“The desire for peace is the mark of all civilized men and women.” – Henry Kissinger, 1973 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.
In the last four blogs we looked in some detail at ultimate reality as schematized by Alfred North Whitehead, the last major philosopher to formulate such a system. Whitehead is convinced that our primary experience of the world comports best with a metaphysical structure that conjoins modern scientific cosmology with a philosophy of organism and creativity. To this he adds a speculative element of divine wisdom and agency which transforms potentiality to actuality and envelops and integrates feelings, of which the most important is love.
Humans, as actual entities, are an integral element of Whitehead’s cosmic organism, but a more expansive participation is attainable in exchange for greater diligence guided by insight. That is, consciously or unconsciously we are part of the organism and of creative advance, and we serve as components of interdependent nexūs, and we share feelings that influence and are influence by God. However, a greater consciousness of the nature of the world offers opportunities for higher impact. There are at least four interlocking levels on which we enhance our connection (in rough order of degree): general, religious, creative, and cultural.
GENERAL
The two general aspects of connection are Nature and Immortality.
NATURE
At the simplest level humans are a part of Nature not mere cultural beings. Like all physical bodies we are made up of ‘societies’ of actual entities, for example our constituent molecules, and contribute to ‘societies’ such as our immediate environment. In addition our perceptions participate in nature. “According to the philosophy of organism, physical and mental operations are inextricably intertwined; also we find the sense functioning as forms participating in the vector prehensions of one occasion by another…mental operations transmuting the functions of sense as to transfer them from being participants in causal prehensions into participants in presentational prehensions. But throughout the whole story, the sensa are participating in nature as much as anything else.”1 The same applies to feelings: “The actual entities of the actual world are bound together in a nexus of these feelings.”2
But there is more; humans can achieve the intellectual conquest of Nature through science, mathematics, and measurement. From these efforts we learn of the “order of nature,” its continuous changing and adapting for attainment of an end – the end always being the “satisfaction of societies.” 
Nevertheless, we see that “nature is never complete, it is always passing beyond itself.”3 On the one hand we come to a metaphysics where final (teleologic/philosophical) and efficient (mechanical/scientific) causes are properly correlated. On the other, in a transcendental leap, as Lytton Strachey surmised the most obvious characteristics of nature are “loveliness and power.”4
(continued next post)
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1Whitehead, Alfred North, Process and Reality. The Free Press, New York, 1978. ISBN 0-02-934570-7, page 327.
2Ibid., page 238.
3Ibid., page 289.
4Whitehead, Alfred North, Adventures of Ideas. The Free Press, New York, 1973.Page 11.
hmmmmph, said the camel… why the interest in whitehead now? was it something I thread? or, is everyone getting bored with AI speculations and prognostications? see my comment on Rousseau et. al.,, on the Feser blog…if it gets airtime.
I do not subscribe to any ultimate reality. Why? Because human reality, beyond physics and whether water is wet, goes to context>>>belief>>>and, there upon…We make it up, as we go, depending on our IMPs….Old news. I have further contended one cannot reach infinity. Because there is none: you cannot get *there*
from here: there is no ‘there’, there. Pretty simple.
Paul,
Love to hear your thoughts as always.
You sound like a skeptic or a physicalist.
While we are probably not far apart on this, I am less sure. My skepticism includes a skepticism of skepticism itself.
Even great scientists such as Newton, Einstein, and Sagan leave room for something ‘greater’ than pure physicalism.
Nonetheless, your ultimate reality if I am understanding your last comment is physics.
However my purpose in this section is to analyze the many well thought out concepts of ultimate reality(including the physicalist) and see if there is a unifying message hidden in the various formats.
At worst it is an exercise in futility akin to seeking the infinite. At best there may be something more and an opportunity to experience or participate in something which transcends human biology and mentality.
Not as simple, but more likely to reconcile that which the pure physicalist must simply deny.
Hope you continue to follow along despite your doubts.
Regards,
Greg