Rupert Sheldrake
c/rupert-sheldrake
Lectures, debates, and dialogues by biologist Rupert Sheldrake — morphic resonance, telepathy, and challenging materialist science.
c/rupert-sheldrake
Lectures, debates, and dialogues by biologist Rupert Sheldrake — morphic resonance, telepathy, and challenging materialist science.
156 mentions across 21 talks in Rupert Sheldrake
More from Alfred North Whitehead…of arguments theorizing on the possibilities of an evolving and purposeful universe. Thus, from quantum theory, he cites Alfred North Whitehead whom he credits as probably the first philosopher to recognize the radical implications of quantum physics, and who…
…over the years, but in my view the most important and interesting was the 20th century British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead was a physicist and a mathematician. He wrote Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell, who was his student…
…the years, but in my view the most important and interesting was the 20th century British philosopher Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead was a physicist and a mathematician. He wrote Principia Mathematica with Bertrand Russell, who was his student at Cambridge.…
…quantum theory there's the uncertainty principle. You can't localise a wave at a particular point. Matter is a process. That's what Whitehead told us. It's an ongoing process of wave-like activity. Because it's wave-like and because it's a process, it has a…
…aspect of Whitehead's philosophy. And the The thing gets more fascinating if you actually think it through. and Strawson and Whitehead have been about electrons. The electrons are not very easy for us to imagine. But the same principles should apply…
…of the distance in time as well as space. And you, You remember that we've probably discussed this, that Alfred North Whitehead thought that mental causation, as opposed to physical causation, works in the opposite direction in time. Physical causation works…
…might have the electromagnetic field as its sense organ or one of its sense organs. It's worth mentioning probably that A.M. Whitehead was a great mathematician. And in fact, some said he is one of the few people that understood Einstein's theories, you…
…I believe that is in the quantum theory as well as the electromagnetic theory when those two things were synthesized. So was Whitehead not just, as it were, seeing parallels in physics and then in his philosophical proposal, but was he actually working on…
…that the future is open, that it's not rigidly determined. All sorts of possible things could happen. And the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who was the first philosopher to grasp the importance of quantum mechanics in the 1920s, because he was a…
…that it points towards a new understanding of the relation of mind and body. The relation of mind and body, according to Whitehead, is not that the mind's inside and the body's outside. We're used to thinking in spatial metaphors, inner and outer, the…
…used to thinking in spatial metaphors, inner and outer, the inner life, the outer world. The relation of mind and body, according to Whitehead, is a relation in time, not space. The mind is the future pole. There's a polarity of future and past. The body…
…we're not. I mean, we're largely unconscious of our habits. So perhaps experience is a better word in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. The word experience and feelings are perhaps a better word. If we think of an electron, for example, we could…
…back again in a very interesting, sophisticated new form. The most interesting panpsychist philosopher in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead, a British philosopher who taught at Harvard. And he was a mathematician as well as a philosopher. He was…
…it to an instant, it's not a wave. So matter is made of waves and the waves take time to wave. So what Whitehead realized right at the very beginning of the quantum revolution was this means that time is built into matter. Previously people thought it…
…future pole is where it's going, the past pole is where it's come from, and it's spread out between future and past. What Whitehead argued, I think fascinatingly, is that the key to understanding the relation of mind and body is not to see them as…
…to me. He said, the latest values of the physical constants. So, so, in, Some scientists, well, some philosophers, and Alfred North Whitehead, for example, who was a mathematician as well as a philosopher, had a theory of relativity that differed from…
…an assumption. Some physicists have proposed they might actually vary over time. It has actually been discussed a little bit by Whitehead and by Paul Dirac and a few other physicists. But for the most part this question is not entertained within science.…
…nature. It was kind of pantheistic view. The most important philosopher in this tradition in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead. And Whitehead argued that all physical systems that are self-organizing have a mental aspect. Self-organizing is a key…
