So Segall says Whitehead's intent is to collapse the abstract scientific account back to a subjective experiential account. And you say his intent is to separate those two accounts — apokrisis

Again I would say that the absolute separation of "reality" into subjective and objective is the artificial "bifurcation of nature" to which Whitehead takes strong objection.

how about things in the past do they have "concrete" existence? Not to derail the discussion into one about time but it did start as a question about duration and existence in process philosophy.

If by triadic you mean the two actual occasions plus the relation between them but for Whitehead any "actual occasion" has multiple relations to multiple events plus its relation to the past and to the possibilities of the future and the lure of "eternal objects". So even a triadic approach misses the multitude of relations and interactions involved in even any single "actual occasion".

Although Whitehead refers to the physical pole and the experiential pole of events, it is quite clear the two cannot be separated, it is not a dualism, but a form of neutral monism, a dual aspect of a single reality..

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

Not that I am interested in trying to interpret Whitehead in terms of Pierce's semiosis, but there are writings that one can refer to, and for all the terminological differences there are fundamental ontologic similarities.

http://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2010/05/12/between-whitehead-peirce/

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 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.

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

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.

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

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/”

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).

For Whitehead only the tiniest fraction of what is experienced is consciously experienced. — Janus
Feel free to define experience then. — apokrisis

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.
.

In general it would seem "human mind or consciousness" requires "human brain" and that the link between any particular individual consciousness and individual brain is a strong one. In discussions of human mind and human brains, the literature around physical injuries and mental functions as well as biochemical or chemical disturbances and mind functioning would be a good starting point for examining the relationship. With that in mind the question of transferring ones mind to another's brain would seem a non starter at least a speculation with no support in experience or science.

If you have evidence that Whitehead believed consciousness caused quantum collapse you can present it but I believe that is a misstatement or misunderstanding.

It seems quite clear that reality is "process" or "change" and the question of how the change comes about is fundamental to process views. Can the process of change be infinitely divided into dimensionless points or points of time without duration? Or is there a limit to meaningfully dividing such processes, some fundamental unit of "existence" or "spacetime". Whiteheads terminology for such units are "occasions of experience" or sometimes in other contexts "moments or droplets of experience".

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".

That there is a high degree of order and predictability to the universe seems beyond reasonable debate.

The usual argument is whether there is any degree of freedom or chance involved in the universe and to that I would argue the preponderance of evidence in modern science including quantum mechanics is there are degrees of freedom and unpredictability albeit quite small.


"The difference between no freedom and a little freedom is all the difference in the world" Charles Hartshorne process philosopher


Whether one attributes the order in the world or even existence itself to chance or to some concept of "God" does not seem a scientific question at all.

It seems to me that neither monogamy nor polygamy, not any other "gamy" is inherently good or bad as long as the participants engage of their own free will and everyone is informed and are consenting adults. There would seem to be some advantage of stable long term relationships particularly in families with children although children do fine as long as there are loving responsible adults assisting them in the process of survival and maturation.

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

I would say for Whitehead the fundamental elements of existence are the "actual occasions" or "droplets or moments of experience" and that his view of this is fundamentally atomistic. Such occasions have duration. Such occasions can not be meaningfully subdivided. Actual occasions are both temporal and spatial. In many respects Whiteheads actual occasions resemble quantum events.

These occasions are the final real thing in the universe, and they are both temporal, spatial and experiential. Time can not be composed of events of zero duration just as space can not be composed of points of zero dimension. 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?

If everyone wants to live like Americans and Europeans (and given the choice or opportunity they apparently do) then that would put a terrible strain on the Earth's natural resources. Perhaps a mitigating factor is that countries with such high standards of living also tend to have lower fertility and population growth rates. Perhaps with education, opportunity and family planning services it will turn out all right after all. Remains to be seen, in any event not much to do except the above.

