By ESO - http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1424a/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34571682
Does God love Puffs of Energy
in Far-Off Empty Space?
“God is an actual entity, and so is the most trivial puff of existence in far-off empty space.”
Process and Reality, 18
Process and Reality, 18
The Puff
Imagine a puff of existence in far-off empty space. It lasts for less than a trillionth of a second. Much less. It occurs somewhere between the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and Messier 81 (Bode’s Galaxy)—silent, invisible, imperceptible to instruments.
What is it? What is the being—the ontology—of such a puff? For Whitehead, it is a pulsation of energy with two inseparable aspects: a private side and a public side. It has reality for itself and reality for others. It is an actual entity.
*
Its Private Side
Privately, the puff is a pulse of emotion, a momentary occasion of experience with its own self-creativity and self-enjoyment. It receives feelings from the rest of the universe, internalizes them, and adds its own creative response. However brief—lasting for only a trillionth of a second or less—it has a life of its own. Whitehead puts it this way:
“[Subjectivity] is what the occasion feels for itself, as derived from the past and as merging into the future.” (Process and Reality, 163).
*
Its Public Side
When complete, the puff also has a public side. It affects its immediate environment and, indirectly, the future of the universe. In Whitehead’s terms, it is objectively immortal—its influence carried forward in what comes after it. Its feelings, its prehensions, leave their mark upon the future. As Whitehead puts it:
“Prehensions have public careers, but they are born privately.” (Process and Reality, 290).
*
Private and Public, One Reality
Thus, the puff is not merely a particle or a point in space. It is a moment of creative becoming—a concrescence of the universe—in which the many of the past are gathered into one living moment, which then becomes part of the many for the future. Its privacy and publicity are not in conflict but are complementary aspects of its being.
*
Dependent Origination
It may be tempting to imagine the pulse of emotion as self-enclosed, a tiny island of experience cut off from the rest of the universe. But in fact, it begins out of the rest of the universe, which partly composes it. It feels the feelings of previous puffs and is woven from them, even as it adds its own creative response. It enjoys, in Whitehead’s words:
“the self-enjoyment of being one among many, and of being one arising out of the composition of many.” (Process and Reality, 145).
The puff’s private life is not withdrawal but participation: a fleeting enjoyment of unity amid multiplicity. Private, yes—but never alone.
*
Two Kinds of Analysis
Such an event can be studied in two complementary ways:
Coordinate division treats the event as a public occurrence observed from the outside. Genetic division considers it as a private process lived from the inside. An analogy: a musical note as privately played by a performer and as publicly heard by a listener. Both are real. The public side is the actual entity as superject; the private side is the actual entity as subject.
*
And What of God?
If even the faintest puff of existence has both a private and a public side, what then of God? For Whitehead, God too is an actual entity—yet one unlike any other. God is everlasting rather than momentary, encompassing both the private subjectivity of divine feeling and the public availability of divine influence. Like the tiniest puff of existence, God unifies the many into one; but unlike them, God never perishes. In God, the pulse of existence lasts forever, holding together both the temporal and the non-temporal.
*
The Pulse That Never Perishes
Whitehead envisions God as both like and unlike the most trivial puff of existence. Like it, God is subject and superject, private and public. Unlike it, God does not perish but endures, integrating the many into one and offering fresh possibilities for the many yet to come. God is a pulse of existence that never perishes, the eternal concrescence in which the world finds both its memory and its future.
*
Does God love puffs of energy?
Each pulse of existence, however trivial, contributes its feelings to God’s own life. Nothing is lost. God’s consequent nature is the side of God that receives the world, moment by moment, taking into God’s own experience even the faintest flickers between galaxies.
Imagine a puff of existence in far-off empty space. It lasts for less than a trillionth of a second. Much less. It occurs somewhere between the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and Messier 81 (Bode’s Galaxy)—silent, invisible, imperceptible to instruments.
What is it? What is the being—the ontology—of such a puff? For Whitehead, it is a pulsation of energy with two inseparable aspects: a private side and a public side. It has reality for itself and reality for others. It is an actual entity.
*
Its Private Side
Privately, the puff is a pulse of emotion, a momentary occasion of experience with its own self-creativity and self-enjoyment. It receives feelings from the rest of the universe, internalizes them, and adds its own creative response. However brief—lasting for only a trillionth of a second or less—it has a life of its own. Whitehead puts it this way:
“[Subjectivity] is what the occasion feels for itself, as derived from the past and as merging into the future.” (Process and Reality, 163).
*
Its Public Side
When complete, the puff also has a public side. It affects its immediate environment and, indirectly, the future of the universe. In Whitehead’s terms, it is objectively immortal—its influence carried forward in what comes after it. Its feelings, its prehensions, leave their mark upon the future. As Whitehead puts it:
“Prehensions have public careers, but they are born privately.” (Process and Reality, 290).
*
Private and Public, One Reality
Thus, the puff is not merely a particle or a point in space. It is a moment of creative becoming—a concrescence of the universe—in which the many of the past are gathered into one living moment, which then becomes part of the many for the future. Its privacy and publicity are not in conflict but are complementary aspects of its being.
*
Dependent Origination
It may be tempting to imagine the pulse of emotion as self-enclosed, a tiny island of experience cut off from the rest of the universe. But in fact, it begins out of the rest of the universe, which partly composes it. It feels the feelings of previous puffs and is woven from them, even as it adds its own creative response. It enjoys, in Whitehead’s words:
“the self-enjoyment of being one among many, and of being one arising out of the composition of many.” (Process and Reality, 145).
The puff’s private life is not withdrawal but participation: a fleeting enjoyment of unity amid multiplicity. Private, yes—but never alone.
*
Two Kinds of Analysis
Such an event can be studied in two complementary ways:
- Coordinate Division: the event analyzed objectively, as if its becoming were already mapped onto a space-time grid.
- Genetic Division: the event examined from within, as it inherits the past and contributes novelty to the future.
Coordinate division treats the event as a public occurrence observed from the outside. Genetic division considers it as a private process lived from the inside. An analogy: a musical note as privately played by a performer and as publicly heard by a listener. Both are real. The public side is the actual entity as superject; the private side is the actual entity as subject.
*
And What of God?
If even the faintest puff of existence has both a private and a public side, what then of God? For Whitehead, God too is an actual entity—yet one unlike any other. God is everlasting rather than momentary, encompassing both the private subjectivity of divine feeling and the public availability of divine influence. Like the tiniest puff of existence, God unifies the many into one; but unlike them, God never perishes. In God, the pulse of existence lasts forever, holding together both the temporal and the non-temporal.
*
The Pulse That Never Perishes
Whitehead envisions God as both like and unlike the most trivial puff of existence. Like it, God is subject and superject, private and public. Unlike it, God does not perish but endures, integrating the many into one and offering fresh possibilities for the many yet to come. God is a pulse of existence that never perishes, the eternal concrescence in which the world finds both its memory and its future.
*
Does God love puffs of energy?
Each pulse of existence, however trivial, contributes its feelings to God’s own life. Nothing is lost. God’s consequent nature is the side of God that receives the world, moment by moment, taking into God’s own experience even the faintest flickers between galaxies.