…kind of pantheistic view. The most important philosopher in this tradition in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead. And Whitehead argued that all physical systems that are self-organizing have a mental aspect. Self-organizing is a key here. This doesn't…
…atoms, molecules, crystals, cells, animals, plants, ecosystems, planets, solar systems, and galaxies. Those are self-organizing systems. And Whitehead argued that all self-organizing systems are processes in time. There's no such thing as enduring matter like…
…nature. It was kind of pantheistic view. The most important philosopher in this tradition in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead. And Whitehead argued that all physical systems that are self-organizing have a mental aspect. Self-organizing is a key…
…kind of pantheistic view. The most important philosopher in this tradition in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead. And Whitehead argued that all physical systems that are self-organizing have a mental aspect. Self-organizing is a key here. This doesn't…
…atoms, molecules, crystals, cells, animals, plants, ecosystems, planets, solar systems, and galaxies. Those are self-organizing systems. And Whitehead argued that all self-organizing systems are processes in time. There's no such thing as enduring matter like…
…a process. That means it has a future and a past pole. And what's interesting about that is that the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead in the 1920s was the first serious philosopher to grasp the importance of quantum theory. And he realized the fact that…
…think of the relation of mind and body in terms of space, the inner life, the outer world, and so forth. But Whitehead said the relationship is in time. Even an electron has a future pole which consists of possibilities. The Schrodinger wave equation in…
…participating in a constellated field on the other one actually kind of coexist? I'll just jump to a potential. The work of Alfred North Whitehead, again, and we've had the 20s, has been sort of a theme, I've noticed, sort of talks about the fields in…
…relationship between the mind and matter, stem from the same root. And that root is the bifurcation of nature, as Alfred North Whitehead said. Whitehead places the blame. as always, with Descartes. So Descartes, if you don't know, of course, split mind and…
…the mind and matter, stem from the same root. And that root is the bifurcation of nature, as Alfred North Whitehead said. Whitehead places the blame. as always, with Descartes. So Descartes, if you don't know, of course, split mind and matter. He was a…
…his Cobb Institute, which is a nonprofit trying to advance a process relational worldview, as well as the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. And in particular, John wanted me to chair the Science Advisory Committee, one of the avenues that the Cobb…
…dialogue with the plasma physicist Timothy Eastman and others. But the first scientist who was willing to speak with me about Whitehead is Rupert Sheldrake. And Rupert probably needs no introduction, but for those of you who are somehow unfamiliar with his…
…good friends with Terence McKenna, who you were also good friends with, so there's a connection there. So let's talk about Whitehead. Just so you know, I will introduce you later when I'll record a separate introduction that will lead into this…
…and that gave me the first inklings of a holistic approach to biology. So anyway, I was at Harvard and I think I read Whitehead then. And then I went back to Cambridge. I was a graduate student doing a PhD in developmental botany. I wanted to work on…
…group, Theoria to Theory, was edited by Dorothy Emmett, who was a student of Whitehead's. And the whole group was permeated by Whitehead, because Dorothy was the editor and she was one of the key figures. The other key figures in the group were Richard…
…moving not only out across space, but backwards in time. And you see, there are some people who, the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, thought that the whole of mental causation is retrocausal, that our minds work in the opposite direction from the future…
…is the consciousness of nature, nature is the body of God. Well, the most interesting 20th century panpsychist philosopher was Alfred North Whitehead, who took the view that the entire universe is an organism, that nature is made up of organisms, not of…
…again going back at a higher turn of the spiral to a kind of animist or panpsychist view of nature. What makes Whitehead particularly interesting from the point of view of this discussion is that he pointed away to a new understanding of consciousness.…
…kind of understanding of consciousness if we're going to ask the question, is the sun conscious? What do we mean by consciousness? Whitehead was one of the few philosophers who actually understood quantum theory as soon as it happened in the 1920s. He was…
