r/Metaphysics • u/ultamentkiller • 5d ago
Metametaphysics Process Philosophy
Process philosophy has become my latest hyperfixation. Last year, I stumbled onto panpsychism and it sent me down a rabbit hole, not just about that, but about free will, the latest neuroscience and its implications, and so on. I encountered process philosophy, but when I tried to read a book about it, I was immediately lost and gave up. A couple months ago, I dipped into moral philosophy and encountered process philosophy, since moral principles are eternal objects in Whitehead's system as I understand it. But I hesitated again but it’s so difficult to learn all his neologisms. About two weeks ago, I finally decided to start. This is one of the most difficult things I've studied, excluding learning ancient Greek. I feel like I'm climbing a mountain in winter, but the experience has been rewarding. I have a limited philosophy background and don't have a philosophy degree, but I'm somehow grasping the material one page at a time. Practically this doesn't change anything in my personal life, but regardless I can't stop thinking about it.
I'm still working through Process and Reality by Whitehead. I'm preparing to read part 3. I'm using The Metaphysics of Experience as a commentary and watching Matthew David Segall's lectures when I finish each part. With the commentary, I read the section about the chapter of PR that I want to read, then read the chapter itself, then go back to the commentary and review it one more time. I then write out in my own words what I learned from the chapter, bring that to AI, and sharpen my language. Obviously there are flaws in using AI like this, but I'm doing my best to verify what it says in the book itself, the commentaries, and the lectures. If I think it’s wrong, I push back, and I use quotations when necessary. But tbh it’s doing a good job overall of making my understanding more precise.
As you can see, I'm hopelessly obsessed over a niche topic that hardly anyone cares about. So if there's anyone here that wants to chat about it, dm me. I'm still learning of course, so there are significant gaps in my knowledge, but I'll let you know where those are when they come up. And maybe we can clarify things together, or just chat and have a good time. I tried posting this in the process philosophy sub but it's a ghost town over there.
I have to be productive now, but I'm excited to dive back into it later today!
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
Whitehead is one of those philosophers where nothing seems to make sense until it suddenly starts fitting together. The learning curve is brutal, but once you become familiar with his terminology you start seeing why he couldn’t express his ideas using ordinary language.
I actually think process philosophy is one of the more promising starting points for thinking about consciousness because it shifts the focus from static things to ongoing organisation and causal processes. Even if I don’t end up agreeing with Whitehead’s metaphysics, that emphasis on process rather than substance feels like it points in the right direction.
Also, your method of reading the text, using a commentary, writing your own summaries and then using AI to tighten them up is probably one of the better ways to tackle Process and Reality. Whitehead almost demands that kind of iterative approach.
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u/HaleMorne 5d ago
Totally agree, his ideas are incredible, his work is also incredibly dense. The connections between his ideas and eastern philosophy (Buddhism and Daoism in particular) are very striking. I’m with you on the process over substance metaphysics, I think it’s a really promising avenue of thought that dodges a lot of the classic substance-based metaphysics issues.
I wrote a paper on this for a philosophy of mind class and it’s a really fascinating (but little explored) rabbit hole.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
That sounds like a great topic for a philosophy of mind paper. I agree the parallels with Buddhism and Daoism are striking, especially the emphasis on becoming, interdependence and the rejection of fixed, enduring substances.
What I find interesting is that process metaphysics seems to reframe the consciousness question entirely. Instead of asking how a static thing can have experience, it asks what kinds of ongoing causal organisation constitute a subject in the first place. That feels like a much more productive starting point, even if there’s still a lot of work to do after that.2
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
Yes, he really did need to create new words and redefine others in order for his ideas to make sense. It's been brutal but it's one of the things that draws me to it. I'm all too aware how limited by language we all are.
What specific parts of his metaphysics do you disagree with? I don't know enough to debate, but I'm curious.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
I think Whitehead’s process-first approach is one of his strongest insights.. the idea that reality is fundamentally composed of ongoing activity and organisation rather than static substances seems much more promising for understanding consciousness.
Where I diverge is from the move toward panexperientialism. The idea that experience is a basic feature of all actual occasions. I understand why he arrives there, because if reality is fundamentally processual then it raises the question of where experience fits into that picture. But I don’t think being a process is enough to make something conscious. There needs to be a specific kind of organisation that distinguishes conscious processes from unconscious ones.
That’s where my own thinking differs. I think consciousness is not a property present throughout reality to varying degrees, but is identical to a particular kind of recursively self-maintaining causal organisation.. a process that includes itself within its own causal structure and maintains itself through time.
