Whitehead's Evolutionary Panentheism

[@alistairproductions]

where can i get this book?

[@2bsirius]

Matt, you might enjoy reading a very short blog, "Will ET Pray? Extrasolar Planets, Extraterrestrial Life, and Religion" by the well-known physicist David A. Weintraub. It was posted yesterday on Huffington Post...In the blog he talks about what would be necessary to create a religion cosmic...He brings up the example of Islam which requires that all male adherents face Mecca each day in order to pray. He points out the cosmic provincialism of such a requirement. In what direction would a cosmic explorer face when he found himself in space or on the face an exoplanet? "For sentient beings living hundreds of millions of light years from Mecca, fulfilling these obligations would almost certainly be impossible." As an example of a cosmic idea in a terrestrial religion he brings up Jains. About them he says, "The soul of a Jain could transmigrate to the body of a physical being anywhere in the universe, thus allowing Jainism to be a universal religion, no matter the size of the universe." It's not necessary to believe in the literal truth of Jainism to see the universality of their belief here. His conclusion is also interesting "Some other religions have their own earthly biases, while certain religions appear to be more universal in nature. Thinking about whether a particular set of religious practices or beliefs would make sense on a different planet might be a valuable exercise in understanding ourselves."

[@dianecurran3648]

Have you come across Iain McGilchrist’s 2 volume book, The Matter with Things, Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World? Amazing

[@Footnotes2Plato]

Just hosted a conference for Iain at my university, as it happens 🤣

[@dianecurran3648]

Wonderful! Thank you for letting me know. Will it be available on YT?

[@ex0gen]

I notice that on many videos you seem to be walking down the same hill. Thou art Sisyphus, it would seem. With that said, I don't think the goal should be to get to a philosophy that would negate perspective.

[@caseystu123]

I am a new viewer and enjoy your videos. Although I have received little to no "education" concerning philosophical thought, in recent years a growing sensation to understand the myself, others, and the universe as a whole. I believe that this sensation is instinctual to our form of consciousness and yet seems to be alien to who we think we are. Fascinating stuff! Thank you

[@alistairproductions]

I agree there's no reason to think the "normal feeling" consciousness is necessarily the most relevant just because it feels most consistent.. that is more like happenstance than a principle that it's the "thing to focus on" or even "thing we are" it's just happens to seem to be the most prominent

[@rohitpandhare4517]

I must say whatever you speak of is in-distinctively Philosophies of the Dharmic Faiths....Panentheism, PCC all of these things are distinctly Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Sikh...... Please correct me if I'am wrong!

[@Galoxieview]

I'm confused by your distinction of this philosophy as panentheistic as opposed to pantheistic. My understanding has always been that panentheism separates God from creation. As if to create the world and then not interfere in its evolution. While pantheism I've always understood as a concept of God that simply includes all regardless of form or extent. I assume by God you mean the complete process correct? If so, why consider it other than pantheistic if you're speaking in terms of an evolving whole?

[@Galoxieview]

Trevor Martin It still sounds like you're equating the word God with the overarching totality of the process, and only offering a differentiation on the basis of our own subjectivity. The distinction you speak of lies within our personal limitations of sensory information correct? I simply find it hard to justify separation from the whole of any degree based entirely upon our own known lack of an ability to accurately gauge reality.

[@Galoxieview]

Trevor Martin To expand on that, what exactly would you consider non-physical? You mention thoughts as an example, but I remain unconvinced that thoughts and qualia are not fundamental aspects of the material as opposed to some separate entity.

[@Galoxieview]

Trevor Martin You say it is clear that your subjective experiences and thoughts are not the neural structures and electrical signals themselves, but that is not at all clear to me. If they were, you would not expect to see the pink elephants of the subject dreaming, but rather, you would have to BE the neural structure and signals in order to see the pink elephants produced as an aspect of such a structure. You're relying on 2nd hand sensory information and cognitive inference of that information, when it is the structure itself, the physical energy and its form, which I am supposing as the base of the phenomenal. You're imposing the nonphysical to fill in a gap of the unknown instead of simply associating a dual aspect to the known. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you seem to be saying that a panentheistic God would be a human like God, with a human like mind. The first person perspective that you speak of is only evidenced within ourselves correct? What could lead you to believe that the mind of God would be one that extends beyond our own awareness? Or perhaps, beyond the awareness of some further evolved species elsewhere in the universe? I could agree with a universal phenomenal hum, but I see no rationalization for a universal sense of self, (at least none beyond our own reasoning).

