1.58 Different Levels of Physicality

Section 55 (first updated 02.27.2021)

In Chapter VIII of Process and Reality, Alfred North Whitehead develops his account of perceptual objects within his broader philosophy of organism. For Whitehead, objects are not limited to the ordinary, everyday things we see and touch. There are different kinds of objects. Some are perceptual objects—those immediately given in experience, such as colors, sounds, textures, and shapes. Others are what he calls scientific objects—entities such as electrons, fields, or geometrical structures, which are abstracted by intellectual analysis rather than directly sensed.[1]

Whitehead argues that nature is fundamentally an arrangement of events rather than a collection of static substances. What we call “objects” are stabilized patterns within this arrangement. A change in arrangement determines when a potential event becomes the present moment. Each present moment is the culmination of prior events reorganized into a new unity. Thus, the world is not composed of enduring material blocks but of successive acts of becoming structured into coherent patterns.[2]

When Whitehead speaks of objects for faculties such as sense and perception—that is, sense-objects—he emphasizes that an object, in this context, is an event as it is related to a particular mode of experience. The fact that an object is limited to a faculty like sensation does not mean it is merely subjective. Rather, it means that the faculty defines how the event is apprehended. An object is what is available to a given mode of prehension. In this sense, the structure of perception determines the character of the perceptual object.

We must be careful not to confuse this with absolute subjectivism. Whitehead does not claim that the individual mind creates objects out of nothing. Instead, he argues that objects are events constituted through relations, and that perception is one mode of relational integration. To say that the object is “for” an observer is not to say that the observer produces it. It is to say that the object is defined within the relational field that includes the observer. The observer and the phenomenon are not separable substances; they are internally related within the event of perception.[3]

This insight parallels certain interpretations of quantum theory. In quantum physics, what we call a “particle” is not simply a tiny solid object but a quantized event—an excitation of a field.[4] The properties observed (position, momentum, spin) are determined in relation to the experimental arrangement. This does not imply that the observer invents the particle; rather, the experimental context defines how the event manifests. Similarly, in Whitehead’s metaphysics, an object is an event as structured within a nexus of relations, including perceptual faculties.

Thus, perceptual objects and scientific objects differ not in reality but in mode of abstraction. The perceptual object is the event as felt; the scientific object is the event as conceptualized. Both are abstractions from the deeper reality of actual occasions. The arrangement of nature—the structured continuity of events—determines what becomes present. The present moment is not a static slice of time but a unification of past relations into a new configuration.

To say that objects are events for sensible faculties is to affirm the indivisible relation between observer and phenomenon. The object is not independent in the sense of being detached from all relations, nor is it merely subjective. It is relationally constituted. The world, for Whitehead, is a dynamic web of events, and objects are the stabilized patterns that emerge within that web as it is perceived, conceptualized, and reconstituted in each moment of becoming.

Footnotes

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Part II, especially Chapter VIII, on sense-objects and scientific objects.
[2] Ibid., on actual occasions as the fundamental units of becoming.
[3] Ibid., on prehension and the internal relatedness of subject and object.
[4] Standard interpretations of quantum field theory describe particles as excitations of underlying fields rather than enduring material substances.

A scientific object is equal, in one important sense, to what the Greeks would have called a Form. For Alfred North Whitehead, these are not merely hypothetical models that attempt to represent a world forever beyond access. Rather, in a rationalist ontology, the world itself as substance is abstract. This means that reality is first an infinite flux of potentiality—what the Greeks called energeia, and what we today describe as energy. Raw energy, like light from a star, is undifferentiated. Yet it is precisely this undifferentiated flux that serves as the raw material from which a conceptual framework derives a model of reality.

Thus, reality exists in an infinite, indeterminate, and undifferentiated way. Within this potentiality, however, there is an aspect of itself that we call the observer. The observer can be described as analogous to the void or to nothing—not as a mere lack of things or negation, but as the positive power that appears as negative. The first principle of “nothing” is not emptiness but the condition whereby things can be conceived. It is the ground in which both conceptual coming-into-being and physical coming-into-being are possible. At this fundamental level of reality, the distinction between abstract and concrete is superfluous. The difference is theoretical only. In reality, abstract and concrete are the same substance independent of the observer. Yet through evolutionary development in time, the observer develops modes of conception—what we call mind—through which a model of reality is constructed out of raw infinite energy. The mind uses light in order to see; through seeing, it forms geometric relations into objects; through touch, it experiences contact and the boundary of one thing against another. These distinctions emerge from the activity of conception.

Whitehead emphasizes this multiplicity of object-types when he writes:

“In discussing the relations of situation in particular and of ingression in general the first requisite is to note that objects are of radically different types… It is necessary therefore in discussing them to determine what types of objects are under consideration. There are I think an indefinite number of types of objects. Happily we need not to think of them all.”[1]

An object, for Whitehead, is defined by the conception from which it is derived—both by the origin of its generation and by the means through which it is maintained as an identity. The coming into existence of an object is equated with its entering into a reference frame; this is what Whitehead calls its ingression.[2] An object does not float independently of context; it “ingresses” into an event or situation and thereby acquires determinate character.

