The middle third of Whitehead's Process and Reality is composed of speculations about how the mind works. I thought that a lot of this stuff could be formalized in terms of psychological experiments and put to the test. Actually, a lot of process philosophy would be well served by empirical tests. Of course, this was all developed in the era of Freud and Jung when psychology was still in its infancy as a science, so I should not be too harsh in my judgments about Whitehead.
Heraclitus's process doesn't need Whitehead's furniture. Energy conversion, small molecules assembling into large ones, entropy, three terms are enough. Stars, metabolism, cognition, the running of a society, all redistributions of energy. Measurable, falsifiable. Actual occasions aren't.
Whitehead has electrons carry experience because he wants to avoid dualism while explaining how mind arises, but emergence already handles this. Physical constraints impose stable patterns on combinations, mind doesn't have to be pre-hidden in the raw material. Eternal objects in the mind of God, fully redundant.
The direction problem is answered by the second law. Life is local anti-entropy, meaning-making its highest-order form, language and culture and institutions all holding patterns in high-order states at the cost of burning enormous energy. Death is entropy winning back. What is the dipolar God for?
Whitehead's system can't lose, which is what makes it self-sealing. Coherence isn't truth.
The wooden plane's problem isn't that it flew too high. It has no engine.
Massimo, this is one footnote to philosophy that I’d assume better to skip!
😆
Enjoyed the duscusdion. Ibpve never read nor desired to read rpthecWhitehead. Now I don’t feel the need.
Looks like I saved you some time and a possible headache!
The middle third of Whitehead's Process and Reality is composed of speculations about how the mind works. I thought that a lot of this stuff could be formalized in terms of psychological experiments and put to the test. Actually, a lot of process philosophy would be well served by empirical tests. Of course, this was all developed in the era of Freud and Jung when psychology was still in its infancy as a science, so I should not be too harsh in my judgments about Whitehead.
No worries, I'm going to be pretty harsh on Whitehead!
Heraclitus's process doesn't need Whitehead's furniture. Energy conversion, small molecules assembling into large ones, entropy, three terms are enough. Stars, metabolism, cognition, the running of a society, all redistributions of energy. Measurable, falsifiable. Actual occasions aren't.
Whitehead has electrons carry experience because he wants to avoid dualism while explaining how mind arises, but emergence already handles this. Physical constraints impose stable patterns on combinations, mind doesn't have to be pre-hidden in the raw material. Eternal objects in the mind of God, fully redundant.
The direction problem is answered by the second law. Life is local anti-entropy, meaning-making its highest-order form, language and culture and institutions all holding patterns in high-order states at the cost of burning enormous energy. Death is entropy winning back. What is the dipolar God for?
Whitehead's system can't lose, which is what makes it self-sealing. Coherence isn't truth.
The wooden plane's problem isn't that it flew too high. It has no engine.
Looking forward to Part II.
Percy, yup, I pretty much agree.
Thanks, Massimo.
Interested to see how you take it apart in Part II.