Source: “Consciousness, Whitehead and Maxwell’s Equations: Where and How Do the Eternal Objects Connect To Concrescing Electromagnetic Occasions In Space-Time?”; by Shelli Renée Joye, Author of “The Electromagnetic Brain”, Assisi, Italy.
This podcast explores Alfred North Whitehead's philosophical concepts, particularly his idea that our current reality is fundamentally a "society of electromagnetic occasions." It traces Whitehead's intellectual journey from mathematics and physics, influenced by Maxwell's equations, to developing his metaphysical philosophy in "Process and Reality." The podcast proposes that Whitehead's "actual entities" or "actual occasions," the ultimate constituents of reality which undergo "concrescence" (coming into being), might be understood through the lens of electromagnetic field dynamics, especially considering modern scientific ideas like M-theory's additional dimensions and the concept of "strings" as fundamental entities. The paper also touches upon the enigmatic nature of Whitehead's "Eternal Objects," which exist outside of spacetime, and speculates on how they might connect with these electromagnetic occasions.
1. Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy: This topic explores the core ideas of Alfred North Whitehead's metaphysical system, developed in his later years, particularly in his work Process and Reality. Whitehead, initially a distinguished mathematician who collaborated on Principia Mathematica, shifted his focus to philosophy, seeking a comprehensive understanding of reality. His process philosophy fundamentally rejects the traditional view of the universe being made up of static, enduring substances. Instead, he posits that reality is a continuous, dynamic process of becoming. The basic building blocks of the universe are not static things but rather momentary events of experience he calls "actual occasions" or "actual entities." These actual entities are considered the "final real things" and are described as "drops of experience," complex and interdependent. They are temporally "thin," like "quanta" of experience, occurring as undivided "now" entities. Time's passage is measured by the transition from one actual entity to the next. Material objects, in this view, are actually "societies" of these actual occasions. Actual entities are dynamic and creatively alive, constantly developing in response to past and potential influences. They are deeply interconnected through what he terms the "principle of relativity," meaning they are related to all other actual entities. This perspective, viewing the world as an enormous set of interrelated living actualities of experience, led Whitehead to name his system "the philosophy of organism." His concept of "concrescence," coming from the Latin for "growing together" or "coming into existence," describes how a moment of experience, an actual entity, comes into being. Whitehead's philosophical system emphasizes process, interconnectedness through internal relations (where an occasion is defined by its relations to others, known as prehensions), experience as fundamental (extending beyond human consciousness), creativity and novelty (allowing for emergence and spontaneity), and the role of abstract entities called eternal objects.
2. James Clerk Maxwell's Electromagnetic Revolution: This topic delves into the groundbreaking scientific work of James Clerk Maxwell in the late 19th century and its profound impact on the scientific and intellectual landscape. Before Maxwell, science was largely dominated by Newtonian mechanics, which viewed the universe as composed of discrete particles interacting through instantaneous forces across an empty void. Electricity and magnetism were treated as separate phenomena. Maxwell's genius lay in unifying the experimental laws of electricity and magnetism into a coherent set of four mathematical equations. This unified framework predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves propagating at the speed of light, experimentally confirmed later by Hertz, demonstrating that light is an electromagnetic phenomenon and that invisible fields permeate the universe, carrying energy and momentum. This introduced the concept of the "field" as a fundamental entity, challenging the particle-centric view and suggesting a more interconnected and dynamic reality mediated by continuous fields. Maxwell's work revealed a deep underlying unity in nature, where seemingly distinct phenomena were manifestations of a deeper structure. His theory heavily relied on abstract mathematical formalism, highlighting the power of abstract thought in understanding the physical universe. The universe, through Maxwell's lens, was seen as inherently dynamic and energetic, a departure from the static, clockwork universe model. Although Maxwell initially hypothesized a luminiferous ether, experiments designed to detect it eventually failed, paving the way for Einstein's theories. While Whitehead, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on Maxwell's equations and was fascinated by demonstrations of electromagnetic fields, didn't directly apply Maxwell's equations in his philosophical work, the sources argue that Maxwell's revolution created an intellectual climate that profoundly influenced Whitehead's process philosophy, particularly the shift towards understanding reality in terms of dynamic, interconnected processes and fields rather than static substances.
