Experience Everywhere
Actual Entities, Creativity, and God
Whitehead's philosophy is sometimes described as panexperientialist. The idea is that something like experience goes all the down into the depths of matter and all the way out into the vast expanses of the galaxies. Even the living whole of the universe - even God - experiences. Imagine a cosmic womb in which the universe lives and moves and has its being, and imagine that each entity inside the womb is experiencing its world in some way, and that the womb experiences the experiences of each entity. That's the relationship of God to the universe in Whitehead's philosophy. God is the sentient Womb in which the cosmos unfolds, evolving with the cosmos.
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Whitehead does not claim that "consciousness" extends all the way down into the depths of matter, but he does assert that "feeling," "self-enjoyment," "a desire for satisfaction," and "self-creativity" do—though these qualities may exist without "consciousness." These qualities are not isolated from one another; they are coalescing components of a concrescing subject that emerges from them and within them as their fundamental unity. This concrescing subject does not stand outside the process as a spectator; it is the very activity of feeling, self-enjoying, desiring satisfaction, and self-creativity. Once satisfaction is achieved in the immediacy of the moment, the immediacy perishes, and the concrescing subject becomes an object that influences the future. The subject becomes a superject.
This concrescing subject is not simply an object of reflection, as if it lacked any kind of interiority or, in Whitehead's phrase, subjective immediacy. To the contrary, it has a perspective of its own, both subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, its perspective is how it feels the actual world and responds to that world with its own aim at satisfaction. Objectively, its perspective is the standpoint from which it feels and responds to the world. This standpoint is part of what Whitehead calls the extensive continuum, or as we might put it, the space-time continuum.
In these two ways—as a subjective process and as something occupying or atomizing a particular region of the continuum—a concrescing subject is unique. In relation to its subjective side, it possesses what philosophers might call for-itselfness or, metaphorically, a first-person perspective. Whitehead’s term for this first-person perspective is "self-enjoyment." However, this does not imply that a concrescing subject is self-conscious or that it is an object for itself. Rather, it is its very activity of self-enjoyment. Philosophers might describe this as non-objective self-enjoyment—a state in which the subject is not aware of itself as an object but simply exists as the immediate process of its own becoming.
Process philosophers advocate for pan-experientialism, not pan-consciousism.
This distinction raises the question: What do they mean by consciousness? The simplest answer is that they define it as something like clear and distinct awareness. Their argument, then, is that this kind of awareness may well be an emergent property within the history of the universe, even as experience itself has been part of that history from the very beginning—whatever that beginning may be.
Moreover, they contend that these "occasions of experience" are the fundamental actual entities of the universe. In this view, an actual entity is a concrescing subject—self-creative, self-enjoying, and satisfaction-seeking—with its own perspective. These actual entities are the truly real constituents of the universe, examples of which include quantum events within the depths of matter and single moments of human experience.
If asked what solid bodies—such as tables and chairs, mountains and planets—are, process philosophers answer: "They are aggregates of such actual entities," otherwise known as "societies." These aggregates, understood as societies, do not experience the world in their own right, but they are composed of entities that do.
For some critics, process philosophy is problematic in two ways.
First, it seems questionable—indeed, improbable—that the fundamental units of reality at the quantum level, the bursts of energy, so to speak, are self-creating, self-enjoying, and satisfaction-seeking. It seems reasonable to think of quantum events as bursts of energy, but not to attribute to them the status of concrescing subjects with subjective aims, even if non-conscious.
Second, it seems dubious to suggest that the solid objects of our world—material bodies—are "merely" aggregates without experience of their own, while their microscopic components do possess something akin to experience. Would it not be more reasonable to look at material bodies at the macroscopic level—especially those that act with agency, such as living cells and animals—as "actual entities" in their own right rather than simply aggregates?
In response to these objections, process philosophers have developed different strategies:
Each of these responses invites us to remember that, after all, our own lived experience, in the here and now, is itself an example of the fundamental units of reality. We are, at every moment of our lives—whether asleep or awake, whether sober or drunk, whether anxious or carefree, whether loving or hating—expressions of the ultimate reality itself, which Whitehead names "creativity." We are concrescing subjects, moment by moment.
And this realization invites us to ask, to wonder: Is there not some kind of normative dimension to the universe? Some kind of inwardly felt "lure" toward goodness, truth, beauty, and creativity—something that is more than us but also inside us? If so, this normative dimension would be God, who, too, would be a concrescing subject.
