Now to say that the past is present in actual occasions is to say that they prehend the forms bequeathed
them by past occasions.
The occasion is informed not only
by past occasions but also by possibilities.
They are decided
by the past occasions for the present one.
Not exact matches
During the
past 15 years in corporate America, I've worked for three different companies that were acquired
by larger organizations on four different
occasions.
Early on in the conference at two separate
occasions past attendees reached out to me as to how inspired they were
by my presentation last year where I shared the iQmetrix ESOP success story.
If we think of the
occasion as a whole, we may distinguish between the totality of causal influences inherited from the
past actual world and its causa sui which is finally expressed in the way it has completely integrated these causal influences (
by inclusion and / or exclusion) in the satisfaction.
One way to illustrate the full scope of this problem would be to look more closely at the horizonal character of the ecstatic
past in contrast with the
past of the ordinary interpretation of time, which is only understood
by negative contrast with the present.5 Here Mason, apparently following Whitehead, allows us to make a particularly striking contrast: we can never change the
past» he says (p. 95), meaning to evoke what Heidegger calls Dasein's «facticity» and to compare it with the objectivity with which perished actual
occasions confront the concrescing actual entity in Whitehead.
Hence, a neuronal
occasion in the human brain prehends the very minute disturbances of the electromagnetic field
occasioned by other neuronal
occasions in its immediate
past, since these «minor» disturbances are absolutely essential for its own reaction (self - constitution).
(5) The aim now needs a source outside the
occasion, which can not be provided
by the multiple
past actual
occasions, either individually or collectively.
Yet
by means of «presentational immediacy»
occasions project the concrescence of contemporaries as possible «atomizations of the potential extensive continuum according to available knowledge of their
past.
It is only
by virtue of God's ordering of the eternal objects that one conceptual feeling, conformal to that of a
past temporal actual
occasion, can give rise to a new conceptual feeling of an eternal object not present in the prehended
occasion.
Like the Leibnizian monad, the
occasion is individuated
by its individual essence, its particular perspective; but unlike the Leibnizian monad this essence is not predicated of the
occasion as a substantial substratum, but enters into the inner constitution of the
occasion as «a vector transmission of emotional feeling» or, in the language of physics, «the transmission of a form of energy» from
past occasions via the eternal objects that communicate the emotional form and make possible the subsequent reenactment
by the prehending
occasion (PR 315 / 479f.).
Hence I have previously proposed that initial aims be derived from propositional feelings
by God, whose logical subjects constituted the entire
past actual world of a nascent
occasion (PPCT 292n9; IPQ 13:350 - 52).
This would contravene his claim that all
past occasions are prehended
by the concrescent
occasion.
For full freedom of decision, the
occasion needs all possible alternatives, as conditioned
by the
past, including divine valuation.
There is a succession of
occasions that are largely informed
by their inheritance from the personal
past.
Although every actual
occasion must perish, it perishes
by the subject of the
occasion becoming object or
by the transition of the present into the
past.
To be an actual
occasion is to occur and then become part of the
past, succeeded
by other actual
occasions.
We find direction in the present as much
by studying our
past errors as
by finding inspiration in those
occasions when our ancestors in the faith used their freedom wisely.
The tension I have in mind is generated
by (i) this process of temporally ordered actual
occasions articulating his vision of the metaphysical ultimatum — atomism — and (ii) the complex product of this process which he so obviously cherished as an organic interconnectedness — the web of interrelations which comprise a world so badly misunderstood
by the science Whitehead himself prehended from out of his immediate
past.
There is an order - isomorphism between the following two sets: the set (ordered
by later) of the actual
occasions in the causal
past of a given subject actual
occasion, and the set (ordered
by earlier) of the simple physical feelings in the process of concrescence of that subject actual
occasion.
In terms of final causation the actual
occasion guides its own experience, but at the same time it is being guided
by the
past in terms of efficient causation.
For, no matter what is meant
by an objectified actual
occasion, it is almost universally agreed that the objectified
past occasions are data for the feelings originated
by the new concrescence or subject.
The effects of
past occasions are identified as emanating from a region of space defined
by PI.»
Looked at from the point of view of its prehension of
past occasions, an actual entity (say, in the personally ordered society of actual entities which constitute the «self» of a human being) can be viewed as conditioned
by, caused
by, the other entities which it objectifies.
Part of the confusion of Cobb's position stems from the fact that the extensive continuum, conceived of as a set of relations underlying
past, present, and future, is part actual and part potential — actual in as far as it is constituted
by actual entities enjoying actual relationships legislating what are real potentialities governing the relationships of future
occasions; and merely potential in so far as these relationships are viewed as factors determining what forms of definiteness are, and are not, possible as factors in future fact.
