But, why do we need a God-concept anyway? Typically it's supposed to provide a basis for Morality, explain the Existence of the universe, and ground the search for Meaning and Purpose in human life. — Gnomon

Here I've conclusively proven the only thing we can conclude about the existence of the universe. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15722/the-logic-of-a-universal-origin-and-meaning/p1 Anything could have happened, and there is no innate meaning or morality behind it.

If you want to consider an objective morality, go here. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15203/in-any-objective-morality-existence-is-inherently-good/p1 I conclude that all of existence essentially must be good in any objective morality, then build it up to evaluation existences and determine which ones are better than others.

Its much better to do philosophy then do philosophy about process.

theological — Gnomon

The notion of 'God' fails right off the bat, for it stems from the idea-template that something Greater is necessary to be for something lesser to be made of it; yet …

1) We see rather that the lesser simplex leads to the greater complex made of it;

2) The Greater would have to then come from the GREATER, etc. for the template to have any value, but it's a regress of begging the question.

All mentions of 'God' fail in this way.

Its much better to do philosophy then do philosophy about process. — Philosophim

Apparently, what Whitehead was doing in his Process Philosophy is what philosophers have been doing since Plato*1 : discover universal principles in the world and build a worldview upon that foundation. But if the world seems to be nothing but agitated atoms, then whatever happens "has no innate meaning or morality behind it". Although you might ask, whence the agitation? Plato found a First Cause to be logically necessary. For example, to explain any process evolving from simplicity toward complexity.

Moreover, the quantum physics (entanglement) and Systems Science (complexity) of Whitehead's era portrayed an evolving world more like an organism than a mechanism*2. Besides, Darwinian evolution is a progressive process, not just a random meandering*3. Hence, his postulation --- not an observation --- of a God as the "Soul" of the Cosmos. Since his eternal deity is an inference, instead of a space-time empirical fact, you are free to agree or disagree; depending on your personal inclination.

As a professional mathematician, Whitehead may be more percipient than most of us about the rational order of the universe. Even modern Chaos Theory*4 is based on the inherent order within apparent disorder. Some philosophers may focus mainly on the irrational aspects of Nature, but as a mathematician, Whitehead built his thesis upon the logical patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization of natural processes. From such evidence, he concluded that some kind of rational intelligence must be "behind" it. But AFAIK he did not infer that abstract Reason (Logos) would require ego-propping worship. :smile:


*1a. Reformed Platonism :
In this sense, Whitehead’s reformed Platonism is similar to Schelling’s, who built on the description of the World-Soul and its role in the realization of Ideas given by Plato in the Timeaus (I unpack these ideas in this essay on Schelling). . . . .
One of Whitehead’s colleagues at Harvard, Ernest Hocking, reports that (Alfred North Whitehead: Essays on his Philosophy, 1963, p. 16), in regards to the concept of God, Whitehead once told him: “I should never have included it, if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness. You must set all your essentials into the foundation. It is no use putting up a set of terms, and then remarking, ‘Oh, by the way, I believe there’s a God.”
https://footnotes2plato.com/2011/07/16/1263/
*1b. In the Timaeus Plato presents an elaborately wrought account of the formation of the universe and an explanation of its impressive order and beauty. The universe, he proposes, is the product of rational, purposive, and beneficent agency. It is the handiwork of a divine Craftsman (“Demiurge,” dêmiourgos, 28a6) who, imitating an unchanging and eternal model, imposes mathematical order on a preexistent chaos to generate the ordered universe (kosmos). The governing explanatory principle of the account is teleological: the universe as a whole as well as its various parts are so arranged as to produce a vast array of good effects. For Plato this arrangement is not fortuitous, but the outcome of the deliberate intent of Intellect (nous), anthropomorphically represented by the figure of the Craftsman who plans and constructs a world that is as excellent as its nature permits it to be.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/plato-timaeus/

*2. Holistic Systems Thinking :
The idea of the world evolving as a complex, interconnected organism rather than a simple mechanism, while a compelling and increasingly relevant metaphor, is rooted in the concept of systems thinking and the interconnectedness of ecological and social-economic processes.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=+evolving+world+more+like+an+organism+than+a+mechanism

*3. Evolution as a Process, Not Just a Mechanism:
Evolution is the change in the genetic makeup of populations over time, driven by various factors, including natural selection, mutation, genetic drift, and gene flow.
While Darwin's theory of natural selection is foundational, the understanding of evolution continues to evolve, with insights from fields like ecology, genetics, and systems science.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=+evolving+world+more+like+an+organism+than+a+mechanism
Note --- Directional determining Selection is the opposite of Indeterminate Random Chance

*4. Chaos theory explores the idea that within seemingly random, chaotic systems, there can be underlying patterns, interconnectedness, and self-organization, leading to order emerging from disorder
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=chaos+theory+order+in+disorder

From such evidence, he concluded that some kind of rational intelligence must be "behind" it. — Gnomon

Well I logically prove that wrong in the linked post. Feel free to point out if its wrong and if Whitehead would be able to counter it.