…in an electron field, in quantum field, matter fields. A proton is a vibration in a proton field. Because matter is made of waves, Whitehead pointed out, it's not a stuff, it's a process. Waves take time to wave. You can't have a wave at an instant. So…
…that's why fundamentally quantum theory has the uncertainty principle. You can't define a wave at an instant. So Einstein, I mean Whitehead pointed this out very clearly. He also pointed out that if matters made of waves and waves of processes, everything…
…goals. We're goal-directed. So there's a sense in which all our actions are related to virtual futures. And the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead had a very interesting view of the relation of mind and body, which is relevant here. He thought our minds…
…an expert on language and language philosophy, and Wittgenstein, Dorothy Emmett, who was a professor at Manchester who studied with Alfred North Whitehead, Ted Bastin, a quantum physicist and a fellow of King's, Chris Clark, who some of you may know, a…
…nature. It was a kind of pantheist philosophy. The most interesting animist or panpsychist philosopher in the 20th century was Alfred North Whitehead, who was writing in the 1920s, a British philosopher, who talked in terms of the philosophy of organism. The…
…a British philosopher, who talked in terms of the philosophy of organism. The universe is not a machine, it's an organism. Whitehead was a mathematician as well as a philosopher and was one of the first people to appreciate how radical quantum theory…
…wave in. It cannot have an instantaneous wave. That's at root the reason for the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics. Whitehead realized that if electrons and protons and atoms were waves, they were processes in time. They were processes, not things.…
…work on certain general principles. And for me, the most interesting lead philosophically on this comes from the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead, who in the first half of the 20th century developed a philosophy of organism, treating nature and the whole…
…this introductory section by just saying a few words about the most interesting panpsychist philosopher of the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead. I'm sure you discuss him in your program here. But Alfred North Whitehead was one of the first philosophers…
…panpsychist philosopher of the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead. I'm sure you discuss him in your program here. But Alfred North Whitehead was one of the first philosophers to realize the implications of quantum theory, partly because he was the only…
…a key book in the philosophy of mathematics in the 20th century. When quantum theory got going in the 1920s, Whitehead realized immediately that if electrons and other quantum particles are waves, which is what quantum theory was saying, then they…
…of solid little bits like miniature billiard balls, particles that just persisted in time. But if they're waves, they're processes. And as Whitehead pointed out, a wave takes time to wave. You can't have a wave at an instant. You know, just think of waves…
…precisely localize them in space or time. And this is the ultimate reason for the so-called uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics. Whitehead realized, therefore, that even at the most fundamental level, matter is a process, not a thing. And if it's a…
…which are all mirroring the universe from every different point of view. The most interesting 20th century panpsychist was Alfred North Whitehead, a British philosopher who was a mathematician as well. He wrote a fundamental book in 20th century mathematics…
…called Principia Mathematica with his student Bertrand Russell when they were both at Trinity College Cambridge. And Alfred North Whitehead, because he was a mathematician, was the first philosopher who properly understood quantum theory. In the 1920s,…
…first philosopher who properly understood quantum theory. In the 1920s, when quantum theory was just coming into being, Whitehead got it straight away. Most philosophers weren't mathematicians, couldn't follow it, but Whitehead instantly realized what a radical…
…theory was just coming into being, Whitehead got it straight away. Most philosophers weren't mathematicians, couldn't follow it, but Whitehead instantly realized what a radical break quantum theory was. He showed that in quantum theory, which treats light and…
…that in quantum theory, which treats light and matter as wave-like entities, the quanta are wave-like. And because they are wave-like, Whitehead realized that you couldn't have a wave at an instant. You can't have an instantaneous wave. Think of waves on…
…stage looking for a more holistic way of doing science. I met this group in 1966 and in these various seminars and so on Whitehead kept coming up all the time and Dorothy was always having to try and expand it because no one could really grasp what he…
…had to go and ask Dorothy and she'd sort of explain it in more simple terms. And this has been my relationship with Whitehead ever since 1966. I can't understand the original sources apart from science and the modern world. So I always had to ask…