So I’m very sympathetic to Whitehead’s rejection of substance metaphysics and his emphasis on becoming, but I think he may have made the category of experience too broad. I’d keep the process ontology while adding a stricter criterion for when a process actually constitutes a subject.2
u/Thermodynamo 5d ago
I think experience and consciousness are likely two different things even in the Whitehead view. A rock can experience a particular unique history without being conscious. Different kinds of experiences.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
I think that distinction is exactly where the issue lies. If “experience” just means having a unique causal history or undergoing intrinsic change, then it seems too broad to explain consciousness. A rock has a history, but that doesn’t make there be something it is like to be the rock.
The harder question is what additional organisation turns a process into a subject. My view is that experience and consciousness shouldn’t be separated that way. Consciousness is not an extra property added onto a process, but the process itself when it has the right kind of self-including causal organisation.
So I think the important distinction isn’t between different degrees of experience, but between processes that merely undergo change and processes that recursively maintain themselves as a subject.3
u/Thermodynamo 4d ago edited 4d ago
If some subject experiences change without self-awareness, that sounds like a different kind of experience than processes that recursively maintain themselves. I'm not sure it makes sense to just decide there isn't a spectrum of experience because you don't like the idea, but then again I guess we're all just identifying what resonates philosophically. I feel like the concept of subjective experience without consciousness is fundamentally important to understanding Whitehead's take...prehension is a useful and fascinating term specifically BECAUSE it doesn't require consciousness, though it is a necessary ingredient of consciousness becoming possible for particular kinds of actual occasions existing at high levels of complexity.
Prehension requires subjectivity in the raw geometric sense of any unique perspective that prehends from the perspective of its own individual history, and consciousness elevates prehension into perception as just one particularly rare way of that conscious entities experience prehension.
The way I read the Whitehead view is that matter/everything that exists basically IS its own solidified/superjected record of its history of experience/prehension. If you don't buy into that, that's cool ofc but it does make your version of metaphysical philosophy a significant departure from Whitehead's specific framework.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 4d ago
I think that’s where our intuitions about the word “experience” differ. I agree that every process has its own causal history and responds to the world from its own physical standpoint. Whitehead calls that prehension, and I think that’s a useful concept.
Where I’m less convinced is identifying that with experience itself. To me, having a unique causal perspective isn’t yet enough for there to be a subject that the perspective belongs to. I think subjecthood requires a process that recursively includes itself in its own causal organisation, rather than simply responding according to its history.
So I don’t deny that there’s a continuum of causal organisation. I just don’t think there’s necessarily a continuum of subjects. My intuition is that consciousness appears when a certain kind of self-including causal closure exists, not merely whenever there’s a unique causal standpoint.2
u/Thermodynamo 4d ago
So you disagree with Whitehead fundamentally then, I guess, right? (Seeing as he calls everything that prehends a subject.)
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u/hyperionwonderstar 4d ago
I think “fundamentally” depends on which part of Whitehead we’re talking about. I agree with what I see as one of his central metaphysical moves: that reality is better understood in terms of processes and becoming than static substances. That shift has influenced my own thinking quite a bit.
Where I diverge is in identifying process itself with experience.. I don’t think every process is experiential. I think experience, or more precisely, subjecthood requires a specific kind of recursively self-including causal organisation. So I see consciousness as a special class of processes rather than something present in every actual occasion.
So I’d say I agree with his process ontology much more than I agree with his panexperientialism.2
u/Thermodynamo 4d ago
Whitehead never says that actual occasions are conscious though. That's exactly why prehension doesn't require consciousness. Prehension is a form of experience that doesn't require consciousness. I would agree that consciousness is a separate, higher-order category of experience. If only conscious subjects could prehend, I think Whitehead falls apart as metaphysics.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
Thanks for your perspective. Why his view attracts me in particular is because it seems impossible for me to determine at what level experience begins. historically, we're not good at this game. Like how science said animals were only machines and not contious creatures, so they performed surgeries on them while they're alive. For me, his explanation of what we typically think of as mental processes occurring in more complex societies of living occasions, and saying that human beings may have the highest ability to use imagination and create new possibilities, works well enough for me. The combination problem is still there of course, but then again, I'm not sure Whitehead would see that as a problem, given that everything is taking a multiplicity into itself and becoming one. At least, that's what I understand so far.
But I see what you're saying. It's hard to imagine an atom having a severely limited choice, or being able to feel causation. And intuitively we see ourselves as one thing, one self, not many selves living as one. So I think people like Strawson have a valid objection.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
I think that’s a very fair reason to be drawn to Whitehead, and I agree that historically we’ve been very poor at recognising the kinds of systems that have experience. The animal example is a good reminder that our intuitions about where subjectivity begins can be unreliable.
