In Husserlian terms, it means that a lived, as opposed to an idealized, moment is both retentive and protentive. It carries the past that in-forms it, into the future that is expected in it, and which it will, in turn, in-form. — Janus
Can an individual 'occasion' of process philosophy be said to actually exist?
Or is an individual occasion like the present moment, of zero duration, therefore not actually existent? — rachMiel
No I'm not looking for an argument for my non-existence. (I'd have to exist to be doing that.) I'm having a conversation with some Buddhists about process philosophy, and this question came up. — rachMiel
Whitehead distinguishes between "moments", which have no temporal extension, and "durations". / Actual entities, for Whitehead, are not atemporal (in the sense of unchanging), but are rather temporal occasions or processes. So, an atemporal moment would be an idealized instant of no duration, not an actual moment which, in possessing temporal extension, endures "for a time". In Husserlian terms, it means that a lived, as opposed to an idealized, moment is both retentive and protentive. It carries the past that in-forms it, into the future that is expected in it, and which it will, in turn, in-form. — Janus
I'm happy to share my view/belief/feeling about this ... but you might not like it! — rachMiel
What I get from this (with respect to my original questions) is that no-thing (no unchanging substance) exists in the present moment. Existents (actual entities) are event-sequences that unfold over time.
Sound about right? — rachMiel
What is the 'atom' of a process, its smallest existent? (I don't wanna say smallest particle, because this implies substance.) Does this question even make sense in pp'ical terms? — rachMiel
1. If time is a process, any slice of it (duration) would have a beginning, middle, and end. Likewise, each of these would have a beginning, middle, and end. And so on, fractal-like, ad infinitum. Yes? — rachMiel
2. If time is a process, does it imply that space is also a process? — rachMiel
A quicky (hopefully):
Can an individual 'occasion' of process philosophy be said to actually exist?
Or is an individual occasion like the present moment, of zero duration, therefore not actually existent? — rachMiel
In many respects Whiteheads actual occasions resemble quantum events. — prothero
In the end both space-time consists of quanta and the argument is whether such space time quanta are purely material or do they also have experiential qualities in prehending the past and possibilities from the future? — prothero
f you have evidence that Whitehead believed consciousness caused quantum collapse you can present it but I believe that is a misstatement or misunderstanding. — prothero
The fundamental units in science are roughly quantum particles which are perhaps better termed quantum events and the nature of quantum events is open to both scientific and philosophical debate but it seems that perhaps particles only exist when they interact and that the properties of such "events or particles" are really relationships to other particles and events which is not to dissimilar to whiteheads presentation of "actual occasions". — prothero
It seems clear that Whitehead's notion of experience is different than our notion of consciousness. For Whitehead most of the experience of the world is non conscious experience. When two particles interact they "experience" each other, and the physical description of that interaction is only a partial description of what actually goes on. Consciousness is a very special somewhat rare and high level form of experience or so the literature on Whitehead would suggest.For Whitehead only the tiniest fraction of what is experienced is consciously experienced. — Janus
Feel free to define experience then. — apokrisis
When two particles interact they "experience" — prothero
Experience is defined by Whitehead as any event or process. — Janus
Whitehead, I believe, would say the sign is experienced by the interpretant; it prehends the sign. — Janus
I would say the physcialist description of “quantum particles or events” is incomplete. With the notion of quantum entanglement one is forced into either non causality or at least non locality. The measurement of a quantum position allows only certain discrete locations; there is nothing continuous about the quantum picture of nature. Despite the continuous nature of some of the quantum equations there is nothing continuous about allowed orbits, transitions between orbits or the measured values. So collapse is basically measurement or interaction to a specific value or location. Precisely how that happens is not something explained by either physics or metaphysics.I am responding to your characterisation here. You said they resembled quantum events. But there are no events without collapse. So there remains something missing in the metaphysical tale.That's fine. But that also hinges on collapse realism. Which is also fine. But now - like Whitehead - you owe an account of how collapse happens. — apokrisis
I don’t see that that follows. Quantum mechanics challenges the continuous view of space-time. Quantum mechanics does not challenge Whiteheads objection to the artificial bifurcation of nature.In my view, Whitehead goes astray from the off because he rejects the kind of bifurcation of nature that would distinguish between observers and observables. Physicalism has the problem of solving the collapse issue. And a semiotic approach - one that agrees to a semiotic bifurcation in terms of information and entropy - would be the one I would take. But you can't talk about a process approach "resembling quantum ontology" without addressing the fact that quantum mechanics really challenges Whitehead's basic assumption of "no bifurcation" - the basic theme of pan-psychic thinking. — apokrisis
Observers and observables have to be separated somehow. They can't be co-located as if there were no basic separation. The issue is then how to achieve that without lapsing into Cartesian dualism — apokrisis
So the bifurcation of nature is precisely the effort to separate the subjective from the objective or the observer from the observed or the object from its place in nature (relationships and interactions). Experience in various forms and degrees is as much a part of nature as are the physical or material aspects of nature and in trying to declare one “real” and the other an epiphenomena, one denies the unified character of the process of reality (nature).Instead of construing the task of science as that of overcoming subjective illusion in order to reach objective reality, as many modern thinkers have done, Whitehead takes the speculative risk of defining nature differently: nature becomes, quite simply, “what we are aware of in perception. “Everything perceived is in nature,” says Whitehead, “We may not pick and choose”.