3. Whitehead's Concept of Electromagnetic Occasions and Societies: This theme focuses specifically on Whitehead's idea that our current "cosmic epoch" is primarily characterized by a "society of electromagnetic occasions." In Whitehead's philosophy, a "society" is defined as an ordered nexus of actual entities that is self-sustaining. While societies endure, grow, and transform, they are also subject to decay and disappearance. Whitehead states that our special cosmic epoch is characterized by "electronic and protonic actual entities, and by yet more ultimate actual entities that can be dimly discerned in the quanta of energy." He emphasizes the dominance of Maxwell's equations in this epoch due to the presence of electrons and protons. He later states, with emphasis, that our present cosmic epoch is formed by an "electromagnetic society," a more special society contained within the geometric society, whose members are named "electromagnetic occasions." This electromagnetic society exhibits the physical electromagnetic field studied by physical science. The sources explore the implications of this idea, asking if electronic and protonic actual entities are inherent in human experience and what the "more ultimate actual entities" might be. They question how Whitehead's philosophical concept of electromagnetic occasions intersects with modern physics and physiology. Speculation is offered that the vast electromagnetic field dynamics of the universe might be the locus of these occasions. Furthermore, considering human physiology, the sources raise the possibility that we might be composed of electromagnetic occasions, suggesting that the enduring feature of human physiology throughout life might be the electromagnetic flux heat signature of the body, centered in the infrared band. The sources propose that the feasibility of Whitehead's intuited electromagnetic occasions can be explored further through theories like Pribram's holonomic brain theory and Bohm's implicate order.
4. Eternal Objects and the Non-Temporal Domain: This topic discusses Whitehead's concept of "Eternal Objects" as a crucial part of his speculative cosmology, representing realms or domains of reality outside of space and time, which he calls the "eternal domain." Unlike actual occasions, which exist in the temporal domain of spacetime, Eternal Objects are described as timeless and existing in eternity. They are proposed as the source of creativity, providing potentiality for the order, structure, and quality that become realized in the concrescing actual occasions and the material world, which is seen as "societies of actual occasions." Whitehead is less clear on the nature of these non-temporal domains compared to the spacetime domain, but he posits the existence of Eternal Objects as distinct from temporal entities. The sources emphasize that societies of actual occasions in spacetime do not create the complex of Eternal Objects. Therefore, the Eternal Objects must be involved in the creation or shaping of societies. A key problem raised is understanding how these timeless, non-spatial Eternal Objects connect to, communicate with, or affect the concrescing actual occasions in the spacetime domain. Whitehead himself did not provide a clear answer to this question. The sources speculate that modern scientific ideas about additional dimensions beyond our familiar four dimensions of timespace, such as the seven additional dimensions predicted by M-theory, might provide a possible framework for understanding how Eternal Objects could exist outside of spacetime while still being interconnected with it, as all things are interconnected in Whitehead's philosophy.
5. The Role of Mathematics in Bridging Domains and Modeling Reality: This topic highlights the significance of specific mathematical concepts, particularly Euler's Law and the Fourier Transform, as potential tools for understanding the relationship between different domains of reality, specifically the time/space domain and the frequency domain. The sources explain that Euler's Law, discovered in 1735, established the first concrete mathematical connection between the time domain (represented by real numbers in physics) and the frequency domain (represented by imaginary numbers). This law, involving the imaginary unit 'i' (the square root of minus one), maps the intersection of the real and imaginary axes on a complex plane, providing a way to mathematically model timespace/frequency phenomena. Euler's work directly led to the development of the Fourier Transform by Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier. The Fourier Transform allows for the conversion of signals between the time domain and the frequency domain, showing them to be two different aspects of the same thing (energy signals with information content) that can potentially exist in either domain or both. This mathematical transformation is fundamental to modern information theory and signal processing, ubiquitous in digital technology for converting information like audio or images (often represented in the time-space domain) into transmittable digital signals (often processed in the frequency domain) and vice versa. The sources suggest that just as mathematics bridges these domains in technology, nature might use similar mathematical functions to process electromagnetic signals in biological systems and potentially model the dynamics of electromagnetic societies. The sources also mention Norbert Wiener's application of Fourier analysis to study brain waves and his conjecture that molecular communication might involve frequency patterns, perhaps in the infrared range. The Mandelbrot Set is presented as a visual example of the complex (Real-Imaginary) domain, illustrating the intricate patterns and organic shapes that can emerge from purely mathematical calculations, suggesting a deep, timeless reality to mathematical concepts themselves.