (Boodin 1934c, pp. 14, 43-45). By definition, however, both were process thinkers, although the term process philosophy per se came into common use by its own independent route.

Here some sorting out of terminology is helpful. While process philosophy is generally associated with Whitehead, he actually never employed the term, preferring to call his system “the philosophy of organism.” In fact, the theme of this essay examines Whitehead’s proposal whereby in “place of the Hegelian hierarchy of categories of thought, the philosophy of organism finds a hierarchy of categories of feeling [emphasis mine]” (Whitehead [1929] 1978, p. 166). Process philosophy as a general term referring to being as becoming in a constant holistic relational interaction of change appears to have first been used explicitly in Wilmon H. Sheldon’s America’s Progressive Philosophy (1942) and elaborated upon in his Process and Polarity (1944). Sheldon did not use this phrase as a synonym for the philosophy of organism, though he regarded Whitehead as one of several of its greatest proponents (this included Dewey, a pragmatist who, as we shall see, opposed several of Whitehead’s formulations); instead, Sheldon developed his ideas independently of Whitehead (Rescher 1996, p. 23). However, it was Bernard Loomer who applied “process” to both branches of philosophy and theology. Here Looomer made it plain that in using “process philosophy” he had “reference in this case to the general Whiteheadian orientation” (Loomer 1949, p. 181). Although Loomer knew of Sheldon’s work, he probably emphasized Whitehead’s process philosophy because he saw process as “a theory which Whitehead has already exemplified” (Loomer 1944, p. 67). Here is how process philosophy became synonymous with the

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philosophy of organism. Bolstered by Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000) at the University of Chicago with his evangelizing zeal for process (he preferred “neoclassical”) theology under his own interpretation of Whitehead, whom he knew and had worked with, by the 1950s the almost exclusive identification of process philosophy and theology with Whitehead was complete. In any case, given the etymology of the phrase, process philosophy casts a wide net that captures a broad genus of kindred thinkers whose specific species of beliefs can vary widely. None of these early proponents actually used the phrase.

Initially, Boodin offers little critique of Whitehead only to provide a fuller assessment by stating, “When theory goes beyond experience, it belongs to the world of fiction, albeit a useful fiction if it leads to further experience” (Boodin 1934c, p. 487). Eventually, he accused Whitehead of perpetuating a kind of fiction—and not a particularly useful one—by singling out his tendency to abstraction, over generalization, conflation of mathematical truths with causal explanations, and his overambitious metaphysical constructions (Boodin 1943). Of particular concern for Boodin was Whitehead’s use of “feeling” in his metaphysical system:

Whitehead . . . attributes little importance to sense-quality. Instead, he stresses feeling. His language of feeling is as fluctuating as the feelings. He sometimes uses feeling in the psychological sense of feeling tone. In this sense, it is a fusion of a large mass of organic sensations, especially from the autonomous system. This is an emergent fact as much as the sense-qualities which we use to characterize external things. While feelings are an important revelation of our life in nature, they are certainly not less organic than the more specific sense-qualities. Together with the specific sense-qualities, the feelings constitute the immediate awareness of our life in nature. They are more massive and in that sense richer than the specific sense-qualities. But that is no reason for putting them on a different metaphysical basis. Sometimes Whitehead uses feeling for our whole immediate awareness of nature. This immediate awareness he calls prehension, as contrasted with apprehension. Prehension suggests active seizure; and feeling, instead of being an emergent, becomes an efficient cause in nature. As all nature is organic for Whitehead, feeling becomes the efficient causation in nature. And since reality is conceived as dynamic, feeling becomes reality, and Whitehead is brought by his own route to the mysticism of Bradley. Feeling, as one type of the emergent actualization of nature—the florescence of life's activity—becomes the whole of reality. Such ambiguity will give the philosophers much material out of which they can make a living and will no doubt be perpetuated [emphasis mine] (Boodin 1934a, pp. 157-158).

Boodin’s last pithy comment was a prescient observation on his colleagues’ easy slide into the hypnotic gaze of the noetic idea.

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Like Boodin, University of Arkansas philosopher Daryl H. Rice refused to fall under Whitehead’s spell. Rice accuses Whitehead of “reductive vitalism” (1989), but not before pointing out that Whitehead’s use of “physical feeling” is deceptive because it doesn’t refer to physical reality in any meaningful way, but as a “psychical reality” (Rice 1984, p. 123). Instead, Whitehead universalizes “physical feeling” to show the relativity and continuity of events in nature. Here we have Whitehead’s philosophy of science in the service of a metaphysics of feeling and emotion. In other words, the universal relativity and continuity of the events of nature are raised to the level of a metaphysics of feeling and emotion. This is carried to questionable lengths in Whitehead’s moral philosophy where “the ought” is reduced to an æsthetic sense (see Schlipp 1951, pp. 561-618).

Whitehead’s metaphysical scheme applies “feeling” to so many things that it seems to lose coherence and all meaning. It can refer to an actual occasion as subject, to an actual occasion as object, to the apprehension of object by subject, and to the affective tone washing over the act of apprehension. We have a feeling that “feels” so obfuscatory that “Feeling seems to become what Hegel claimed became of his notion of the Absolute in the hands of some of his contemporaries: the night in which all cows are black” (Rice 1984, p. 123). Whitehead restricts feeling to “subjective form” and as such it cannot be passed on from subject to subject because it is solely internal. Whitehead’s “feeling” becomes a word spaghetti of incomprehensibly slippery usage (Rice 1984, p. 124).† There is nothing in process thinking that requires “feeling” of this sort. It is a muddle of Whitehead’s own making in his effort to understand “the whole of reality” and thus extends feeling “by overturning our thought expectations and beliefs” (Baciu, 2023, p. 67). Here the extension of feeling to inanimate things is rightly regarded with extreme Kantian distrust, but is nonetheless indispensable to Whitehead’s “actual occasions.”

Careful to keep substance out of his metaphysics, Boodin admits that since “we are concerned only with the dynamic world as it appears in our experience, . . . we must assume that reality is what it is known-as” therefore banishing “the fictitious [Kantian] thing-in-itself” (Boodin 1916, p. 28). Kant’s mistake was to assume that we link things with our intellect arbitrarily when, in fact, we are selective in that “our conjunctions tally with the conjunctions of qualities as

†Whitehead’s awkward handling of feeling is exemplary of his entire philosophy. Process and Reality, supposedly Whitehead’s grand metaphysical statement, has been called “almost the most unintelligible essay in philosophy ever written” (Urban 1939, p. 617). Many who have tried to digest its contents would agree.

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ascertained in our experience” (Boodin 1916, p. 91). Furthermore, rather than mere subjective additions as Kant would have it, things “come to figure in the contexts of our interests” (Boodin 1916, p. 93). These relations are not abstractions. In good Jamesian fashion, “Terms and relations are pragmatic. They are our emphasis in the service of the dominant interest for the time being. The real units of reality are neither terms nor relations, but energy systems from which the terms and relations are intellectual abstractions” (Boodin 1916, p. 94). For Boodin, human experience is comprised of constancy—invariable associations, permanent will, the dominant tendency, the ruling passion—and change—shifting contents and values, new experiences, unforeseen obstacles, and pleasant surprises (Boodin 1916, p. 176). Process must entail flux and that implies constancy on the one hand and change on the other. Indeed without flux growth, creativity and novelty would have no meaning. Whitehead forces energy systems into an odd context of “feeling” that seems unwarranted and unnecessary unless one subscribes to the equally unwarranted and unnecessary panpsychism or its pragmatized twin panexperientialism as some Whiteheadians have done (Griffin 2001, pp. 94-128]; Mesle 2008, pp. 93-94). This merely presses an abstraction into the service of an a priori metaphysic. Nothing in process thought requires this.