The notion of 'God' fails right off the bat, for it stems from the idea-template that something Greater is necessary to be for something lesser to be made of it; yet … — PoeticUniverse

I haven't seen any references in Whitehead's cosmology of the old "something greater" scholastic reasoning. His thinking was based on contemporary quantum and systems science, along with mathematical logic. Which necessarily pointed to "something a priori", in the sense of a First Cause.

But if you are referring to space-time "transcendence", the Big Bang theory "fails right off the bat" to explain the Source of the Energy (causation) and Laws (organization) necessary to produce a cosmic explosion that is still expanding after 14B years. All postulated explanations refer to something antecedent or transcendent to the Bang itself. Are Multiverses and Many Worlds "greater" than our uni-world? :smile:


"in regards to the concept of God, Whitehead once told him: “I should never have included it, if it had not been strictly required for descriptive completeness."
https://footnotes2plato.com/2011/07/16/1263/

Are Multiverses and Many Worlds "greater" than our uni-world? — Gnomon

All are simplex at first; complexity comes later on, via evolution and emergence.

So, to derive the multiverse, we figure that since one universe formed, our own, then so could another, and more, but only a few may be workable enough to continue on.

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks.

Our universe is generic, as mediocre, even, somewhere within the range of universes that can achieve life. We cannot be in a universe which didn’t get to life, so here we have to be.

Our universe took an extremely long time to evolve cosmically, as well as for life to develop biologically; it wasn’t the quickest or the slowest to do so. It kind of limped along. It needs no big explanation, but we will look into it anyway.

That our universe is somewhere in between perfect and none at all shows that there has to be a multiverse or a metaverse. Again, if there can be one universe then there can be more.

There are but three main stable particles in free space that show a curious symmetry: two matter particles oppositely charged, the proton(+) and the electron(-), and one energy particle, the photon(neutral charge). It had to be that there were only those ways to make a stable particle in free space (and their antiparticles).

Our universe's history wasn't of a smooth Sunday walk in the park on a sunny day… (see next time)

:up:

All postulated explanations refer to something antecedent or transcendent to the Bang itself. — Gnomon

Not so. There is far more physical evidence of, for example, cyclical cosmogenesis than for (your) "fiat lux" ... i.e. Aristotle's teleological physics is as philosophically useless as Ptolemy's geocentric epicycles or (e.g. Whitehead's) pseudoscientific 'intelligent design'.

(specifically)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conformal_cyclic_cosmology

(generally)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclic_model

NB: For the umpteenth time (see my member profile), the only answer to the ultimate why question that does not precipitate an infinite regress – beg the question – is that there necessarily is no ultimate answer to why. (vide Democritus ... Spinoza ... Meillassoux ... (also: Fr. G. Lemaître, Hartle-Hawking, R. Penrose, D. Deutsch, C. Rovelli, S. Carroll, et al)) :fire:

@Gnomon @180 Proof @Philosophim

The baby Universe stumbles along, going nowhere fast …

The elementaries have to form protons, neutrons, and whatnot, these combining into the first few atomic elements, mostly hydrogen, all these having to collect into stars eventually, due to gravity. Universes without gravity don’t go anywhere.

How come all the atomic elements couldn’t have been formed right away?

Remember, our universe is just among the average ones that work for life. It just couldn’t form all the elements right away.

Deuterium is a very fragile nucleus, and in the the great heat of the Big Bang it is soon ripped apart. Without forming deuterium, the heavier elements are unable to be forged, a barrier known as the deuterium bottleneck.

The electrons were moving too fast to join an atomic nucleus to create all the atoms. Instead, the universe was full of plasma, with free electrons jostling with light rays, making it opaque.

@punos

Perhaps often in the omniscape a universe is stillborn when everything annihilates away… but Punos has an idea in Gnomon's previous thread about how the annihilations don't quite catch-up.

I'm pointing out here and elsewhere that there be quite a lot of variation when a Bang blows up or a cyclical universe whams up again and its symmetry breaks.

Multiverses — Gnomon

Perhaps in some other ‘wheres’,
Junkyard universes litter the omniscape,
For they flunked, failed, and miscarried—
A quadrillion trillion universes broken down
For every one that worked to any extent at all.

In some of these forlorn universes,
Perhaps the material was inert
And so it just sat there, doing nothing, forever.

In others, maybe gravity was insufficient
Or had no natural place to collect particles
And so they thinned out endlessly,
Spreading coldly toward infinity.

In yet others again,
Even those in the same ballpark as ours,
Perhaps the portions weren’t quite right.
Although they may have formed a few elements,
They went no further than that for a zillion years.


Onward…

Inflation seems to be a necessity in the so that the micro could become the macro and so that the universe could be flat and rather smooth. When inflation ended, its energy was dumped back into the universe, into the particles and radiation that provide the basic building blocks.