I am fascinated with the notion of Platonic forms (or in Whitehead eternal objects) and Aristotle's final causes as possessing some explanatory (metaphysical) power for the patterns, regularities and self organizing capabilities of nature. I still find the usual dualistic split of mind and matter to be much less desirable in approaching the problem of phenomenological experience and the power of science than that of the neutral monists or dual aspect approach to nature leaving spiritual realms out of the discussion. If one is discussing mental states and physical states with respect to our "experience" I think some form of monism is the way to go. If one is discussing spirituality or God perhaps talk of final causes or forms is useful or insightful.

You are moving either towards "information" theory or Piercian signs and semiosis. Either that or you prefer dualism which I do not. I prefer various forms of monism particularly Whitehead and process theory. In any event as Russell would say " ‘Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little."

In other words matter is considerably more complex than we give it credit for in our physical descriptions and measurements. In fact as Pierce would say "matter is effete mind" where habit dominates and thus there appear to be laws of behavior. Or as Whitehead would say reality is a process a becoming, not a thing or a being and the fundamental unit of reality is experiential events which monisitically fuses mind and matter at the very core of nature.

I think one could consider whether evolution itself is part of the "design". The "purpose" being not the creation of any particular form or species but instead creativity itself "forms wondrous and beautiful". At the same time one should at cosmology as an evolutionary process and at the self-organizing patterns of nature (from a Platonic or final causes perspective).

I also think one should ask why there seems to be an increase in complexity over time (from hydrogen and helium) to stars giving rise to heavier and more complex atoms and then molecules and then life,and so on and so forth. Why is the universe lumpy? If there is no force opposing entropy why is heat death so far off and only a theory at that? Why do we see evolutionary convergence? Why after each mass extinction does life return more complex, more experiential and more intelligent forms re-emerge?

The accidental purposeless universe crowd has more to explain than they like to admit.

So thoughts and the like cannot possibly be identified with brain processes. — Edward Fese
And yet we never see human thoughts or consciousness separated from brain processes or brain activity?

Sir Charles Sherrington (physiologist) once claimed that most brain activity was related to action.
"The brain seems a thoroughfare for nerve-action passing its way to the motor animal. It has been remarked that Life's aim is an act not a thought."
I am sure that is true just as I am sure most functions of mind (movement of the body and the organization and presentation of sensory data) is done by the sub or unconscious “brain”. Most of the mental activity (mind) in nature is unconscious. Consciousness is just the tip of the iceberg of mental processing in the brain. Consciousness is just a very special and rare form of mind. Consciousness gets all our attention but if one wishes to pursue the relationship between brain, mind and consciousness one needs to look deeper.

So the one issue is that facts of the world are independent of brain states. The other issue is that it is hard to imagine how neuronal firings could preserve conceptual relationships. — Andrew4Handel

It is of course not the firing of an individual neuron but the firing of patterns of neurons. It can shown with active brain scans (PET and the like) that fear or other emotions consistently cause activation of the same regions of the brain. So there is consistent relationship between certain patterns of neuronal activation and emotional states. Language or speech activates certain brain regions as does music. We are yet down to the point of resolution of individual neurons within these patterns but one should not bet against that level of detail in the future. How these patterns give rise to “feeling” is another subject. A clue as to my preference is the notion that the physical is always accompanied by some degree of the psychic (mind). Unconscious experience (affect or feeling if you prefer) is a universal feature of nature although such experience is mostly, weak, unconscious and habitual.

Hence Pierce’s notion of matter as effete mind and Whiteheads notion of reality as events and process.

The more interesting and pressing question is whether the phantasmagoria of experience exhausts the category of the real. In other words, the more important question is not what objects are, but why they are. — Thorongil

Do you mean your personal experience?
Do you mean human experience?
Or are you willing to make experience a broader feature of reality in general?

I don't believe that there is enough evidence for us to place complete trust and faith in this being that we have not seen, heard, or even experienced. I am interested on all of your views, don't be afraid to comment. — GreyScorpio

There are many different conceptions of "God" and a variety of attributes assigned to those conceptions. It is hard to meaningfully talk about God and perhaps the most astute religious individuals take a rather mystical approach, "behind the veil of perception" or "through a glass darkly". The weakest forms of religion in my view attempt to "put God in a box" or "confine God to human cognitive abilities".