Whiteheadians will no doubt insist that the ubiquitous use of feeling avoids the dreaded bifurcation of humanity and nature but Boodin’s metaphysic was just as averse to bifurcation (Boodin 1925, pp. 50-51, 252-261, 265; Boodin 1934a, pp. 148, 170-171). Whitehead’s background and achievements in mathematics, alluded to earlier, secured his Anglo-American status, but it could be a detriment too. Boodin suggests that Whitehead made the same error as Samuel Alexander (1859-1938) by treating abstract mathematical concepts as real-world attributes. This is confirmed in Whitehead’s conflation of “value” all the way down, like Alexander, “into the elementary constituents of the universe” (Urban 1951, p. 325). While this was ostensibly an effort to head off the bifurcation of nature and experiences, it seems dubious to do so by employing such mathematizing abstractions as reading value all the down. Boodin was too close a reader of Henri Poincaré (1854-1912) not to know that mathematics simply comprises “pragmatic conventions contributed by the human mind and relative to the needs of descriptions” (Boodin 1925, p. 87). Perhaps Whitehead’s confusion stemmed from such a concerted effort, along with his colleague Bertrand Russell, to create a notation system in Principia Mathematica that would provide “the perfect language” for clarifying everything. This involved trying to fill in every

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ambiguity or ambivalence and caused serious problems (Grayling 2019, pp. 342-344). In the end, it fell under the weight of its own imposing objective by worsening a problem it sought to solve.

Famed pragmatist John Dewey (1859-1952) and political scientist/philosopher Arthur F. Bentley (1870-1957) recognized the “linguistic chaos” to which logic and epistemology had fallen and attempted to clarify things in their Knowing and the Known published two years after Whitehead’s death in 1949. Dewey and Bentley called for consistency in terminology and “firm names” based upon observation that could be generally accepted by logicians and epistemologists working in the field (Dykhuizen 1973, p. 311). Their project was clearly not served by Whitehead’s neologisms, special word usages, and unusual linguistic applications. Dewey was not overly critical of Whitehead in public, choosing to emphasize those things with which his own philosophical thinking most agreed. But privately both he and Bentley knew Whitehead had problems. Like his fuzzy use of “feeling,” Bentley told Dewey in a letter dated May 1, 1942, "that Whitehead “is always trying to read the universe in mentalistic terms.... My irreverent feeling is that he [Whitehead] empties a pillow case full of feathers, and you waste a lot more time than is necessary in huffing and puffing them away. He worries me” (Ratner and Altman 1964, p. 101). Dewey explained his motive in not fully challenging Whitehead’s ideas: “I didn’t mean to indulge in anything like a wholehearted defense of Whitehead,” he told Bentley on December 3, 1944, “In fact, I think his thought is slippery—but the slipperiness is of a kind in which I think the alternatives are either to leave him alone or engage in a highly technical discussion—in our case I favor the first alternative” (Ratner and Altman 1964, pp. 344-345).

One of those “technical” issues was Whitehead’s background in mathematics. He simply tried to do too much with it. Einstein, like Poincaré, admitted his descriptions were useful abstractions without any direct physical significance for his space-time, but Whitehead sets out to give an account of nature in which, as Boodin explains, “abstractions are conceived as extensive abstractions. Even event-particles with their point-instants are conceived as contained in nature.” Not surprisingly, Whitehead has difficulty showing how these can be extrapolated from “events” in any reasonable sense. Boodin, therefore, concludes, “The spatial, temporal, and physical points do not possess the character of extension and inclusion. Whitehead admits that ‘the creative advance of nature,’ which is his expressive characterization of concrete reality, is ‘not serial.’ But it is easy to see that Whitehead has left himself no other locus for such entities, so he has to include

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them within nature. He has set himself to deal with nature as closed to mind. There is to be no bifurcation into subjective and objective. Nature is to be self-contained to a theory of nature. He did not leave the least hole through which he could chuck embarrassing entities” (Boodin 1925, p. 316).

All Whitehead had to do is admit mind—and by extension feeling—as a part of nature instead of shoehorning it into “occasions” or painfully demonstrating how points, instants, and point-particles can be abstracted from events. These “are not contained in the same sense as adjectives or as the objects of science. They can only be considered as part of nature if we regard the instrumental function of mind as part of nature” (Boodin 1925, p. 317). In the end, Whitehead’s effort to root out any and all ambiguity in his metaphysical system, attempting to avoid bifurcation at all costs, paid the ultimate price of mentalizing nature. Of course, mind as a part of nature is not the same as being nature. The latter is groundless panpsychism. Dewey recognized this in Whitehead, accusing him of “converting continuity of functioning into identity of contents” of which “he is very guilty” (Ratner and Altman 1964, p. 342).

Again, this difficulty, in part, resides in Whitehead’s mathematizing everything. Bentley noticed the same problem in Whitehead that Boodin had. Although not in the published version of his essay “Specification” that appeared in the November 1946 issue of The Journal of Philosophy, his draft, shared with Dewey the year before, pointed out that “the logical technical examination of the mathematical methods is always legitimate; but the logical carryover of goals, tests, and standards is something else. In this process of trying to make logic run mathematics, the logic [of Russell, Whitehead, et al. (brackets in the original)] has advanced (i.e., weakened itself) to the three-valued or multi-valued forms,‡ and it has tried to make probability developments oriented to the old scheme; it has had many offshoots. (Consider hypostatizations. Consider concept as a norm around which the wording circulated. Consider pure quality assumed to be capable of mathematicised treatment)” (Ratner and Altman 1964, p. 466). But Dewey explained to Bentley that Whitehead’s “ultra-mathematical organizations” were only part of his problem: the heart of it was “the same as Bergson’s starting from Newtonian physics,” both were struck by the significance of temporality, but with the new physics, Whitehead attempted to apply his “temporal

‡A reference in logic to what is sometimes called 3VL or many-valued systems (MVL) that include true, false, and one or more additional values (e.g., provisionally true or false, heuristically useful, etc.).

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constructions” with relativity and space-time “to mentalize his Reality” (Ratner and Altman 1964, pp. 102-103).

Of course, this looped back to Whitehead’s mathematized metaphysics. Boodin saw this better than Dewey: “The theory of relativity raises the whole question of the relation of mathematics to the real world. Einstein and Whitehead both assume the validity of the mathematical concepts of continuity and infinity, which have played such a large part in modern physical description ever since the invention of the differential calculus. They belong to the scientific method of the Newtonian era to which we owe the foundations of the physical sciences. But like the Newtonian concepts of time and space, they are purely artificial concepts. We have no evidence that nature ever has the constitution symbolized by the concepts of continuity and infinity. That nature makes no leaps is one of those a priori dicta, like nature abhors a vacuum, which we have come to distrust. So long as there was no evidence to the contrary, the Newtonian framework of science naturally compelled conviction. But we have seen how the conception of absolute spaceunits and time-units was shattered by” the new physics (Boodin 1925, p. 307). In effect, Whitehead, in following Einstein, was putting new wine into old wineskins.

It may seem that we have come a long way from Whitehead’s use of “feeling” in his metaphysics, but it is really a significant red flag to all the problems attending his philosophy, problems noted by so many. This is why Boodin’s comment concerning his colleagues’ eagerness to thrive on ambiguities such as Whitehead’s use of “feeling,” even when ostensibly rooting them out, should give pause. It is important to note that the problem is not with process thought per se, the problem is with Whitehead’s construction and presentation of it. Boodin avoided Whitehead’s complications in three ways: first, by letting most of the moral and teleological work of his metaphysics to be carried on the shoulders of cosmic immanence (Flannery 2024); second, by a frank humility and fallibilism, admitting that it is “Far better to confess honestly our ignorance and pray for light. This confession does more to honor God than a pretended wisdom” (Boodin 1934b, p. 163); third, by avoiding Whitehead’s sweeping generalizations, namely, his parallelism that “saves the principle of continuity at the price of making an assumption (i.e., that every material change is accompanied by a psychological change [more mentalizing]) for which there is no evidence. [Julian] Huxley appeals for support to A. N. Whitehead and quotes, ‘Each event is a reflection of every other event, past as well as present.’ This is mysticism and would make science

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impossible. Whitehead ignores two fundamental principles: the principle of specificity or the emergence of new qualities under specific conditions, and the principle of levels which emphasizes the discontinuity of organization in nature” (Boodin 1957, p. 111). If the Whiteheadian reply is that event means something else here entirely, then we’re back to the linguistic chaos bemoaned by Bentley and Dewey.

