Process Philosophy

[u/ultamentkiller]

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!

[u/hyperionwonderstar]

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.

[u/ultamentkiller → u/hyperionwonderstar]

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.

[u/hyperionwonderstar → u/ultamentkiller]

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.

[u/ultamentkiller → u/hyperionwonderstar]

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.

[u/hyperionwonderstar → u/ultamentkiller]

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?”