Creativity as the Ultimate Reality
For Whitehead, God is not an ultimate reality of which all beings are expressions. God is not a One from which all things emanate like photons from the sun. There is no substantial One of this sort, but there is a kind of ultimate reality that is ultimate by virtue of its instances. He speaks of this as Creativity and says that God is a primordial instance of it. John Cobb puts it this way in explaining Whitehead. I quote him extensively:
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Whitehead does not claim that "consciousness" extends all the way down into the depths of matter, but he does assert that "feeling," "self-enjoyment," "a desire for satisfaction," and "self-creativity" do—though these qualities may exist without "consciousness." These qualities are not isolated from one another; they are coalescing components of a concrescing subject that emerges from them and within them as their fundamental unity. This concrescing subject does not stand outside the process as a spectator; it is the very activity of feeling, self-enjoying, desiring satisfaction, and self-creativity. Once satisfaction is achieved in the immediacy of the moment, the immediacy perishes, and the concrescing subject becomes an object that influences the future. The subject becomes a superject.
This concrescing subject is not simply an object of reflection, as if it lacked any kind of interiority or, in Whitehead's phrase, subjective immediacy. To the contrary, it has a perspective of its own, both subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, its perspective is how it feels the actual world and responds to that world with its own aim at satisfaction. Objectively, its perspective is the standpoint from which it feels and responds to the world. This standpoint is part of what Whitehead calls the extensive continuum, or as we might put it, the space-time continuum.
In these two ways—as a subjective process and as something occupying or atomizing a particular region of the continuum—a concrescing subject is unique. In relation to its subjective side, it possesses what philosophers might call for-itselfness or, metaphorically, a first-person perspective. Whitehead’s term for this first-person perspective is "self-enjoyment." However, this does not imply that a concrescing subject is self-conscious or that it is an object for itself. Rather, it is its very activity of self-enjoyment. Philosophers might describe this as non-objective self-enjoyment—a state in which the subject is not aware of itself as an object but simply exists as the immediate process of its own becoming.
Process philosophers advocate for pan-experientialism, not pan-consciousism.
This distinction raises the question: What do they mean by consciousness? The simplest answer is that they define it as something like clear and distinct awareness. Their argument, then, is that this kind of awareness may well be an emergent property within the history of the universe, even as experience itself has been part of that history from the very beginning—whatever that beginning may be.
Moreover, they contend that these "occasions of experience" are the fundamental actual entities of the universe. In this view, an actual entity is a concrescing subject—self-creative, self-enjoying, and satisfaction-seeking—with its own perspective. These actual entities are the truly real constituents of the universe, examples of which include quantum events within the depths of matter and single moments of human experience.
If asked what solid bodies—such as tables and chairs, mountains and planets—are, process philosophers answer: "They are aggregates of such actual entities," otherwise known as "societies." These aggregates, understood as societies, do not experience the world in their own right, but they are composed of entities that do.
For some critics, process philosophy is problematic in two ways.
First, it seems questionable—indeed, improbable—that the fundamental units of reality at the quantum level, the bursts of energy, so to speak, are self-creating, self-enjoying, and satisfaction-seeking. It seems reasonable to think of quantum events as bursts of energy, but not to attribute to them the status of concrescing subjects with subjective aims, even if non-conscious.
Second, it seems dubious to suggest that the solid objects of our world—material bodies—are "merely" aggregates without experience of their own, while their microscopic components do possess something akin to experience. Would it not be more reasonable to look at material bodies at the macroscopic level—especially those that act with agency, such as living cells and animals—as "actual entities" in their own right rather than simply aggregates?
In response to these objections, process philosophers have developed different strategies:
- Considering Actual Entities as Abstractions. Some Whiteheadian thinkers—though not Whitehead himself—argue that the very concept of an "actual entity" is an abstraction from the actual world and should not be limited to the two standard examples: a microscopic energy event and a moment of human experience. This allows process philosophers to look at the world itself, including solid objects, and consider the possibility that in many parts of the world, self-creativity, self-enjoyment, and satisfaction-seeking extend beyond the microscopic into the macroscopic world of lived experience.
- Letting Actual Entities Move. One obstacle to applying Whitehead’s notion of actual entities to macroscopic objects is that such objects move through space, whereas an actual entity, strictly speaking, does not move—it happens all at once in a particular region of the space-time continuum. A ball rolling across a table, a bird in flight, or even the frolicking of a colt in a pasture would not, under Whitehead’s strict definition, qualify as an actual entity. Some process philosophers suggest an alternative: moving objects can themselves be enduring moments—moments that last longer than a mere "instant." This, however, is not an option Whitehead pursued in Process and Reality.