In the end, disputations of the kind instigated by certain aspects of Whitehead’s metaphysics—from his ambiguous use of feeling to his mathematical conflations and mentalizations—will probably have influence only within the rarefied atmosphere of the philosopher’s lecture hall. And for good reason. Perhaps our philosophers—whoever they may be—need to have the same “genius” as good leaders in other more commonplace endeavors, in Walter Lippmann’s words, to leave behind them “a situation which common sense, without the grace of genius, can deal successfully.”

Bibliography

Auxier, Randall E. 2013. Time, Will, and Purpose: Living Ideas from the Philosophy of Josiah Royce. Chicago: Open Court.

Baciu, Claudiu. 2023. “Feeling” and Metaphysics in Whitehead. Studii de istorie a filosofiei universal. Issue 1:59-70.

Boodin, John Elof. 1916. A Realistic Universe: An Introduction to Metaphysics. New York: Macmillan.

Boodin, John Elof. 1925. Cosmic Evolution: Outlines of Cosmic Idealism. New York: Macmillan.

Boodin, John Elof. 1934a. “Functional Realism.” The Philosophical Review. v. 43, no. 2: 147-178.

Boodin, John Elof. 1934b. God and Creation: God, a Cosmic Philosophy of Religion. New York: Macmillan.

Boodin, John Elof. 1934c. Three Interpretations of the Universe. New York: Macmillan.

Boodin, John Elof. 1943. “Fictions in Science and Philosophy. II.” The Journal of Philosophy. v. 40, no. 26: 701-716.

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Boodin, John Elof. 1957. Studies in Philosophy: The Posthumous Papers of John Elof Boodin. Edited by Donald Ayres Piatt. Los Angeles: University of California. 

Dykhuizen, George. 1973. The Life and Mind of John Dewey. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.

Grayling, A. C. 2019. The History of Philosophy. New York: Penguin Press.

Griffin, David Ray. 2001. Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Hocking, Richard. 1963. “Process and Analysis in the Philosophy of Royce.” In Josiah Royce’s Seminar, 1913-1914. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

Loomer, Bernard. 1944. Review of America’s Progressive Philosophy by William Henry Sheldon. The Journal of Religion. v. 24, no. 1: 66-67.

Loomer, Bernard. 1949. “Faith and Process Philosophy.” The Journal of Religion. v. 29, no. 3: 181-203,

Mesle, C. Robert. 2008. Process-Relational Philosophy: An Introduction to Alfred North Whitehead. West Conshocken, PA: Templeton Press.

Ratner, Sidney and Jules Altman, eds. 1964. John Dewey and Arthur F. Bentley: A Philosophical Correspondence, 1932-1951. New Brunswick: Rutger University Press.

Rescher, Nicholas. 1996. Process Metaphysics: An Introduction to Process Philosophy. Albany: SUNY Press.

Rice, Daryl H. 1984. “Alfred North Whitehead’s Political Theory and Metaphysics: A Critical Recurrence.” PhD dissertation. West Lafayette, IN: Purdue University.

Rice, Daryl H. 1989. “Whitehead and Existential Phenomenology: Is a Synthesis Possible?” Philosophy Today. v. 33, no. 2: 183-192.

Schlipp, Paul. 1951. “Whitehead’s Moral Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp. 2nd ed. The Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 3. La Salle, IL: Open Court.

Urban Wilbur M. 1938. “Elements of Unintelligibility in Whitehead's Metaphysics.” The Journal of Philosophy. v. 35, no. 23: 617-637.

Urban, Wilbur M. 1951. “Whitehead’s Philosophy of Language.” In The Philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Edited by Paul Arthur Schlipp. 2nd ed. The Library of Living Philosophers, vol. 3. La Salle, IL: Open Court.

Whitehead, Alfred North. 1978. Process and Reality. Corrected edition. Edited by David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press.

What is Process Panexperientialism?

In each fleeting moment,

all things touch,

alive with the pulse of experience,

woven in a web of becoming.

- re slater

 

Each spark of feeling,
from stone to star,
joins the dance of the world—
we are all in relationship

from atomic force to sentient being.

- re slater

In the heart of process,
each is both subject and object,
bound in a web of shared experience,
becoming, always becoming....

- re slater

[All brackets are mine] - re slater

Panexperientialist theologies begin with the idea that experience is fundamental to the whole of things. Long before there was life on earth, and before the evolution of the earth itself, there was something like experience. The entire ongoing of the evolution of the cosmic universe is an evolution of experience. Experience is not consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent property just as time is [e.g., cosmic space creates time, thus making of time an emergent property of physical space].

Some experience is conscious but much not. Experience is the activity of "prehending something other" and being influenced by what is prehended. This page outlines one version of a panexperientialist theology rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Others can likewise be developed: indigenous theologies, Hindu theologies, Buddhist theologies, Jewish theologies, Muslim theologies, and Christian theologies. All would begin with the shared idea that experience is everywhere and that the universe itself is, in some deep sense, a "living cosmos" that is new at every moment.

- Jay McDaniel

The universe hums with feeling,
from the smallest atom to the deepest soul,
experiencing, creating, in

endless flows of connection.

- re slater

All things feel,
all things are touched,
all worlds unfold in the

meeting of things,

hearts and minds.

- re slater

In every pulse of time,
there is a meeting of souls,
as all things arise together -

in symphonies of shared

experience.

- re slater

​Panexperiential Theology

article link

A Living Cosmos and the

Perpetual Newness of God

by Jay McDaniel

In the flow of process,
we are neither fixed nor free,
but woven in the fabric of the now,
experiencing each other’s becoming.

- re slater

What is Panexperientialism?

Panexperientialism is the idea that "experience" is not confined to human consciousness but extends throughout the depths of matter and into the vast reaches of the galaxies. Understood in this way, "experience" need not involve consciousness as in clear perception (e.g. visual awareness). Nor need it involve intellectual awareness as in the conscious reflection on ideas, memories, or goals. Experience can be non-conscious and non-intellectual but still be "experience." It is the activity of feeling or "prehending" something other and being influenced by it in some way. Wherever energetic transactions occur between entities—whether among living cells, atomic events, or stellar processes—experience is present, as it is, of course, in human beings and other animals, serving as the connective tissue between entities. It carries an element of interiority or "subjective immediacy," suggesting that something akin to subjectivity exists universally. Consequently, the objective world we see, hear, and touch is an expression of this pervasive subjectivity. The objective world, then, is an objectification of subjective experience.

One value of this way of looking at things is that it encourages us to live with respect and care for the whole of the material world, both biological and trans-biological. Another is that it invites us to imagine sacrality itself as part of, not apart from, a panexperiential world.

Entire theological frameworks--panexperientialist theologies—can be constructed on this foundation. They begin with the idea that experience is fundamental, not simply to human life but to the whole of things. This page outlines one version of a panexperientialist theology rooted in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Others can likewise be developed: indigenous theologies, Hindu theologies, Buddhist theologies, Jewish theologies, Muslim theologies, and Christian theologies. All would begin with the shared idea that the universe, one way or another, is alive with subjective immediacy, valuable in its own right.

Outline of a Whiteheadian Approach

Cosmic Evolution and the Emergence of Life

The universe, approximately 14 billion years old, has evolved through stars, galaxies, and planets, eventually giving rise to life on Earth. It is still evolving. Conventional vs. Panexperiential Views of Experience

A common view holds that early cosmic processes were devoid of experience, with subjective awareness emerging only later with biological life. Whitehead offers a different perspective, suggesting that experience—however primitive—has been present from the universe’s beginning.