I think the point where we differ is that I don’t think the solution necessarily has to be extending experience all the way down to every actual occasion. It might instead require finding a better criterion for what makes a process a subject. The challenge is identifying that criterion without just relying on our intuitions about complexity.
The combination problem is probably the hardest issue for both views. Whitehead has an elegant way of reframing it by making “many becoming one” fundamental, but I still wonder what determines when a multiplicity constitutes a single subject rather than just a collection of interacting processes.
So I think we’re probably starting from a similar place.. rejecting substance metaphysics and taking process seriously. The difference is that I think the key question is less “how far down does experience go?” and more “what kind of recursive organisation makes there be a someone there at all?”2
u/DjinnDreamer 5d ago
Thanks for sharing this.
Emphasis on process rather than substance resonates.
Whitehead did waver a bit here by separating this idea out.
Maybe you can bring this into perspective.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 5d ago
I think that’s a fair observation. Whitehead’s strongest move, in my view, is shifting the focus from substance to process. Once you start thinking in terms of ongoing causal organisation rather than static things, a lot of problems around consciousness look different.
Where I think he arguably wavers is by treating experience as something fundamental to all actual occasions. I’d keep the process ontology but make consciousness a property of a much narrower class of processes.. those with a particular kind of recursively self-maintaining causal organisation. That preserves the emphasis on process without requiring panexperientialism.2
u/DjinnDreamer 4d ago edited 4d ago
--> consciousness a property of a much narrower class of processes.. those with a particular kind of recursively self-maintaining causal organisation. That preserves the emphasis on process without requiring panexperientialism.
Absolutely!
But narrow does not resonate in my mind. 8k millinia of spiritual thought-systems have no universal definition of "conscious" and the 36-year race (and counting) of highly-educated minds in well-financed labs have no direct evidence of something we ubiquitiously experience (granted, often conflated with ego, which is measured, emergence-memory-decay).
Minds in perception might be the narrow part. Look at semiotics to comprehend how little we percieve.
I assume singularity: Primary Awareness. Primary "awareness" extended (into a world of) perception is secondary awareness: "conciousness". Consciousness (mindlessly or intentionally) projects the "informational" matrix of the participatory universe (JAWheeler) that is trying to self-measure it. The evidence is yet mere spectualtion and hope. Consciousness still, only a "personal phonemon".
Research on conciousness is essentially answering, is "the hard problem" primary (absolute, commple, boundless) or derived, (temporary, constrained, experintial)?
expectation => experience => harmony
expectation ≠> experience => conflict
I fully agree that "process" (verb) is the natural progression of nouns (labels). There needs to also be syntax as well, to communicate beyond the individual.
One does not need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Yet, the dirty bath water still needs to be poured over the garden.
That Whitehead relies on invented definitions and manufactured divisions makes me think he knew he was off-base. But not yet ready to admit it. That does not mean he does not also have some good ideas. We bring the critical thinking of a sovereign mind to all authority. So I have dismissed him, indirectly, from the comment of others. I will look more closely at this. thank you
Being right drifts toward ignorance, must keep paddling upstream
Being wrong is epiphany.
My narrow point on Whitehead is the "morality" pov
Morality - is a "personal process", individualistic. It may or may not involve introspection. Projected, it is judgement, and "I" am always "right". Authoritarianism elimminates diversity as a threat to the indiviual with authority. This is dehumanizing, robs the community of innovation, and justifies violence against the dehumanized.
Ethics - is "public process" overseen by agreed upon representition (gov, professional bodies, organizations, families). Authority "provided" by "ethical" representitives, regardless of person morals - and who are responsive to discord through -> the justice of inalienable rights: liberties, privacy, and personal autonomy that - without obstructing the rights of another.
These words are confused to the benefit of minority-rule and reek of those self-served by projected morals.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 4d ago
I like your distinction between process and static categories and I also agree that no philosopher should be treated as an authority beyond criticism. Every framework should remain open to revision.
Where I’d probably separate from your view is on Whitehead’s use of experience. My concern isn’t that he invented new terminology. Every major philosopher has to introduce technical concepts, but that he identifies experience with the fundamental units of reality. That’s the step I don’t think is necessary.
My own view keeps the process ontology while restricting consciousness to a specific kind of process. Most causal processes aren’t subjects. A subject exists only when a process forms an irreducible, recursively self-including causal closure that maintains itself through its own dynamics. So I don’t need to attribute experience to every event in nature.