In the end I think the concept of God is about the search for larger meaning and purpose both in individual lives and in the larger world and universe. For some, I suppose, we live, we die, we set our own values and goals and that is all there is and that is enough. Many, however, hope to find larger meaning and purpose in both their own lives and in the world at large. The notion that the universe is in the final analysis accidental and purposeless just does not satisfy the longing that humans have for larger purpose and meaning and flies in the face of our perception of the world as imbued with beauty, form, striving and creative advance.

Sure, the hope for life after death can play a role, and the security of having an answer to things we do not understand is there. Humans are in the end meaning and purpose seeking creatures and the notion of God plays a part in telling them how to live and where they fit into a larger picture.

time enables change. does time exist? maybe not. — Pollywalls

I would have thought it was the opposite. Change is what exists but time is just an abstraction from change and keeping time is just noticing the relative rate of change. Time (Newtonian) itself as some absolute, fixed, independent feature of reality does not exist. What exists is space-time but space is not empty or static in fact space is a sea or quantum fluctuations and virtual particles. Change, flux, becoming is the most essential feature of reality but time is an illusion arising from the experience of change.

I am becoming concerned there is nothing resembling "due process" in the #metoo movement.
I am also concerned there is no proportionality, where telling off color jokes or touching someone on the shoulder gets mixed in with requesting sexual favors for promotion or trapping someone in a hotel room and forcing them to have sex.

Philosophically, it's pretty much untenable to assert that an outside force of inspiration exists in some artists. But this is an anonymous forum, so I'll just say it: it exists, and I'm one of those artists. I really lack the philosophical chops to try to express what i'm trying to say in any other way. I just know from experience that there's something more to art than self-expression. I don't only express myself when I make music. There's something else at work. So, briefly, the fact that this outside force of inspiration exists means that art doesn't just express the self; it's an (almost always failed) attempt at what Mondrian calls "a real equation of the individual and the universal", and what Berdyaev said is an always failed attempt of the divine aspect of man to "create new being". — Noble Dust

I am always fascinated when people report this. We have all read accounts of "muses" or of the work (art, writing, music) just poring out. I wonder if you would be willing to attribute this to the "intelligence" of the subconscious (as the subconscious often behaves in very rational ways and solves problems for us without our directed attention). Of course you can always attribute it to some universal mind or intelligence but I wonder if you entertain both possibilities.

Your Platonism is showing.

Saying a being existed "before time" is saying that there is a time external to time, which is incoherent. It is like asking what's North of the North Pole. — Maw

Questions like that get asked all the time, not that there are any scientific or empirical answers.
What exists beyond the universe?
What existed before the big bang?
Some people love asking and trying to answer such questions because one can speculate away unencumbered by any data or facts, others find it a massive waste of time and mental energy.

There are many discernible states of change within the "one BIG STATE" of change that we call the universe. That is what science studies states of change, rates of change and regularities of change. Do you find a problem with that? — Janus

Well actually there are lots of problems with the assumptions underlying that statement. One is the assumption that the precise state (location in space and time) of anything can be determined to the degree of precision required when talking about infinite divisions of space and time.

Mathematically one can solve Zeno's paradoxes with calculus and infinite series of decreasing numbers the sum of which turns out to be a finite number (Cantor etc.).

When talking about space-time divisions, the assumption that space-time is infinitely divisible is open to question as one approaches the planck length, planck time and considers the notion of space time quantum foam, quantum gravity and looks at the uncertainty principle regarding measurement of position and velocity.

So one must at least consider the discontinuity of space-time at infinitely small distances and thus the quantum collapses or transitions during the "motion" of particles and consider the measurement of macro objects as approximations.

http://ftp.iza.org/dp9656.pdf
This recent study on the gender pay gap from Cornell University. Overt discrimination accounts for very little of the statistical gender pay gap.

