Merge Ahead : Societies of Occasions of Experience

Whitehead calls all entities (the real in reality), actual occasions of experience. They normally act in groups with a common purpose. This is called a society. This merging of occasions can form a rock, a plant, an animal or any other "thing". Think of an atom of iron -- it could be part of a rock or a blood cell in a human body. Depending on how the society is formed the experience can be quite different. In a rock the society is fairly stable for millions of years while in the blood there is change over tenths of seconds. In a rock there is little organization and so each entity's power is mostly lost. In a more organized society, such as a human being, sub-societies (such as of blood or bone) bring their substance and experience together in a coordinated way that creates a higher form of society. In the way that a culture (a society)  is made up of people, people are made up of biological and social societies with each contributing societies made up of other coordinated societies... and so on.  It is societies that endure over longer periods of time and what we see as objects. Of course, the  occasions of experience that constitute societies are alone real. As each actual occasion is both a member of a society and part of a society, all entities are interconnected. Whitehead calls this interdependence Internal Relations.