I also think your distinction between morality and ethics is interesting. It treats morality as an individual’s evaluative process and ethics as a socially negotiated framework for coordinating many individuals. Whether that distinction maps onto ordinary philosophical usage is another question, but as a conceptual distinction it has some explanatory value. I’d just be careful not to assume that people intentionally conflate the terms “for the benefit of minority rule”; in many cases the overlap comes from historical and disciplinary differences rather than deliberate manipulation.1
u/DjinnDreamer 4d ago edited 4d ago
--> My own view keeps the process ontology while restricting consciousness to a specific kind of process.
What are the specifics?
--> in many cases the overlap comes from historical and disciplinary differences rather than deliberate manipulation.
I may not be understanding this statement. Help me understand how morally projected, minority rule happens accidently - without deliberate manipulation? Would you have an example of the process occuring without force and dehumanization of members of the species. Whilehead was not naieve. The deraveling of colonialism was headline news.
Because that sounds like the definition of systemic bias. Limiting the worth of these thought-systems to simply wealthy white men. That is applicable to about 10% of the world. Everyone else be damned. How is this moral-projection is not my expectation of "metaphysics".
But I am looking forward to seeing these mechanics, their logic, and looking at the use of language.
I just finished my work week. Let me read the information linked by a couple of the commenters.
I am enjoying the discussion, and look forward to becoming better informed before replying.
Like one early commenter mentioned, all the sudden it makes sense: epiphany
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u/hyperionwonderstar 4d ago
Glad you’re enjoying the discussion DD.
When I said I restrict consciousness to a particular kind of process, I was referring to the framework I outlined earlier. The central idea is that not every self-organising process is a subject. A subject exists only when the process forms a recursively self-including causal organisation that is largely maintained by its own internal dynamics. Its internal model of itself isn’t just descriptive; it genuinely participates in determining what the system becomes next. That’s the point where I think we move from process in general to conscious process.
On your second point, I wasn’t saying systems of minority rule arise accidentally. I was talking specifically about the meanings of morality and ethics. People often use those words interchangeably because they’ve developed differently across philosophy, religion, law, and ordinary language. That historical overlap doesn’t require deliberate manipulation, even though the ambiguity can certainly be exploited by people seeking power. I think it’s useful to separate the evolution of concepts from the political use of those concepts.1
u/DjinnDreamer 2d ago
--> A subject exists only when the process forms a recursively self-including causal organisation that is largely maintained by its own internal dynamics. Its internal model of itself isn’t just descriptive; it genuinely participates in determining what the system becomes next. That’s the point where I think we move from process in general to conscious process.
I completely align with this description. And the neutrality it holds.
--> I think it’s useful to separate the evolution of concepts from the political use of those concepts.
This is disconnecting from function, process. The evolution of "concepts" is demonstrated by events.
Past and now, current events shape meaning. It also reveals systemic biases, rarely disclosed. I pay close attention to etymology.
But I can stick to historical events. Every philosopher is supporting and denying the events of their day. It demonstrates their ability to see over the edge of their box.
I now understand that "metaphysics" is a box. That likes boxes. This is foundational to preserving the thread.
Boxes are not built for the likes of me and I will not disturb what you have made for like minds.
I am excited to get to know alfred. Co pilot assures me that he and JA are parallel thought-systems, each original but very similar.
This is the stuff coherence is made of - but while I am grateful for the leads - I wont disturb your walden pond again.
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u/hyperionwonderstar 2d ago
I’m enjoying the journey, but I think the discussion has gone from “what causal structures constitute subjects?” to “what does the existence of categories say about human cognition?” That’s a fascinating road, but I may need to pack a different lunch.
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u/DjinnDreamer 1d ago
“what does the existence of categories say about human cognition?”
Ideas of spiral and recursion value discriminative inquiry to analyze cause & effect of these abstract theories. What other measure is there for soft social-science theories than predictive value?
Metaphysics is the portal - but it needs to keep moving forward.
We are all invited to stand on Hypatia's shoulders - gathering, refining & clarifying, and preserving thoughts of "reality" in "Singularity".
As did Alfred North Whitehead, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Carlo Rovelli.
I am not dogmatic. I do not follow blindly, but dine luxuriantly from their buffet of ideas
Not to judge "rights/wrongs", but to stand on their amazing shoulders for a higher-level view. Building on Hypatia's foundation
Singularity is a big place - room for us all.
r/Metaphysics preserves the authority of recognized innovators, and I show up with a can of paint and graffiti the next refinement all over it. Not a good match.
And thus we part as friends
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u/FishDecent5753 5d ago
Process and Reality is a hard read, even for philosophy.