[@Galoxieview]

Trevor Martin I'm certainly not ignoring the subjective, and I wouldn't consider myself a physicalist in a classical sense, more a neutral monist. I don't agree with your classification of physical reality as that which is directly available to a third person, but rather define it more in the sense of the concrete, or real. The actual as opposed to the model of the actual. What we have access to through the senses is undoubtedly flawed and untrustworthy. To see a pink elephant is not to confirm a pink elephant, but to experience the phenomenal set that we associate with a pink elephant. Thought from my perspective is never real. It is a model of the real, pattern recognition. Phenomenal experience however, the phenomenal hum, is very real, the basis of real in fact. Which from my understanding, translates to the basis of the physical. That my perceptive abilities are localized, does not mean that they are distinct from physical or concrete reality. It only means my ability to discern the true extent and nature of reality through them is limited. If we adhere to your definition and insist physical reality must be capable of being confirmed by a third person, I would have to say that I don't believe that physical reality exists at all. The thing in front of me we all agree to call a computer, yet I can not justify it's existence as an actual "thing" within reality beyond our arbitrary labeling of it as such. The description of a thing does not make it a physical thing in my opinion. To satisfy my threshold of actual existence, a "thing" would have to stand against reason, without the ability to be classified as a subgroup of some other overarching entity. A God which encompasses all, incorporates all into its being and function. Any function of a subsystem is necessarily and automatically a function of the larger system it inhabits. The classification of subsystem as separate or distinct is arbitrary and imaginary. Isnt that what panentheism really does? Creates imaginary subsets of an otherwise undifferentiated whole? The perspective of the limited sub group, (us), you set as a necessity of physical existence? That seems backwards to me. Existence is the thing we are trying to discern, but our observations don't define it, they shatter it into digestible pieces imho.

[@Galoxieview]

Trevor Martin I do appreciate your explanation and feel I have a much clearer understanding of the motivations behind panentheism.

[@godeater9527]

Nice to see you out and about thinking aloud in nature again. Hope all is well. I have not kept up on the recent goings-on in the speculative realism blogosphere and I appreciate your careful attention to, what I take to be, an important philosophical development: SR. I appreciate SR for a number of reasons, including but not limited to its extra-academic techno-driven development (something very prescient if departments of philosophy go the way of the Dinosaur), its return to Schelling and Realism and its attempted bridging of continental and anglophone traditions (something I personally find quite rewarding). I also see the fork between Elimanitivism and Panpsychism, important and symptomatic of a broader embracing of monisms. Where I am potentially critical of certain SR positions is any overconfidence in getting around the correlationist circle, rather I embrace a weak sort of SR that simply diagnosis “thinking” as a thinking of the circle and the difficulty of stepping into that circle for a second or even first time, in short, in any attempt to short circuit the circle and step outside into the great out doors, or recover something that might take on a sort of foundationalism. In contrast to an outright rejection of correlationism and an embrace of either Elimanitivism or Panpsychism, I believe Zizek's Parallax highlights a real sense that any monism will still be a troubled one or a 'split' one and any 'great out doors' still involves the problem of subtracting a subject. Derrida claimed more or less in “of Spirit, Heidegger and the question” that you you are forced to either subtract an axiomtic subject or not but either way you are sorta fucked. You might say I am pessimistically hopeful then. Any time one wishes to suture philosophy (and how can one not suture philosophy?) to a template of some kind, for example: ecology, physics, mathematics, Spirit, vitality, one seems to be making a decision, the sort that I think Badiou importantly points out. The concept of a decision is a little different for humans than it is with plants and animals and yet we know that our sense of decisions are haunted by the missing animal in Heidegger and the missing body in Descartes, in this sense decisions are already (qua freedom) problematic. Philosophy hates 'decisions' on their face at least, it loves deductions (usually based on that which we don't know that we 'know'), deductions which never really worked and pretty much came crashing down with the failure of Logicism, more or less. Whether we go with a 'cosmic animal' or a 'cosmic void' or a 'cosmic tree', I would argue that the direction philosophy is going in substance and style (most full length books today in philosophy are divided into shorter essay form), is much in the vein of Laruelle's non-philosophy and Badiou's sense of a philosophy that circulates a variety of truth procedures, Deleuze's Rhizome, and Derrida's Bricolage, etc, which all show how philosophy must embrace a weaker force, compared to its older 'strong' force (perhaps a more gentle even feminine force)-more akin to 'acts of literature' even when English departments will no doubt out live philosophy departments, a near historical irony ;-) It remains to be seen how Strong speculation and weak bricolage come together. Philosophy then, as I see it, in light of Laruelle, must sub-vene rather than inter-vene as some totalizing, radically reorganizing force. Philosophy finds holes and punctures in the threads of our narratives or it produces new ruptures, it folds and cuts from one sphere to another, laying one procedure and domain against another and only attempting to lay the one-of-all against any one domain, an attempt doomed to failure from the outset. philosophy dances, it laughs, certainly it cries too but those tears must water the subtracted points, the blind spots that can give light and water so new roots can grow. I also do not think Philosophy should ever take itself too seriously, or become too emotional either, which reminds me of some of the recent mud slinging against Harman you have brought to light. Its unfortunate and unnecessary especially as OOO has some real valid ideas. Brassier, for all his great contributions, strikes me as a bit arrogant, a bit aggressive, at times many of his ideas in Nihil Unbound sound more cultish than critical. But there's some mud for ya. Of course Whitehead is important to mention as a thinker who was well ahead of his times. Good luck on your dissertation, all the best:-)

[@myName-dg2qm]

"Philosophy should ever take itself too seriously" My current conclusion is philosophy should never think of itself as absolute. We make assumption after assumption till we have something distilled enough to do logical operations on. It seems that there are many people that think philosophy consists merely of logical operations on known facts, but there will always be a need for more accurate facts and better assumptions. To not acknowledge this, IMO, is to turn ones back on the transformative power of philosophy.