Thus in one moment the soul would be constituted
by the present reception of stimuli from the ear drums, while inheriting from a
past occasion that was stimulated from the big toe.
If our world were a centered universe, a universe with an all - seeing (i.e., all - prehending) God with the ability to introduce, on his own, new information pertaining to the
past into the experience of emerging actual
occasions by means of their subjective aims, then our world would be a much more harmoniously ordered world than it in fact is.
One possible position, held in the
past by Charles Hartshorne, is to affirm an alternative I have rejected, i.e., to affirm that God does prehend actual
occasions as they are concrescing.
Having eliminated the need for God to be ground for the remote
past,
by eliminating categoreally the possibility of prehending the remote
past, we must flow ask whether God is necessary to enable an actual
occasion to prehend a contiguous
past occasion.
The Whiteheadian answer to these questions is simply that the
past is preserved as objectively immortal in the consequent nature of God and has what efficacy it has on the present as a result of the role played
by God at the birth of every actual
occasion.
In a simple, unstructured environment oblique
occasions will offer no significant alternatives to the aim presented
by the dominant
past entity and concrescence will be essentially reiteration of prior forms of definiteness experience will be at the level of what Whitehead calls, technically, physical purposes.
Process and Reality, An Essay in Cosmology 345 - 346 and 435 imply clearly that (b) is the alternative Whitehead had in mind, for in each passage he presents a situation where a given
occasion, X, inherits from another
occasion, Y, in its
past, which in turn inherits from Z, which is in its
past — the point of each passage is to say that X inherits doubly from Z, both immediately and as mediated
by Y. Z is not in the immediate
past of X, and yet X is exhibited as prehending Z directly.
Hartshorne's interpretation of God resolves the problem of the
past, granted, but it does so only
by violating the principle of contemporary independence and assuming that it is possible for the region that constitutes the standpoint of one
occasion to include the regions that constitute the standpoints of other
occasions, an assumption which I trust
by now has been seen to be quite incompatible with Whitehead's scheme of ideas.
It is
by reason of the body, with its miracle of order, that the treasures of the
past environment are poured into the living
occasion.
To whatever extent in primitive men or young children dominant
occasions of experience are determined more
by new stimuli received through the body than
by continuity with
past dominant
occasions, the requisite identity through time is lacking.
This remainder is far larger in human experience than in most other
occasions of experience, but no event is wholly determined without remainder
by its
past.
Moreover, in developing this rejoinder to Hume and in attempting to distinguish between the «present» implied
by «presentational immediacy» and the «
past» of causal efficacy, Whitehead on
occasion makes inconsistent claims.
A part, and a very important part, of the relations
by which each new
occasion is constituted is its prehension of its own
past, that is, of
past occasions in the life of the same soul.
Where
past occasions are objectified
by their physical poles, all that are not contiguous are mediated through the contiguous
occasions.
If this divine efficient causality transcends the
past conditions in some unlimited way, then the
occasion would be completely determined
by its
past, and could not exercise its own self - creativity.
So far as this principle is concerned, every
past occasion, near or far in time or space, might be directly prehended
by every becoming
occasion.
They are constituted
by their relations to the
occasions in their
past.
Third, the new possibilities (relevant to the
past, of course) are seen and felt
by God and become the «lure» (in Whitehead's own word) to which
occasions may respond, to their (and to God's) enrichment.
While this twofold claim is in accord with Cobb's interest in arguing for Jesus» «causally efficacious nonexistence,» or the «unmediated prehension
by a presently concrescing actual
occasion of
occasions in the remote
past,» it is not in accord with his remarks concerning the providential guidance of God.
As prehended
by a certain actual
occasion, God is that unity of feelings which result from the integration of his primordial nature with his prehensions of the
past actual world of that actual
occasion.8
This atomization can not be determined exclusively
by the influence of the
occasions in its own
past, for
occasions which have already arrived at their respective satisfachons are not able to legislate what specific bo, mds finally inform the loci or regions of succeeding
occasions.
This allows, in turn, the composition of the subjective aim of the concrescing
occasion at its own self - actualization being determined finally
by its own modification or shaping of the various possibilities granted it through the aims at fulfillment for it of all the actual
occasions in its
past (CNT 96).
Elsewhere Cobb is careful to specify that both God and man are best characterized as living persons consisting respectively of societies of actual
occasions (CNT 188, 192).1 In the present context, consequently, it is clear that we are to understand God to be present in man in the same manner in which one actual
occasion is present within another and that this presence concerns the aims at the fulfillment of a concrescing
occasion in a living person
by the
occasions or «prehended data» in its
past.
The great problems of history with which we must come to terms tend to appear to us not as members of a chain organically tied to the
past and growing into the future, but as cataclysmic interruptions of the normalcy of peace and harmony,
occasioned by evil men and evil institutions.