An Evening with Alfred North Whitehead

clips from my video call with students wherein I discuss Whitehead's cosmology, including his views of God, creativity, time, immortality, and education.

[davidorth]

Back in the 1970s I was a philosophy major - after a short stint of being a math major. The head of the department liked Whitehead as a way of gathering up philosophical conflicts and finding some more primordial position (or was it more advanced? - both I would say) where there was a space for both sides of a conflict as poles in a broader field. But at the time, I did not understand the details of Whitehead's vision. I don't remember that this professor ever really taught Whitehead systematically. Nevertheless, I came away with a vague sense of his paradigm that took hold of me and I now understand how it helped me all along to enjoy the insights of various positions without feeling like I had to decide finally which was solely right. In the end, through my graduate studies in phenomenology and epistemology I came across Heidegger, Polanyi, philosophy of technology, and other things that gave me permission to return to the arts and crafts of my childhood, now with an understanding that these were not just fun and practical, but a way of being in the world and engaging with conflicts as mutually beneficial poles in a broader field. Anyway, I have recently been listening to your talks and enjoying a more complete view of Whitehead's paradigm. I can see how my meager exposure to Whitehead gave me permissions to include and transcend, rather than to batten down my philosophical hatches. I would eventually find my own way out of philosophy and into the arts, but I can see where my early exposure to Whitehead had this element of craft that I loved. Craft is complicated like Whitehead. The physical materials must come into contact with ideas and feeling where they all transform each each other. Neither gets the upper hand, they both influence and are influenced. Network all the way down. Makes me wish I had studied Whitehead in more detail back then. But in a weird way, working as a craftsman has taken me down a similar path where complexities and hermetic thinking are really necessary. Thank you so much. I was happy to subscribe to your channel. I am almost 70. You look like you are still in your 20s and this gives me hope that your generation is fully capable of finding a healthy way through the extremities of the last 40 years! Be well.

[jackluo]

This channel is a gem! Surfed a bunch of 'philosophical channels I got hooked on yours. You are really a Giant footnote to Plato!

[davidtanphilosophy]

Thank you for posting this! I am struck by the confluence of Marxist ontology and Whiteheads process philosophy. Concerning the difficulty of reading, Whitehead, and pretty much any philosopher, I’ve heard a phrase that says “you need to read with your eyes closed”.

[sunyata]

Really appreciate the talk. I'll never grasp Whitehead in his depth but I can relate to your restless questing and think what you're doing is awesome. My gut (if that means anything at at all) tells me that the conclusion "matter creates consciousness" requires more of a leap out of common sense or logic than most suspect. The mere fact that existence *IS*, to me seems to suggest that experience is something more basic than the accidental result of "stuff." We have so denied that in our culture that I think, we feel that a willful rebelliousness or wishful thinking must be involved with anyone who suspects otherwise, and that they must be saying the universe is something wildly different that totally defies what we know to be true... rather than adjusts it... (I'm trailing off). Anyway, whatever this universe is, it is strange that it envelops parts of itself within such a stubbornly convincing conclusion... I am not sure if the question "why" it does that is a real question or just a question my limited frame of perspective would generate out of itself.

[mickhurley]

Chris Brown The Universe is Not Expanding sent me here. Not heard of Whitehead before. Interesting character.

[charlesdavis]

Process Philosophy points directly toward a state of conscious called "conscious immortality."

[terriconti]

Thank you for posting this. I enjoy these types of lectures & appreciate your sharing it with the public. Have you heard of Tim Freke? I think you would enjoy his book "Soul Story: The evolution of the purpose of life." I find his ideas tie all this together for me.

[wanderingpoet]

Just one thing I would like to add to this wonderful analysis. It seems to me that if you yourself became pure potentiality, then you could know the forms in their fullness, rather than them always receding over the horizon of actuality. This is a paradoxical quasi-Buddhist take...

[lawriecoombs]

I'm a Marxist and a materialist - I don't see this as being in contradiction with a lot of this, as I understand it.

[firefireable]

do you offer private lessons Mr. A.P. ?

[JasonOnEarth]

Can we have a 3d view of your room please? I'm just kidding. Always love you fellow good guy. Peace and take care. (I was not being sarcastic but silly in my humor, I actually do love the 3d vids. I wish more people did them. It takes others more into the video if that makes sense)

[raycosmic]

Ontology = the systematic study of the nature of Being.

Being aware of being aware is unmodulated by the 5 senses, thus unfettered, which is the resonant inner state frequency closest in alignment with the frequency of the all-inclusive Absolute, where all things are possible (Wisdom and Understanding).

Since to seek Wisdom and Understanding is the Wisest thing that one can do, Wisdom is the principle thing. Therefore get Wisdom and with all thy getting, get Understanding.

As the eye is a lamp unto the body, so is perspective to the Mind. Therefore, if your eye (perspective on Life) be single (all-inclusive), then your whole Being will be full of Life and the Light of Wisdom and Understanding.

The Rhythm of Life is a movement and a rest. The optimum (Heaven), is always found somewhere between the extremes of too much and too little (hell).

Pleasantness is the Rose found at the Heart of the Optimum. Just so.

Narrow is the Way, and few there are that find it.

[mandyshanks]

This guy is lovely. My advice to him is experience your own life and forget these last nut jobs.

[gariusjarfar]

Masters of deep thought ought to know this isn't the 1st time we've emerged out of high tech into hunter gatherer.

[mandyshanks]

He says if you spend time on Whitehead you will see a different thing. OK
Why?
I don’t want to struggle through someone else’s mad mind.
Why waste your life on a dead polyp.? Sad.