ABSTRACT

The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations*

Using PSID microdata over the 1980-2010, we provide new empirical evidence on the extent of and trends in the gender wage gap, which declined considerably over this period. By 2010, conventional human capital variables taken together explained little of the gender wage gap, while gender differences in occupation and industry continued to be important. Moreover, the gender pay gap declined much more slowly at the top of the wage distribution that at the middle or the bottom and by 2010 was noticeably higher at the top. We then survey the literature to identify what has been learned about the explanations for the gap. We conclude that many of the traditional explanations continue to have salience. Although human capital factors are now relatively unimportant in the aggregate, women’s work force interruptions and shorter hours remain significant in high skilled occupations, possibly due to compensating differentials. Gender differences in occupations and industries, as well as differences in gender roles and the gender division of labor remain important, and research based on experimental evidence strongly suggests that discrimination cannot be discounted. Psychological attributes or noncognitive skills comprise one of the newer explanations for gender differences in outcomes. Our effort to assess the quantitative evidence on the importance of these factors suggests that they account for a small to moderate portion of the gender pay gap, considerably smaller than say occupation and industry effects, though they appear to modestly contribute to these differences. — blau & kahn

Overwhelmingly, the vast majority of the Universe cannot support life. And where life manages to survive and reproduce, it remains exceedingly fragile and precarious. 99% of all species that have ever lived have become extinct. It is ludicrous to think humanity can transcend an indifferent Universe. Even assuming (without justification) that the Universe was designed, there is nothing intelligent about it. — maw

Well maybe creation is really hard work and that is why God seems to rest and be absent a lot of the time. :-|

This kind of analysis at least begins to address the issue of how much of the gender pay gap is due to outright employer discrimination on the basis of sex, again most of it is due to other factors and choices.

The Gender Wage Gap and Wage Discrimination:
Illusion or Reality?
Howard Wall:
Despite laws to prevent wage discrimination in the workplace, the median weekly earnings for full-time female workers in 1999 was only 76.5 percent that of their male counterparts. A close analysis, however, reveals that much of this gap is due to non-discriminatory factors:
Weekly vs. hourly wages. Women typically work fewer hours a week than men. When you compare hourly wages, almost one-third of the gap disappears.
Education, experience, occupation, union status. A 1997 study shows that men's educational and experience levels are currently greater than women's and that men gravitate toward industries and occupations that are higher-paying than women, including union jobs. These factors reduce the remaining wage gap by 62 percent.
The remaining 6.2 cents of the gap, which is unexplained, is the maximum that can be attributed to wage discrimination. Some of this unexplained portion might be due to the difficulties involved in accounting for the effects of childbearing on women's wages. For example, women aged 27 to 33 who have never had children earn a median hourly wage that is 98 percent of men's.

I don't have anything elegant to add to this but if the world were capricious, mostly random and unpredictable, reason, logic and math would be of little use so are we not "putting the cart before the horse" so to speak. The order of the universe is what makes the evolution of reason useful, not vice versa.

"Will No One Rid Me of This Meddlesome Priest?" Henry II

So now we have mind without brains and life without physical bodies, soon we will be back to "souls", animism and the "elan vitale" as if they suffice to explain much. Not that I am opposed to views that go beyond science just that I find views that reject science in that manner severely handicapped in terms of rational or meaningful discussion. Philosophy being rational discussion and speculation.

I do not think you can disconnect life from the biology, chemistry and physics which underlie it, in that way. From my point of view it is your elevation of life as something completely different from or entirely beyond science that is the "flight of fantasy" and "divorcement from reality". As for time, time does not really exist except as the change, flux or becoming that is the essential nature of the world. "Duration" is just a word with no objective meaning.

What percentage of crimes (punishable by jail) are committed by men?

