I concur with Jorge in his last post: Continua, absolute order, and causal objectification. I would like to offer some supplemental ideas.  (Again, this is in answer to Henry’s question on whether we can find IN WHITEHEAD any unequivocal endorsement of the idea of absolute [as opposed to partial] ordering of the terminations of the coming into being of occasions.) I would like to again offer the following 3 passages (from my July 17 email) and suggest that they be added to the excellent list Jorge compiled in his latest message:

PASSAGE 1

Whitehead writes,

“…in the ‘electromagnetic’ society the ambiguity as to the relative importance of competing families of straight lines (if there be such competing families), and 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) Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Henry,

I copy below a passage from your last response to me. Mike and you have had further exchanges on the topic, but, at this time, I want to address only your original question on whether we can find IN WHITEHEAD any unequivocal endorsement of the idea of absolute (as opposed to partial) ordering of the terminations of the coming into being of occasions?  Here are the relevant passages:

In addition to absolute in the sense I specified above, a metaphysical past is also absolute in the sense you have in mind. Yes, there is an absolute order of the coming into existence of the occasions. But we have to distinguish between the coming into existence of the occasion as incompletely determinate and its coming into existence as a completely determinate being. One and the same occasion first exists as a becoming and then as a being. The distinction makes perfect sense in respect to supersession, but not in respect to physical time. The distinction also means that there are two supersessional dates associated with an occasion: one marking the initiation of an occasion’s becoming; the other, the termination of the occasion’s becoming (and, hence the initiation of its existence as a superject). These dates situate the occasion, whether as a becoming or as a being, in an absolute, but complex, ordering system. Read the rest of this entry »

Dear Jorge,

I have been pressed for time and only now have been able to look at
the notes (From Nobo’s working notes on supersession) that you had attached
to your earlier message. You asked whether I encountered
any problems.

I do have some troubles with the second paragraph (Nonetheless…being)
and the third paragraph (Physical time …block universe).

The second paragraph seems to blur or eliminate the distinction
between “being” and “becoming”, which is a distinction that W took great
pains to draw. Read the rest of this entry »

On PR 66 Whitehead says:

“Apart from the initial conditions proper to [our] cosmic epoch….the properties of this continuum … do not include the relationships of metrical geometry.”

“This extensive continuum expresses the solidarity of all standpoints”

“In its full generality, beyond the present epoch, it does not nvolve shapes or dimensions, or measurability; these are additional determinations of real potentiality arising from our present epoch.”

I take this to mean that in our present epoch we can identify the extensive continuum with the spacetime continuum of physics, and the standpoints to be definite regions of spacetime.

Restricting ourselves to the present epoch, and considering the fact that the unitary dynamical evolution in relativistic quantum field allows causal connection only into the future light cone, it is temping to conclude the that actual world of any occasion must be confined to the backward light of the standpoint of that occasion, and past, present (contemporary}, and future to be defined by light-cone conditions.

But of course that is hard to reconcile with the idea the “The many become one, and are increased by one!” Read the rest of this entry »

One and all:

Regarding the following statement in Tim’s summary of our last teleconference:

Michael Epperson* (*ME*), *Jorge Nobo *(*JN*), *George Shields* (*GS*), and *Henry Stapp* (*HS*) discussing further *HS’*s question (summarized by *ME* in July 14^th email): “Can we achieve complete ontological clarity if we deny an absolute ordering in process time of the coming into being of actual occasions?”[1]

*JN, ME*, and *GS* all agreed that *HS*’s question is an instance of the more general metaphysical question concerning how to more adequately describe wholes versus parts (internal relationship of whole versus antecedent parts).

I am not entirely on board with the idea that Stapp’s question is an instance of how to adequately describe whole versus parts. The analysis of an occasion’s formative extensive region into causal objectifications–and, for that matter, into anticipatory and contemporary objectifications–is much more restrictive than the analysis into parts and wholes. Read the rest of this entry »