But the temperatures were so hot that the normal, everyday matter couldn’t exist yet. Only the fundamental building blocks existed: the quarks, the electrons, and the superhot photons. This soup was supposedly an equal mixture of matter and antimatter. Electrons were accompanied by their positively charged antimatter siblings, the positrons.

So, when the universe was about 10–11 seconds old, the end of inflation had flooded the universe with energy, a mix of matter and antimatter in a soup of high-energy radiation. But by this point, the photons in this superhot soup no longer had enough energy to create particles when they collided, so the universe became unbalanced.

No more electron-positron pairs were created, and no more quark-antiquark pairs were produced. There were still particles in the mix, both matter and antimatter, and these could still collide, be annihilated, and create photons. Very rapidly, all the electrons met up with positrons, and in an instant, they transformed into photons.

The same is true of the quark-antiquark pairs, rapidly being annihilated and turning into more photons. So once the universe passed this critical cooling point, all the matter had turned into radiation, and there should have been no particles left in the universe. The universe should have had no more matter. Yet it did. Where can we look to show the excess?

The cosmic microwave background is the leftover radiation from the early times in the universe. This radiation must have come from the particles and antiparticles being annihilated. If we count the number of photons in the cosmic microwave background, there are about ten billion for every one of the pieces of matter, the protons and neutrons found in the nuclei of all atoms.

This suggests that the universe was already unbalanced before the final annihilations took place—it was not, in fact, a perfectly even mix of matter and antimatter to cancel itself out. For every ten billion positrons in the universe, there must have been ten billion plus one electrons, so that after the final annihilations and creations, we were left with only electrons and photons in the universe. The same must have been true for the quarks and the antiquarks, with unbalanced annihilations and creations leaving only quarks and more photons behind.

Without this cosmic imperfection, we would not be here to wonder at all. It seems that everything has to leak, that there cannot be infinite precision to infinite decimal places, and perhaps not even to a billion decimal places. This, by the way, rules out the block universe of eternalism, and so I conclude that there is presentism as the mode of time. Neutrinos, too, may provide for a big leak for parity violation as an asymmetry, per some findings that I am not up to date with.

(more another time on the precarious start of our universe)

Well I logically prove that wrong in the linked post. Feel free to point out if its wrong and if Whitehead would be able to counter it. — Philosophim

Yes, it is logically possible that a God could exist, but we would need evidence of its existence. — Philosophim

I see you made an extensive argument against God, but I wouldn't call it a Proof in the mathematical sense. The conclusion is inherent in the assumptions. Different assumption, different conclusion.

Whitehead's evidence for God was logical, not empirical. Yet the evidence of causation is the empirical world itself, which begs the question of caused by what agent or action?. If you can prove that the universe is self existent, then there will be no need for a transcendent Creator. :smile:


An assumption is an unexamined belief: what we think without realizing we think it. Our inferences (also called conclusions) are often based on assumptions that we haven't thought about critically. A critical thinker, however, is attentive to these assumptions because they are sometimes incorrect or misguided.
https://library.louisville.edu/ekstrom/criticalthinking/assumptions

Remember, our universe is just among the average ones that work for life. It just couldn’t form all the elements right away. — PoeticUniverse

Perhaps, but your hypothetical "average" universes (multiverses?) --- in alternative space-time bubbles? --- are just as questionable & non-empirical as Whitehead's eternal deity. I simply prefer the parsimonious functional (causal) explanation, without multiplying entities beyond necessity. :smile:

Our universe is not perfect, nor it is completely mathematically elegant, for there are superfluous entities in it, along with a lot of waste. Protons and neutrons require only up and down quarks, and not the other four quarks. — PoeticUniverse

What "perfect" or "elegant" universe are you comparing our mediocre world to? From a human perspective, with a 100year lifetime, this natural & artificial habitat may not be as perfect as the Garden of Eden. Which, as you know, was spoiled by the introduction of Reason and FreeWill. What if the point of the creation was not to provide a habitat for plants & animals & hominids, but to program a world capable of evolving little gods, empowered by Reason & FreeWill? That would imply a different kind of Creator from the one described in the Bible*1.

Whitehead's deity is not the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob*2. His postulated (not revealed) God was not modeled on the tyrannical kings of antiquity, but on philosophical necessity, to explain how & why our still-evolving world came to be as it appears to our modern Science. His necessary Being is what Blaise Pascal disparagingly called the do-nothing "god of the philosophers", perhaps in reference to Spinoza's Nature God. Pascal's "perfect" & "elegant" God was the triune Catholic savior of a world defiled by human Reason & errant Will. For Whitehead, those attributes may be a feature, not a bug in the system.