The passage of nature is therefore not merely space in which objects move, nor time as an external measure of movement. Space and time are themselves abstractions from the more fundamental processes of nature. They are factors derived from the relational structure of events. There are always two interplays of conception: first, a set of occurrences happening for an observer; second, the observer itself as an object happening within a set of occurrences. The observer is not outside the process but one event among others, integrated within the same passage of nature.

Thus, scientific objects, perceptual objects, and abstract Forms are different modes of ingression within the same underlying flux. Energy becomes determinate through relational structuring. The object is not a self-subsisting block but a stabilized pattern of reference within the ongoing activity of nature. In this sense, abstraction is not opposed to reality; abstraction is the very mode in which reality becomes intelligible.

Footnotes

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, discussion of types of objects and ingression (Part II).
[2] Ibid., on the concept of “ingression” as the mode by which eternal objects enter into actual occasions.

For Alfred North Whitehead, conception belongs to the passage of nature itself, for events—including space and time—are objects for the observer. Space and time are not containers in which events occur; they are abstractions from the relational structure of events. The observer does not stand outside the passage of nature but is one event within it.

To clarify the notion of situation, we may recall René Descartes, who describes a situation as the arrangement of opposing forces whose commonality is the reference they share to one another.[1] A situation is therefore not merely a location but a relational structure. It is an object whose unity lies in the mutual reference of its constituents.

For Whitehead, the idea of situation has importance in three types of objects: sense objects, perceptual objects, and scientific objects. These three types form an ascending hierarchy, in which each member presupposes the one below it. Sense objects form the “base of the hierarchy,” but not in the sense of being the most fundamental in ontology. Rather, they are basic for experience. The objects of sense-awareness (i) do not share in the passage of nature as events, and (ii) are not relations between other factors of nature. They are qualities, such as a particular blue or a particular sound.[2]

Sense objects mark the point where conception reaches a limit—where a conception is situated. Sense-awareness is more fundamental than any particular sense such as sight or touch, because it is the capacity that allows part of an event to stand out as an object and become the subject for a sensible faculty. When perception conceives a set of objects situated in an event, it selects particular objects over others. This selection is the fundamental function of recognition. It concerns how one object can be distinct and clear for perception, while others in the same situation remain background. For example, why can I look at a pole and have only that object occupy the centre of my attention? Why is there alternation between which objects occupy that centre? This shifting foreground indicates that situation is not mere position but dimensional emphasis within a relational field.

Situation concerns not merely where an object is placed, but the dimensional structure in which it is apprehended. The dimension of the object is determined by where it is situated within conception. Every object implicitly carries a reference frame in which its physical contents are moulded into abstract qualities. Abstract qualities arise as hypotheses, which are tested and confirmed by the physical processes of generation and corruption. The advance between these two endpoints constitutes the life of a conception.

Whitehead explains:

“But it is always a relatum and never the relation itself. Examples of sense-objects are a particular sort of colour, say Cambridge blue, or a particular sort of sound, or a particular sort of smell, or a particular sort of feeling. I am not talking of a particular patch of blue as seen during a particular second of time at a definite date. Such a patch is an event where Cambridge blue is situated… It is natural for us to think of the note in itself, but in the case of colour we are apt to think of it merely as a property of the patch.”[3]

Thus, a sense-object (Cambridge blue) is distinct from the event in which it is situated (the patch of blue seen at a time). The situation is the event in which the sense-object ingresses.

Whitehead further notes that philosophical confusion arises from ignoring multiple relations:

“The difficulties which cluster around the relation of situation arise from the obstinate refusal of philosophers to take seriously the ultimate fact of multiple relations… when John gives that book to Thomas there are three relata, John, that book, and Thomas.”[4]

A situation is such a multiple relation: it involves percipient, object, and conditioning environment.

Whitehead categorizes events into four overlapping classes:

1. Percipient events
2. Situations
3. Active conditioning events
4. Passive conditioning events[5]

The percipient event is the relevant bodily state of the observer. In a human, it is the bodily organism; in an electron, it may be electromagnetic energy. The situation is the environment in which something is conceived—for example, where one sees blue behind a mirror.

Active conditioning events are those events whose character is particularly relevant for the situation to be what it is for that percipient event—such as the coat, the mirror, and the lighting of the room. Passive conditioning events are the rest of nature, those events not directly determining the immediate character of the situation.

Whitehead writes:

“All we know of the characters of the events of nature is based on the analysis of the relations of situations to percipient events… Nature would be an unfathomable enigma to us and there could be no science.”[6]

The percipient and the situation together mediate the relation between active and passive conditioning events. The percipient discloses passive conditioning events. Yet the percipient itself, situated within what it discloses, is also an active conditioning event. It is an object to which things passively happen, yet which also conditions its situation.

Whitehead continues:

“In general the situation is an active conditioning event… But the example of the mirror shows us that the situation may be one of the passive conditioning events. We are then apt to say that our senses have been cheated…”[7]

The percipient is indivisible from the general active conditioning event. The active conditioning event gives the situation its self-determination—its character as an object in its own right. However, an active conditioning event can become passive when conceived from another perspective—for example, when a mirror alters the apparent situation. What is active in one relational context may be passive in another.

Thus, conception is not separate from the passage of nature; it is one of its modes. Events, situations, percipient states, and conditioning environments form a structured multiplicity. Situation is the relational dimension in which an object is situated—not merely spatially, but in the full sense of its reference to observer, environment, and conditioning process.