Energy as Feeling

For Whitehead, energy and feeling are inseparable; even subatomic events involve basic forms of attraction, repulsion, and responsiveness. Every transfer of energy involves not just physical force but also a rudimentary kind of subjective experience, or "prehension."

Quantum Events and Human Experience

Whitehead suggests a continuity between quantum events and human experiences, where both involve moments of responsiveness without requiring self-awareness. Human experience consists mostly of preconscious sensations, emotions, and bodily awareness—similar in essence to quantum interactions.

Spontaneity and Self-Creativity

Neither quantum events nor human experiences are entirely determined by the past; each involves spontaneity and creativity. Whitehead describes this as “self-creativity,” where unfulfilled possibilities shape the present and help guide it toward novel outcomes.

Prehension as Felt Connections

Prehension is the process by which events integrate past influences and potential futures into each unfolding moment. This process involves more than information transfer—it includes a felt connection with possibilities, guiding each moment toward satisfaction and fulfillment.

Seeking Intensity through Contrasts

Both quantum events and human experiences seek intensity, achieved through the integration of contrasting elements. This contrast fosters novelty and depth in human emotions and in cosmic processes, enriching the creative advance of the universe.

Inanimate Objects and Prehending Events

Even seemingly inanimate objects, like rocks, consist of prehending events at the quantum level, though they lack spontaneity and self-organization. Whitehead distinguishes between mechanical unities (e.g., rocks) and organic unities, where interactions create emergent complexity and self-organization.

Value as Intrinsic to the Universe

Experience inherently carries value, with each moment seeking satisfaction and self-enjoyment. Value exists in the act of becoming itself, independent of consciousness, and is woven into the evolving universe from the very beginning.

The Universe as a Creative Advance into Novelty At the heart of Whitehead’s process philosophy is the idea that the universe is a continual creative advance into novelty. Reality consists of moments of experience that, through their spontaneous self-creativity, add something new to the unfolding process of time. Creativity, in this view, is not merely a property of particular beings but the ultimate reality underlying all things. It is through this ceaseless creativity that both order and novelty emerge in every moment of the universe. This advance into novelty makes life unpredictable, opening space for innovation and transformation at every level—from quantum events to human choices.

God as the Lure of Beauty

God participates in the unfolding cosmos by offering potentialities—called "eternal objects"—that guide events toward beauty and fulfillment. As both a source of new possibilities and a receptive presence for all experiences, God embodies a dynamic relationship with the universe, inviting every moment to contribute to the evolving harmony of creation.

The Perpetual Newness of God. God is evolving is that new events that happen in the universe, given its creative advance into novelty, add contents to the life of God that not exist to be felt or known theretofore; and in the sense that these new events add new potentials to God, to lure the universe and to enjoy contrasts, that did not exist theretofore, even for God.

Further Discussion

The Universe as a Process of Becoming

We are told that the universe as we know it is approximately 14 billion years old. It has been evolving ever since—into stars, galaxies, planets, moons, and, at least on our planet (and probably elsewhere), what we call life. "Life" has many definitions, but for now, let us assume that to be alive is to possess something like feeling or experience.

It is tempting to believe that, before a certain stage in cosmic evolution, there was no experience at all—no interiority, no emotion, no prehending, no attraction or repulsion, no feeling. According to this view, the early universe consisted solely of energy and force transfers, devoid of any subjective dimension. Consciousness and experience would have emerged only later, perhaps with the advent of biological complexity. Until that point, the universe would have been a realm of purely physical interactions, lacking any trace of interiority or feeling.

The Whiteheadian Alternative: Energy = Feeling

Alfred North Whitehead offers a radically different view. He proposes that what we call "energy" at the subatomic level is not distinct from experience but is itself a primitive form of feeling. Energy, in this view, is not merely an objective force exchanged between particles—it is a form of prehension. Wherever there is energy, there is some degree of feeling, however rudimentary. The interactions of subatomic particles are not devoid of experience but involve basic forms of attraction, repulsion, and responsiveness. Energy transfers, therefore, are not merely physical events but also moments of subjective experience—simple, unconscious feelings, or "prehensions."

This perspective suggests that the universe has always contained an element of subjectivity—an interior dimension present from its earliest moments. Prehension did not emerge with life; it has been present all along, shaping the evolution of the cosmos at every level. Energy and feeling, as Whitehead sees it, are inseparable aspects of the same process of becoming.

Quantum Events and Human Experience

If this panexperiential view is correct, it implies that quantum events—occurring deep within atoms just after the Big Bang—are of the same kind as moments of human experience. Both, in their way, are alive.

What connects a moment of human experience to a quantum event? Neither is conscious in the traditional sense. They do not involve perceiving objects with the clarity of human sight, nor do they engage in self-reflection. Quantum events, like most of our everyday experiences, lack conscious perception or reflective awareness. Even when we are awake, moments of clear perception are rare. Much of our experience consists of bodily sensations, emotions, desires, and preconscious memories.

To grasp the connection between quantum events and human experiences, we need to move beyond conventional ideas of consciousness. Neither requires self-awareness or the sense of being distinct from the world. Both unfold in response to what came before, shaped by prior influences. Whitehead describes this responsiveness as experience in the mode of causal efficacy.

Spontaneity and Self-Creativity

Yet, neither quantum events nor human experiences are fully determined by the past. There is always an element of spontaneity—what Whitehead calls self-creativity. In both cases, experience arises from the intersection of past influences and spontaneous aliveness. Unfulfilled possibilities from the future also shape the present, acting as attractors, much like probabilities in quantum theory, drawing events toward particular outcomes.

Prehension and Subjectivity

Whitehead introduces the concept of prehension to describe how events—whether human or quantum—incorporate past influences and future possibilities. Prehension is not a conscious process but a way of feeling both what has been and what could be. It integrates the past and potential futures into each unfolding moment.

Prehension involves more than just information transfer; it entails a felt connection. Both quantum events and human experiences respond to relevant past influences and potential futures. These potentials serve as lures or subjective aims, guiding events toward certain outcomes.

Every experience, whether human or quantum, contains what Whitehead calls subjective immediacy: an inner aliveness unique to the present moment. Both human experiences and quantum events are moments of experience—or actual occasions—each with its own subjective immediacy. There is an ontological continuity between them: both involve prehension, and both seek some form of satisfaction in the process of becoming.

The Aim Toward Intensity and the Role of Contrast

What do quantum events and human experiences seek? According to Whitehead, they seek intensity—or, more precisely, satisfying intensity. Both aim to achieve a kind of fulfillment unique to their moment. This pursuit introduces novelty into the world, contributing to the ongoing creative advance of the cosmos.

Contrast plays a key role in generating intensity. In human experience, contrasting emotions or perspectives deepen awareness and amplify meaning. Similarly, quantum events achieve intensity by integrating past influences with unrealized future possibilities. Without contrast, experience would lack the tension necessary to generate novelty and richness.

In human life, this felt preference for certain influences over others manifests as emotions. Even at the quantum level, Whitehead suggests that events have subjective forms—a rudimentary form of emotion or responsiveness. Emotions, contrasts, and prehensions are not exclusive to humans but are present throughout the cosmos. Subjective forms, the "clothing" of prehensions, embody the contrasts that give rise to intensity.

What About Rocks?

Some objects—like rocks—seem devoid of agency. It may seem odd to suggest that rocks are alive in any meaningful way. Whitehead acknowledges this intuition, explaining that rocks are not themselves prehending realities but aggregates of prehending events. These aggregates, or nexuses, are complex groupings of countless events where prehension occurs at the quantum level.

Whitehead distinguishes between mechanical and organic unities. Rocks, as aggregates, are mechanical wholes—the sum of their parts, lacking spontaneity and self-organization. In contrast, organic wholes have emergent unities, where the interaction of parts creates something more than their sum.

It’s also important to note that matter takes many forms—not just solid objects like rocks. Matter can exist as liquids, gases, plasmas, and other dynamic states. Some forms, like fluids, contain seeds of self-organizing creativity absent in solids. Whitehead’s view invites us to move beyond the idea of matter as static, recognizing that all matter participates in processes of becoming.