That's the problem with purely statistical or empirical approaches to these problems.
There are more African Americans and other minorities in prison than Caucasians. Is that prima facie evidence of overt discrimination by the courts and the police? You have to take a closer look at the problem. It turns out there is discrimination but not of the degree that just looking at percentages would imply. There is more crime in those socially and economically deprived sectors and areas.

I will give you the last word, not because that post makes sense or explains any observation or fact but because further discussion on the subject seems unlikely to yield any meaningful exchange. Although I agree that scientific observations and physical empirical measurements do not explain everything, they are a good starting point for deeper insights into the true nature of space-time and any rational theory or metaphysics must account for science as well.

There is a gender pay gap as is clear from empirical data and statistics.
The real discussion is how much of that pay gap is due to discrimination by employers.
I think the answer is not as much as just posting the statistics sometimes implies.
Women doctors for instance on average make less than their male colleagues in the same specialty.
This is not because insurers pay women doctors less than men on a fee for service schedule.
It is because in general women see fewer patients, work fewer hours and do fewer procedures.
They spend more time with their patients and try to achieve better balance between family, children relationships and their professional life.
In many ways this makes them both better doctors and better people but the overall result is less pay.
I think one would find similar factors to account for much of the pay difference in many fields.

Not that facts, science or even empirical data seems to matter to you on this subject still the evidence is clear, and no alternative rational explanation is being offered.

There are several direct proofs of time dilation. Extremely accurate clocks have been flown on jet aircraft. When compared to identical clocks at rest, the difference found in their respective readings has confirmed Einstein's prediction. (The clock in motion shows a slightly slower passage of time than the one at rest.)

In nature, subatomic particles called muons are created by cosmic ray interaction with the upper atmosphere. At rest, they disintegrate in about 2 x 10E-6 seconds and should not have time to reach the Earth's surface. Because they travel close to the speed of light, however, time dilation extends their life span as seen from Earth so they can be observed reaching the surface before they disintegrate.
Answered by: Paul Walorski, B.A., Part-time Physics Instructor

In October 1971, Hafele and Keating flew cesium-beam atomic clocks, initially synchronized with the atomic clock at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., around the world both eastward and westward. After each flight, they compared the time on the clocks in the aircraft to the time on the clock at the Observatory. Their experimental data agreed within error to the predicted effects of time dilation. Of course, the effects were quite small since the planes were flying nowhere near the speed of light.
Such time dilation has been repeatedly demonstrated, for instance by small disparities in a pair of atomic clocks after one of them is sent on a space trip, or by clocks on the Space Shuttle running slightly slower than reference clocks on Earth, or clocks on GPS and Galileo satellites running slightly faster.[1][3][4
• In 1959 Robert Pound and Glen A. Rebka measured the very slight gravitational red shift in the frequency of light emitted at a lower height, where Earth's gravitational field is relatively more intense. The results were within 10% of the predictions of general relativity. In 1964, Pound and J. L. Snider measured a result within 1% of the value predicted by gravitational time dilation.[31] (See Pound–Rebka experiment)
• In 2010 gravitational time dilation was measured at the earth's surface with a height difference of only one meter, using optical atomic clocks.[20]
• Hafele and Keating, in 1971, flew caesium atomic clocks east and west around the earth in commercial airliners, to compare the elapsed time against that of a clock that remained at the U.S. Naval Observatory. Two opposite effects came into play. The clocks were expected to age more quickly (show a larger elapsed time) than the reference clock, since they were in a higher (weaker) gravitational potential for most of the trip (c.f. Pound–Rebka experiment). But also, contrastingly, the moving clocks were expected to age more slowly because of the speed of their travel. From the actual flight paths of each trip, the theory predicted that the flying clocks, compared with reference clocks at the U.S. Naval Observatory, should have lost 40±23 nanoseconds during the eastward trip and should have gained 275±21 nanoseconds during the westward trip. Relative to the atomic time scale of the U.S. Naval Observatory, the flying clocks lost 59±10 nanoseconds during the eastward trip and gained 273±7 nanoseconds during the westward trip (where the error bars represent standard deviation).[35] In 2005, the National Physical Laboratory in the United Kingdom reported their limited replication of this experiment.[36] The NPL experiment differed from the original in that the caesium clocks were sent on a shorter trip (London–Washington, D.C. return), but the clocks were more accurate. The reported results are within 4% of the predictions of relativity, within the uncertainty of the measurements.
• The Global Positioning System can be considered a continuously operating experiment in both special and general relativity. The in-orbit clocks are corrected for both special and general relativistic time dilation effects as described above, so that (as observed from the earth's surface) they run at the same rate as clocks on the surface of the Earth.[37]