Even though he wrote prior to the cosmological evidence for a Big Bang beginning, Whitehead intuited that our space-time world was not self-existent. Hence, some pre-bang Cause was necessary to explain the process of evolution from a mathematical Singularity to the material complexity we see today*3. He doesn't describe that Cause in personal or material terms, but in functional language. Although, his General Functional Cause could be hypothetically materialized as Multiverses, or Many Worlds, or Cyclic Cosmology, if you are into that kind of far-out speculative conjecture. :wink:


*1. Alfred North Whitehead's conception of God, central to his process philosophy, rejects divine omnipotence, viewing God as a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+concept+of+god

*2. For Whitehead, God is not necessarily tied to religion. Rather than springing primarily from religious faith, Whitehead saw God as necessary for his metaphysical system. His system required that an order exist among possibilities, an order that allowed for novelty in the world and provided an aim to all entities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

*3. Whitehead's Cosmic Epochs :
Whitehead's philosophy included the notion of "cosmic epochs," which are finite, self-contained universes that process, become, and perish, potentially resembling the Big Bang to Big Crunch cycles in some multiverse models.
Dynamic Universe :
Whitehead's ideas about a dynamic, ever-changing universe align with the Big Bang theory, which posits that the universe began from a hot, dense state and has been expanding ever since.
No Direct Connection :
It's important to note that Whitehead's work predates the development of modern cosmology and the Big Bang theory, so he wasn't directly aware of these scientific concepts.
Multiverse Theories :
Some interpretations of Whitehead's philosophy, particularly his concept of "cosmic epochs," find a rough correspondence with certain multiverse theories, such as the oscillationist model (a series of Big Bang to Big Crunch epochs).
Whitehead's Influence :
Despite the lack of a direct connection, Whitehead's philosophical framework, with its emphasis on process and becoming, has influenced discussions about the nature of reality and the universe, including its relationship to the Big Bang.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+big+bang

this natural & artificial habitat may not be as perfect as the Garden of Eden. Which, as you know, was spoiled by the introduction of Reason and FreeWill. — Gnomon

Far-out!

In the meanwhile, when the temperature dropped low enough in the first minute after the Big Bang, deuterium started to form. The temperature was low enough that the deuteron bond could not be broken. Right away, the most stable element, helium-4, started to be built up, and the race was on.

But it was over before it even started. The larger nuclei required more energy, and the temperature was dropping. What’s more, the number of neutrons available for further reactions was too low. In fact, after only a few minutes, all the neutrons created in the Big Bang ended up as helium-4 (with a few in the next heaviest element, lithium). The extra protons that were left over? Well, they were just hydrogen nuclei.

So, the universe had cooled enough for deuterium to survive the collisions and thus be used as the building blocks for the larger nuclei. Two deuterium nuclei could bind together to form the nucleus of a helium-4 atom. If a deuterium nucleus could snare a single proton, a helium-3 nucleus was formed. With that, we appeared to be on our way to building all the chemical elements. However, with the universe continuing to cool, the further hurdle became apparent.

Deuterium nuclei are positively charged and therefore repel one another. With the universe cooled, the motions of the deuterium nuclei slowed. They became sluggish. As they approached one another, the electromagnetic force built and forced them apart. They simply couldn’t get close enough for the strong force to reach out and bind them. Free protons were also forced away. After a few minutes in which some helium and lithium nuclei were formed, this nucleosynthesis appeared to be over. The pathway to forging heavier elements in the Big Bang was completely cut off. Cripes!

That seemed to be the end. Following the first few minutes after the Big Bang, the cosmological nuclear furnace dimmed as the universe continued to expand and cool. Leftover radiation also cooled, with the universe eventually fading into the blackness of a dark age.

The great slowness of the universe's creation so far here and ever plodding more in the tale, up to taking billions of years for life to come about seems to indicate no Divine involvement, leaving it up to my Great Poet ancestor, I guess.

I guide thee; I must carry thee;
I'm illumination beside thee.
Fear not the proof—
It’s the beauty of the truth.

The great slowness of the universe's creation so far here and ever plodding more in the tale, up to taking billions of years for life to come about seems to indicate no Divine involvement, leaving it up to my Great Poet ancestor, I guess. — PoeticUniverse

To those trained in abstract & abstruse mathematics, instantaneous Inflation Theory may sound like a viable alternative to Creation myths. But for those not so trained, to go from an atom of matter to a proto-universe in a fraction of a millisecond sounds like faster-than-light Magic, shrouded in gobbledygook : "let there be stuff". Who wrote the love-story between nuclei, and where did the sexual energy come from? :joke:

For non-mathematical philosophers, IT seems to be a solution to a non-problem*1. Flatness & homogeneity are to be expected in a Whitehead universe, created with intention rather than accident. I agree that the slowness & gradualness of physical evolution seem to weigh against the Genesis account of light-speed Creation. But Whitehead's progressive Process has all the time in the world to reach its functional goal. What is Life, if not matter with time on its hands? Perhaps, his "Great Poet" deity had a sense of humor to allow for hominids who could spin fantastic stories about inflating deuterium balloons, who fall in love and live happily ever after. :wink:


*1. Criticism of the inflation theory in cosmology centers on its lack of empirical testability, the vast number of possible models, and the potential for a multiverse, making it difficult to falsify or verify.
Here's a more detailed breakdown of the criticisms:

Lack of Testability and Falsifiability:
One major concern is that the theory relies on a hypothetical "inflaton field" with a potential energy curve that seems to be adjusted to fit available data, making it difficult to test or falsify.