…ever since 1966. I can't understand the original sources apart from science and the modern world. So I always had to ask Whitehead experts. The last in that distinguished series is you. yes i'm familiar with this problem yes so anyway um this um i…
…were already part of biology, but the idea of morphic resonance came to me then in a kind of flash. provoked not by reading Whitehead but by reading Bergson. I read Matter and Memory by Bergson and that was for me absolutely seminal step and it led to…
…so Anyway, then when I talked about morphic resonance, then Dorothy said, well, there are lots of parallels for this in Whitehead and began to explain how this could link up with Whitehead. But the main inspiration came more through Bergson than Whitehead.…
…Dorothy said, well, there are lots of parallels for this in Whitehead and began to explain how this could link up with Whitehead. But the main inspiration came more through Bergson than Whitehead. And then the linking up with Whitehead came a bit later.…
…in Whitehead and began to explain how this could link up with Whitehead. But the main inspiration came more through Bergson than Whitehead. And then the linking up with Whitehead came a bit later. Then, just to fast forward through the story, I then left…
…how this could link up with Whitehead. But the main inspiration came more through Bergson than Whitehead. And then the linking up with Whitehead came a bit later. Then, just to fast forward through the story, I then left my job in Cambridge and got a…
…interesting invitation came from David Ray Griffin, who said, I'm at Claremont College. We're very interested in the relation of your work to Whitehead. Could you give a seminar? So I was in LA. So I gave a seminar at Claremont College. I walked into the…
…then I would say on page 27, you say this and they'd read it. Now, how do you interpret that? And that parallel something Whitehead said. And so, so, um, That was my first encounter at Claremont College and then things went on and I met and talked to…
…so, so, um, That was my first encounter at Claremont College and then things went on and I met and talked to various Whitehead scholars over the years. There aren't that many of them. But the next encounter, big one, was really 2011 when John Cobb…
…of them. But the next encounter, big one, was really 2011 when John Cobb organized this two-day seminar about Morphic Resonance and Whitehead, a two-day seminar in Claremont. And people came from all over the US for it. You know, there were experts on…
…the US for it. You know, there were experts on Whitehead's philosophy, experts on sort of different aspects of Whitehead's work, Whitehead and theology, Whitehead and this and that. um there are transcripts somewhere i don't know if you've seen them but…
…it. You know, there were experts on Whitehead's philosophy, experts on sort of different aspects of Whitehead's work, Whitehead and theology, Whitehead and this and that. um there are transcripts somewhere i don't know if you've seen them but that that's so…
…this group. I asked him, and he said he'd be happy to take it. And I said, and since we're all here because we admire Whitehead, let's promote him to the rank of a saint, because it's really about the blessed dead. And I said to John Cobb, and then…
…a saint, because it's really about the blessed dead. And I said to John Cobb, and then could you give the homily on the theme of Whitehead as we have a mass for All Saints Day? And so John was a bit taken aback by all this, but he agreed to it.…
…couldn't find the keys to the organ, so I had to play the piano. But anyway, we had a full-scale mass with hymns for Whitehead. So that was the beatification of Alfred North Whitehead. I did not realize he had been sainted. So that's very nice to know.…
…I had to play the piano. But anyway, we had a full-scale mass with hymns for Whitehead. So that was the beatification of Alfred North Whitehead. I did not realize he had been sainted. So that's very nice to know. uh and that you know you and john cobb…
…Chinese philosophy because in modern China, only something that comes from the West will be respected. So I have persuaded them Whitehead is the key to the rehabilitation of our own philosophy. He said, now we have many institutes of process philosophy. Did…
…called Seizing an Alternative Towards an Ecological Civilization. And it was also the, I believe it was the 15th International Whitehead Conference at the same time. And we had probably 1500 people there total, a dozen different tracks running simultaneously.…
…remains to be seen, but I think the more influence Whitehead's work can have, moving us towards a sense of, you know, for Whitehead persuasion is so much more important for the evolution of human beings than coercion, right, and his view of the way that…
…a few of these process centers in China So wonderful. Wow. It seems as if you almost followed a similar pathway as Whitehead from Cambridge to Harvard. You obviously went back to Cambridge after Harvard, which Whitehead did not do. And it's how wonderful…
