Vector Feelings
in Whitehead's Pan-Empathic Universe
Vector Feelings
The Metaphysics of Empathy
In introducing the notion of vector feelings, (see below) Whitehead offers an image of the universe as pan-empathic. Or, to use his term, pan-sympathetic; I use the terms interchangeably. Every actual entity begins by feeling the feelings in others and conforming to them—a process which, at the level of higher organisms, is what we call sympathy. This sympathy, he suggests, is what holds the universe together. We are bound together in empathic connections, by virtue of which we are indeed together.
If this were the whole story, there would be a cosmos of absolute harmony, with actual entities endlessly repeating the feelings of others. But Whitehead adds another phase to the immediacy of an actual entity: appetition—the drive to create something new out of what is received. Sometimes, indeed perhaps oftentimes, this creative contribution is in conflict with others; at the very least it differentiates itself from them. This is not necessarily bad—it gives rise to the diversity of the universe itself, which has its own kind of beauty. In this sense, we live not only in a pan-empathic universe but also in a pan-appetitive—and thus a pan-differentiating—universe, where difference and creativity are as fundamental as harmony.
However, the idea that we live in an empathic universe has special relevance today: it means that our own attempts at sympathy, at love, at empathy, are consistent with—not opposed to—the very nature of reality. Indeed, the activity of living in harmony with others through empathy or sympathy can itself be an extremely creative act.
Metaphorically, we might say that empathy is a return to the primitive garden from which all experience arises—a garden of shared feeling and mutual responsiveness. Yet this garden does not remain untouched; it carries within it a creative and restless impulse that has left its innocence behind. Having “fallen forward” into an appetitive zest for novelty, the task becomes one of reclaiming the Edenic beginning in a transformed way. Religions and philosophies that emphasize love or compassion can be seen as guides for this reclamation, offering practices and visions through which a lost paradise of empathy may be regained—not as it was, but as it might yet become.
The claim of open and relational theologies is that the very heart of the universe—God—is both empathic, through vector feelings, and appetitive: seeking to create something new in light of what is received—new for the divine life itself and new for the universe. The divine Light is thus an inwardly felt lure within each creature, inviting it to flourish as a differentiated self while dwelling in creative harmony with others. It calls each to enter, in an enlightened and loving way, into the pan-empathic universe, seeking the flourishing of all living beings. To return to the metaphor: this calling is an invitation to return to the Garden of Eden—not to the untouched innocence of the beginning, but to a renewed garden shaped by the journeys, struggles, and creative acts that have come since. In this way, the Edenic paradise is not merely restored but transformed, becoming a place where empathy and creativity grow together in the soil of shared life.
If this were the whole story, there would be a cosmos of absolute harmony, with actual entities endlessly repeating the feelings of others. But Whitehead adds another phase to the immediacy of an actual entity: appetition—the drive to create something new out of what is received. Sometimes, indeed perhaps oftentimes, this creative contribution is in conflict with others; at the very least it differentiates itself from them. This is not necessarily bad—it gives rise to the diversity of the universe itself, which has its own kind of beauty. In this sense, we live not only in a pan-empathic universe but also in a pan-appetitive—and thus a pan-differentiating—universe, where difference and creativity are as fundamental as harmony.
However, the idea that we live in an empathic universe has special relevance today: it means that our own attempts at sympathy, at love, at empathy, are consistent with—not opposed to—the very nature of reality. Indeed, the activity of living in harmony with others through empathy or sympathy can itself be an extremely creative act.
Metaphorically, we might say that empathy is a return to the primitive garden from which all experience arises—a garden of shared feeling and mutual responsiveness. Yet this garden does not remain untouched; it carries within it a creative and restless impulse that has left its innocence behind. Having “fallen forward” into an appetitive zest for novelty, the task becomes one of reclaiming the Edenic beginning in a transformed way. Religions and philosophies that emphasize love or compassion can be seen as guides for this reclamation, offering practices and visions through which a lost paradise of empathy may be regained—not as it was, but as it might yet become.
