Using an Experiential Vocabulary

If we do not have the experience vocabulary, we cannot comprehend an process, we cannot "read" that part of the world. Part of "reading" process is seeing in terms of process. Whitehead's use of new terms and the re-purposing of older terms encourages the adaption of these new terms to parallel the adaption of new experience. It is the prehension of language and experience.
 
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust


What is this device used for? Why would it matter to you? What would you call it?

Whitehead the Grammarian Enters A New Space

Grammarians believe that the language we use reflects the world like a mirror. The Book of Nature is the Original, The Book of Man is a Copy. The syntax of language is the syntax of the world. The same is true for vocabulary, grammar and the changes of the language over time (parallel evolution). All changes follow changes in the real world to maintain the usefulness of the language.

By studying all languages we get insight into the nature of the real world. When we discover new processes in the real world, such as sub-atomic realities, language must follow.  What do we see when we do not understand what we are looking at? When a disconnect between the two occurs, language loses its power. Re-establish the living relationship means regaining an essential balance, even though this means extending and adapting language. It is this leap of re-imagining our language as a broad experiential  vocabulary that Whitehead offers to us so that we may, once again, read the Book of Nature.

What is this?

Three Stages of Education

In his book, Aims of Education, Whitehead proposed that there were three stages of education: Romance, Precision and Generalization. We are attracted by the beauty of a subject, take that passion and turn it to precise and bounded action then synthesize our emotional and intellectual experience into more engaged interaction with the subject, growing more aware of the more detailed features of its beauty and the exactitude it demands as the price for proceeding in active relationship.  So the cycle starts again ...

Whitehead and Bertrand Russell

In collaboration with Bertrand Russell, he authored the landmark three-volume Principia Mathematica (1910, 1912, 1913). According to Whitehead, they initially expected the research to take about a year to complete. In the end, they worked together on the project for a decade.

Enabling processes

All more complex processes are made up of a number of prehended processes. The creation of the complex process is not always immediately realized, but must wait for a complete set of processes to coalesce. The first working laser was developed in 1959 and possible applications at the time included spectrometry, interferometry, radar, and nuclear fusion. It was a scientific curiosity.  It was called the solution without a problem.  Now the laser is used in optical networks, DVD and CD players and a thousand other applications makes it essential to our modern technology-based society.

Views of foreground and background

The contrast between the background and the foreground changes. The foreground or entity comes from the background (or just ground). It can range between a high contrast, sharp or a muted, vague difference. The relationship is sometimes vague (waves and the Moon's gravity) (light from Sun reflected by Moon) or highly differentiated  (Wave and Air) (Moon and Sky).

Entity parts not the entity

 All processes are made of other processes, therefore, the "parts" of a process are "non-process parts". An Corvette engine is "made" from the block, cylinders, valves, bolts and and many other parts but none of the parts is a Corvette engine. A collilary of unity plus one.

The Endless Regression of Process

If everything flows, how can we give a name to any experience we have? Even the experience of being ourselves?

All objects are processes. All naming is a process. All conceptual ideas are a process. All ways of ordering the experience are processes themselves. Even our point of view (consciousness)  is a fluid process.

We have, of course, conventions that allow us to live our daily lives. These conventions allow us to proceed by calling processes that are prehended -- objects. They are a frame.