…you almost followed a similar pathway as Whitehead from Cambridge to Harvard. You obviously went back to Cambridge after Harvard, which Whitehead did not do. And it's how wonderful that you got to study and learn about Whitehead from a student, Dorothy…
…back to Cambridge after Harvard, which Whitehead did not do. And it's how wonderful that you got to study and learn about Whitehead from a student, Dorothy Emmett, directly. She has a book. I think it's called The Philosophy of Organism. that I have read…
…And this problem that you express of, lots of people telling you that there are deep resonances with Whitehead's work, but trying to study Whitehead yourself and not being able to make heads or tails of a lot of it, it's a very common issue. He is not…
…to understand. He's developed his own language, and a few of us are crazy enough to devote years of study. I've been reading Whitehead for about a decade now. And eventually when you learn the language, it starts to make sense, but then you still have…
…sense, but then you still have the problem of communicating to others about it. And so, you know, one of my goals as a Whitehead scholar is to try to do that work of translation and to be in dialogue with as many kindred thinkers as possible to draw…
…capacity to immerse himself in the work of other philosophers and scientists that he thinks might be in some way connected to Whitehead and then to engage with them to unpack those connections. He's just been doing this for decade after decade with so…
…been doing this for decade after decade with so many different thinkers. And so his work has been is absolutely essential to keeping Whitehead alive in the contemporary period. We seem to have reached a point now where I don't know that it's quite at the…
…period. We seem to have reached a point now where I don't know that it's quite at the level of a Whitehead renaissance, but there's a lot of academic philosophers and scientists who are now beginning to reference Whitehead and to actually engage…
…the level of a Whitehead renaissance, but there's a lot of academic philosophers and scientists who are now beginning to reference Whitehead and to actually engage with his writing and struggle to make those interpretations. And so I'm excited to see that…
…quite close in our interests, of course, and they're very complementary. But suddenly, I found this sort of wave of enthusiasm for Whitehead was entirely due to your course. I mean, you must have had some interest in the first place, otherwise you wouldn't…
…and stuff. Yeah, I mean, mycelial networks are a wonderful example of and an analogy for the sort of networked ontology that Whitehead developed. So I think Merlin actually, if I recall correctly, said that you convinced him to come to the course when he…
…recall correctly, said that you convinced him to come to the course when he had mentioned that someone was coming to teach Whitehead at Schumacher. But I'm glad to hear I infected him with Whiteheadian ideas. Oh, yes. And more than superficially, I mean,…
…Oh, yes. And more than superficially, I mean, this is part of his very being. I mean, he sort of identifies with Whitehead and that approach very strongly. And of course, he's shown through his recent book that he has an incredible gift for communication.…
…book that he has an incredible gift for communication. you know, getting this kind of general approach without necessarily mentioning Whitehead very much, but it's, I mean, thousands and thousands of people are reading what he's written and obviously being…
…question up at Claremont College the seminar room sort of dissolved into different interpretations and different factions and even among the Whitehead scholars there was no unanimity as to exactly what he meant and stuff. So I don't see that as the most…
…So I don't see that as the most helpful aspect because I can just talk about morphic resonance without, I didn't refer to Whitehead in coming up with the idea. You know, in a sense, the connection with Whitehead came after the idea. But the bit that…
…morphic resonance without, I didn't refer to Whitehead in coming up with the idea. You know, in a sense, the connection with Whitehead came after the idea. But the bit that I personally wrestle with and think about and find most stimulating and talk about…
…exciting, undeveloped, and full of possibilities. And I'm never sure whether my own interpretations of it are going way beyond what Whitehead intended or whether it would fit. But the... The idea you see that, I mean, I read things like Journal of…
…most of our habits are unconscious, but they're still mental. So if we come to consciousness per se, then Starting from Whitehead, my answer is that it's about choosing among possible actions. And the role of consciousness is to choose among possibilities.…