Value in the Universe

Our universe consists of experiential moments and the aggregates (nexuses or societies) they form. But what about value? Is value inherent in the universe?

For Whitehead, the answer is yes. Value resides in the act of experiencing itself—in the self-enjoyment that arises from each moment of becoming. Every momentary experience seeks satisfaction, and this pursuit of value is intrinsic to its being. The universe, in evolving, is also evolving in value—developing capacities for feeling, enjoyment, and satisfaction.

Importantly, value does not depend on consciousness. Experience has been present in the universe from the beginning, while consciousness emerged later. Value precedes consciousness and is woven into the fabric of existence.

God, Beauty, and Eternal Objects

At the heart of the universe is God—understood as the complex unity of the cosmos, a living whole with a life of its own. God is not separate from the unfolding process of becoming but actively participates in it, luring the universe toward heightened forms of value wherever possible. God offers possibilities that align with each moment’s circumstances, always seeking beauty in the form of harmonious intensity.

Integral to this process are eternal objects—timeless potentialities that exist within the mind of God. These eternal objects are not merely abstract possibilities; they represent forms of value, beauty, and meaning that are always available to the universe. However, they are only made relevant "in due season"—that is, they become available to particular events when conditions align, guiding the universe toward new possibilities. These eternal objects act as divine lures, drawing creation toward more profound expressions of harmony, novelty, and satisfaction.

Beauty

If we see one word to name the subjective aim of the the living whole of the universe, of God, it might be Beauty.

Beauty, in this sense, is more than aesthetic pleasure—it is the harmonious integration of contrasting elements into satisfying forms of intensity. Every moment of beauty achieved in the universe is retained within the ongoing life of God, who serves as an empathic receptacle for all that happens. God holds the joys and sorrows of every occasion, weaving them into a larger pattern of meaning and value.

Two forms of Beauty that are especially important in human life, and perhaps in other forms as well, are Truth and Goodness. Truth is not an object to be attained, It is a name for the act of experiencing and responding to the world in a way that is responsive to the way the world truly is. Truth is the activity of seeking rapport, or correspondence, with how things stand, however they stand. Goodness is a name for seeking to foster the well-being of life. One ultimate expression of Goodness, thus understood, is Love.

This dynamic relationship between God and the the living cosmos is not coercive but persuasive. God offers possibilities—lures toward beauty—but their realization depends on the cooperation of each moment and its circumstances. As the universe unfolds, beauty emerges wherever contrasting elements are synthesized into enriching forms of intensity, contributing to the greater whole.

God, as both the source of eternal potentialities and the receptive heart of all experience, embodies a dual role: offering the world new possibilities while receiving and preserving each moment of experience. In this way, the universe is both a creative adventure and a profound act of participation in divine beauty. Every experience, no matter how small or fleeting, contributes to the ongoing evolution of beauty and value within the life of God.

Whitehead's Metaphysics

Actual Entities

An actual entity is a moment of concrescence—a moment of experience in which the many entities of the past actual world are felt and gathered into the unity of a subjective whole. In each actual entity, "the many become one, and are increased by one." This gathering includes the self-creativity and self-enjoyment of the entity, as it unifies influences from the past and brings forth something new. Actual entities are multiple and thus different from one another. Each entity arises with its own distinct characteristics, shaped by its unique prehensions and subjective forms. Once completed, an actual entity perishes as a subjective experience but continues to exist objectively, contributing to future moments of experience. This process exemplifies the dynamic nature of reality—each actual entity participates in the ongoing creative advance of the universe by transforming the past into novelty.

Prehensions

Prehensions refer to the ways actual entities relate to and "take account of" one another. This concept captures how an entity feels or grasps another entity—not conceptually, but experientially. Prehensions are the building blocks of relationships, with each actual entity prehending others through positive (inclusive) or negative (exclusive) feelings. These prehensive relations allow all things to participate in one another’s becoming, embodying the interconnectedness of all entities.

Nexus (or Nexūs)

A nexus is a network of actual entities related through shared prehensions, forming structured webs of interconnected experiences. Some nexūs take on enduring forms called societies, where occasions of experience inherit common characteristics from one another, creating patterns of continuity.

Corpuscular societies: These consist of relatively stable entities, such as atoms or molecules, which persist across time by maintaining coherence.

Personally ordered societies: These are sequences of experiences that form personal identities, such as the stream of consciousness that constitutes a person’s life. Each occasion builds on its predecessors, creating personal continuity and coherence over time.

Nexūs and societies reveal how individual occasions of experience participate in larger patterns of becoming, connecting everything from microscopic particles to human lives in an ongoing process of transformation.

Subjective Forms

Subjective forms refer to the emotional or qualitative tone that shapes how an entity experiences the world. These forms influence how prehensions are integrated, giving each experience a unique emotional quality. For example, one person might feel rain as melancholic, while another experiences it as refreshing. Subjective forms guide how entities respond to and integrate the influences they prehend, adding emotional depth to experience.

Eternal Objects

Eternal objects are pure potentials—abstract qualities or possibilities that actual entities can take up in their becoming. They are not confined to any specific event but exist as timeless potentials. For example, the quality "redness" is an eternal object that can manifest across different instances and contexts. Eternal objects provide the abstract building blocks that influence the unique character of each experience.

Propositions

Propositions are lures for feeling—imaginative suggestions that invite actual entities to explore certain possibilities. They function as speculative invitations, guiding the creative process by proposing how things might be. A proposition is not merely a factual statement but a suggestion for novelty and change. For example, an artist may consider a proposition that offers a new way to combine colors. Propositions help entities integrate new potentials, influencing both artistic creation and practical problem-solving.

Multiplicities

Multiplicities are diverse entities that exist in disjunction from one another. They may consist of actualities (such as actual entities) or potentialities (such as eternal objects). As truly distinct, multiplicities are not yet unified into the togetherness of an actual occasion of experience. A particular moment of experience (or actual entity) gathers these disparate elements into unity, but outside such unification, the universe remains a multiplicity. In this sense, multiplicities represent the richness of possibilities that are yet to be integrated.

Contrasts

Contrasts refer to patterns of difference or opposition that are either harmonized or remain in tension within experiences. These contrasts give shape and complexity to reality by bringing together opposing elements. For example, a melody is enriched by contrasts between high and low notes, and a life story is enriched by the interplay of joy and sorrow. Contrasts are essential to the depth and texture of experience, embodying both harmony and tension within each moment.

Creativity

Creativity is the “ultimate of ultimates,” the underlying activity expressed in all actualities. It manifests as the self-creativity of each actual entity through concrescence—the integration of many influences into a unified moment of experience. This process also involves transition, where the subjective immediacy of an entity perishes but lives on as objectively immortal in the experiences of future entities. Creativity is the driving force behind the novelty in the universe, enabling the ongoing process of becoming through which the past transforms into something new.

God

God encompasses three aspects, offering a relational and evolving presence in the universe:

• Primordial Nature:

• This is God's conceptual aspect, holding all eternal objects as pure possibilities. It represents the timeless realm of potentiality, offering the raw materials from which new experiences emerge.

• Consequent Nature:

• This is God’s empathic reception of all that happens, integrating every experience into the divine life. God feels the world, weaving all joys and sufferings into a coherent whole, continuously expanding in response to the world's becoming. God’s consequent nature ensures that no moment of experience is ever lost, as every event contributes to the unfolding divine reality.

• Superjective Nature:

• This is God's influence on the world, luring creatures toward new possibilities. The superjective nature represents the way God inspires and persuades actual entities toward greater beauty, truth, and harmony, without coercion. God’s power lies not in domination but in invitation—offering new possibilities and guiding the world toward creative advance.

ChatGPT: Benchmark Comparisons re: Trump v Biden Administrations

 

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The Trump v Biden Economy  |  Baron's

ChatGPT: Benchmark Comparisons re:

2016 Trump v 2020 Biden Administrations

To Be Used v Trump's Second Term (2024-2028)

Question

Please list in order of significance the pros and cons of trumps 2016-2020 term...