the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon.14 Whitehead
“If the abstractions [of science] are well-founded,” says Whitehead,
that is to say, if they do not abstract from everything that is important in experience, the scientific thought which confines itself to these abstractions will arrive at a variety of important truths relating to our experience of nature.20
The “photon,” for example, is not just an invention of the physicist, nor is it simply a fact of nature. The “photon” is what the physicist has come to be aware of in his perception of light as a result of certain replicable scientific practices, laboratory situations, theoretical images, and mathematical equations. The “photon,” as a scientific-object, is said to be abstract only in that it cannot be grasped in isolation from the “whole structure of events” or “field of activity” (i.e., the passage of nature) to which it belongs and through which it endures.21 From the perspective of Whitehead’s philosophy of science, the abstract will never be able to offer a satisfactory explanation for the concrete.22 The wavelength of a photon does not explain the perception of redness, nor does even a connectionist model of neurochemistry explain the artist’s encounter with a beautiful sunset. Whenever scientific materialists try to offer such heroic explanations, they succeed only in offering descriptive commentaries in terms of the scientific objects most fashionable in their time–commentaries that presuppose the very thing they pretend to have explained away: consciousness. The only valid method of explanation from Whitehead’s point of view is the reverse of the materialist’s, an explanation which traces the genesis of abstractions back to the concrete consciousness and perceptual presences from which they emerged.23 A science that seeks to explain the concrete by way of the abstract all too easily falls prey to a form of knowledge production whose adequacy is judged economically, i.e., in terms of its capacity to transform and control nature (usually for private profit), rather than ecologically, i.e., in terms of its capacity to understand and relate to nature (for the common good). — ”https://footnotes2plato.com/2012/10/16/rough-draft-thinking-with-whitehead-science-sunsets-and-the-bifurcation-of-nature/”
He starts by rejecting that basic division into a world and its interpretation - a modelling relation. — apokrisis
But where does Whitehead leave room for the mediating thing of a sign in his scheme? He starts by rejecting that basic division into a world and its interpretation - a modelling relation. So the third thing of a mediating sign is hardly going to come into the story.
As the Whitehead expert, you can explain how it does, and why then prehension could be understood in terms of sign interpretation.
Prehend for Peirce would be the conceptual seizing or grasping of the perceptual sign as standing in a habitual pragmatic relation with the noumenal. But where is Whitehead making the same kind of claim? Can you cite anything that would clear this up and support your view? — apokrisis
So collapse is basically measurement or interaction to a specific value or location. Precisely how that happens is not something explained by either physics or metaphysics. — prothero
...the red glow of the sunset should be as much part of nature as are the molecules and electric waves by which men of science would explain the phenomenon. — Segall
The only valid method of explanation from Whitehead’s point of view is the reverse of the materialist’s, an explanation which traces the genesis of abstractions back to the concrete consciousness and perceptual presences from which they emerged. — Segall
So the bifurcation of nature is precisely the effort to separate the subjective from the objective or the observer from the observed or the object from its place in nature (relationships and interactions). — prothero
Experience in various forms and degrees is as much a part of nature as are the physical or material aspects of nature and in trying to declare one “real” and the other an epiphenomena, one denies the unified character of the process of reality (nature). — prothero
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