The theory's proponents argue that inflation is a necessary explanation for the universe's flatness and homogeneity, but critics argue that these problems can be addressed by other models.
The concept of a multiverse, where inflation creates countless universes with varying properties, further complicates the issue of testability, as any outcome could be predicted.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=inflation+theory+criticism

Perhaps, his "Great Poet" deity had a sense of humor to allow for hominids who could spin fantastic stories about inflating deuterium balloons, who fall in love and live happily ever after. — Gnomon

The Great Poet demiurge was getting nervous. It had been dark for near 400,000 cosmic years now and he didn't have a candle to use to work on solving the 2x10**75 particle body problem to foresee all that could happen.

So, he decided to start small and work on the three-body problem; however, that was unsolvable.

I see you made an extensive argument against God, — Gnomon

Then you have not read or did not understand the post. God if one of infinite possibilities and my argument makes God plausible.

If you can prove that the universe is self existent, then there will be no need for a transcendent Creator. :smile: — Gnomon

I did, and you're correct. But it doesn't eliminate its plausibility of being. Feel free to go over and try poking holes in it, I've been looking forward to someone doing so. Otherwise what else can I conclude except that its right?

I agree that the slowness & gradualness of physical evolution seem to weigh against the Genesis account of light-speed Creation. — Gnomon

After about 380,000 years of cosmic time, the universe was cool enough and the electrons slow enough for them to stick to the atomic nuclei, although it wasn’t easy, which is why the universe would evolve only very slowly. In a moment, the universe became transparent.

Gravity had dominated, pulling matter together into lumps and clumps. Mass, in the form of the dark matter, the dominant mass in the universe that lurked in the background of the Big Bang, formed the seeds of the first galaxies. Some normal matter, as the first few atoms, came along for the ride, thank goodness. The gas cooled and collapsed, crushing down hard and driving temperatures at their cores to extreme values. The first stars were born, and the universe lit up and entered its modern age. At center stage, the world of the quantum was found to play a leading role, for without it, the stars would not shine.

The weak nuclear force can can change protons into neutrons! But the chances of this are very small. So if we can use tunneling to form a diproton, there is then a small chance that one of the protons will convert into a neutron, forming a stable deuteron before it can fall apart. The chances are very, very small, with only about one in every 10**28 (10 octillion) collisions between protons in the Sun producing deuterium. It’s a highly inefficient process, but it is the first step to creating heavier elements. The universe can only evolve slowly.

…

The reactions that create heavier elements allow us to live comfortably on Earth, but they took a lot of time since they are difficult to create. If it were too easy for these reactions to occur, the Sun would burn up its hydrogen fuel much more quickly, and we would not have the stable energy it has provided our planet for hundreds of millions of years.

The remainder of the atomic elements had to arrive, but they needed more energy, and the stars had to make them. The atomic elements through iron are made directly and the remainder become from supernovae or neutron star collisions or by some minor processes. There are more atomic elements but they are only made in our laboratories.

From atoms, molecules became, and from molecules cells became, and from cells life became, and from life brains became, and from brains consciousness became. This was all done on Earth, so there is no mystery about where and how it happened. Nature accomplished it. There was once no life or consciousness on Earth and now there is.

If you can prove[demonstrate] that the universe is self existent ... — Gnomon

How do we know that the universe (multiverse) is not "self existent"? :smirk:

Suppose the universe (multiverse) itself is, in fact, 'Spinoza-Einstein's God' ... :fire:
.
non-origin ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/972157

Möbius loop-like (eternal) process ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/955151

a Whitehead universe, created with intention rather than accident — Gnomon

Whitehead’s ageless deity had been floating around in the dark for a very long time after the Big Bang, but, no big deal, for before the Bang he’d been doing about the same for a past Eternity.

He didn’t have a universe of his own nor even a place to stay because there wasn’t anything yet, which was why he was making a universe, duh. He’d used up a lot of his own energy to make the Bang and was tired and so he had a good rest for 380,000 years.

He was happy to just have some particles, but now there was light, as a great milestone, so he lit up a smoke and looked around, but it was much too bright, so he made a pair of sunglasses from some quarks.

In the deity’s universe, the dark chest of wonders
Of Possibility and Probability opened up
In just the just right way:

Naked quarks spewed forth,
Among other things,
And boiled and brewed
In one of the steamiest broths
Ever cooked up.

They somehow simmered and combined
Into the ordinary matter
Of protons and neutrons.

Then quite independently,
By some unknown means,
Dark matter-energy arose as well,
In just the right mix, and, luckily, too,
Some very long filaments,
Called cosmic strings,
Formed and survived long enough
To be useful as collection agents,
Which were merely imperfections,
As in an unevenly freezing pond—
A kind of a cooling flaw.

