In Jorge’s Reply to Henry’s comment on the issue of absolute ordering, Jorge makes an important point:

…There is an objective well-ordered series of alpha and omega dates that can be read from the well-ordered causal objectifications found within the regional standpoint of every occasion. That follows from the logic of the theory of causal objectification, which is wholly a metaphysical theory. Therefore, the relations it attributes to occasions cannot depend on the contingent features of our cosmic epoch [see my previous message]. They would obtain even in epochs in which phrases like space-like and time-like separations are meaningless.

Such an order, in other words, is necessarily implied by Whitehead’s theory of causal objectification. The latter simply doesn’t work without such an underlying objective ordering of occasions.  It would lose all coherence as a theory given that its signature feature is that every becoming is internally related to all beings antecedent to it.

The question at hand is whether Whitehead’s use of the word ‘antecedent’ here was meant to be understood as strictly:

1. temporal (and therefore relativistic), such that all ‘antecedent’ beings are those restricted to the becoming’s backward light cone, and therefore no invariant ordering among spacelike separated occasions is implied;

or

2. logical (and therefore objective), such that all ‘antecedent’ beings are those defined according to Whitehead’s self-described ‘first order,’ invariant mereotopological order, where every becoming occasion is a ‘whole’ internally and genetically related to its antecedent dative ‘parts.’  It is only in this way that Whitehead’s phrasing,  “The many become one and are increased by one” maintains coherent meaning.

As I have argued before, attempting to cast this distinction as an ‘either-or’ proposition is a misstep in the context of Whiteheadian metaphysics and cosmology for two reasons:

First, a becoming occasion is internally related to past occasions–i.e., that relations of past occasions are reproduced within the constitution of future occasions.  “The many become one and are increased by one.” (PR 21). By Whitehead’s theory of prehensions and his theory of objectification, this process of ‘becoming one’ involves a vector-genetic inheritance and logically governed integration of the antecedent dative world within the concrescing actual occasion.  Dative causes are not merely ‘represented’ in the new occasion; they are internally reproduced and recreated.  “The actual world is the ‘objective content’ of each new creation.” (PR 65) Each concrescing occasion “is the cumulation of the universe and not a stage-play about it.” (PR  237)

Given that every becoming occasion is internally related to every occasion antecedent to it, it simply doesn’t matter whether the word ‘antecedence’ here is restricted to the backward lightcone.  Consider the following graphic (click to enlarge):

Occasion E objectifies the data A and B, as these lie within its past light cone. Relative to Occasion E, the orders CD and FG are spacelike separated from E–that is, contemporaneous with E and therefore not causlly efficacious within E. (This is per the demands of both relativity theory and Whiteheadian metaphysics.)

Occasion H includes within its data F and G, but also E; therefore H mediately objectifies A and B via E.  In this way, H is internally related to all the data of its actual world.  Similarly, Occasion I objecifies C and D, but also E–and via E, A and B.  Also, I and H are spacelike separated from one another and therefore causal contemporaries.

Occasion J objectifies all these data; and by the internality of its relations with these data, it also objectifies their ordering within their own individual histories.  Again, this is because J’s ‘internal relationship’ with its data means that within J, both the order of occasions ABCDE in I’s actual world, and ABEFG in H’s actual world will be included and logically integrated in J.  The explicit desideratum of logical coherence in Whiteheadian philosophy as a first principle of his metaphysics guarantees that within J’s integration of H and I, the principle of non-contradiction (PNC) will not be violated.  This means that the integrations (and reproductions) of H’s actual world and I’s actual world within J’s actual world must entail relations of mutual and non-contradictory ordering among the occasions constituting the actual worlds of E, H, I, and J.

Whiteheadian cosmology, in other words, is not of the ‘many universes’ genre; if Occasion E is associated with the radioactive decay that triggers the death of Schroedinger’s Cat associated with Occasion F, then the cat is dead for both Occasion H and I–even though H and I are contemporaries.  It’s also dead for Occasion J, which subsumes H and I; and if that is the case, there must be an ordering of occasions comon to all occasions by virtue of the fact that each future occasion is internally related to every occasion antecent to it. Thus the past world in Whiteheadian philosophy maintains its character as a unified, objective actual world–not a confused and logically incoherent patchwork of mutually exclusive possible subjective worlds.  This is, as Jorge points out, simply a necessary implication of Whitehead’s theory of prehensions and objectification, without which his metaphysics loses all coherence.