The claim of open and relational theologies is that the very heart of the universe—God—is both empathic, through vector feelings, and appetitive: seeking to create something new in light of what is received—new for the divine life itself and new for the universe. The divine Light is thus an inwardly felt lure within each creature, inviting it to flourish as a differentiated self while dwelling in creative harmony with others. It calls each to enter, in an enlightened and loving way, into the pan-empathic universe, seeking the flourishing of all living beings. To return to the metaphor: this calling is an invitation to return to the Garden of Eden—not to the untouched innocence of the beginning, but to a renewed garden shaped by the journeys, struggles, and creative acts that have come since. In this way, the Edenic paradise is not merely restored but transformed, becoming a place where empathy and creativity grow together in the soil of shared life.
Vector Feelings
"The primitive form of physical experience is emotional—blind emotion—received as felt elsewhere in another occasion and conformally appropriated as a subjective passion. In the language appropriate to the higher stages of experience, the primitive element is sympathy, that is, feeling the feeling in another and feeling conformally with another...Thus the primitive experience is emotional feeling, felt in its relevance to a world beyond. The feeling is blind and the relevance is vague. Also feeling, and reference to an exterior world, pass into appetition, which is the feeling of determinate relevance to a world about to be. In the phraseology of physics, this primitive experience is ‘vector feeling,’ that is to say, feeling from a beyond which is determinate and pointing to a beyond which is to be determined. But the feeling is subjectively rooted in the immediacy of the present occasion: it is what the occasion feels for itself, as derived from the past and as merging into the future."
AN Whitehead, Process and Reality
AN Whitehead, Process and Reality
This passage from Process and Reality is one of Whitehead’s densest and most revealing descriptions of how he understands the most basic kind of experience in the universe—even before consciousness, conceptual thought, or sensory perception.
Here’s a breakdown in plainer language, step by step:
1. The starting point: experience is emotional
2. We receive feelings from others
3. The primitive form of sympathy
4. From vague relevance to appetition
5. Vector feeling
6. Rooted in the present
Why this matters
Whitehead is describing not just human emotion, but the universal structure of experience—from electrons to ecosystems to people.
Every actual occasion:
This is the seed from which all higher forms of experience—perception, thought, art, love—grow.
Here’s a breakdown in plainer language, step by step:
1. The starting point: experience is emotional
- By emotional Whitehead does not mean sentimental or romantic, but a felt quality—an immediate, non-cognitive tone or mood.
- It is "blind" emotion because, at this primitive level, there is no recognition, naming, or analysis. It’s pure feeling without conceptual interpretation.
2. We receive feelings from others
- Every moment of experience inherits (“receives”) the feelings of earlier moments—both our own past experiences and the experiences of others (in Whitehead’s broad sense, “others” could mean atoms, animals, humans, or any actual occasion).
- This inheritance is called conformal feeling—we conform to, or take on, the emotional tone of what came before.
3. The primitive form of sympathy
- Whitehead identifies this primitive emotional reception as sympathy: “feeling the feeling in another and feeling conformally with another.”
- It’s not empathy in the modern psychological sense—it’s more elemental: the sheer fact that experience is responsive to and continuous with other experience.
4. From vague relevance to appetition
- At first, this relevance to the “world beyond” (other experiences) is vague—we feel something but don’t yet know its purpose.
- But it develops into appetition: the felt impulse toward some future state, some next step of becoming.
- Appetition is not a cold calculation but a felt drive, a push toward what could be.
5. Vector feeling
- Whitehead uses a term from physics: vector = something that has direction.
- Primitive experience is “vector feeling” because:
- It comes from somewhere (the past)
- It points toward somewhere (the future)
- It’s experience in motion—inheriting and transmitting.
6. Rooted in the present
- Even though it comes from the past and aims toward the future, this primitive feeling is always rooted in the immediacy of now.
- It’s the way the present moment feels for itself—its own self-enjoyment—while also carrying the momentum of the past and the lure of the future.
Why this matters
Whitehead is describing not just human emotion, but the universal structure of experience—from electrons to ecosystems to people.
Every actual occasion:
- Feels what came before
- Adapts that feeling to itself
- Pushes forward toward what might be next
This is the seed from which all higher forms of experience—perception, thought, art, love—grow.
