🌌CHAOSMOTIC â˜†â‹†ïœĄđ–Šč°‧★ SYSTEMSđŸȘ

Perspective

Dec 18, 20243 min read

Lecture IV of Section II in Alfred North Whitehead’s book Modes of Thought

Notes

  • The technology of writing progressed gradually over time, but the strongest division was when it began being used as a means of writing “intimate thoughts” (66)
    • an abstraction from environment
  • Point 2: Each entity has its own perspective of the world
    • Fact relies on the current perspective, and the ‘elimination of alternatives’
    • eternal objects & muddiness
    • actual occasions
  • Point 3: “Absolutes”
    • “Extreme” type of being → God? Zero?
    • “Realm of ‘completely real’” (68) → “absolutes”
    • “In the house of forms, there are many mansions” (69)
    • There is no “absolute reality,” everything refers to something externally & referentially. → see Process Philosophy
    • The “unreal” (69)
    • “Extremes of Existence” - Actuality & Potentiality in a reciprocal relationship. Actuality is the exemplification of Potentiality, which is the characterization of actuality.
    • Evidence of philosophy comes from the shared (uniquely) human experience (70)
  • Point 4: What is Character?
    • Enjoyment (71)
    • (Intimate) Experience and the body are entangled. (The way seeing a sunrise makes you feel)
    • Complexity, vagueness, and compulsive intensity.
  • Point 5: Sense perception - How we discern the external world (72)
    • Clarity, distinctness, indifference.
      • form, color, quality
    • Definition of “Nature” (73)
      • We (humans) are characters of higher animal experience.
    • Approximate accuracy, qualitative assignment, essential omission.
      • Science is the omission of irrelevant modes of existence.
  • Point 6: Start Vague!
    • The 3 principles of division, in 3 pairs of opposites (75)
    • Goodness and Order and Mathematics (76)
      • Goodness requires “badness,” you can’t have a good time if you cant count!
      • differentiate forms (78)
  • Point 7: Infinitude
    • There cannot truly be an “infinite,” all things must be ‘this’ and not ‘that’.
    • “Exclusion means finitude”
    • Clarity + Order must go along with vagueness + disorder, or we become definite and it sucks. (79)
    • Referring back to Part I, averages and uniformity is a characteristic of non-life. life comes from ambiguity + flux.
    • How can the afterlife be so great if its unchanging and infinite? “Eternal life” an oxymoron?
    • Math + definite / perfect forms are a “glimpse of eternity” (81)
  • Point 8: Separation from Creativity
    • The process has been lost. (81)
    • “Changeless world of ultimate reality” → derived into (our) historic world of change
    • Knowledge is action! not perfection!
    • “vitiated to ruin” (82)
    • Static systems of math vs life + motion + reality (82)
  • Point 9: We are embodied in process
    • Infinitude and finitude require each other (83)
    • Existence requires a past/present/future
    • Triviality mentioned on page 84
    • 4 Modes of Characterizing Existence
      • 3 Aspects within aesthetic experience
        • Sense of Genius, Disclosure, and Translation
      • 3 Aspects of Matter of Fact
        • Experiences of Unity, Multitude, and Transition
      • 3 Primary grounds of division
        • Clarity + Vagueness
        • Order + Disorder
        • Good + Bad
      • 2 Ultimate Types of Existence
        • Eternal forms dual existence Potential, Appetition, Realized Fact
        • Realized fact and past/present/future

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