Footnotes

[1] René Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, on situation as relational arrangement.
[2] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Part II, discussion of sense-objects.
[3] Ibid., p.149.
[4] Ibid., discussion of multiple relations.
[5] Ibid., p.152.
[6] Ibid., p.153.
[7] Ibid.

The whole point in Whitehead’s discussion of active and passive conditioning events, percipient events, and situations is ultimately to describe that reality is more abstract than it first appears. By “abstract,” we do not mean unreal. Rather, we mean that what reality fundamentally is—and what it feels like or appears to us—must be understood as a system of Reason, an abstract system. In this respect, Alfred North Whitehead argues that nature operates logically prior to our explicit logical systems. One might loosely compare it to an original “AI model,” but even that is misleading, since “artificial” implies something derivative of human design. Here we are speaking of the very source of reason in nature itself—a natural source. Before computers, before symbolic logic as a formal discipline, nature already functioned through relational, abstract principles.[1]

In Whitehead’s scheme, the development of this system reaches a stage in which, as part of its situation, a percipient event arises. That is, within the ongoing occurrence of events that would otherwise unfold without being experienced, there appears an aspect that observes. This observer does not stand outside nature; it is an event within nature. Yet it is an event that experiences other events. What would otherwise occur as merely active conditioning events now includes within itself an experiencing factor. The experiences of events in nature introduce an active role into what might otherwise seem merely passive. Thus, within this natural system of reason—call it nature or reality—there emerges an element that experiences occurrences and can, through action, determine aspects of them.

This produces a philosophical conundrum: which came first? Was there an observer that caused events to come into being? Or is the observer itself a byproduct of already occurring events, perceiving and sensing objects within those events? Whitehead’s answer resists this opposition. The observer is not the creator of events, nor merely a passive product. The percipient event is one moment in the relational process of nature itself. The distinction between active and passive is internal to that process.[2]

Perception itself is more abstract than we commonly suppose. If we examine our faculties, they are not equally concrete in their reception of reality as events of experience. Perception, for example, is a more abstract form of “touch.” Sight seems distant and immaterial, yet biologically it is still contact. In the retina of the eye there are photoreceptor cells—rods and cones—which respond to light stimuli.[3] These cells function, metaphorically speaking, like tiny receptive fingers. They do not grasp solid matter, but they are stimulated by photons. Light contacts the retina; electrochemical signals are transmitted to the brain; and from this contact images and conceptions of external objects are formed.

Thus, sight is still a form of contact—contact with light. It is the lightest form of touch. By contrast, ordinary tactile touch is more concrete: the skin is pressed directly against an object; pressure receptors are stimulated; and with sufficient force one object can intrude upon, deform, or crush another. Touch displays impact and resistance in a way that sight abstracts from. Yet both are modes of prehensive relation—different degrees of abstraction in the reception of events.

In this sense, perception is not the passive reception of an already finished world. It is an active participation in the relational system of nature. The eye touching light, the skin pressing against matter, the brain organizing signals—these are percipient events within the wider field of active and passive conditioning events. Reality is therefore not divided into dead matter and separate mind. Rather, the emergence of percipient events is one stage in the unfolding of an abstract system of reason that constitutes nature itself.

The observer does not stand over against reality as something alien. The observer is one of the ways in which reality becomes aware of its own passage. The question “which caused which?” dissolves when we see that both observer and observed are moments within the same ongoing relational process. Nature is logical before it is consciously known as logical; perception is an abstract form of contact; and experience is the internal articulation of a system whose structure is reason itself.

Footnotes

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, on the rational structure of nature and actual occasions as processes of becoming.
[2] Ibid., discussion of percipient events, situations, and active and passive conditioning events.
[3] Standard physiology of vision: photoreceptor cells (rods and cones) in the retina convert light into neural signals transmitted via the optic nerve to the brain.

The Relation of Sense-Objects and Perceptual Objects

We automatically think that perceptual objects are subordinate to sense-objects because perception is one kind of sensation. However, within the scope of nature as a developing ingression, perceptual objects constitute a more abstract feel than sense-objects, yet at the same time they are more concrete and nuanced in their integration.

Alfred North Whitehead writes:

“It is a law of nature that in general the situation of a sense-object is not only the situation of that sense-object for one definite percipient event, but is the situation of a variety of sense-objects for a variety of percipient events. For example, for any one percipient event, the situation of a sense-object of sight is apt also to be the situations of sense-objects of sight, of touch, of smell, and of sound.” (p.154)[1]

This passage shows that sense-objects do not occur in isolation. A visual sense-object, such as a patch of blue, is typically situated in a context that also allows for touch, smell, and sound. The same situation supports multiple ingressions of different sense-objects for different percipient events. Thus, sense-objects overlap and correlate within a unified situation.

In purely physical terms, every object has a correspondent void; that is, every object occupying space-time implies a standpoint from which it may be perceived. This standpoint is classified as the percipient event. Geometrically speaking, one may metaphorically define the percipient event by the statement that “the center of a sphere is any point in its circumference.” The meaning of this analogy is that every point can function as a center relative to its own reference frame. The percipient event is the conception occupying a body and, from that viewpoint, acts as the reference point with which every other point correlates. A body characterizes a point from which consciousness originates as a conception.