ChatGPT said:

Here is an overview of the pros and cons of Donald Trump's presidency (2016-2020), organized roughly by significance based on widely noted impacts. These are intended to be impartial observations and reflect areas highlighted by analysts, historians, and media coverage.

Pros

1. Economic Growth (Pre-Pandemic)

   • Pro: The U.S. saw a strong economy pre-COVID-19, with GDP growth, record low unemployment rates (including for Black and Hispanic communities), and gains in the stock market. Tax cuts and deregulation were credited by supporters for spurring growth.
   • Con: Critics argue the growth disproportionately benefited the wealthy, increasing the federal deficit, and that economic gains were consistent with trends before his presidency.

2. Judicial Appointments

   • Pro: Trump successfully appointed three Supreme Court justices and over 200 federal judges, significantly shifting the judiciary towards conservative leanings, impacting legal interpretations for decades.
   • Con: Some saw this as a polarizing move, potentially endangering certain established precedents (e.g., reproductive rights) and argued it favored ideology over balance.

3. Criminal Justice Reform

   • Pro: The First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform law, aimed to reduce recidivism and lower certain prison sentences.
   • Con: Critics note systemic issues remain largely unaddressed and some felt the administration’s overall tone on law and order contradicted broader criminal justice reform.

4. Foreign Policy - Middle East

   • Pro: Trump brokered normalization deals between Israel and several Arab states (Abraham Accords), marking significant regional diplomacy.
   • Con: Detractors highlight that other moves, such as pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, raised tensions, while broader Middle Eastern policy lacked consistency.

5. Immigration Policies

   • Pro: Trump focused heavily on immigration control, arguing it protected American jobs and security, with policies like "Remain in Mexico" and an emphasis on border security.
   • Con: His policies faced significant criticism for perceived human rights abuses, such as family separations at the border, and were viewed as hostile and inhumane by many.

6. Trade Policy and Tariffs

   • Pro: Trump took a strong stance against China with tariffs, aiming to address trade imbalances, intellectual property theft, and perceived unfair practices.
   • Con: The trade war hurt many American farmers and manufacturers due to retaliatory tariffs, increased costs for consumers, and skepticism about long-term efficacy.

7. Regulatory Reductions

   • Pro: The administration cut numerous regulations, claiming to improve business efficiency and economic growth.
   • Con: Critics argue many environmental and safety protections were rolled back, endangering health and ecosystems in pursuit of short-term gains.

8. Handling of COVID-19

   • Pro: The administration spearheaded Operation Warp Speed, accelerating the development and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.
   • Con: Trump's pandemic response was widely criticized as disorganized and downplaying the severity of the virus, leading to inconsistent policies and public health outcomes.

9. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (2017)

   • Pro: Cut taxes for corporations and many individuals, argued to have increased investment and disposable income.
   • Con: Critics argue the tax cuts largely benefited corporations and wealthier Americans, exacerbating income inequality and increasing the national debt.

10. America First Approach

• Pro: Focused on nationalism and self-interest, seeking to reduce U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts and renegotiate trade deals (e.g., NAFTA replaced by USMCA).
• Con: Critics assert this isolationist approach weakened alliances and damaged U.S. global standing, creating potential long-term diplomatic repercussions.

---

This list covers a mix of policy initiatives and notable themes. Interpretations often vary based on political and ideological perspectives, so these pros and cons reflect broader public and historical debates surrounding his presidency.

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Question

how did President Biden's following four years between 2020-2024 help or harm trumpian policies?

ChatGPT said:

Here's a look at how President Joe Biden's presidency from 2020 to 2024 impacted the policies established during Donald Trump's term. Biden's actions and policies often sought to roll back or reform some of Trump's key initiatives while advancing new priorities. Here's an overview of how Biden's years either reinforced or counteracted "Trumpian" policies.

Areas Where Biden Countered Trumpian Policies:

1. COVID-19 Response

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: Biden prioritized a more centralized, science-driven COVID-19 response, emphasizing vaccine distribution, mask mandates in federal spaces, and outreach to states. This differed from Trump's often decentralized and sometimes skeptical approach.
   • Outcome: Biden's strategy aimed to accelerate vaccinations and reduce case counts, though challenges such as new variants persisted. Critics debated the effectiveness of mandates and public health measures, seeing them as either essential corrections or overreach.

2. Climate Change and Environmental Policies

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement on his first day in office and reversed many of Trump's environmental deregulations. He focused on renewable energy initiatives and emissions reductions.
   • Outcome: This shift underscored a commitment to combating climate change, contrasting sharply with Trump's emphasis on deregulation and fossil fuel promotion. However, it faced mixed reactions from different economic sectors, particularly energy-related businesses.

3. Immigration Policies

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: Biden rescinded several of Trump's restrictive immigration policies, including the "Remain in Mexico" program. He sought pathways for citizenship and addressed family separations.
   • Outcome: Biden's softer stance and policy changes were viewed as humane by supporters but criticized by some as contributing to increased border crossings and strained immigration facilities.

4. Economic and Tax Policies

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: Biden partially reversed Trump’s corporate tax cuts by proposing tax increases on high-income earners and corporations to fund new infrastructure and social programs.
   • Outcome: Supporters saw this as a way to invest in critical sectors and reduce income inequality, while opponents feared it would hurt economic growth. Biden’s approach marked a pivot from the trickle-down emphasis in Trump's economic policies.

5. Foreign Policy and Alliances

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: Biden sought to rebuild alliances strained during the Trump era, such as with NATO partners and European allies. He adopted a cooperative international approach while still maintaining some hardline stances (e.g., on China).
   • Outcome: The return to multilateralism was welcomed by many allies but received mixed reviews domestically, with critics of Biden arguing that he sometimes showed weakness on the global stage, particularly during the Afghanistan withdrawal.

6. Trade Policies

   • Impact on Trumpian Policies: While Biden continued some tariffs on China, he approached trade with less of an "America First" rhetoric. Efforts were made to stabilize supply chains and boost domestic manufacturing, often reframing, not fully undoing, Trump’s trade focus.
   • Outcome: The nuanced approach sought to thread a middle ground, retaining some trade protections while fostering diplomacy. However, progress in reconfiguring global trade agreements faced mixed success.

Areas Where Biden Reinforced or Continued Trumpian Policies:

1. China Policy

   • Reinforcement: Biden maintained many of Trump’s tough policies on China, including tariffs and competitive technology policies. His administration upheld a cautious stance, continuing to label China as a strategic rival.
   • Outcome: The continuity demonstrated bipartisan consensus on addressing China’s economic practices and global ambitions, though Biden often sought to rally allies for a more coordinated approach.

2. Middle East Policies (Abraham Accords)

   • Reinforcement: The Biden administration maintained support for the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and Arab nations, while also pursuing renewed diplomacy with Palestinians.
   • Outcome: Biden’s maintenance of these accords signaled their perceived value as a positive Trump legacy, even as his administration worked to broaden engagement in the region.

3. Infrastructure Investment

   • Reinforcement and Expansion: Biden expanded on Trump’s infrastructure focus, passing a major bipartisan infrastructure law to repair and upgrade critical American infrastructure, including roads, bridges, and broadband.
   • Outcome: This reflected continuity in recognizing infrastructure as a key investment area, but Biden’s plan was broader and more detailed compared to Trump's proposals.

Mixed Outcomes and Criticisms

1. Energy Policies

   • Biden’s policies led to renewed focus on clean energy but faced criticism amid high energy prices, partly exacerbated by the conflict in Ukraine. Critics claimed Biden’s approach undermined U.S. energy independence touted by Trump, while others praised it as forward-thinking.

2. Regulatory and Labor Policies

   • Biden's support for unions and regulatory standards contrasted with Trump’s deregulatory agenda, leading to new protections but also concerns about increased costs and bureaucratic red tape for businesses.

