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Questions about Process and Reality

The question of the "size" of an actual occasions

Wikipedia (and elsewhere) states, "Whitehead believed that these occasions of experience are the smallest element in the universe".

However, Whitehead in Process and Reality writes:

"'Actual entities'- also termed 'actual occasions'— are the final real things - of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real. They differ among themselves: God is an actual entity, and so is the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space. But, though there are gradations of importance, and diversities of function, yet in the principles which actuality exemplifies all are on the same level. The final facts are, all alike, actual entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, coi iplex and interdependent."

So the view represented by the statement on Wikipedia seems to be incompatible with what Whitehead wrote, and therefore seems to be an inaccurate description of what Whitehead "believed".

My understanding is: an actual occasion is indivisible in the unity of its settlement. So whenever there is a logical unity, there is an actual occasion. Hence the logical unity of conscious intellectuality isn't necessarily emergent. A "larger" actual entity isn't necessarily a combination of "smaller" actual entities, and "larger" and "smaller" might not even be relevant as descriptions.

An example of a logical unity is the non-local logical impossibility of constructing a Penrose triangle. Penrose created his triangle to illustrate this cohomology, that all the parts can be created separately, but the whole thing can't be created, because it's globally impossible. Penrose argues that this occurs when a photon is detected at one point on a scree, and then immediately cannot be detected elsewhere. This is also demonstrated by the violation of Bell's inequalities, showing that quantum entanglement is a non-local phenomena, a logical unity, an actual occasion.

The "combination problem"

I'm not sure this is a true problem, since it seems to rely on the mistake that actual occasions are "teeny tiny" things, which doesn't represent what WHitehead said.

Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panpsychism):

The combination problem is frequently discussed as an objection to panpsychism.[9][39][1] It can be traced to the writing of William James,[9] but was given its present name by William Seager in 1995.[40][9] While numerous solutions have been proposed, they have yet to gain widespread acceptance.[9] Keith Frankish explains the combination problem as follows:[39]

Panpsychists hold that consciousness emerges from the combination of billions of subatomic consciousnesses, just as the brain emerges from the organization of billions of subatomic particles. But how do these tiny consciousnesses combine? We understand how particles combine to make atoms, molecules and larger structures, but what parallel story can we tell on the phenomenal side? How do the micro-experiences of billions of subatomic particles in my brain combine to form the twinge of pain I’m feeling in my knee? If billions of humans organized themselves to form a giant brain, each person simulating a single neuron and sending signals to the others using mobile phones, it seems unlikely that their consciousnesses would merge to form a single giant consciousness. Why should something similar happen with subatomic particles?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_problem#The_combination_problem

The conjunction question (Deleuze's question)

This seems like a good question. Delezue asks three questions: about conjuction, about prehension, and about eternal objects.

If I summarize, I see three coordinates: the actual occasions defined by conjunctions, prehensions, and eternal objects.

To the actual occasion correspond the concepts of conjunction, concrescence, and creativity; to prehensions correspond all the elements that we’ve not yet seen from prehension, all the components of prehension; to eternal objects correspond the different types of eternal object. For example, there are sensible eternal objects and there are conceptual eternal objects … no that’s bad, what I just said… there are eternal objects that refer to sensible qualities, and other that refer to scientific concepts. All of that is relatively easy. But we have three problems, and it’s there that I really need Isabelle.

First problem: we started off from conjunctions, that is, from actual occasions, we already gave ourselves events and a world of events. Can we undertake the genesis of the event? How do we arrive at conjunctions? Are conjunctions just given like that? For it is not at all a given that there are conjunctions in the world. How are we to explain that there are conjunctions in the world. For me, I don’t know what Isabelle will say, it’s the fundamental problem of Whitehead’s philosophy. If that problem is managed, all the rest unfolds, not as a given, but all the rest unfolds rather well. That is really the most difficult problem, where Whitehead is both a physician and mathematician. He needs there an entire mode of physico-mathematics to take account of the formation of conjunctions, that is, of the formation of actual occasions. Why? Consider this: we start from an random distribution, a type like the random distribution of electrons, or a variation of an electro-magnetic field. How do conjunctions form in such a world? If we don’t have a precise answer to that, well then we will have failed. We need a precise answer to that question.

The second question will be: what is a prehension made of? What are the elements of a prehension? And if it’s true that the actual occasion is a conjunction, we must say in Whitehead’s vocabulary, I forgot to indicate this, that an aggregate of prehensions is a nexus. Second problem: the components of prehensions.

Third problem: the modes of eternal objects.

The most difficult for me is this initial genesis. How do we arrive at conjunctions, why are there conjunctions? Is there a reason for conjunctions, a reason that can only be mathematical and physical? I would like Isabelle’s thoughts. How do you see all this?

...

My hypothesis is this: it is vibration that emerges in the “many,” but how does it emerge, there where we are pushed back… we have to answer, and I beg you please not to abandon me if I don’t answer everything, or else everything will collapse, and so fine. If everything collapses, we will say: we were wrong, Whitehead isn’t a great philosopher. Yet obviously Whitehead is a great philosopher, one of genius. So ok, a vibration is formed in the “many”, and with that moment, disjunctive diversity starts to be organized into an infinite, limitless series. We must assume that each vibration has sub-multiples, has harmonics into infinity, within pure cosmos. The cosmos was the “many”, that is, chaos. It was the chaos cosmos.