Whitehead further explains:

“Furthermore this concurrence in the situations of sense-objects has led to the body—i.e. the percipient event—so adapting itself that the perception of one sense-object in a certain situation leads to a subconscious sense-awareness of other sense-objects in the same situation… I call this sort of correlation the ‘conveyance’ of one sense-object by another.”[2]

Even when we purely see something without touching or smelling it, subconscious memory triggers associated sense-awareness. If you see a blue flannel coat, you may subconsciously feel its texture or recall its warmth. If you are a smoker, the sight of a familiar coat may evoke the faint aroma of tobacco. This is not judgment but a correlation of ingressions across sense modalities.

Whitehead clarifies the status of perceptual objects:

“The perceptual object is not primarily the issue of a judgment. It is a factor of nature directly posited in sense-awareness. The element of judgment comes in when we proceed to classify the particular perceptual object.”[3]

Thus, the perceptual object precedes conceptual classification. First, we apprehend “that coat” as a unified perceptual object. Only afterward do we judge, “That is flannel,” and recall properties and uses. The perceptual object is therefore more than a single sense-object; it is a structured integration of multiple sense-objects within a situation.

Here it is helpful to connect this with Immanuel Kant and his notion of apperception.[4] Kant distinguishes between mere sensation and the unified self-conscious awareness that synthesizes sensations into an object. Apperception is the act whereby the manifold of intuition is brought under the unity of consciousness. In Whitehead’s language, the perceptual object emerges from the integration of sense-objects within a percipient event. It is not merely a bundle of sensations but a unified factor of nature as directly posited. In both thinkers, perception involves synthesis: the organization of sensory data into an experienced object.

Perception in this context is not limited to sight. It includes the total coordinated awareness of sense-objects as integrated into a situation. Sight, touch, smell, and sound are different ingressions, but the perceptual object is their unified presentation within a percipient event. Perception is therefore more abstract than any single sensation because it integrates multiple sense-objects; yet it is more concrete than a scientific abstraction because it is directly given in experience.

In summary, sense-objects are particular qualities—colors, sounds, textures—while perceptual objects are the unified factors of nature constituted through the correlation and conveyance of those qualities within a situation. The percipient event serves as the bodily reference point from which this integration occurs. Judgment and classification follow afterward. The perceptual object is thus neither a mere sensation nor a theoretical construct, but a structured, relational unity within the passage of nature.

Footnotes

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p.154.
[2] Ibid., discussion of the “conveyance” of sense-objects.
[3] Ibid., on the perceptual object as directly posited in sense-awareness.
[4] Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, on the transcendental unity of apperception.

For Alfred North Whitehead, perceptual objects exist prior to judgment by the understanding. They are not first constructed through intellectual classification; rather, they are directly posited within sense-awareness.

Whitehead defines a physical object as follows:

“A perceptual object is a physical object when (i) its situation is an active conditioning event for the ingression of any of its component sense-objects, and (ii) the same event can be the situation of the perceptual object for an indefinite number of possible percipient events. Physical objects are the ordinary objects which we perceive when our senses are not cheated, such as chairs, tables and trees… Attention to the fact of their occurrence in nature is the first condition for the survival of complex living organisms.” (p.156)[1]

A physical object, therefore, is not merely a bundle of qualities. It is an event whose situation actively conditions the ingression of its sense-objects (color, texture, sound, smell), and which can serve as the situation for many possible percipients. A chair remains available not just for one observer but for an indefinite number of observers. This universality gives physical objects their “insistent perceptive power.”

Whitehead’s definition of “physical” objects suggests something deeper: objects possess active conditioning properties that stimulate sense responses. Because objects have an innate capacity to stimulate sense response, organisms have developed sense organs. The evolution of complex organisms with sentient capabilities can be understood as a response to the perceptive tendencies already present in physical objects. Sense organs themselves have physical structures corresponding to the structures of the objects they perceive—eyes structured for light, ears for vibration, noses for chemical traces.

It is difficult to determine whether organisms are extensions of objects or objects are extensions of organisms, since limiting “organism” to biological life obscures the relational structure at stake. An organism is not merely a biological entity but a relation between object and sense organ. The term “organism” defines a system of relations sustaining a specific function. For example, you may smell something without seeing it. The sense-object (smell) is present without the perceptual object being visually identified. The relation is partial, yet still operative.

Whitehead criticizes the scholastic philosophy of nature for subordinating sense-objects to physical objects:

“The result of this high perceptive power of physical objects is the scholastic philosophy of nature which looks on the sense-objects as mere attributes of the physical objects… There is no perception of physical objects without perception of sense-objects. But the converse does not hold… This lack of reciprocity in the relations between sense-objects and physical objects is fatal to the scholastic natural philosophy.” (p.156)[2]

The crucial point is the lack of reciprocity. Physical objects depend on the perception of sensible qualities. Yet sensible qualities do not depend on any one physical object. The color red may disappear from one object but continue in another. Sounds, smells, and colors can occur without a clearly identified physical object. Thus, while perception of a physical object always includes sense-objects, perception of sense-objects does not always include a physical object.