Whitehead’s awareness of this is evinced by his devotion of Part IV of Process and Reality to an accounting of how PNC is preserved in this way–i.e., within J’s internal relationship to ABCDEFGHI described above.  The internality of these relations and the logical ordering of the relata is accounted for by a ‘first order’ mereotopological scheme of extension (PR 65-82 and Part IV)–that is, the logical relations of part-to-whole as a presupposition for any more specialized concept of geometrical extension including spatiotemporal extension in relativity theory.  As applied to his theory of objectification, ‘whole’ pertains to the concrescing occasion, internally related to the ‘parts’ of its actual world.  In line with relativity theory, the causal efficacy of these parts upon the concrescing whole is restricted to the backward lightcone; but at the same time, and crucial to the discussion above, every ‘whole’ (subject) is also a ‘part’ (superject) for subsequent ‘wholes.’ This is Whitehead’s Principle of Relativity: “The potentiality for being an element in a real concrescence of many entities into one actuality is the one general metaphysical character attaching to all entities…that every item in its universe is involved in each concrescence.  In other words, it belongs to the nature of a ‘being’ that it is a potential for every ‘becoming.’” (PR 22).

Thus, relatively to any actual entity, there is a ‘given’ world of settled actual entities and a ‘real’ potentiality, which is the datum for creativeness beyond that standpoint. This datum, which is the primary phase in the process constituting an actual entity, is nothing else than the actual world itself [i.e., in contrast to the relativistically restricted 'given' world] in its character of a possibility for the process of being felt. (PR 65)

Again, “every item in its universe” from PR 22, and “‘given’ world” from PR 65 reflects the intended compitiblity with relativity theory.  However, per the discussion above, the relativistic privacy of contemporary occasions H and I and their particularly prehended actual worlds in no way obviates or undermines or is incompatible with the heart of Whitehead’s theory of objectification: Namely, the requirement that the orders of the actual worlds of H and I be logically integrated within subsequent occasion J such that J is internally related to the actual worlds of H and I, both logically and mereotopologically–i.e.,  as whole is related to part. Thus, for Whitehead, it was possible to preserve both 1. relativistic privacy among contemporary occaions, in line with Einsteinian relativity theory; and 2. an objective ordering among all  ‘individual past worlds’ by virtue of the fact that every past world is logically integrated (i.e., without violations of PNC)  within every future occasion.  The ‘first order’ mereotopology described in Part IV is the foundational accounting of this logical order.

The real potentialities relative to all standpoints are coordinated as diverse determinations of one extensive continuum. This extensive continuum is one relational complex in which all potential objectifications find their niche. It underlies the whole world, past, present, and future. Considered in its full generality, apart from the additional [relativistic] conditions proper only to the cosmic epoch of electrons, protons, molecules, and star-systems, the properties of this continuum are very few and do not include the relationships of metrical geometry. An extensive continuum is a complex of entities united by the various [mereotopological] allied relationships of whole to part, and of overlapping so as to possess common parts, and of contact, and of other relationships derived from these primary relationships. [i.e., the logical order of antecedent/subsequent, cause/effect, etc, where a subsequent occasion is internally related to antecedent occasions as whole is related to part.] This extensive continuum expresses the solidarity of all possible standpoints throughout the whole process of the world. [i.e., the solidarity that provides for the objective immortality of all settled facts and their logical relations of whole/part, cause/effect.] It is not a fact prior to the world; it is the first determination of order [i.e., logical order]-–that is, of real potentiality [cf. 'real potentiality' in the quote above]–arising out of the general character of the world. (PR 65)

The second reason that it is a misstep to attempt to define ‘antecedence’ in Whiteheadian philosophy as either

1. temporal (and therefore relativistic), such that all ‘antecedent’ beings are those restricted to the becoming’s backward light cone, and therefore no invariant ordering among spacelike separated occasions is implied;

or

2. logical (and therefore objective), such that all ‘antecedent’ beings are those defined according to Whitehead’s self-described ‘first order,’ invariant mereotopological order, where every becoming occasion is a ‘whole’ internally and genetically related to its antecedent dative ‘parts.’  It is only in this way that Whitehead’s phrasing,  “The many become one and are increased by one” maintains coherent meaning.