Vector Feelings in God
God as the Living Whole
In Process and Reality, the consequent nature of God is God’s physical pole—the divine life as it takes into itself the entirety of the actual world. This is not an abstract essence but a living whole, a cosmic concrescing subject whose “body” is the universe. God, in this sense, is not located in space or time, yet God physically feels every event that occurs in space and time.
The Beginning Point: Divine Sympathy
Every actual occasion’s physical pole begins with a vector transfer of physical feelings from the past actual world. For God, this means that the whole sweep of cosmic history is received into the divine life as divine sympathy—feeling the feelings of all that has ever been, as they are felt by the entities themselves.
- These are physical feelings in Whitehead’s sense: direct inheritances of the emotional tone and energy of past actualities, prior to conceptual interpretation.
- This is conformal feeling at a cosmic scale: God “takes on” the emotional quality of the world as it has been.
From Sympathy to Appetition
In God’s consequent nature, the reception of the world’s feelings is not passive. The divine sympathy becomes part of divine appetition—a forward urge, a lure for what the world might yet become.
- This appetition is informed by everything the world has been but is oriented toward beauty, harmony, and the fulfillment of value in the future.
- God’s appetition is tendered back to the world as possibility, persuasion, and companionship.
Vector Feeling in God
Like any actual entity, God’s physical pole exhibits vector feeling:
- From somewhere: It inherits the whole of the past actual world through physical feelings.
- Toward somewhere: It directs the divine life toward shaping new possibilities for the becoming world.
In God’s case, this vector encompasses the totality of cosmic history—its joy, its sorrow, its complexity.
The Now of God
For any actual occasion, the physical pole is rooted in the immediacy of the present. For God, this “now” is the ever-expanding present of the cosmos. God’s consequent nature is always up to date, always incorporating the latest achievements and failures of the world. Though not located in time or space, God’s physical feelings are about temporal and spatial events, and God’s own “self-enjoyment” is enriched by the world’s self-enjoyments.
Why This Matters
Understanding the consequent nature this way means:
- God is the most relational reality there is, the supreme instance of sympathy through physical feeling.
- God’s physical pole safeguards the value of all experience—nothing is lost.
- God’s appetition, informed by perfect sympathy, provides the world with a lure toward richer forms of harmony and beauty.
In this view, God’s love is literally the universe’s memory and hope—the living whole in which the past is treasured and from which the future is shaped, through the ongoing inheritance of physical feelings.
Summary
- Primitive structure of experience – At its most basic level, before consciousness or sensory perception, experience is emotional feeling—a raw, immediate tone or mood without conceptual analysis.
- Physical inheritance of feelings – Every moment of experience receives (prehends) the feelings of earlier moments—its own past and the experiences of others—through conformal feeling, taking on the emotional tone of what came before.
- Sympathy as the root – This primitive physical inheritance is a universal form of sympathy: “feeling the feeling in another and feeling conformally with another,” present in all actual occasions from atoms to people.
- From vague relevance to appetition – Initially vague relevance to a wider world develops into appetition, the felt impulse toward a future state or possibility; it’s a drive toward what could be.
- Vector feeling – Borrowing from physics, Whitehead describes primitive experience as “vector feeling”: it comes from somewhere (the past), points toward somewhere (the future), and is rooted in the immediacy of the present.
- God’s consequent nature – The physical pole of God consists of physical feelings, receiving the whole of the past actual world into divine life as divine sympathy, even though God is not located in space or time.
- Conformal feeling on a cosmic scale – God inherits the emotional quality of the universe as it has been, preserving each experience in its immediacy and treasuring its intrinsic value.
- From divine sympathy to divine appetition – God’s reception of the world’s feelings becomes divine appetition, the forward urge toward beauty, harmony, and richer forms of value for the future.
- God’s vector feeling – Like any actual occasion, God’s physical pole inherits from the totality of the past and directs this inheritance toward shaping the possibilities of the future—making God the supreme instance of vector feeling.
- Universe’s memory and hope – God’s consequent nature safeguards every experience as living memory and shapes the creative advance of the universe, uniting the past’s treasure with a lure toward its best possible future.