This asymmetry undermines the idea that sense-objects are mere attributes inhering in substances. Instead, sense-objects and physical objects are distinct types of elements in nature. Physical objects come and go within perception, while their shared qualities may persist across different situations. Of course, sensible qualities also change, and physical objects appear to endure. Aristotle described matter as an enduring substratum.[3] The same flower remains while its colors change. Yet for Whitehead, what endures is not a hidden material substratum but the recognitional relation that identifies sameness across the passage of events.

Whitehead writes:

“Objects are elements in nature which do not pass. The awareness of an object as some factor not sharing in the passage of nature is what I call ‘recognition.’ […] Recognition is an awareness of sameness… Probably ‘sense-recognition’ would be a better term…”[4]

Recognition is not primarily a reflective act of judgment but a basic awareness of sameness. Although intellectual comparison may accompany it, recognition in Whitehead’s sense is more primitive. It is the mind’s relation to nature that provides the material for later intellectual activity.

Sense-recognition may be described as the “stillness” or indifference of conception with respect to sameness. What passes is the experience of objects—the successive events in which they are situated. The object itself, as recognized, does not pass. It is an element abstracted from the flow of nature and identified as the same across varying situations.

Thus, perceptual objects precede judgment. They are not first deduced or inferred but directly given within sense-awareness. Physical objects possess active conditioning power; sense-objects may occur without them; and recognition provides the continuity that allows objects to appear as enduring elements within the passage of nature.

Footnotes

[1] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, p.156.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Aristotle, Physics and Metaphysics, on matter as substratum (hypokeimenon).
[4] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, discussion of recognition and objects as elements not sharing in the passage of nature.

In classical physics, a vacuum is understood as empty space—the absence of matter. However, in modern quantum theory, a vacuum is not empty in this simple sense. In quantum field theory, the vacuum is the lowest energy state of a field, but it is still active and structured.[1] Even when no particles are present, quantum fields remain, and fluctuations occur due to the uncertainty principle. Virtual particle–antiparticle pairs can momentarily arise and annihilate. Thus, the vacuum is not nothing; it is a dynamic background of potentiality.

When we look out into space, we notice what we call “anomalies” because they do not conform to physics under ordinary Earth-bound conditions. We must note that the physics operative on Earth is a very specific type and condition of physics. It is not homogeneous throughout the universe. Once we leave Earth’s environment—its atmosphere, gravitational field, and thermodynamic balance—the physical behavior of matter and energy changes significantly. Microgravity, intense radiation, vacuum conditions, and extreme spacetime curvature all alter what we take to be “ordinary” motion and attraction.

This does not mean that the laws of physics are suspended in space, but rather that our everyday experience reflects a narrow range of physical parameters. Physics in extreme cosmic environments—near neutron stars or black holes—is radically different from everyday terrestrial mechanics. In such regions, spacetime curvature becomes dominant, and general relativity replaces the approximations of classical Newtonian motion.[2] After spacetime is everything—meaning that matter and energy are expressions of spacetime geometry—our understanding of “ordinary” objects becomes secondary to the structure of the field in which they occur.

When modern politicians say, during a crisis, “all options are on the table,” they imply that ordinary rules may be suspended under extreme conditions. Analogously, in extreme regions of nature, our familiar approximations no longer apply. The deeper laws remain, but their expression differs. What appear to us as anomalies—such as wormholes or black holes—are not objects in the ordinary sense, like planets or stars scattered within space. A black hole, for example, is a region of extreme spacetime curvature where gravitational collapse prevents even light from escaping.[3] A wormhole, in theoretical physics, is a hypothetical bridge connecting distant regions of spacetime.[4]

These phenomena are not merely additional objects within nature; they are modifications of the reference frame itself. They alter the geometric and causal structure of spacetime. In this sense, they reveal that reality at a fundamental level is structured by abstract relations rather than by solid substances. The vacuum, spacetime curvature, and quantum fluctuation all point toward a universe grounded in fields and relations.

From a philosophical perspective—one compatible in spirit with Alfred North Whitehead—reality at the level of substance may be understood as structured by relational process rather than inert matter.[5] The observer, as a percipient event, participates in this relational field. This does not mean that reality is created by the observer, but that reality is intelligible only within a framework of relation. The reference frame is not an external container but part of the structure of being.

One might poetically say that there is an eternal reason in the world maintaining reality in structured form—what the Greeks called Forms. Finite observers are particular conceptions of this infinite relational structure. They see the world in a limited way, but their perception participates in the same underlying order. Quantum vacuum, spacetime curvature, and cosmological structure suggest that reality is not fundamentally solid but abstract in the sense of being relational, structured, and dynamic.

Thus, the quantum vacuum is not empty nothingness. It is the structured potentiality from which observable phenomena arise. What appear as anomalies—black holes, wormholes, extreme cosmic events—are not violations of nature but disclosures of its deeper framework. They remind us that the universe is not defined by the stable conditions of Earth, but by a far more abstract and comprehensive structure in which spacetime, energy, and relation are primary.

Footnotes

[1] Quantum field theory describes the vacuum as the ground state of quantum fields, characterized by zero-point energy and fluctuations.
[2] Albert Einstein, General Theory of Relativity, on spacetime curvature as the basis of gravitation.
[3] Black holes are solutions to Einstein’s field equations describing regions of extreme gravitational collapse.
[4] Wormholes are hypothetical solutions to the Einstein field equations connecting distant regions of spacetime (e.g., Einstein–Rosen bridges).
[5] Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, on reality as a process of relational events rather than enduring substances.)

