​Perpetual Perishing and Objective Immortality


We do not persist by staying the same.
We persist by giving ourselves away.

“That how an actual entity becomes constitutes what that actual entity is; so that the two descriptions of an actual entity are not independent. Its ‘being’ is constituted by its ‘becoming.’ This is the ‘principle of process.’”

— Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p. 23

“The ancient doctrine that ‘no one crosses the same river twice’ is extended. No thinker thinks twice; and, to put the matter more generally, no subject experiences twice. This is what Locke ought to have meant by his doctrine of time as a ‘perpetual perishing.’ ... In the philosophy of organism it is not ‘substance’ which is permanent, but ‘form.’ Forms suffer changing relations; actual entities ‘perpetually perish’ subjectively, but are immortal objectively. Actuality in perishing acquires objectivity, while it loses subjective immediacy.”

— Process and Reality, p. 29

In Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysical vision, existence is fundamentally an affair of becoming. Nothing simply is; everything becomes. The identity of any actual entity—whether a burst of feeling, a human life, or a star—is not a substance behind appearances, but the very manner in which it unfolds into being. Its “being,” as Whitehead insists, is constituted by its becoming.

But this becoming is fleeting. It happens once and only once. When the process of concrescence—of self-creation—is complete, the entity’s subjective immediacy ends. It no longer feels, no longer decides, no longer acts as a subject in the world. It perishes as an experiencing subject. This is what Whitehead, following and expanding Locke, calls “perpetual perishing.”

Yet all is not lost. In its perishing, the entity does not disappear. Rather, it acquires objectivity. It becomes a permanent part of the world’s memory, shaping future acts of becoming. It becomes what Whitehead calls objectively immortal—no longer a live performance, but an enduring imprint. The form of its becoming, the unique pattern of its response to the world, becomes part of the very fabric of reality.

This inversion of permanence—where form endures, not substance—radically reorients our sense of time and value. Every experience, once complete, enters into the becoming of others. Every sorrow and joy, every act of courage or cruelty, becomes real—not just momentarily, but forever. Nothing is undone. Everything matters.

So, what perishes? The immediacy of being alive, the freshness of a subject in its moment of self-creativity.
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And what is immortal? The pattern of that moment, now given to the world as gift, trace, and influence.

In this way, Whitehead offers a metaphysics of responsibility and beauty:

Each moment is a once-only opportunity. But when lived, it lasts.