Third step: infinite vibratory series… in other words, every infinitely divisible vibration has certain intrinsic characteristics. The intrinsic characteristics either concerning the nature of the envisaged vibration, or even – extrinsic characteristics – its relations with other vibrations. I would say that a sonorous vibration has characteristics of duration, height, intensity, timber. Color has characteristics, intrinsic and extrinsic, that are tint, saturation, value, the three great dimensions of color, of what color will be, but it’s open, we can always find a new one. For a long time, these three variables of color were noted: tint, saturation, and value. Since the end of the 19th century, we tend more and more to add to these the extent (l’étendue) of color to then define a very interesting new variable that also depends on extent and value, and that is called the weight of color.

You recall the vibration enters into infinite, limitless series; these are characteristics, or rather as Whitehead says, the quantities, the quantitative expressions capable of measuring them, of measuring these characteristics; the quantitative expressions able to measure these characteristics enter into series that converge toward limits. The vibratory series are not convergent and have no limits. It’s the first stage of genesis. Second stage of genesis: the series of intrinsic and extrinsic characteristics converge toward limits. This time we have an idea of converging series. The timbers are going to form a converging series; the intensities are going to form a convergent series; the heights are going to form a convergent series, etc. etc. The tints are going to form a convergent series. It’s beautiful. It’s a thing of very great beauty. It’s a genesis of the most… and it’ also so full of science, it’s a very modern way, but yet it’s very simple.

So the first stage, the “many” or the disjunctive diversity; second stage, the organization of infinite, limitless series with the vibrations and the sub-multiples of vibrations; third stage, formation of convergent series toward limits. Fourth stage, everything is ready: the actual occasion is the conjunction. The conjunction comes after the convergence. The conjunction is a meeting of two convergent series, at least. You have engendered the actual occasion, and that does not prevent the actual occasion, which is a conjunction, from being radically new in relation to the genetic series that engender it, in relation to two convergent series, at least. It [the conjunction] is completely new.

Hence, fifth [stage] then, from which the actual occasion is made – once we say that we must not confuse the elements of the actual occasion and the conditions of the actual occasion, I would say the requisites of the actual occasion. The requisites of the actual occasion are: the disjunctive diversity, the infinite, limitless vibratory series, the convergent series. These are the successive requisites of the actual occasion, that is, of the conjunction. So you have four terms: 1) the many, 2) the infinite, limitless series, 3) the convergence of series, that is, these are evidently not the same series that become convergent, these are new series; 4) the conjunction of series which yield the actual occasion; 5) what are the elements to be, and not the requisites, the elements of the actual occasion, that is, what is an actual occasion made of? Answer: it is made of prehensions. But what is a prehension made of, what are the elements of the prehension, what are the component elements and not the requisite conditions? So why does this matter to me?

Is this very clear as a schema? Realize that this refers to all kinds of things in math and in physics, it correspond to each person’s taste, you don’t strictly need to know anything to understand, or at least to feel it. As for “feeling” as Whitehead says, you can even see this world being formed; the “many” is a kind of soup, it’s the great soup, it’s what the cosmologists call “the pre-biotic soup,” the disjointed members, what Empedocles already called the membrae disjunctae. That links so well with everything that is important in philosophy. It’s the river that carries along the membrae disjunctae, the scattered members, an arm then a nose, it’s chaos. But we must assume that it’s not a nose, it’s an electron of a nose. So that in this soup are traced limitless series without convergence. It’s so close to Leibniz. And then each one of these limitless series without convergence has a characteristic, and the characteristics of series enter themselves into convergent series. When they have entered into convergent series, then conjunctions are produced, like lumps in your soup. It’s an actual occasion precipitated by a lump; wow! An occasion, and you will notice that your lump is composed of prehensions. Well, is this clear, if not I will start it all over again! I am insisting on this; in my view, such a genesis escape the danger indicated by Isabelle, because the actual occasion is not at all presented as a passive result. Each time there is activity and retro-activity. The convergent series react on infinite series without convergence, the conjunctions react on the convergent series. At each level, there is emergence of a new type of activity. The series is an activity, the convergence of series is another activity, the conjunction another activity, etc… So there, she granted me the stage of “the many” or of the disjunctive diversity. We pass on to the second stage. Isabelle, when you wrote “States and Process”, did you already know Whitehead? Yes! My question is very simple. We don’t know very well what happened in the disjunctive diversity, but we grant ourselves vibrations. There is the formation of vibrations. Where do they come from, vibrations? On this point, I need Isabelle less. Can I say that these vibration form infinite series that convergent toward no limit, and it’s the case of a vibration in relation to its harmonics, assuming an infinity of harmonics within chaos? Can I say that, or else is it a physically stupid proposition?

What did Stengers say about all of this in her book?

  • see Thinking With Whitehead

Relation to Russellian Monism

What's the difference between the system in Process and Reality and "Russellian Monism" (apart from the use of "consciousness" rather than "mentality", views about "consciousness and its place in nature" rather than two poles in each actual occasion)?