When we look out into space, we notice what we call “anomalies,” as they do not conform to physics under our ordinary conditions of perception on Earth. We must note that physics in our conditions on Earth is a very specific type and kind of physics; it is not homogeneous throughout the universe. In fact, once you leave Earth, the physical conditions change quickly. This means that physics in spacetime can be radically different from what we find in ordinary motions and gradual attractions. Physics in general, especially in extreme cosmic environments, appears more abstract than the stable and familiar conditions we experience daily.

In this sense, the physics out in the universe is more akin to a conceptual abstract reality. As modern-day politicians say during a time of crisis, “all options are on the table,” meaning that certain circumstances call for going beyond ordinary adherence to the law; the laws may be suspended or adjusted for a period of time. In nature, similarly, what we consider ordinary laws may not manifest in the same way under extreme conditions. It is not that the laws cease to exist, but that their expression differs depending on the situation.

When we encounter what we call anomalies, such as wormholes or black holes, these are not simply aspects within nature like the condensation of rock into a planet or the concentration of energy into a star. They are not merely one of many other objects scattered within nature. Rather, wormholes and black holes—these so-called anomalies—are obscurities in the very reference frame itself. The conceptual status of the being conceiving reality is, in a sense, obscured, wrapped, and transformed. The structure of spacetime is altered in such a way that our usual framework of understanding becomes strained.

This suggests that reality, at the level of substance, is held and maintained by a reference frame. One might say that there is an eternal reason in the world maintaining reality and being in absolute structure—what could be called the Forms. A percipient event arising within these conditions is the finite and particular conception of the infinite. Finite observers develop who can see the world in a limited way; therefore, they observe. Their perspective does not exhaust reality but expresses it partially within the bounds of their reference frame.

The senses derive from the convoluted infinite flux of all possible events in time forming the spacetime manifold, producing a particular and limited picture.[1] What we call perception is not the reception of reality in its fullness, but the selection of certain aspects from an otherwise indeterminate field. The infinite complexity of events is narrowed into a structured presentation suitable for an organism situated within a definite reference frame.

This is demonstrated clearly in the neurological effect of how any single one of the senses, on its own, processes information from external reality versus how the mind synthesizes the information derived from each sense to produce a high-resolution conception of reality.[2] No individual sense delivers a complete world. Rather, each provides partial data which must be integrated.

The brain turns the retinal image upside down, filters out the veins and nerves of the eye organ, and integrates the other senses into that perception—sound, feeling, smell, and taste—which add resolution to each aspect of what is being perceived.[3] Certain colours develop textures; visual form acquires weight, temperature, and resistance through association with touch. The final picture of the world we ordinarily see is therefore not a simple given but a constructed synthesis of multiple streams of sensation.

The sense organs are called in modern philosophy faculties of “judgment” because they compile, from the set of infinite qualities that make up reality, a specific aesthetical order.[4] They select which qualities, among many possible qualities, are to be conceived. Human sensation only picks out a limited array of qualities that belong to the world and is ignorant of many others, such as ultraviolet radiation or ultrasonic waves.[5] The world as it is experienced is thus already filtered through biological and cognitive limitation.

The mind begins as an ideologue, with a set of ideas about what the world is—an organic worldview—and the infinite possibilities of the world become limited to that worldview. The organs of perception, along with the entire organism, develop to experience the world in that way. A fish “hypothesizes,” in evolutionary terms, that it can derive oxygen from H₂O, and so it develops the necessary respiratory system to breathe under water—gills.[6] The realization appears at the same time as the physical means for its actualization. Form and function arise together through adaptive development.

But if every idea were to instantaneously manifest as its physical component, then where would the idea of development be found in this notion? Development is found in the increasing complexity of what can be rationally conceived. One can conceive H₂O as water, but water is also part of land, vapour, ice, and a multitude of other qualities which the mind must adapt to and formulate into a broader conception.[7] Development, therefore, is not the immediate projection of idea into matter, but the gradual enrichment of conceptual structure through interaction with the manifold of events.

Footnotes

[1] In modern physics, spacetime is treated as a four-dimensional manifold integrating space and time into a single continuum; see Albert Einstein on relativity.

[2] On multisensory integration in cognitive science, perception is understood as a synthesis of distributed sensory processing across cortical regions.

[3] The inversion of the retinal image and cortical reconstruction of visual information are well-established findings in visual neuroscience.

[4] The notion of faculties of judgment is classically associated with Immanuel Kant, who analyzed how the mind organizes sensory data into coherent experience.

[5] Human sensory systems are limited to specific frequency ranges; for example, visible light excludes ultraviolet and infrared, and human hearing excludes ultrasonic frequencies.

[6] In evolutionary biology, gills are respiratory organs enabling aquatic organisms to extract dissolved oxygen from water through diffusion across specialized membranes.

[7] The changing states of water—solid, liquid, and gas—illustrate how a single chemical substance can manifest diverse properties depending on conditions such as temperature and pressure.