is, perhaps, even more fundamental. The problem is that expecting to find, in Whitehead, a strict reduction of ‘antecedent’ to either 1 or 2 exclusively is very much akin to expecting to find a strict reduction of ‘reality’ to either mentality or physicality exclusively.  The question itself attempts to impose a Cartesian duality upon the metaphysics.  Whitehead admits, as Jorge points out, that the physical aspects of the actual occasion are dominated (and restricted) by relativistic spatiotemporal extensiveness. But this does not mean that for Whitehead, all extensiveness is to be reduced and assimilated to relativistic spactiotemporal extension.  This is because the actual occasion is not sheerly physical; it is dipolar, with both physical (relativistically causal) and conceptual (objectively logical) features.

Indeed, the dipolarity of the actual occasion–its a) conformal and b) conceptual/comparative phases–demands that 1 and 2 above be understood in the same dipolar framework.  The conformal features of concrescence (the physical pole) entail 1.–i.e., the temporal and relativisitc aspects of ‘antecedence’;  and the conceptual/comparative features of concrescence (the mental pole) entail 2.–i.e., the logical aspects of ‘antecedence.’

One cannot attempt to reduce or assimilate 2 to 1, or 1 to 2, and say that by ‘antecedent’ Whitehead ‘really’ meant 1, or ‘really’ meant 2.  That would be akin to attempting to reduce the actual occasion to either a physical entity (trumped by relativistic spatiotemporal relations) or mental entity (trumped by logical-mereotopological relations)–and, by implication, to assimilate its mental features to its physical features, or its physical features to its mental features.

Whitehead’s entire theory of objectification has, built into it, the logical order of 2 above.  And as Henry points out, it also has, built into it, the relativistic spatiotemporal order of 1 above.  And these orders are brought together in dipolar fashion in each concrescence, where 1. is dominant in the physical pole, and 2. is dominant in the mental pole.

One could make the argument that the logical order of the latter is similarly restricted by the backward light cone; but one would be hard-pressed to argue that Whitehead suggested that the relativistic restriction of causal efficacy be extended to the logical and mereotopological features of his theory of objectification. Indeed, he explicitly denied such a blunt imposition of what he called the ‘more specialized’ forms of spatiotemporal extension and their relativistic restrictions upon the more fundamental logical-mereotopolgical ‘first order’ foundation of the extensive continuum.  (See Part IV of PR).

As Jorge emphasizes, this is because the latter order is, for Whitehead, a metaphysical ‘first order’ extensiveness that is necessarily presupposed by more specialized relativistic concept of physical spatiotemporal extension.  It is a presupposition, I have argued elsewhere, that is akin to the more general presupposition of an objective and invariant logical-mathematical order by physics. In Part IV, Whitehead argues that without this presupposed order, there could be no principle of congruence, and therefore no internally consistent geometrical ordering of any kind would be possible–whether it be Euclidian spatial geometry (PR 283) or relativistic spatiotemporal geometry:

…The ambiguity as to the relative importance of competing definitions of congruence, are determined in favour of one family and one congruence-definition. The transformations into an indefinite variety of coordinates, to which the ‘tensor theory’ refers, all presuppose one congruence-definition. The invariance of the Einsteinian ‘ds’ expresses this fact.” (PR 98)

Physicist Roland Omnes makes a similar point with respect to the necessary presupposition of the logical principles of Non-Contradiction and the Excluded Middle in quantum theory.  For Whitehead, these two principles are intimately bound up with his ‘first-order’ logical-mereotopological extensive scheme.  For me, this is one interesting point of intersection between Whitehead’s metaphysics & cosmology, and quantum mechanics & relativity theory.  It could even be that the key to bringing together the latter pair in a truly coherent manner will be by making explicit connections to the former.

The broader point in this regard is that since physics cannot presume to ‘account for’ that which it necessarily presupposes, it seems unlikely that a fundamentally objective logical ordering of actualities can be sufficiently or meaningfully ‘explained’ solely by reference to some physical process; this is because any such process given in the language of physics would necessarily presuppose the very order it attempts to account for.  Certainly physics can provide important novel descriptions of this order as operative in physical processes; but it clearly cannot provide fundamental explanation of such order–i.e., an explanation that answers the questions, “Where does this order come from? And why is our universe characterized by this order, rather than by a disorder that is equally well-described by physics?”