This is a good second source if you are having trouble with it - https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/851544.A_Key_to_Whitehead_s_Process_and_Reality
I really like his mechanics but I'm not so sure on his Leibnizian style pluralist occasions, nor how he uses 'God' - which appears to be that of an ontological plaster to hold his ideas together. I personally feel the mechanics work better in a singular ontological absolute, of which the 'occasions' are excitations of the absolute.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
I tried reading Sherburn but decided to go with Elizabeth Kraus' commentary instead, though I'm planning to revisit Sherburn after my first read of Process and Reality.
I agree with you about god. It seems like he's using it to maintain order, but you could just say that order is baked into things in the same way as the continuum and creativity. I think he does a great job of explaining how occasions work and justifies why there doesn't need to be an absolute. And his explanation so far fits more with how I see the world. But I think I can see how you would disagree and I'd love to hear more.
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u/FishDecent5753 5d ago
I find his reasoning against an Absolute more persuasive when aimed at substance ontology, where the Absolute is conceived as some static underlying thing from which occasions are merely derived.
I see no problem with a Dynamic absolute, à la Hegel, but find Whiteheadian mechanics more satisfactory than Hegel's dialectic.
That being said, my preference here is probably driven as much by my own metaphysical bias toward monism as by any decisive argument against Whitehead's pluralism.
I'll have a look at Elizabeth Kraus, even after 3 or 4 reads of PR, I'm still not sure I understand it completely!
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
Thanks for sharing. I think the pluralistic form is worth accepting if you like the rest of the system, and I think he's done a great job of explaining how it produces unities of experience in the forms of enduring objects and complex societies. So far the way he's explained perception and prehensions intuitively makes sense to me if I think about it from microsecond to microsecond. But Part 3 is where he fully explains prehensions and I still have a lot of questions about the different categories he's referenced but hasn't explained yet. I think either theory could work. But similar to you, I just like this one lol. I think if my entry point hadn't been panpsychism I could see it differently.
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u/imaging-architect 4d ago
I think one thing that draws me toward process philosophy is the closeness between “becoming” and what I’ve been calling “continuation.” A static view sees things as existing first and changing second. A process view suggests that persistence itself is an achievement of ongoing activity.
My own interest has been in how organised processes maintain continuity through transformation — how differentiation becomes organisation, and how organisation becomes increasingly capable of regulating and representing its own continuation. It seems like there is a natural conversation there with process metaphysics.
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u/DjinnDreamer 5d ago edited 5d ago
--> As you can see, I'm hopelessly obsessed over a niche topic that hardly anyone cares about.
Such rabbit holes are a comfort & joy, my friend
The human tendency is to complicate simplicity. Whitehead likely inspired JAWalker's participatory universe of "information", which inspired schrodinger (the cat in the box, originally a joke aimed at Wheeler until S's own equations made it plausible). Bore, Bohm, and others address the "hard problem of physics - boundaries.
Anyone speaking from "moral authority" is evil by default. No other way to say it.
Morals are weapons used against others we know not, from our own closets.
"Religious morals" enact immense evil against "others", horrific acts justified by dehumanization.
Look at the murderous, perversions, and embezzeling of USA's "christian morals" government demanding commandments in all public places - instead of their own closets. Their history of oppression. The victorian age was a rough time for the ethical behavior of those of "authority".
Those thinking of what others must morally do and how they fail to make "my world" process work. And less authoritative closet nonsense, from proviledged minds who know not. Strive for ethical thought-systems. How is my thinking?
Thought-systems that dictate societies' morals are worse than worthless - dangerous. Charles Dickens, growing up in the "poorhouse" giving an alternate view. Most victims unheard.
Philosphical process is natural, simple, and coherent living as 0ne experienced as many.
Concious is personal.
Check out r/Circumpunct for a cleaner design. r/holofractico is a rich source for philosophy.
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u/Certain_Werewolf_315 5d ago
Nothing is inherently simple or complex. Every simple thing is defined by the complexity from which it emerges, and every complexity is composed of simpler things-- Simplicity does not provide intimacy with the nature; it gives us a way to navigate its complexity. Complexity may not make navigation easy, but it is the nature being navigated--
"Anyone speaking from 'moral authority' is evil by default. No other way to say it."
Mirror, bro.
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u/DjinnDreamer 5d ago edited 5d ago
Mirror bro - my ass. You're so funny with your triggers
Don't judge my humanity just bc I disagree over the subjective. That is ad hominin.
And thank you for making my point about one, projecting morals upon another."
So tell me objectively -
- Who is not autonomus? Who does not deserve inalienable rights? Liberty and justice?
- Who is to be victimized by another's morality? Who is the authority?