To expand on the solid, liquid, and gas states of matter: these states are what we can call apprehensions or prehensions of the same factor, meaning that the conception of the object and the object itself, as a thing for observation, convolute into the same substance. There is no absolute distinction between what I think in my mind within and what I think is outside my mind as the external world. You are in the external world, and the external world is within your conception of it; both disclose each other. The dimensions and dynamics of this physics are states of matter that conform to your conception of them—or rather, the cause for the change itself is materially stated as occurring independent of the observer.

For example, if fire is added to ice, it melts into water. Materially speaking, this transition occurs whether or not someone observes it. However, the observation of this transition—the breaking down of the solid molecular structures and the trickling into a liquid state, where the atoms are less tightly compacted yet still maintain the same congruent stream of determination—makes the change intelligible as a change of state. In the solid state, molecules are tightly arranged in fixed positions; in the liquid state, they move more freely while remaining in close contact; in the gaseous state, they disperse widely with minimal cohesion. These are different structural organizations of the same underlying substance.

The analysis of these variables and conditions by the observer allows the notion of matter changing states of being. An incapable observer would not perceive the transition; each state would simply be what it is, without differentiation. Without recognition of variation—without the capacity to discern structure, motion, and relation—it would appear as an undifferentiated block of non-being. The distinction between solid, liquid, and gas thus depends not only on physical processes such as temperature and pressure, but also on the conceptual capacity to apprehend structural difference within continuity.

The nature of the physical interaction between objects depends on the nature of their form as part of a hierarchy of foundation. For example, a solid object falling from the sky will pass through clouds and impact the ground. But if the object were lighter and in a gaseous state, it would not reach the ground in the same way; it would diffuse and remain within the cloud layer. For a gas, other gases form the medium within which it localizes, because gases mix and intermingle rather than collide as rigid bodies. An object interacts with other objects according to differences in their state of matter and the structural organization of their particles.[1]

The state of matter is determined by physical conditions such as temperature, pressure, and intermolecular forces, which define how particles are arranged and how they move.[2] These structural conditions determine how objects interact. What we call “solid” at one scale is a lattice of atoms bound together by electromagnetic forces. Yet at a smaller scale, that solidity is mostly empty space between nuclei and electrons. Thus, what it means to be solid at one level of magnitude becomes more abstract at another level of analysis.

Certain compounds or atomic structures are more tightly bound and therefore resist deformation more strongly than macroscopic organic compounds. In this sense, “more or less solid” refers to the strength of bonding and structural cohesion.[3] An electron, for example, possesses an electromagnetic structure and can penetrate matter that appears solid at the macro-scale, including liquids and gases.[4] This is because solidity at the macro level depends on electromagnetic repulsion between atoms, not on impenetrable substance. At subatomic scales, interactions follow quantum mechanical principles rather than classical contact mechanics.

Thus, solidity, liquidity, and gaseous diffusion are not absolute properties but relational descriptions dependent on scale, structure, and the forces involved. What appears as a firm boundary at one level may be porous or dynamic at another. The interaction between objects, therefore, depends on their structural organization within a hierarchy of physical foundations, from macroscopic bodies to atomic and subatomic processes.

Footnotes

[1] Interactions between states of matter depend on density, intermolecular forces, and kinetic energy as described in classical thermodynamics.

[2] The three classical states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas—are determined by temperature and pressure conditions affecting molecular motion and bonding.

[3] The rigidity of solids depends on the strength of chemical bonds (ionic, covalent, metallic) and lattice structure in condensed matter physics.

[4] Electrons and other subatomic particles interact according to principles described in quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics; see Richard Feynman for foundational work in quantum electrodynamics.

(Lizard walking on water, this breaks our understanding of water as a liquid, but this physicality of water conforms to the lizard because for it, water is more of a solid event rather than liquid. And so this becomes objective to our view that water for a lizard is more solid than liquid it is for us.

Adapting to the environment is conceiving it

When we say that consciousness is everything this must be taken literally not only in the sense that it is the substrate whereby all things are contained but also that it is literally in every difference. 

One misguided influence on the development of evolution on to the sciences is that it placed them chronically in their ontological merit, that physics is more fundamental than chemistry and that more fundamental than biology brings with it one essential problem of not seeing ontological significance of their principles. Each science is structured on first principles that are equally fundamental in conceiving the different forms of being. That physics is more fundamental than chemistry and biology captures their relation. For example, that life is particular structuring of chemical compounds  misses the mark on how life is universal in the substance of matter? Similarly that chemical bonds are forms of the relations of physics does not tell us how space and time are organically light. And physical principles like space and time being inherently chemical is the basic molecular compound of the cell. 

In the very nature of cells is their inherent consciousness, which is the relation between the physical and the chemical, that the latter being the activity and the former the matter, constitutes the synthesis that is the cells. 

In every cell there is their inherent observer. Every object of matter possess the conception, which is the consciousness, the biological in relation the chemical maintains the physical. These are the causes of each other. 

Every object of perception is maintained as such for observation because of the inherent conscious element in it. Every object of perception has corresponding consciousness. Every material environment possess an invariably observing consciousness. In the cell, the compound and in the compound physics is but the very form, the relation between them where the distinct object involves consciousness. We are observing the conception of some life form. Looking at the ground and the sky above are conceptions maintained by their inherent life. Life is a universal principle is true as much as space and time are because space and time are themselves atoms, which are also compounds and compounds are cells. Perception of an object is is the conception of something else’s consciousness of it. 