None of these happenings were connected,
Except by Potential’s destiny,
So, ‘fortunately’,
The cosmic strings attracted,
By their gravity,
Both dark and ordinary matter,
Which in turn
Attracted even more of the same.

These pearls of embryonic galaxies arose
And were strung along these cosmic necklaces,
As can still be noted today.

So it was
That some almost incidental irregularities,
Frozen out as cosmic anchors,
Were latched onto by matter, both light and dark,
The proportionate portions of which were favorable,
The dark matter dwarfing our ordinary matter
For some reason of a happy ‘circumstance’.

‘Fortuitously’, as well,
Anti-matter, if there ever was any,
Did not fully cancel out the uncle-matter.

The universe-maker could not foresee any of this
In and of itself’s fundamental substance(s),
For if it could have
Then we’d only have the larger problem
Of how the foreseer could have been foreseen,
Ad infinitum…

Or it could have been like the ‘trying out’
Of all possibilities in superposition…
A brute force happening
Of every path gone down.

Whitehead's deity had to wait three billion more years for a third generation metal-rich sun-star to form along with its planets, another great milestone, granting him great relief. His zillions of previous Bang attempts hadn’t worked out, but he had finally put the right amount of energy into the latest Bang.

It was his goof that Earth had no oxygen at first….

Whitehead's deity had to wait three billion more years for a third generation metal-rich sun-star to form along with its planets, another great milestone, granting him great relief. His zillions of previous Bang attempts hadn’t worked out, but he had finally put the right amount of energy into the latest Bang. — PoeticUniverse

Compared to the instant Paradise of Genesis, the gradual evolution of Darwin seems to be fecklessly going nowhere slowly. But my evaluation of Evolutionary Creation is that the point is the Process (becoming), not any predestined Product (paradise). Consequently, I imagine the process more like a computer program that runs as an Application instead of a Solution. Hence, your personal sentient experience is just one thread of many, on the forum of Life. :wink:

PS___Time is not a thing, but a process, that is meaningless until a mind emerges to mark its increments.

Birthing a Cosmos :
Whitehead described our enforming⁷ cosmos as a living organism. From our human perspective, the process of pro-creating a universe is what we call Evolution. Based on the notion of gestation, we can imagine the Big Bang Singularity as a seed, egg, or sperm. And the event itself as a quickening (first signs of life). So, our universe is portrayed as an embryonic fetus that must develop in the womb before being born into whatever comes next. Yet the inseminator at the inception of our world should not be portrayed as literally anthro-morphic, and it would be a mistake to attribute human psychological & emotional characteristics to a timeless, dis-embodied Intellect. However, if you think of the evolutionary Process as a computer Program, an appropriate metaphor might represent the system designer as a Programmer.
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page44.html

Whitehead described our enforming⁷ cosmos as a living organism. — Gnomon

More milestones:

Whitehead’s deity was still overjoyed, for his cosmic egg was going well enough, although that made him to come First as the Chicken, which answered an age-old important question.

The Earth’s atmosphere took two billion years to form, first from bacteria that exuded oxygen as a sort of unwanted poison, and then from plants that made oxygen. No creatures were around asking for an atmosphere rich in oxygen to be able to become, but an adaptation happened, another great kilometer-stone; however, life kept on getting wiped out, another goof.

Before mammals were plentiful on Earth, five near extinctions occurred, the last and worst one being the Permian extinction from asteroids or volcanic eruptions that wiped out the dinosaurs and 95% of all existing species, this making the opening for mammals to evolve much further from merely a shrew-like creature. Extinctions are not indicative of intelligent design, but it made for mammals to be able to come out of the forest and not get stepped on by the dinosaurs, who had been Kings of the Earth for 700,000 years.

As the third chimp, we potential humans were lucky to evolve our separate way when two of our chromosomes fused, making us incapable of producing offspring by mating with the regular chimps. We have 23 chromosomes and the chimps have 24.

So, good fortune was needed, as always, in this and many more instances, such as the Earth having to have the right conditions in the first place, out there among the huge waste elsewhere which wasn’t really such a waste after all, it providing so many chances for there to be a workable planet for life such as Earth.

So, good fortune was needed, as always, in this and many more instances, such as the Earth having to have the right conditions in the first place, out there among the huge waste elsewhere which wasn’t really such a waste after all, it providing so many chances for there to be a workable planet for life such as Earth. — PoeticUniverse

Yes. Who's to say that billions of solar cycles without Life (to process matter into viable entities) or Mind (to notice the passage of time) was a waste? Since randomness (chance ; fortune) seems necessary for evolution to work as Darwin observed, perhaps the de-selected options were useful as examples of un-fitness. And Quantum Randomess*1 seems to be intrinsic to the fundamental processes of Nature. Again, a feature (fitness function*2), not a bug.

