Category: Albert Einstein
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A Cartoon Intro to Whitehead’s Organic Cosmology
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Thinking with Carlo Rovelli: The Physics of Consciousness
Last summer, I traveled to the Gran Sasso Institute in L’Aquila, Italy to participate in a conference bringing physicists and philosophers together to rehash the famous debate in 1922 between Einstein and Bergson. My paper (which should be published soon) brought quantum physicist Carlo Rovelli and Whitehead into the mix. Yesterday I came across this…
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Concrescence and the Implicate Order: Whitehead and Bohm in Dialogue
“In our experience there is always the dim background from which we derive and to which we return. We are not enjoying a limited dolls’ house of clear and distinct things, secluded from all ambiguity. In the darkness beyond there ever looms the vague mass which is the universe begetting us.” Alfred North Whitehead (Science…
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Setting the Akashic Record Straight (final response to David Long about emergence and panpsychism)
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What is at stake in cosmological inquiry?
Some reflections after my debate with David Long. Also riffing on what I wanted to speak with John Vervaeke about (our dialogue should be posted on John’s channel in a few weeks).
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![Physicalism and Its Discontents: A Study in Whitehead’s Panexperientialist Alternative [draft]](https://footnotes2plato.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/fluorescence.jpg?w=1024)
Physicalism and Its Discontents: A Study in Whitehead’s Panexperientialist Alternative [draft]
UPDATE: Here is a PDF of the final draft accepted for publication under the revised title “The Varieties of Physicalist Ontology: A Study in Whitehead’s Process-Relational Alternative.” I’ve just finished drafting this article, which will hopefully be featured in a special issue of the Journal of Philosophy, Theology, and the Sciences focused on panpsychism. It still…
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Physics and Freedom
“Scientists, animated by the purpose of proving they are purposeless, constitute an interesting subject for study.” -Alfred North Whitehead, The Function of Reason I’m a frequent reader of the theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder‘s blog Backreaction. She has helped me better understand many difficult concepts in contemporary theoretical physics. I’ve benefited in particular from the times she has weighed in on…
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From pedagogy to cosmology with A. N. Whitehead
A student in my course this semester asked a great question recently: “How is Whitehead’s cosmology related to his pedagogy?” Many commentators find it strange that Whitehead decided to include (and indeed to conclude) his book Aims of Education with a few chapters on relativistic space and time. What on earth does his alternative interpretation…
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Time and Experience in Physics and Philosophy [draft]
Below is the introduction of paper I presented at a conference in L’aquila, Italy in April 2019. The conference aimed to revisit important philosophical issues related to the famous 1922 debate between Einstein and Bergson. HERE is the conference site (it is in Italian, so you’ll need to ask Google to translate it for you).…
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Who is Alfred North Whitehead & What is Process Philosophy?
Environmental lawyer, philosopher, and fellow Whitehead enthusiast Tam Hunt and I started an email exchange a few weeks ago after I stumbled upon his interview with the physicist Carol Rovelli. Our emails grew into a pretty extensive conversation on all things Whitehead, which I am sharing below. We discuss the importance of Whitehead’s ideas for…
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An Evening with Alfred North Whitehead
Here are some clips from my video call with students earlier tonight wherein I discuss Whitehead’s cosmology, including his views of God, creativity, time, immortality, and education.
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“Electrons Don’t Think” by Sabine Hossenfelder
The following is a comment I posted on the physicist and blogger Sabine Hossenfelder’s blog Backreaction to a post titled “Electrons Don’t Think.” https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2019/01/electrons-dont-think.html Hi Sabine. I discovered your blog last night after Googling “Carlo Rovelli and Alfred North Whitehead.” It brought me to Tam Hunt’s interview with Rovelli. I have been studying Rovelli’s popular…
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Integrating Space-Time: Non-Dual Idealism, or Physics of the World-Soul?
Metaphysics is serious play. Serious because (if done well) it demands a reckoning with death, with limit as such, with finitude and necessity. Play because (if done well) it frees us from our perceived finitude to partake in the process of realization itself. Materialism and idealism, though mutuality exclusive as metaphysical positions, are nonetheless symbiotically…
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Whitehead’s Quantum of Explanation: Thinking with Auxier and Herstein
“Our central idea is that concrete existence explains the abstract aspects of experience and not vice-versa.” -Auxier and Herstein “So long as necessity is taken to be the guarantor of rationality, the conception of rationality advocated will be as useless to science as it is to practical life.” -Auxier and Herstein Below I offer some…
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“Intersect: Science & Spirituality” – a conference in Telluride, CO
INTERSECT: Science & Spirituality Join us for a 2-Day Conversational Conference (July 27-29th) for the purpose of Exploring Syngergies between the world of Science and the world of Spirituality. Topics to include Cosmology, Ecology, Sustainability, and Consciousness. Speakers include: Drew Dellinger, John Hausdoerffer, Matthew Segall and Brian Swimme (via video). Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/intersect-science-spirituality-tickets-4239963846
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Physics of the World-Soul, a short course on Schelling and Whitehead at Schumacher College next week
>More information on this course<< Recommended Readings (PDF)
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Schumacher College summer course update: “Physics of the World-Soul”
https://www.schumachercollege.org.uk/courses/short-courses/physics-of-the-world-soul Schumacher College has decided to make my week on Schelling and Whitehead a stand alone course called “Physics of the World-Soul.” It will take place June 18-22. More information available at the link above.
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Searching for Stars: A Conversation with Alan Lightman
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‘Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine’ by Alan Lightman
[Update 4/19: listen to the interview here] On Thursday at CIIS, I’ll interview physicist and novelist Alan Lightman, author of the just published Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine (2018). As of this writing, Lightman’s book is #1 in Metaphysics on Amazon.com.* Lightman begins his reflections in a cave in Font-de-Gaume, France, famous for its adornment of…
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Introduction to Process Philosophy
Below is a lecture recorded for the online course PARP 6060 02 – Introduction to Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness at CIIS.edu. I first discuss the meaning of philosophy from a Whiteheadian perspective, then run through a brief history of philosophy as relevant to process thought (Parmenides, Heraclitus, Plato, Aristotle, Copernicus, Descartes, Newton, Kant and his…
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Whiteheadian commentary on contemporary scientific cosmology: Are the fundamental constants changing?
The following is a lecture from a course I’m currently teaching called Whitehead’s Adventure in Cosmology: Toward a Physics of the World-Soul. Watch the PBS Space Time video first for context. “The animal body is only the more highly organized and immediate part of the general environment for its dominant actual occasion [i.e., its consciousness],…
Footnotes2Plato 