- Recognizing Solid Objects as Aggregate Expressions of Subjectivity: A third approach, which combines elements of the previous two, is to maintain that actual entities are indeed concrescing subjects and thus real happenings in the real world. They are not mere abstractions. But the two primary examples—quantum events and moments of human experience—are not exhaustive. All living organisms with their respective points of view are concresing subjects, whose lives unfold moment by moment, And the same may apply to inorganic actualities. Instead, so-called aggregates of actual entities—mountains, for example—are not merely passive collections but aggregate expressions of dynamism and creativity. They, too, are part of living matter - and all matter is "living" in a certain sense. This suggests the possibility that some form of for-itselfness, or inwardness, exists even at macroscopic scales—though in varying degrees and perhaps in a way that differs from the subjectivity of their component parts.
Each of these responses invites us to remember that, after all, our own lived experience, in the here and now, is itself an example of the fundamental units of reality. We are, at every moment of our lives—whether asleep or awake, whether sober or drunk, whether anxious or carefree, whether loving or hating—expressions of the ultimate reality itself, which Whitehead names "creativity." We are concrescing subjects, moment by moment.
And this realization invites us to ask, to wonder: Is there not some kind of normative dimension to the universe? Some kind of inwardly felt "lure" toward goodness, truth, beauty, and creativity—something that is more than us but also inside us? If so, this normative dimension would be God, who, too, would be a concrescing subject.
Creativity as the Ultimate Reality
For Whitehead, God is not an ultimate reality of which all beings are expressions. God is not a One from which all things emanate like photons from the sun. There is no substantial One of this sort, but there is a kind of ultimate reality that is ultimate by virtue of its instances. He speaks of this as Creativity and says that God is a primordial instance of it. John Cobb puts it this way in explaining Whitehead. I quote him extensively:
“Concrescence” focuses attention on the inner dynamics of the becoming of a single occasion. It presupposes that there have been other occasions and that there will be new ones in the future. “Creativity” directs attention equally to concrescence and transition. At every instant the many, the vast many, are becoming one in a myriad of occasions. The becoming of each of these occasions adds a new one to that myriad. Whereas “concrescence” focuses on the individual subjective act of becoming, “creativity” draws attention to the ever ongoing process through which the cosmos continues in being. It is the way of denoting the ultimate fact that “the many become one and are increased by one.”
Whitehead identifies creativity as “the ultimate.” It is that of which every actual entity is an instance. It plays the role in Whitehead that “being itself” plays in the Thomistic tradition. In that tradition to be is to be an instance of being. In Whitehead to be actual is to be an instance of creativity. In Thomism being itself is beyond all attributes or characteristics. In Whitehead, likewise, creativity has no character of its own, in the sense that it is open equally to any and all eternal objects and is in itself characterized by none.
Using different labels for what is ultimate does not in itself determine that there are metaphysical differences. Thomas identified “being itself” as the “act of being.” One could regard Whitehead’s work as explaining what an act of being is, i.e., the unification of the many. Thomism may not be closed to that possibility. However, the term “being itself” easily suggests something more static and substantial, that is, something underlying all diversity and particularity. In some formulations it seems that being itself might even exist without embodiment in particular instantiations. “The many becoming one” cannot underlie anything and certainly cannot exist or occur except in particular instances. It may be that the discussion of what is ultimate has played a larger role in India than in the West. Brahman is the traditional Hindu ultimate and is very much like being itself. Buddhists found the understanding of Brahman to be substantialist, and they rejected it. In one important form of Buddhism, they affirmed instead that everything is an instance of pratitya samutpada or dependent origination. The similarity to Whitehead’s creativity is striking.
Whitehead’s own comparisons are with the “neutral stuff” affirmed by some of his contemporaries and with the ‘prime matter” of the Aristotelian tradition. In other words, by the “ultimate” he means that of which all things consist. It is the ultimate “material cause” in Aristotle’s sense. But for Whitehead the “material cause” is definitely not matter. Metaphysically, and in physics as well, “matter” is fundamentally passive. For Whitehead, creativity could be thought of as activity itself. It is closer to what physicists mean by energy than what is connoted when they speak of matter.
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Sometimes the reader of Whitehead is likely to project into “creativity” more than he intends. Whitehead does cause us to marvel that whatever happens, the process of bringing new occasions out of old ones continues. Creation is fundamental and ongoing. There is always something new. But what is new may not be better than what is old. Occasions that occur in the process of the decay and dying of larger organisms, such as human beings, are also instances of creativity, no more and no less than those that bring new life into being. Creativity is completely neutral from a moral perspective. Mutual slaughter consists in instances of creativity just as does the composition of a symphony. Also one cannot speak of more and less creativity. Like ultimates in other traditions, creativity is beyond good and evil or any quantification.