The time that clocks are measuring is not divorced from the physical process underlying the measurement. In fact time is just an abstraction from the underlying physical process and change. It is the physical process which is slowed and correspondingly chemical and biological process are slowed. Admittedly the conclusions arising from modern physics, relativity and quantum physics run counter to our everyday intuitive sense of space and time but nonetheless no more compelling theory to explain the evidence and observations is currently available and talking about Henri Bergson and his conception of "duration" just does not provide an explanation for the observed facts.

Yes, I find process metaphysics (Whitehead in particular) very appealing, provided one adjusts for the advances in scientific knowledge.

Clocks run based on physical principles. In the case of atomic clocks on the emissions of atoms. If the physical process on which the clocks keep time is slowed by gravity there is little reason to think the chemical processes, biochemical processes and other processes of life are not correspondingly slowed as well since they all are dependent on the underlying physical processes. The burden of reason and proof would be to explain why they would not correspondingly slow. Einstein had a great deal to say about clocks and measuring rods albeit time itself is another matter. For me time is just an abstraction from change, not any independent, absolute or fixed entity. So the fact that clocks run at different rates under acceleration or gravity seems unsurprising. What is surprising would be to think that if physical processes are slowed, chemical and biological process would not also be slowed.

Time dilation is a real observable and measurable phenomena. Time dilation is seen in both special relativity (relative motion) and general relativity (gravity or acceleration) .
In fact the GPS system would be worthless were the effects of time dilation on the clocks in the satellites not taken into account. In this instance general relativity (gravity) effects dominate.


Depicts the time dilation as a function of orbital height relative to a stationary observer on earth. The total dilation is due to two distinct effects: Special relativity accounts for slowed time in orbit (relative to the observer on earth) depending on the orbital velocity associated to a specific orbital height. General Relativity accounts for accelerated time (relative to the observer on earth) due to the distance to the earths gravitational center. This depiction simplifies by assuming circular, equatorial orbits without inclination, upon which special relativity is weakly dependent.

It is hard to put into words. In fact I think language is inadequate to describe many experiences or thoughts. In terms of religious philosophy, I am a panentheist of a process theology type, so nature is part of God but God is more than just nature as we understand and experience it. Nature itself is more than our mathematical models or our physical measurements. Gods purpose as I conceive of or understand it, is creativity, novelty, intensity of experience. In modern times the original religious notions of the earth as the center of the universe and man as the crown and purpose of creation are no longer tenable in any rational sense and so larger conceptions become necessary to avoid cognitive dissonance. God IMHO works through the laws and processes of nature not by contravention of them. Still I think it is possible to see nature as forms and patterns spontaneously organizing (Platonic)and complexity and experience as increasing, "forms wonderous and beautiful" (Darwin).

Some conceptions of God make sense to me, others do not.
In general I have a religious inclination which I cannot seem to shake, it is one that rejects the notion that the world is accidental and purposeless and lacks any larger meaning.
The notion of God that I employ has to do with creativity and novelty, order on primordial chaos, imposing form on the void, and providing possibilities for the future. I do not see God as primarily concerned with human morality.
If one looks at the question historically, it is hardly possible to understand history, architecture, art, music or literature without some understanding of the religious notions which inspired much such work and so perhaps belief in higher meaning and purpose has some utility to it other than just Pascal's wager.