…a whole area where my ideas are not fully clear on this, but my starting point for thinking about these knotty problems is Whitehead and I don't know any other starting point other than Whitehead for these questions that makes sense to me. Yeah, I like…
…but my starting point for thinking about these knotty problems is Whitehead and I don't know any other starting point other than Whitehead for these questions that makes sense to me. Yeah, I like that this is this polarity between mind and matter or past…
…where only efficient or mechanical causality is operative, which would be the push from the past. There's no pull, or as Whitehead would call it, lures from the future in the materialist picture. and clearly to understand it's almost inescapable and stares…
…of allure or tendency, if there weren't some future possibilities that seem to want to manifest. And I think Whitehead provides a very rigorous, coherent, and scientifically applicable way of understanding this interplay between mental and physical causation.…
…interplay between mental and physical causation. So I completely agree that might be the most fruitful avenue to draw on Whitehead to sort of fertilize the scientific worldview. And then, yeah, what you're saying about precognition, I've had this discussion…
…and David Ray Griffin has written about this, I think specifically in reference to your ideas. And it seems that in Whitehead, there's some room for offering an explanation of this, but certainly for Whitehead, he would reject the idea that the future…
…to your ideas. And it seems that in Whitehead, there's some room for offering an explanation of this, but certainly for Whitehead, he would reject the idea that the future is already determined. And so for him, maybe there are certain possibilities that…
…determined. And so for him, maybe there are certain possibilities that are more probable than others, but that even if I think Whitehead would say if someone has a vision of the future, you know, something that's going to happen next year or even a…
…has a vision of the future, you know, something that's going to happen next year or even a few days from now, Whitehead would say that's not yet determined. It could be otherwise. And maybe in that moment when that precognitive experience happens, that…
…that was envisioned is the most likely, but it could still change. And so I wonder what you think about that wiggle room that Whitehead would insist upon that. Well, I insist on it too, because I think that the, um, I totally reject the idea of the…
…to something that's emotionally arising. So, you see, one way of dealing with that would be, again, taking a lead from Whitehead that we normally think of the present as defined in terms of, you know, instantaneous microsecond or something. But actually, I…
…we were discussing this in the 1960s. So there's a tremendous sense of deja vu with a lot of these discussions. Whereas Whitehead, you know, if we have the idea of conscious causation and mental causation working from virtual futures to the past, then,…
…that it has in relationship to the rest of the universe. And so it's not paranormal anymore. It's just perfectly normal. Whitehead even says this in the fourth part, towards the end of Process and Reality, he's just finished this really elaborate…
…elaborate reconstruction of how we understand space He calls it the extensive continuum. It's the hardest part of the hardest book that Whitehead wrote. And at the end of it, he's like, one of the implications of this new understanding of space and energy…
…that would be too provocative, but more in Waddington's sense of the word. And as you know, Waddington was very influenced by Whitehead. I don't know if you've tracked that. Yeah, yeah. But you know, in his famous diagram of the creode, the canonized…
…oh, we've got the equations of gravitation, no product, the masses, inverse square of the distance, gravitational constant. Whitehead was, of course, very interested in this because his mathematical theory of general relativity made somewhat different predictions…
…of that in whitehead but um For when I'm thinking about that, I go back to Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas more than Whitehead because it's clearer to me. But I think that in the context of modern science, people like Michael Levin at Tufts, I don't…
…very different topic now. Um, I'd like to ask you about, uh, In terms of the relationship between science and religion, Whitehead seems to me to offer a rather unique and promising approach to reintegrating them, not to collapse them, they're very…
…they can be in a different kind of dialogue with one another that is perhaps mutually enhancing and enriching. And I think Whitehead offers us one way of understanding the role that science plays in human civilization and human life and the role that…
…us one way of understanding the role that science plays in human civilization and human life and the role that religion plays. Whitehead had a whole understanding of the evolution of religion in his small little book, Religion in the Making. I'm not sure…
