Not energy. Events, happening in time.
“For example, if we consider energy to be the most fundamental reality behind the apparent solidity of matter, it becomes very difficult to define what energy “really” is, without getting involved in circular definitions. Ultimately, this discussion becomes just a word game. We can define energy by using yet more words. But what we’re trying to do is to explain the apparent solidity around us, the apparent solidity that our senses present to us. We could even label the “true” reality behind our senses “Ideas,” as Plato did and many Idealist philosophers since Plato have done. What really matters, however, is not the terminology but the conceptual placeholder. What are we trying to explain? In this case we’re trying to explain the apparent solidity of the physical world.
Philosophers like Alfred North Whitehead and Arthur Koestler, the Hungarian polymath, have realized this difficulty and have opted to use more general terms that will remain accurate and useful no matter what terms our current physical theories prefer. For Whitehead, the ultimate constituents of reality are “actual entities.” An actual entity is just another name, but it’s very different than traditional views of “matter” or “energy.” And it’s defined in a non-circular manner.
Actual entities are events, happenings in time
An actual entity is, as mentioned above, a general description for an event. An event is a happening, a process, a becoming, from the very smallest happening, like a photon or electron, to the largest, like the universe as a whole. So the actual entity is very different than the traditional notions of matter or energy. An actual entity never exists outside of time. It’s a process, not a thing. Time — duration — is built into the definition. Another term Whitehead uses for actual entity is “actual occasion” or “occasion of experience.” These all mean the same thing.
Why the focus on events and time? Well, we can conceptually freeze objects in time. We can image an arrow frozen in mid-flight, hanging in space. But this is just a reflection of our imaginations, not a reflection of reality. Similarly, modern physics often imagines that the ultimate constituents of matter could in actuality be frozen in place and given a name, independent of time. Physics takes the approach of asking the universe to “just please hold still for a second so that we can study you.” But it never does. The universe is always in motion, always becoming. Time is always proceeding forward. It is, then, a mistake to conceptually separate matter from time and to believe that this conceptual separation is indicative of reality.”
I read a great essay by fellow Whitehead enthusiast, Tam Hunt, recently; the above passage is a quote from it.
Hunt does a great job summarizing a lot of Whitehead’s key concepts and I enjoyed his framing the problem in his essay as one of us essentially trying to explain the solidity we find all around ourselves. The discussion of Whitehead’s commitment to internal and logical coherence was also good to see; this has always been something that was important to me with regard to metaphysics. I get increasingly frustrated talking to New Agey types when conversations disintegrate to the point where my interlocutors shrug and declare “all things are made of energy, man!” That’s just not good enough for me. Whitehead’s definitions (e.g. “actual entity,” “actual occasion of experience”), in my opinion, are at least internally coherent and do a better job of describing (and reminding us of) the fundamental processual relationship of things moreso than “energy” does.
Additionally, I find myself liking the term “resonance” that Hunt uses. I look forward to reading more about his and Prof. Jonathan Schooler’s resonance theory of consciousness, which they apparently describe as a solution to the “easy part” of the hard problem of consciousness, i.e. I assume it addressed the combination problem.
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Painting above by: Carole Milon
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