“Some critics of process like to make fun of the idea of panexperientialism. They misconstrue the doctrine to mean that everything has experiences—everything without exception. They can then talk about how silly it is to claim that a chair has feelings, or that a stone or a rock can think.

The “pan” in panexperientialism means not that all things experience, but that there is experience in all things. A rock, for example, enjoys no unified experience, but a rock is teeming with a multitude of micro-individuals who do experience—molecules, atoms, elementary particles, and so forth. Internally, on the quantum level, a rock is roaring with activity. Even though a rock itself cannot be said to experience, there is experience, and plenty of it, within the rock.”

More excerpts from Hyatt Carter’s introduction to process thought. Read more here.

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Photo above by Camilla Hey, found here.

Tags:hyatt carterpanexperientialismprocess philosophy