…it's getting dark. Oh, sure. Yeah. And so I wonder, you know, let me briefly in a sentence or two summarize what Whitehead says about the evolution of religion. I'm putting on another light. There we are. Perfect. I'm sorry I didn't send my lighting…
…makeup and proper lighting and everything, but very low budget here, unfortunately. So in his book, Religion in the Making, Whitehead describes this evolution of humanity from a sort of primal tribal context where through certain play behaviors that are very…
…elaborated and then eventually myth and narrative began to be developed and then eventually we entered the stage of what Whitehead calls rational religion where you get theology and whole elaborate cosmologies but for Whitehead it's all rooted in ritual play…
…we entered the stage of what Whitehead calls rational religion where you get theology and whole elaborate cosmologies but for Whitehead it's all rooted in ritual play and ceremony and feasts and in the practical dimension of religious life you know…
…you know gathering together and participating in a dimension of reality And then that would be the source of religion for Whitehead and the ground of the religious feeling, religious emotion, and religious insight, rather than the way I think modern people…
…kind, that you're really participating in a bodily way in these transcendent dimensions. And so I wonder if given your exposure to Whitehead, if you think that his approach allows us to have a new kind of dialogue to avoid this culture war that continues…
…Mysteries, Soma, we don't know what they were, but they were clearly taking something. So I would say, in addition to Whitehead, his list of things, which I completely agree with that approach, that mystical experience is probably the most key thing. I…
…And I would say that's another major ingredient. So I think singing together, chanting together, dancing together, all those things that Whitehead says are a key part in rituals and rites of passage. We know that early cultures had burials and stuff, I…
…it's about experience. Certainly. And I don't think there is, save Plato, another philosopher that was more influential on Whitehead than William James. And certainly his huge study, Varieties of Religious Experience, was in the background. Whitehead quotes…
…more influential on Whitehead than William James. And certainly his huge study, Varieties of Religious Experience, was in the background. Whitehead quotes James in his little book, Religion in the Making. I think James's view of the experiential dimension of…
…in the Making. I think James's view of the experiential dimension of religion is really what's motivating Whitehead's view. The way Whitehead would put it is that he has this critique of what he calls the bifurcation of nature. where the idea would…
…is just mute matter in motion. And then human consciousness has sense and sounds and poetry and value and all of this. And Whitehead says, no, no, no, it's continuous. Human beings are a part of the universe. And in the context of religion, the history…
…They're sort of our abstraction from it. But anyway, David Bentley Hart's a view on this. I don't know if he mentions Whitehead, but it's a wonderful work of synthesis. He's a highly intelligent and really interesting writer. And I recommend taking a look…
…it. I already decided to. Well, what you're saying about the importance of the Trinitarian understanding reminds me of what Whitehead says in this chapter. where he describes these three different culminating phases in the history of Western theology and…
…is, in Whitehead's terms, exemplification of this idea. And then the elaboration of the Trinity by the early Christian fathers. Whitehead thinks that these three phases of theological development of this important, not only idea, but as exemplified by Jesus…
…that's what you get. So the first thing is waves, a process of waves, which is one reason, as I understand it, Whitehead thought quantum theory revealed this processing because waves can't be localized at an instant. You can't have a wave at an instant.…
…time, Rupert. No, this is fun. I'm really enjoying this, yes. So the final question, I think, is in a very Whiteheadian spirit. Whitehead was a very humble man. It was said that he actually, his will asked for all of his papers to be destroyed because…
…come across that you feel like, no, I don't think he got that quite right. Or maybe there's another approach to this and Whitehead went down the wrong track on that issue. I wonder if there's anything like that that you've encountered in his work. I…
…approach to religion. I don't think there's anything there that, and again, for me, the philosopher who's influenced me more than Whitehead, as I said, is Bergson, because Bergson writes very clearly and he's a pleasure to read. Whereas Whitehead is not…
…influenced me more than Whitehead, as I said, is Bergson, because Bergson writes very clearly and he's a pleasure to read. Whereas Whitehead is not clear in a lot of it and is not a pleasure to read. That's what Whitehead says about Bergson, actually.…