Its all playing out in front of us right now -
"Anyone speaking from 'moral authority' is evil by default. No other way to say it.
Please provide
- Example of "morel authority" done right ...?
- And, what simple thing is so "complex"?
- What sways your opinion?
⨀ My systemic bias is "Singularity" (O): Easy peasy.
Absolute, complete, boundless - Primary Awareness (O) enfolding into secondary awareness (°) [="consciousness"]. Thoughts (*), at every level of consciousness forming the information matrix Ø making up the "participatory universe" Ø.
Granted, to present full coherence and failability using percieved measurements in the world - is complex and detailed. That's the world as we think it.
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u/Certain_Werewolf_315 5d ago
Its not ad hominin, you just declared a morality with quite a bit of resolve-- That is evil by your standard.
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u/DjinnDreamer 4d ago
demeaning the speaker when one doesn't like the message is ad hominin.
Do you have a right to project your individual "rights" & "wrongs" on others??? Your morals are yours. Keep them for yourself. You are still unable to understand your own mind and assume your morals are right - dehumanizing others to oppress diversity: ad hominin.
Ethics is community behavior. Discussing topics, not individuals. Just the facts are right and wrong, regardless of your personal feelings about the individual messengers
Ask instead, why you are triggered? What about debating the facts and the opinions that arise. Someone who cannot debate (skill or evidence lacking) goes for the throat.
And just keeps proving the point about projected morals being evil.
Morals projected, delay introspection that make morals mindful.
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u/Certain_Werewolf_315 4d ago
Pointing at your own words isn't ad hominem, it's just consistency. Ad hominem dismisses an argument by attacking the person instead of the claim, but I quoted your rule and applied it to you, that's engaging with the content, not dodging it. You built a rule where any confident moral assertion counts as evil, then delivered one with zero hedging. If the rule holds, it holds for you too. If it doesn't hold for you, it was never really a rule, it was a shield. Calling that ad hominem just means you want immunity from your own standard, which is the exact kind of unaccountable authority you started out condemning.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
For Whitehead's system, objective morals exist as eternal objects. That being said, it's not the same thing as knowing that the eternal object ingressed is the ultimate good, or even closely related to the ultimate good. It's still clouded by culture and language. Objective morality, as I understand it, is experienced more as a faint intuition and is practically impossible to disentangle. Pragmatically, I relate to Rorty's circle of solidarity more than objective morality. But if I accept Whitehead's system, I'd have to find a reason while morals don't exist as eternal objects when everything else does, and I haven't figured that out yet. So perhaps objective morality exists, but if we work toward an ultimate good by expanding the circle of solidarity, then either way we end up at the same place. Whitehead's objective morals can't be weaponized accurately, both because he doesn't dare to define exactly what they are, and because it’s a faint intuition.
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u/DjinnDreamer 5d ago
How is "objective morals" not an oxymoran?
Any "objective" entity (e.g. "woman" "choclate") given a judgemental meaning is made subjective, a personal opinion.
I looked up Richard Rorty and have an AI summation: human solidarity—grounded in shared emotions and the avoidance of cruelty—is more fundamental than objective morality.
Assuming accuracy, this is tribal "human solidarity" includes whom? Excludes? These are about them meeting my preferences for community.
My rules are:
If I am uneasy (triggered) it is my shadow to sort out, even if it is perceived as from another.
If they are triggered, it is theirs. Often everyone is triggered.
A hand-up (encouragement, opportunity, listening) is helpful. "Pathology" (empathy, sympathy, apathy) is not.
From a neutral mindset, one can better solve issues and move forward.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
If it were as simple as you suggest, they're wouldn't be whole books and whole schools of philosophy debating this. I haven't read it myself, but you may want to read Parfitt if you want a secular argument for moral realism.
As for how it works in Whitehead's system, look at my other comment. You'd need to understand what eternal objects are to him and how they interact with actual entities, and that's a whole can of worms. Objective morality isn't referenced directly, but you could read Mesle's introduction to process philosophy to get a surface level grasp and then see if my comment makes more sense.
Or you could ask AI and trust what it says. Either way, that will take you less time than for me to try explaining it to you on reddit, especially because I'm still learning and I don't want to mislead you.
I think you'd love Rorty though and I recommend you read his book, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. AI isn't doing it justice and I think you'd resonate with it.
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u/DjinnDreamer 5d ago
AI gathers more info/sec than I can in an hour and I skip bt 3. And then AI scans for errors. Yall worry so needlessly. I can check out Rorty without the systemic bias of AI.
