Process Thought: A Very Basic Introduction

1. Process Thought: A Very Basic Introduction By Fr. Charles Allen, Ph.D. For a more detailed discussion of this topic, see “Process Thought for Freethinkers & Other Naturalists” at www.therevdrcharleswallen.com/ProcessThoughtforFreethinkers.doc

2. What is process thought? • It’s a broad, mostly American philosophy of nature. • It views the everyday world as, fundamentally, comprised of active processes (I’ll call them activities), as opposed to inert substances. • Some process thinkers call themselves theists (their critics don’t believe them). • Others are thoroughgoing naturalists. • For more information (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy): http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/process-philosophy/

3. Some Notable Process Thinkers G. W. F. Hegel (?) C. S. Peirce Heraclitus Karl Marx (?) William James John Dewey George Herbert Mead Bertrand Russell (?) Alfred North Whitehead Charles Hartshorne Giles Deleuze Nicholas Rescher

4. Some Related Institutions http://www.ctr4process.org/ http://www.csus.edu/cpns/ http://www.santafe.edu/ http://www.cscs.umich.edu/index.html

5. Process thought in a nutshell: 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original. • Different process thinkers add all sorts of details, but every time they do, they make the whole thing more debatable. • So I suggest we stick to these two principles, and leave more detailed accounts for later. • Inert things (e.g., particles, rocks, tables, chairs, etc.) are comprised of activities that interact to form relatively stable patterns. • Some activities interact in ways that amplify their originality (e.g., people, animals, cells, genes, electrons, etc.). • Interacting activities are the most concrete and influential realities; anything else (particles, atoms, people, ideas, etc.) is somewhat abstract, though no less real, and not without influence.

6. Is process thought empirical? • It’s as empirical as any worldview can be, and (arguably) more empirical than most. • It claims to be experience-based. • But it insists that experience always includes participation and interpretation, not just observation. • It refuses to speculate about anything beyond conceivable experience. • But it claims that there are certain principles found in everyday experience that turn out to be exemplified in any conceivable experience whatsoever. • It can’t be decisively proved or disproved by a “crucial experiment.” • But neither can any other worldview like materialism, idealism, determinism, etc. • Furthermore, many philosophers of science recognize that none of the central theories of any empirical science can be directly confirmed or refuted by any specific tests (on this, see the crucial discussion on “Science and Pseudoscience” by Imre Lakatos, available online at www.lse.ac.uk/collections/lakatos/scienceAndPseudoscienceTranscript.htm). • But any ideas can still be critically assessed in terms of how readily they can describe an endless variety of situations—real or imagined—and process thought welcomes that kind of assessment. Central Theories Peripheral Theories Interpretive Observations 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

7. What about materialism (or physicalism)? • Some process thinkers are physicalists; others, like Bertrand Russell, call themselves “neutral monists”; others sound more idealistic. • Obviously, a variety of interpretations are possible, and process materialism is one of them. • There have been about as many different definitions of “matter” as there have been of “God.” • There’s no good reason to assume matter can’t be interactive. • Hardly any physicist today thinks of matter as a bunch of inert billiard-ball-like particles. • Under the right conditions, there’s no reason to assume that interactive matter can’t think or wonder—those are both interactive processes. • So if your computer ever passes the Turing test, start treating it with more respect. 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

8. What about reductionism? • There are different kinds of reductionism. • Process thought itself could be said to “reduce” everything to activities and their properties. • Daniel Dennett makes a helpful distinction between good and “greedy” reductionism. • Greedy reductionism confuses reducing with replacing—as if you could understand an essay by simply looking up the meanings of each of its words. • Good reductionism simply analyzes complex interactions in terms of simpler ones, without denying complexity, but without invoking any “external” agencies. • Good reductionism and an informed holism don’t have to compete, and process thought makes it easier to reconcile them. 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

9. What about determinism? • Obviously, process thought rejects extreme versions of determinism—the idea that an activity could be determined by other things in ways that would exclude any sort of originality. • Some things may be exclusively determined by other things, but if that’s the case, those things are not activities (though they still depend on activities). • Granted, no matter how original an activity may be, it will also exemplify practically countless predictable and general properties: originality is always relative. • But every activity is more than the properties it exemplifies: it exemplifies them in a relatively original, unrepeatable way. • Process thinkers admit that originality is difficult to describe—descriptions require abstractions, but originality, though relative, is never abstract. • But we do experience originality in the novelty and unrepeatability of every moment—to deny or exclude it would be anti-empirical. • Maybe we need distinctions between “good” and “greedy” versions of determinism, as well as “informed” and “fluffy” versions of originality? 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

10. What about natural selection? • What other kind could there be? • Varying traits survive only to the extent that they cohere with varying environments. • There is no controlling external purpose (process naturalists and process theists agree on this). • Many purposes do emerge in nature, but they are a result of everyday interactions, not external interventions. 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

11. Why should naturalists care about process thought? • Process thought “naturalizes” the development of life, feelings, purposes, thoughts, rationality, artistic creativity, etc., more smoothly than mechanistic worldviews. • In other words, it makes it easier to explain why life can have meaning and value without having to mention anything beyond the interactions of everyday existence. • So it undercuts most of the arguments of popular theism. • Many theists: a) equate naturalism with greedy reductionism, and b) assume that theism is the only alternative to greedy reductionism. • Process thought refutes both of these assumptions. • Likewise, it helps to reconcile the aims of the natural sciences with the aims of the arts and humanities. • It has successfully anticipated most of the novel developments in the sciences in the past century. • There are process theists too (like me!), and their numbers are growing, but they may have more in common with process naturalism than with popular theism. 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

12. The crucial point here: • Process thought REFRAMES most of the traditional debates about fundamental issues. • If you accept the two principles of process thought, you’ll find that the meanings of terms like “matter,” “mind,” “body,” “spirit,” “nature” and “God” are all beginning to shift. • They haven’t lost all continuity with their popular meanings, but they’re definitely shifting. • And there’s definitely room for conversation about when it’s OK to use them, and even about whether some of them have been rendered obsolete. 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original.

13. Why Process Theists & Process Naturalists Need Each Other • On the question of God, process naturalists, with Laplace, are convinced they have “no need of that hypothesis.” • Process theists view God as the ultimate, all-interactive activity, not an hypothesis, nor an exception to process thought’s principles, but their ultimate integration. • At this level of generality, there are no knock-down arguments or crucial experiments to settle which viewpoint is more reasonable—both can claim a kind of simplicity and adequacy to shared experience. • But the reasonability of both views can still be critically and fruitfully debated. • So far, whenever one group has produced an original argument to show the rational advantages of its own approach, the other has responded with a similarly original argument on behalf of its contrasting approach. • In fact, at this level of generality, the ease with which proponents of related but contrasting worldviews can remain in critical conversation with one another is perhaps the most crucial test of their rational merits. Laplace Dewey 1. All things are activities or properties of activities. 2. All activities are interactive—relatively interrelated, yet relatively original. Whitehead