---

Overall, Biden's term reflected a significant pivot from Trump's, emphasizing government intervention, multilateral diplomacy, and a progressive agenda on climate, health, and economic equality. Simultaneously, it retained aspects of Trump's policies on trade and geopolitics, reflecting a nuanced legacy-driven policy evolution.

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Question

whose policies were more successful or more detracting between trump and biden?

ChatGPT said:

Determining the "success" or "detracting" nature of the policies of Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden is complex and highly dependent on one’s political perspective, as well as which metrics or areas are prioritized. Here is an overview of the areas where each leader's policies have been regarded as more or less effective, with context provided:

Economic Policies

• Trump's Approach:
  Trump emphasized tax cuts, deregulation, and a business-friendly approach to stimulate economic growth. His 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act provided tax relief, particularly for corporations, which he argued spurred investment and job creation. Pre-pandemic, economic indicators such as unemployment (including for minority groups) reached historic lows, and GDP growth was solid. However, critics point out that these gains benefited the wealthiest disproportionately and led to increased national debt.
  • Successes: Pre-pandemic economic growth, record low unemployment rates, and strong stock market performance.
  • Detractors: Increased income inequality, rising federal deficit, and critics suggesting gains were extensions of prior economic trends.

• Biden's Approach:
  Biden prioritized investment in infrastructure, a shift towards green energy, and tax reforms aimed at wealthier individuals and corporations to reduce income inequality and fund new social initiatives. The American Rescue Plan and other stimulus measures were aimed at economic recovery from COVID-19’s fallout, but inflation became a growing issue during his term.
  • Successes: Passage of a historic infrastructure bill, reduced unemployment as the economy recovered post-pandemic, and boosts to social safety nets.
  • Detractors: Higher inflation, supply chain disruptions, and increased government spending leading to worries about national debt and potential economic overheating.

Verdict: Trump's pre-pandemic economic growth was considered by many as successful, but it disproportionately benefited the wealthy. Biden's recovery policies reduced unemployment post-pandemic but were criticized for inflation and spending.

Foreign Policy

• Trump's Approach:
  Trump adopted an "America First" foreign policy, emphasizing unilateralism and transactional diplomacy. He brokered the Abraham Accords but also withdrew from international agreements like the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris Climate Agreement. His confrontational approach to NATO allies and trade wars, especially with China, were polarizing.
  • Successes: Abraham Accords, pressuring NATO allies to increase defense spending, and confronting China on trade issues.
  • Detractors: Weakened alliances, isolationism, and strained diplomatic relationships, often seen as eroding America's global standing.

• Biden's Approach:
  Biden sought to rebuild alliances and engage multilaterally. He rejoined the Paris Agreement, mended ties with NATO allies, and emphasized diplomacy. However, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan undermined his foreign policy credibility for many, even as it fulfilled a long-standing U.S. goal.
  • Successes: Rebuilding diplomatic ties, continuity in tough stances on China, and efforts to counter Russia’s aggression in Ukraine through alliances.
  • Detractors: Perceived weakness and lack of strategic coherence, notably during the Afghanistan withdrawal, and challenges in handling complex international crises.

Verdict: Trump’s foreign policy successes often reflected disruption, but critics highlight long-term costs. Biden’s return to multilateralism was praised but came with some strategic missteps.

COVID-19 Response

• Trump's Approach:
  Trump’s COVID-19 response was criticized for inconsistent messaging, downplaying the virus early on, and focusing on states’ handling rather than federal coordination. However, Operation Warp Speed was a major success, helping to accelerate vaccine development.
  • Successes: Operation Warp Speed's rapid vaccine development.
  • Detractors: Perceived lack of a coordinated federal response, mixed messages, and early downplaying of the virus’ seriousness.

• Biden's Approach:
  Biden prioritized a centralized federal response with mass vaccination campaigns, public health mandates, and federal guidance. His approach was viewed as more organized but faced backlash, particularly over mandates.
  • Successes: High vaccination rates and a more organized federal response.
  • Detractors: Vaccine hesitancy, controversy over mandates, and ongoing challenges with new variants.

Verdict: Trump's vaccine push was a major milestone, but Biden’s broader efforts to coordinate a national response were seen as more robust, despite facing societal resistance.

Domestic Policy and Social Issues

• Trump's Approach:
  Trump focused on deregulation, judicial appointments (shifting courts to a conservative lean), and restrictive immigration policies. Critics argue these policies divided the nation on key social issues.
  • Successes: Judicial appointments and appeals to certain conservative values.
  • Detractors: Critics accused him of inflaming racial tensions and pursuing policies that marginalized vulnerable populations.

• Biden's Approach:
  Biden emphasized racial equity, expanded social safety nets, and labor rights. He aimed to overturn some of Trump’s immigration policies and supported progressive policies.
  • Successes: Advancing social equity and progressive reforms, worker-focused policies.
  • Detractors: Seen by some as overly progressive, and perceived weaknesses in border control and immigration management.

Verdict: Trump’s domestic policies energized his base but were divisive, while Biden sought to unify on equity and social safety nets, though his progressive push encountered political backlash.

Conclusion

• Success Assessment: Trump’s successes were often viewed through a lens of economic growth, conservative judicial influence, and disrupting norms to bring attention to neglected issues, but at the cost of increased political polarization. Biden sought to correct what many saw as Trump’s divisive actions by emphasizing diplomacy, multilateralism, and domestic equity, but encountered challenges like inflation and societal divides.
• Detractions: Trump's isolationist and divisive rhetoric weakened alliances and caused domestic rifts, while Biden's ambitious agenda sometimes ran into political gridlock and economic headwinds, particularly on inflation.

Overall, the assessment often comes down to one's perspective on their approaches and priorities, with both having areas of notable impact and significant detractors.

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Question

To what degree was Constitutional governance observed between trump and biden?

ChatGPT said:

Assessing the adherence to Constitutional governance by Presidents Donald Trump and Joe Biden between their terms (2016-2020 for Trump and 2020-2024 for Biden) is a complex task, as it involves examining their interpretation, enforcement, and perceived compliance with Constitutional principles, norms, and the separation of powers. Here's an overview of how their presidencies reflected adherence or challenges to Constitutional governance:

Donald Trump (2016-2020)

Areas of Adherence:

1. Judicial Appointments:
   • Trump adhered strictly to Constitutional processes in appointing over 200 federal judges and three Supreme Court Justices. These appointments had a lasting impact on the judiciary's ideological balance, reflecting his commitment to utilizing his Constitutional powers.
2. Executive Orders and Vetoes:
   • Trump frequently issued executive orders, consistent with his powers as president, to advance his policies. While not unprecedented, the use of executive action was well within the legal bounds, even if at times controversial.

Areas of Challenge or Criticism:

1. Impeachment Proceedings:
   • Trump was impeached twice by the House of Representatives. The first impeachment related to his attempts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, raising concerns about abuse of power and potential violations of Constitutional norms. The second impeachment followed the January 6th Capitol riot, with charges of incitement of insurrection.
   • Both times, he was acquitted by the Senate, highlighting the political and legal complexities of the impeachment process.
2. Separation of Powers and Rule of Law:
   • Critics argue that Trump's interactions with the Department of Justice (DOJ), perceived attempts to influence investigations, and pressure on officials during the 2020 election to "find votes" raised questions about Constitutional limits and the independence of government institutions.
3. Use of Emergency Powers:
   • Declaring a national emergency to secure funding for a border wall, bypassing Congress's control over the budget, was controversial and legally contested, reflecting a tension with Constitutional checks and balances.

Summary:

• Adherence Level: Trump’s administration generally followed Constitutional procedures when advancing major initiatives (e.g., judicial appointments), but he frequently challenged established norms, tested the boundaries of executive power, and sometimes provoked bipartisan concern over potential overreach and adherence to the rule of law.