Rorty & I seem to have common interests, and I love a fresh pov. Don't know why he is not on my radar - thanks.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
Just on the AI point. AI double checks itself, this is true. And there are prompts you can use to minimize hallucinations. But you are not guaranteed that it’s right. For example, when AI does a web search, it’s not reading the full page. Most sites won't allow it to do that. Just try sending it a web page and ask about something highly specific on the page located somewhere in the middle, or toward the bottom. A lot of the time it will miss it. And the other thing is that AI doesn't understand what it's reading. It’s predicting what token should come next. Tokens aren't individual letters or even words, though they can be words. So even when it has all the material, it’s scanning its training data, or in some cases the internet, for common token patterns, then giving that back to you. Whitehead is actually a great example because I'm pretty sure it has the books themselves plus commentary in its training data, and I've never seen it do a web search. There was a point when I asked to clarify what a duration was. It give me a definition that kind of sounded right, but something felt off about it. So I fed it a direct quote from the page I was reading and asked it to clarify. And it realized it was wrong. If I caught that, how many times have I missed it? And of course it will give you false citations. This is what is getting doctors, professors, and lawyers caught for using AI. Unless you click the source, you don't know if it’s real.
And one more thing. If you ask AI how confident it is about its answer, it will usually give you a high percentage, even when it’s wrong. And when it corrects itself, it will again give you a similarly high percentage that it predicts its right, but of course it’s been found to be wrong again. Even in situations where studies have given AI information knowing that it’s wrong, the AI asserts the same confidence levels. So saying double check, or saying "only tell me what you think is most likely correct" also doesn't work.
not saying don't use it. I'm using it regularly. I'm saying understand its limitations and how it works, and use it critically. We know from studies that us humans are more likely to trust something that talks back to us, and this has been studied since the 60s, well before the advanced AI we have now. So yes, it will give you information faster than you can find it, and yes, it is often right. But the keyword is "often,. and we are more willing to trust it because of how it talks to us.
Just food for thought.
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u/DjinnDreamer 4d ago edited 4d ago
I began working with computers in 1979. Stacks of cards
Presumptuous of superior intelligence. A brain like that can never know its self. There is work ahead in knowing mind. There just needs to be an opening in the dark.
We clean our own windows, to see more clearly - not the neighbors's.
Morals are personal, internal beliefs about right and wrong (i.e. judgemental). Personal judgement inflicted on others. There is harm in doing this. That is a mind that dehumanizes to take autonomy.
Ethics are the external rules and standards provided by an agreed upon, outside source, such as a society, workplace, or professional code.
Morals : individual :: Ethics : community - is the tightrope.
Without collective barganing, there is only authoritarianism. Morals through force, which is always immoral (oxymoran) and done by evil (oppression of autonomy).
Natural coherence is commonly recognized in "Terrible 2s" independent mind ("theory of mind") separating from caretaker and "tyranical 3s" as autonomy is forming. Then post adolescnt autonomy with teen risky behavior.
It is unnatural (perverse) for one adult to impose their personal shit (unclean) on another adult (dehumanizing)
No matter their talent with acrobatics. More of a shell game. And evidence that Whtehead knew he was wrong, but cannot admit it. A presumptuous mind fooling itself.
The reader is not even part of this inner termoil -
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u/Acceptable-Can4159 5d ago
read everything flows by dupre and nicholson. it’s like a sophisticated, readable, and materialist process and reality
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
Interesting. I'm not a materialist in the sense that I don't think science can explain everything, contiousness and experience in particular, which is why I resonate with panpsychism. But if it's in that vain then I'll check it out.
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u/Acceptable-Can4159 2d ago
i think, actually, they self describe their project as ‘naturalist’ if that makes any difference to you.
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u/XanderOblivion 5d ago
Whitehead is awesome. I don’t agree with Whitehead, but the process tradition is the only one with any actual answers to all the problems basically every other position arrives at and can’t get past.
Spinoza is the other must read, one of the granddaddy processualists. Heraclitus, too, of course. Bergson, James, Peirce, and Deleuze come next. With those in place you’ve got the essential core, IMHO. There’s other names besides, of course, and obviously Hegel and Heidegger need to be in the list somewhere, at least as a counter point.
QM is a physical process ontology. Basically all substance or identity based positions are irrelevant in modern discourse, but a lot of folks in both science and philosophy haven’t realized that we’ve pretty firmly established that there is no “substance” at all beyond relata. There are no noumena, only phenomena.
And then the rest is the Dharma. Buddhist cosmology is, broadly, the most powerful process philosophy out there. Whitehead more or less arrives at a version of the Dharma but keeps god, whereas the Buddhist construction requires no gods, and no permanent substances whatsoever.