As far as I know, nothing in Whitehead's Cosmology is contrary to established facts of science. What may be antithetical are some of his metaphysical interpretations, that contradict the philosophical assumptions of Materialism*3. Ancient Atomism/Materialism beliefs were undermined by Quantum Physics, which found not hard little balls of stuff, but bits of Energy and Fields where something happens : statistical processes (fortune). :smile:


*1. Quantum Randomness :
Unlike classical randomness, which can often be attributed to a lack of information or complexity, quantum randomness is an intrinsic property of the quantum world
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=quantum+randomness+meaning

*2. Evolutionary Programming :
The fitness function evaluates the quality of the potential solutions, assigning scores that direct the algorithm toward an optimal path. As the algorithm evolves through multiple generations, the fitness function influences which solutions survive, reproduce, and contribute to the next iterations.
https://medium.com/@sowmy3010/fitness-functions-in-genetic-algorithms-evaluating-solutions-1b998f38d6b9
Note --- Natural Selection is a fitness function.

*3. Process vs Objects :
Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_North_Whitehead

Whitehead argued that reality consists of processes rather than material objects, and that processes are best defined by their relations with other processes, thus rejecting the theory that reality is fundamentally constructed by bits of matter that exist independently of one another. — Gnomon

And we thought that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer. (Babbage's machine was never built!)

The giant rocks and large mile stones that the deity had thrown at the Earth had worked out just fine, on the fifth try.

He then programmed RNA and DNA in the Fortran computer language.

Molecules, had ‘auspiciously’
Become able to replicate themselves, as DNA.

DNA remembers every step of our evolution—
And you can see this in ‘fast’ motion
When embryos form simply in the liquid womb,
Replicate, and then grow cells
That diversify into a human being
After going through some nonhuman stages.

The human embryo actually forms
Three different types of kidneys,
One after the other,
The first two discarded,
Resembling those of jawless fish
And reptiles, respectively,
Before our final kidney appears.

There is also a fetal coat of hair
That then greatly diminishes.

Thus four billion years compresses into
The nine months of pregnancy.

And we thought that Ada Lovelace was the first programmer. (Babbage's machine was never built!) — PoeticUniverse

Babbage (or was it the lovely lady Lovelace?) called his cranky (mechanical) computer a "difference engine" (a differential is a sign of change in a variable). But, long before that long-forgotten nomenclature, the original Programmer created a world that evolves by calculating differentials (where "1" = something, and "0" = nothing). By subconsciously imitating the creator, automobile makers devised a strange kind of gear (the differential) that allows wheels to rotate at different rates as the car goes around a curve. Today, we have Artificial Intelligence that computes evolutionary systems via either floating point differentials (vectors) or genetic algorithms (a search heuristic inspired by natural selection). So, human programmers continue to emulate the First Programmer. :nerd:


Religion and Science : by Alfred North Whitehead
Religion will not regain its old power until it can face change in the same spirit as does science. . . . .
My second reason for the modern fading of interest involves the ultimate question of what we mean by religion. Religion is the reaction of human nature to its search for God. The presentation of God as an all-powerful arbitrary tyrant behind the unknown forces of nature awakens every modern instinct of critical reaction.
https://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/theology-philosophy/alfred-north-whitehead/


DO THE NEW QUANTUM COMPUTERS REMIND YOU OF THE OLD DIFFERENCE ENGINE?

Alfred North Whitehead — Gnomon

Whitehead was bald, thus his surname. About 'God', who he said he should. have left out, he says "Blah, blah, blah."

The Block Universe is a quantum computer, doing everything all at once; then it plays out like a movie.

Is Whitehead’s deity’s Earth doomed?

There was a mistake in human nature: it contained a beast, but at least that gave it a zest for life.

Enrico Fermi had placed tin foil over his instruments in 1938 and so he did not discover nuclear fission, which would have put Germany ahead of the game in WW II. During the war, Germany put Heisenberg in charge of the nuclear effort to produce an atomic bomb. One of the early labs mysteriously caught fire and burned down.

Heisenberg later travelled to see his old friend and mentor, Neils Bohr, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, and gave Bohr a drawing the German effort. England eventually got Bohr out of Denmark and soon flew him to Los Alamos. Upon showing the drawing to Oppenheimer and others, they concluded that the Germans were on the completely wrong track, which was a great relief.
…

Currently… droughts, fires, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, nuclear threats, and exponential global warming…

So, here we are, facing obliteration. We will have to colonize space in this century. If not, well, if there can be one Earth then there can be another.


IN THE MEADOWS OF HEAVEN

We of the highest consciousness ever known
And the most versatile form that’s been grown
Reside as consequent beings in this Earthly realm,
Possibly the most fortuitous creatures
That the universe has ever wrought.

Indeed,
We are this universe come to life—
Necessarily from a long line
Of ‘fortunate accidents’.

Looking back,
We already know ahead of time
That we will discover
The many ‘rare happenings’
That made us possible.

Our higher consciousness
Was the crowning glory;
We had won the human race—
The be all and end all; the grand prize
Of the universal lottery.

