Process As the Unifying Principle of Physical Reality (Intro)

Generally, when we consider the world around us, we consider corporeal bodies and their motions. Traditionally, corporeal bodies exist in space and their motions take place through both space and time.  We commonly attribute these motions to invisible forces which reside in  bodies.  Are forces really necessary to an understanding of the world?  Could there be another way of conceiving the world in which forces are not necessary?  The search for answers to questions such as these led me into the study of Whitehead’s Process and Reality.

Through an examination of Whitehead’s philosophy, I wish to lay forward a system under which the origin, formation, and perpetuation of the diverse entities of physical reality are explained and under which we can understand the motions of these entities without the conception of forces.   Ultimately, I wish to show that the entirety of physical reality, corporeal bodies and their motions, are one under the single principle of Process. 

One chief task of this essay series will be to examine the meaning of the phrase “all things flow.”  “That ‘all things flow’ is the first vague generalization which the unsystematized, barely analyzed, intuition of men has produced.” [317] 

The phrase itself is an unrealized statement concerning the unity of all things; all things are one in that they flow.  We must first develop a system in which we can sufficiently explain “all things” and “fluency.”  In doing this, we will see that what was initially a “vague intuitive generalization” is actually a clear statement of the unity of all things. 

The intuitive realization that all things flow is not simple; it is a complex awareness of an antithetical pair.  The realization of the existence of flux is, simultaneously, the realization that there is a “some thing” participating in that flux.  This thing, though it may change, must stay the same in some way.  Without a sustained, lasting “some thing,” fluency cannot exist at all.  In this way, the raw intuition that all things flow is also the raw intuition of permanence.  

Whitehead characterizes this simultaneous realization of the existence of permanence and flux by quoting from a hymn:

Abide with me, Fast falls the eventide.

These two lines of verse, in their intuitive simplicity, present to us the integral experience of permanence and flux, of the existence of both “lastingness” and fluency in the world.  

There is no actual existent which is not in flux nor any that is solely in flux. If any actual entity were to be solely in flux, lacking anything permanent, it would be perpetually changing in form and essence.  Consequently, one could not say that the entity was any one “thing” at all, which is absurd.  On the other hand, if an actual entity were to be entirely permanent, lacking any fluency at all, it would stand in contradiction to the initial intuition that all things flow.   In this way, permanence and flux are inseparable principles, embodied in everything we perceive around us.

Our examination of Whitehead’s philosophy will consist of four major sections.  In the first section we will examine the meaning of “fluency” under the heading of Process.  In the second section we will examine Whitehead’s conception of time.  In the third section we will examine God and his role in Process.  In the final section we will examine physical reality and how it is unified under Process.