[@myName-dg2qm]

Or at least, if thinking consists of the movement and considerations between the interconnections of ideas, then to be a thinker requires us to consider different assumptions and different facts, and logically project these.

[@snoway397]

👍 this concept is very hard to put forward thank you. 🤗

[@ex0gen]

As I understand panpsychism, it differers from subjective idealism in that it construes consciousness as simultaneously as objective, as a kind of dual-aspect sort of ontology. I don't see how this works, because I don't see how this isn't subject to the problem of interactionism.

[@qcon81]

In case you saw my deleted comment in your notification section, I had misread your post to be referencing ''substance dualism'' instead of subjective idealism and had replied accordingly.....

[@ex0gen]

Uttam Acharya-qcon81 nah, lol I never saw that.

[@qcon81]

ex0gen Well in any case , I realize that my response was still relevant now that I looked at your comment again..Why should there be interactionism problem in the case of pansychism if ''ts a kind of dual -aspect sort of ontology'' as you put it? You said it there yourself its ''dual -aspect''(and not two distinct ''substances'') , so there shouldnt be any problem of ''interactionism''as you point out...

[@ex0gen]

Uttam Acharya-qcon81 a fair question, and I'm glad you asked. Basically for the same reason property dualism, I would also say, suffers from an "interactionism." Now granted, I obviously can't mean what is technically stated by interactionism, because, as you point out, with respect to panpsychism (and I would add property dualism) you are not talking about two distinct substances. However, the real problem of interactionism, that is found in Descartes, will still present itself in a functional way with respect to trying to reconcile phenomenal descriptions, with objective ones. It is one thing to say that there are dual aspects. It is another to show how that is possible. For the same reason, conceptually, that you can't reconcile the mind with the body in Descartes, you can't reconcile a particle, with some moment of consciousness, because they share no commonalities, JUST LIKE with interactionism. Same problem with PD. It is one thing to say that mental "properties" "supervene" along side physical ones, on a physical substance. It is another thing to demonstrate how that is even possible. The descriptions are incompatible because they are mutually exclusive. In fact, we never actually observe this other side to reality, on panpsychism, because "we" would count as the phenomenal side, and the material side would be noumenal (although not in a transcendental way). Panpsychism, like property dualism, forces you into a representaionalist picture of the mind. This generates the irreconcilability at the ontological level, with the noumenal-objective aspect of reality, or substrate and properties, on the objective side. Thus, we still have to account for the interrelation between the objective, and the phenomenal. There is no way to bridge that gap. If there was, the hard problem (which if you ask me is generous of Chalmers for calling it a "problem" ) wouldn't exist.

[@Galoxieview]

ex0gen a monistic perspective of evolving process eliminates any interaction problem. The hard problem only arises when you differentiate mind from matter and assume red doesn't feel red. Substance monism, of which i subscribe, asserts the property of the mind as property of the base substance of the universe, energy. That property being demonstrated to a very complex degree when base energy is organized into human form, yet present to some degree in every form, as every form is part and process of the single field of energy expanding out from the big bang.

[@narcovlog1]

coyote say matter is conscious and thoghts are material.

[@briansalzano4657]

When you speak about science, I think about the two trees in genesis. We seem to have a dichotomy in us between revelation and reason or the unconscious and conscious aspects of self; and science's success has made us focus on empiricism and materialism at the expense of the subjective. But as far as panentheism goes, I think of it as God being the force that holds the structure of reality together, but whenever we try to represent God...it's almost like how we use models of atoms to depict an actual atom which is far more complex than the representation. I think there are a lot of panentheists in early christian history, but some today reject it out of fear that it will lead to the idea that God permits evil of even creates it.

[@cosmiccheetah6906]

That's some deep philosophy. Thank you for sharing.

[@andrasmagagna2523]

It is encouraging to find others endeavoring to imagine an alternative to anthropocentric ontology. I have been focused on existence as existence for a while. Existence as existence I think as an event within an event, as I within the universe or a character within a novel.

[@realisticeyeball]

you think our destiny is dark and unfortunate? why cant it be a good destiny or neutral? maybe we will become one with god and escape our human universe.

[@JeremyKilroy]

+realisticeyeball You have to escape yourself in order to do so.

[@danbit5]

beyond the event horizon:)

[@earlysda]

Jesus Christ is the ultimate truth. There is no truth apart from him.