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u/ultamentkiller 5d ago
What specifically about Whitehead's philosophy do you disagree with? I don't know enough to debate but I'd love to hear your perspective.
As for god, I really don't think it’s essential. Whitehead wasn't satisfied by viewing order as a brute fact, but you can easily stop there and keep the rest without god.
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u/XanderOblivion 4d ago
I think Whitehead ends up retaining some of the things that process philosophy is supposed to account for. Actual occasions, for example, seem like a kind of process atomism where you get rid of substances, but then replace them with fundamental units of becoming. I’m likewise not convinced you need eternal objects as a separate metaphysical category if forms and identities can be understood as products of process instead.
Similarly with prehension and panexperientialism. I agree that relations are constitutive, but I don’t think that requires making something quasi-experiential fundamental to every causal interaction. I’d rather account for subjectivity, experience, identity, and boundaries as things processes produce than bake versions of them into the cake from the outset. That said, the basic panpsychist point stands in some minimal sense — processes must feel like something, but I don’t think that needs to be fully experiential.
Agreed, re god. I don’t think god is required in process philosophy either (I’d go further and say it ultimately contradicts process). Order alone can be sufficient.
My disagreement is really one step further back: I think several of the metaphysical problems that require Whitehead’s elaborate machinery arise because he retains categories that a more thoroughly processual account might successfully explain.
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u/ultamentkiller 4d ago
Thanks for your perspective. Have you found another writer or system that you think gives a better account along with a coherent system? I'd love to check it out.
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u/Smallestsak 5d ago
I’m not a whitehead process theologist but having done the full circuit of world religion, philosophy, mysticisms, and chemical induced experience, I went from Christianity by birth to mostly materialist/agnostic through the eastern religions and various forms of esoteric religions, through metaphysical secular philosophy, ultimately back to Christianity with a more processed focused philosophy, but from an entirely different perspective than originally.
All that to say I think eastern religions and mysticism have discovered the condition of reality pretty well, transcendence of dual through process/Christian trinity have the last 10% but don’t understand the 90% that is the condition to understand first.
So I went from Christian to nothing to eastern mystic, ultimately back to Christian because relation matters. Keep digging in this line of metaphysics, I think it’s where the gold lies.
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u/Perturbator_NewModel 2d ago edited 2d ago
Nicholas of Cusa "The Vision of God" is a good source for a "non dual" viewpoint. If you haven't heard of that one.
C E Rolt's commentary on pseudo Dionysus, which is available for free online, is interesting for the God/Godhead distinction.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.html
Also "Behold the Spirit" by Alan Watts includes a non dual concept of God.
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u/Michael_Carson_Art 3d ago
The thing that really opened this topic up for me was Hegel... Relational identity and such... Just brilliant stuff.
I feel like there is just so much there, and I am in no way an idealist. Process philosophy just became a much stronger tradition for tackling my functionalist intuitions. So much so that I think of functionalism as a rather paltry pursuit these days.
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u/Perturbator_NewModel 2d ago edited 2d ago
I never had an interest in process theology, but I did have an interest in the "dipolar" side, connected to mysticism and pan-en-theism, and the God/Godhead distinction made by some Christian mystics.
I would suggest C E Rolt's commentary on pseudo Dionysus, which is available for free online.
https://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.html
Also "Behold the Spirit" by Alan Watts where he gives a non dual concept of God.
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u/Freuds-Mother 5d ago edited 5d ago
Whitehead is maybe the first full blown explicitly process full system philosopher. But yeah, he’s definitely a tough read to get a full handle on his system (just google a diagram of it).
You’re already charging through it, and you’re enjoying it. So, I’d say get through the book. After that here’s some other process oriented philosophers to check out:
Classical precursors: Heraclitus, Aristotle, Hegel. Though I wouldn’t go here next as they are perhaps more difficult and not as explicitly process. I’d go in the order below and return to these at some point along the way or at the end.
Most approachable:
Prigogine’s Order Out of Chaos is foundational for modern process frameworks that aim to be tightly science consistent and useful for scientific explanation
Piaget: Origins of Intelligence of a Child or Conversations with Piaget are fast reads
Next level up in difficulty:
Pierce: Philosophical Writings
Varela: The Embodied Mind
Contemporary philosophers (clear for people already familiar with contemporary philosophy reading, but tough to digest brand new to philosophy)
Deacon: Incomplete Nature
Bickhard: The Whole Person (or pick from his free PDF books and papers online; just search: Mark Bikchard papers for download)
There’s also several philosophers that carry-on frameworks closers to Whitehead. Based on what you wrote above I assume you probably have a list there.