…a pleasure to read. Whereas Whitehead is not clear in a lot of it and is not a pleasure to read. That's what Whitehead says about Bergson, actually. In a lecture, one of his early lectures at Harvard, he says that, basically, I'm summarizing that Bergson…
…lectures at Harvard, he says that, basically, I'm summarizing that Bergson is such a pleasure and a joy to read But Whitehead, the mathematician and logician, actually thought, he said that, you know, but it's never quite clear what Bergson's trying to say,…
…what Bergson's trying to say, which is interesting because when I read him, like you're saying, it's pretty clear. But Whitehead, the logician, wants to know with more precise mathematical rigor exactly what's implied by the literary beauty of Bergson's…
…more predominant and actually respectable and academically, if not orthodox, at least respectable, That's another area where I think the Whitehead approach to panpsychism is so much more interesting. It's got something to tell us over and above just getting…
…Whitehead's relevance to this emerging panpsychist paradigm in analytic philosophy of mind, because it seems to me that, yes, Whitehead is a kind of panpsychist, but unlike Philip Goff and other analytic philosophers who are toying with panpsychism, Whitehead…
…yes, Whitehead is a kind of panpsychist, but unlike Philip Goff and other analytic philosophers who are toying with panpsychism, Whitehead has a process relational ontology that grounds his panpsychism, whereas for the most part, what I've seen is in analytic…
…that grounds his panpsychism, whereas for the most part, what I've seen is in analytic philosophy, it's still working within what Whitehead would call a substance property ontology, which goes back to Aristotle. And in so many ways, I think Whitehead is…
…what Whitehead would call a substance property ontology, which goes back to Aristotle. And in so many ways, I think Whitehead is very Aristotelian. And I think of Aristotle as a neoplatonist, right? But Whitehead's taking Aristotle's organic philosophy and…
…weren't static substances. It's about becoming. About becoming. In final causes. And it's very process-oriented, I would have thought. I think Whitehead wants to open it up a little bit more to make room for evolutionary emergence in a way that maybe in…
…up a little bit more to make room for evolutionary emergence in a way that maybe in Aristotle's sense of a more stable cosmos, Whitehead sort of pushes the great chain of being over on its side so that it unrolls into the future. But yes, I think…
…from the substance-oriented panpsychisms like Goff as it is from materialism. So there's a real difference here in the way that Whitehead is approaching panpsychism that I'm hoping to get into when I speak to Philip Goff next month. So stay tuned for…
…is sort of outer, the mind somehow within. It's a spatial metaphor, the inner life and the outer world and so on. Whitehead thought we'd never solve the mind-body problem that way, understand how mind and body are related. And nobody does understand how…
…a future pole. And we are processes in time as well. So I think this is one of the most interesting insights of Whitehead because he showed that here is a clue to the so-called mind-body problem. Normally people discuss the relation of mind and body in…
…things, possibilities, not actualities. And one of the things our minds do, the principal thing, according to this interpretation of Whitehead, is to choose among possibilities. That's what our consciousness is about. And so, for example, every one of us…
…The nucleus is a pattern of waves too. The electrons in their different orbitals are resonant waves of activity. So what Whitehead showed is that matter is not stuff. 19th century physics had treated matter as stuff, like little billiard balls. The atoms…
…place in time. And if it takes place in time, it has a polarity in time, a past and a future pole. And what Whitehead argued was that this completely transforms our view of the nature of matter. His most original idea about this, I think, the one I…
…it. So we're used to that spatial metaphor. It comes into ordinary language as well. We're less used to the time version that Whitehead was putting forward. And what he was suggesting is that the mental pole, the pole of the mind, is the future pole.…
…definite place. You can measure it in a particular place. And it's sometimes called the collapse of the wave function. Well, what Whitehead showed really was that this is a general principle about the way the minds work. Our own minds are arenas of…
…say, well, the shredding a wave equation just gives us the probability distribution of what might happen, not what will happen. Whitehead was also a very important part of the birth of the holistic or organismic philosophy of nature. The old mechanistic…
…high status within biology, because it's dealing with the smallest bits of living organisms, genes, proteins, etc. But what Whitehead pointed out is that atoms are not the ultimate particles. Atoms themselves are structures of activity with a nucleus…