So there is nothing more,
Aside from our own progress
To be and learn.

So then hail and good fortune,
Fine fellows and ladies,
And welcome all of you
To the Meadows of Heaven—
The highest point of all being,
Although we are surely
Still in our infancy.

The further design
And the role of mankind
Is now in our hands.

We were borne here upon the shoulders
Of so many who have long since come and gone,
All of them advancing the cause,
Over eons of wiles—so here we are.

Fare thee always well, fine friends,
For we are some of
The luckiest sons and daughters of being
In a rare universe well done.

Celebrate; live; be,
For everyone dies,
But not everyone lives.

So, here we are, facing obliteration. We will have to colonize space in this century. If not, well, if there can be one Earth then there can be another. . . . .
We are this universe come to life—
Necessarily from a long line
Of ‘fortunate accidents’ — PoeticUniverse

Earth may be facing obliteration because its upstart little gods have been progressively successful in taking control over paternal Nature, who sired them. As flourishing families grow, despite setbacks, they have to add-on to the cabin, until it becomes a mansion.

So, the local success of artificial Culture could be exported to other worlds, such as Mars, via TerraForming. Our ambitious little-god-minds have historically expanded their range to inhabit undeveloped regions of the boundless universe. Mars-bound Musk is nothing if not aspiring, and successful, despite stumbling blocks and exploding rockets, and dismantled federal departments.

The poetry of the world is a record of ups & downs, ascensions & declinations, as experienced by its sentient creatures. And the immanent end of the world has been foretold many times in the last 2500 years. Yet, we humans no longer wait for fortunate accidents to evolve the world. We take the bit in mouth, and go our own way ; getting back up when we stumble. As Kurzweil arrogantly announced : "the singularity is near, when humans transcend biology!". If we don't annihilate our organic selves first. :wink:


Alfred North Whitehead's conception of God, central to his process philosophy, rejects divine omnipotence, viewing God as a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+concept+of+god

Throughout history, various individuals and groups have made predictions about the end of the world, often based on religious or cultural interpretations, including the Mayans, and others who predicted the end of the world in 2012.
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=end+of+world+predictions

a "poet of the world" who persuasively guides creation rather than coercively controlling it. — Gnomon

Musicals celebrating the world of the Great Poet Artist:



For some without subtitles:

The Trio of Understanding

Like orchestras that weave their music bright,
From strings of past and present and delight,
In future notes that hover just ahead—
Our minds compose their symphonies of sight.

The senses drink the moment’s flowing wine,
While memory’s cellars store each vintage fine,
And fancy spreads its wings to catch the breeze
Of possibilities that might combine.

Is Whitehead’s deity’s Earth doomed? — PoeticUniverse

Whitehead's deity is not limited to Earth. On this forum, we are concerned about the fate of Earth because that is where the philosophical observers live. His "deity" is a cosmic principle, like Plato's Form & First Cause and Aristotle's Prime Mover. As such, they are not directly affected by our little local problems. But, since we humans are the representatives of deity on Earth, if our little corner of Paradise is "doomed" it reflects badly on the Cosmic Cause. Sadly, we can't expect a second coming of a savior to whisk us away to Heaven or Mars, whichever is properly terraformed.

Whitehead referred to his God as a "principle of concretion", coalescence, coming together. So, I'm wondering if it could be the same cohesive principle that Jan Smuts called "Holism", as the organizing progressive principle of Evolution, and may also be the cause of quantum Entanglement. Perhaps also what physicist David Bohm called "Wholeness and the Implicate Order". They all viewed the Earth as one component of a cosmic system, in which, as Benjamin Franklin noted after the English army invaded the colonies : "we either hang together or we hang separately". :worry:


In Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy, the deity is a "principle of concretion," a force that transforms potential into actuality {CAUSATION}, offering guidance through persuasive power, and is both independent of and dependent on the world
https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=whitehead+deity
Note --- my bracket

Wholeness and Holism :
This post is my attempt to reconcile David Bohm’s quantum physics explanation of Wholeness (entanglement) with Jan Smuts’ notion of Holism (organisms) in Evolution. I’m much more familiar with the latter than the former. But they seem to be talking about the same kinds of mysterious forces & processes in Nature. In Biology, something seems to be missing in Darwin’s theory, to explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention. In sub-atomic Physics, the missing “force” is whatever binds isolated particles into entangled pairs that have correlated properties, and mutually respond to changes without any apparent exchanges of information or energy. The pairs seem to act as a single whole object, and are interdependent. For Evolution, the missing “force” is whatever combines bits of inert matter into living and thinking organisms. In both cases, the material substrate is physically observable (explicit), but the immaterial system is only rationally inferable (implicit).
https://bothandblog8.enformationism.info/page37.html

explain how Life & Mind could emerge from material processes, without divine intervention — Gnomon

Isn't it then a larger question of how the Divine Life & Mind could be so without a regress to HIGHER and GREATER, etc? We only see the polar opposite of the smaller and smaller as a basis.