Joe Biden (2020-2024)

Areas of Adherence:

1. Return to Norms:
   • Biden emphasized a “return to normalcy” and adherence to Constitutional norms, signaling respect for institutional independence (e.g., DOJ independence) and commitment to cooperative governance.
2. Legislative Agenda:
   • Biden pursued much of his policy agenda through legislative means, including bipartisan efforts like the infrastructure bill, reflecting adherence to the Constitutional balance of power.
3. Judicial Challenges and Respect for Rulings:
   • Biden's administration generally respected court rulings and legal procedures, even when faced with judicial setbacks to his executive orders, such as immigration policies.

Areas of Challenge or Criticism:

1. Executive Orders:
   • Like Trump, Biden relied heavily on executive orders, reversing many of Trump’s policies quickly through executive action. While lawful, this practice was seen by some as skirting legislative processes and continuing a trend toward "executive overreach."
2. Vaccine Mandates:
   • Federal vaccine mandates imposed by Biden faced numerous legal challenges. Opponents argued that mandates for businesses and federal employees represented federal overreach, testing the limits of executive authority under the Constitution.
3. Border and Immigration Policies:
   • Biden's approach to immigration, particularly lifting some Trump-era restrictions, raised issues about Constitutional powers and enforcement responsibilities. Critics argued that his border policies tested the limits of executive discretion, with states pushing back legally.

Summary:

• Adherence Level: Biden’s approach reflected a deliberate emphasis on institutional norms and rule-based governance. However, like his predecessors, he faced accusations of over-reliance on executive orders, raising questions about the balance of executive and legislative power.

Comparative Analysis of Constitutional Governance:

• Separation of Powers: Trump’s frequent confrontations with the judicial branch, use of emergency powers, and challenges to Congressional authority were notable, as was his effort to expand executive influence. Biden sought to operate within more traditional norms but faced criticism for using executive action when legislative efforts stalled.
• Rule of Law and Norms: Trump's unorthodox style often challenged norms around the rule of law, with some instances seen as bending or straining Constitutional principles (e.g., post-election challenges). Biden, conversely, aimed to reassert norms but drew criticism when using his powers for broad mandates or contested regulations.
• Respect for Judicial Independence: Trump faced frequent accusations of attempting to politicize or pressure judicial and investigatory bodies, while Biden largely respected judicial independence, though some of his policies also faced significant legal scrutiny.

Conclusion

Both presidencies tested the boundaries of Constitutional governance but in different ways. Trump’s term was marked by norm-challenging rhetoric and actions that sparked constitutional debate, often invoking robust Congressional pushback. Biden, while seeking a return to Constitutional norms, also faced allegations of overreach, especially through executive mandates. The degree of adherence or divergence from Constitutional principles depends on one's perspective on the scope and nature of presidential powers.

Is US economy better or worse now

[under Biden] than under Trump?

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Question

Generally, which administration was the more successful in the broadest meaning of the phrase?

ChatGPT said:

Determining which administration—Donald Trump's (2016-2020) or Joe Biden's (2020-2024)—was more "successful" in the broadest sense involves assessing a range of policy outcomes, leadership approaches, and societal impacts. This broad measure of success is influenced by economic performance, social cohesion, international relations, crisis management, and adherence to democratic norms and governance.

1. Economic Success

• Trump's Administration:
  Trump's presidency saw robust economic growth prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. Key indicators included low unemployment, especially among minority groups, deregulation efforts, and tax reforms that spurred corporate investment. However, critics argue that these policies disproportionately benefited the wealthy and increased the national deficit. The economic impact of the pandemic was a major challenge, with economic downturns and job losses.
• Biden's Administration:
  Biden inherited a pandemic-battered economy and prioritized recovery through substantial government spending, including stimulus payments, infrastructure investments, and expanded social safety nets. While the economy rebounded, high inflation and supply chain disruptions posed significant challenges. Supporters highlight decreased unemployment and infrastructure gains; critics point to economic difficulties like rising costs of living.

Overall Assessment:

Trump's pre-pandemic economic success showed strong growth metrics, but Biden's efforts to recover and stabilize the economy in a crisis were notable despite inflation concerns.

2. Domestic Policy and Social Cohesion

• Trump's Administration:
  Trump's approach often energized his base with populist rhetoric, but it was deeply polarizing, frequently criticized for inflaming cultural and racial tensions. His policies on immigration, law and order, and social issues were divisive, although his judicial appointments reshaped the federal judiciary for years to come. The January 6th Capitol riot underscored sharp political divides and raised concerns about democracy's fragility.
• Biden's Administration:
  Biden aimed to be a unifying force, emphasizing racial and social equity and bipartisan initiatives like the infrastructure bill. While his rhetoric focused on national healing, his progressive agenda also faced pushback, further polarizing segments of society. Cultural and social divisions persisted, with criticism from conservatives over perceived leftward overreach.

Overall Assessment:

Trump was a transformative but divisive figure domestically, while Biden sought unity with varying degrees of success. Both administrations reflected a nation grappling with significant social and ideological polarization.

3. Foreign Policy and Global Influence

• Trump's Administration:
  Trump emphasized "America First" policies, focusing on nationalism, challenging NATO, and imposing tariffs on trade rivals like China. He brokered peace deals such as the Abraham Accords but was criticized for weakening alliances and withdrawing from international agreements, such as the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal. His approach disrupted traditional diplomatic norms and was viewed by many allies as unpredictable.
• Biden's Administration:
  Biden sought to restore alliances, re-entered multilateral agreements (e.g., Paris Climate Agreement), and emphasized diplomacy. His handling of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, working with NATO allies to impose sanctions on Russia, showcased multilateral efforts. However, the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan was a low point, raising questions about competence and strategic clarity.

Overall Assessment:

Trump's foreign policy saw bold, unconventional moves that drew mixed reactions. Biden emphasized restoring traditional diplomacy but faced challenges in implementing consistent, coherent strategies.

4. Crisis Management (COVID-19)

• Trump's Administration:
  Trump's response to COVID-19 was widely criticized for inconsistent messaging and downplaying the severity of the virus. However, Operation Warp Speed, which accelerated vaccine development, was a significant success.
• Biden's Administration:
  Biden focused on a centralized, science-based approach to combat COVID-19, with mass vaccination campaigns and federal mandates. His administration saw significant vaccination rollout but faced backlash over mandates and persistent challenges with new variants.

Overall Assessment:

Trump's vaccine push was a milestone, but his pandemic messaging was divisive. Biden's comprehensive approach improved public health coordination but encountered significant political and social pushback.

5. Adherence to Democratic Norms and Governance

• Trump's Administration:
  Trump's term was marked by frequent challenges to democratic norms, including perceived attacks on the free press, confrontations with the judiciary, and his refusal to accept the 2020 election results, culminating in the Capitol riot. Supporters viewed his actions as anti-establishment; critics saw them as a threat to democracy.
• Biden's Administration:
  Biden emphasized a return to norms, respect for institutions, and traditional governance. However, his reliance on executive orders for policy implementation drew criticism as a continuation of expanding executive authority.

Overall Assessment:

Trump’s approach to governance disrupted norms and triggered democratic concerns, while Biden sought to rebuild respect for institutions, though he faced challenges in navigating a divided political landscape.

Conclusion: Broadest Measure of Success

• Trump's Strengths and Weaknesses: Trump's impact was significant in reshaping the judiciary, energizing a populist movement, and showing economic growth pre-pandemic. However, his divisiveness, challenges to democratic norms, and pandemic response were major drawbacks.
• Biden's Strengths and Weaknesses: Biden emphasized recovery, unity, multilateralism, and progressive domestic reforms. However, inflation, social polarization, and crisis missteps tempered his successes.

In broad terms, Trump was transformative and polarizing, while Biden aimed for stabilization and repair, with mixed outcomes. "Success" depends heavily on personal values, economic priorities, and political perspectives. For supporters, Trump may represent bold change; for others, Biden's steady approach amid crises may resonate as more successful.

You said:

done. thx. please file under Trump v Biden Administrations

ChatGPT said:

Memory updated

You're welcome! The discussion has been filed under "Trump v. Biden Administrations." Let me know if there's anything else you'd like to explore or analyze.

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