This prompts an evolutionary question that if life forms, such as cells, are constantly generating and perishing away, how can this flux maintain a stability such as a material object. How can the constant change in the consciousness of an object maintain the object as a particular thing. Because consciousness is relation, there has to be a contradiction between the variables of it and an agreements. Contradiction infinity, agreement indivisibility. (Add this to everywhere divisible and divisibly everywhere) 

The cell is the relation where the compound is the physics, physics is the relation where the compound is the cell, and the compound is the relation where the cell is physics. The cell moves around in the compound. The compound structures the cell, and the cell necessitates the environment. 

That the space and time, the physics of an object form is conceived by cell, means that the cell is conceived by the compound of the physics.

The cell of the germ maintains the physics as compound, and the compound maintains the cell as physics, and physics maintains the cell as compound. 

(Add to environment/organism)

(Add to eye)

Congruency- all the pieces fall into the same place

The idea of congruency is a theory of simultaneity of what it means for something to happen concerning the general notion of time. This passage of nature is the conception. A thing comes into being, or rather an event happens, when a certain set of variables fall into place in relation to each other in a specific manner such that a distinct and new particular whole comes into presence. The alignment of distinct variables into a certain place forms a specific conception, or they are for that conception the intricate complexities forming the event.

For example, a virus is a living organism does not have desire so it does not seek its prey like a mammal would hunt his. So how does it access the immunology of its host. It relies on congruency. A virus relies on its host walking into it. That in the first place it is already in some bacteria host, this bacteria host is already in some bigger host like a mammal, and it is reproducing itself in those hosts, by transmission, let’s say in the form of an airborne droplet, it hovers in the air for a certain period of time, on the presupposition that’s some host will simply walk into it. The virus in some level hovers in the air, and from its own point of view, it simply finds itself in an immune system. This is due to the fact of congruency, the host is infected simply because a series set of variables aligned to make a specific event, like someone with the virus coughs, that cough spreads on the air as droplets containing the virus, and it so happen, that another person walking excalty in that place where the droplets hovered in the air, and just enough time the droplets slipped through some minor cracks in the cellular membrane in the navel, and these micro cracks are due to their smoking habits or something alike, and the virus was able to relocate itself in the cell, eventually spreading to the lungs, and the person finds himself in the event of pneumonia. A certain set of variables have to meet each other at the exact same time at the exact same place.

Depending on size determines physicality

Water from our magnitude is more liquid, however if we change the magnitude to a smaller degree, the same level of ants, water turns more solid, or rather more plasma like.

water from the point of view of an ant, from the size in which it is at, appears to be more solidified, or water at smaller droplets appears more solid as opposed to when there are large bodies of water as in an ocean where it appears very fluid. The reason for this is because time is different at these two magnitudes of space so that it takes longer for water at a smaller level to be fluid, I.e, such that a droplet does not just automatically disperse into a puddle for an ant, it maintains its shape for a while until it is broken down. Whereas we never see a droplet the size of a lake or an ocean because a mass of water that size would automatically be dispersed into a wavelength. without Gravity however any large mass of water would maintain a particle like state, I.e., more of a harder state than a fluid.

And if we even go more microscopic, the compounds forming liquids are solid. Likewise if we zoom into gas, we find liquid, vapour molecules, and if we zoom into solid we find it’s compound more gases, powder like. The smaller a liquid gets the more solid it becomes, the smaller a gas gets the more liquid it becomes, and the smaller a solid gets the more gases it becomes.

Contact

In ordinary experience objects interact by contact, things move by coming into contact with each other. As we span out into space, the distances between objects becomes greater and physical contact is rare. However the more we span out into space and now a more extensive image of the universe, we start to notice again that things are in contact again, galaxies form clusters

As we zoom out of space, the distance between stars decreases, but as we zoom in the space between the stars increases. While

if you zoom into something, more things are moving further away from you as you try to get closer and closer to all things. The farther you go further out, the more things seem to come closer together, because you are suppose to be going further away from everything, while the closer you come to them, the further away they are moving from you as the reference frame.

The strange face is that from earth, the distance between the earth and the sun is said to factually be about 148 million km. This measurement is in terms of “astronomical unit” is a unit of length, roughly the distance from Earth to the Sun is equal to about 150 million kilometres.

The distance between the earth and the sun is used as the standard for an astronomical unit because it is a measure based on using the distance between one centre to a different centre as the determining length for the distances between any objects in the universe. Earth is one centre where the measure is derived from, and that is connected with another centre, the sun, which is what all the bodies in the Milky Way galaxy revolve around.

Astronomical unit

The distance from one centre to the other, between earth and sun, forms a radius that can measure the distance between any bodies on the circumference relative to those centres. If we step out of astronomical unit of measure, makes space now immeasurable, there is no means of measuring space, so that lengths become hypothetical rather than real distances between stars. For example, if someone would be looking at the relation between earth and sun from the galaxy of andromeda, there distance appears minute, and the astronomical unit of measured unit would be the place of the observer, being somewhere in andromeda, in relation to the sun, to calculate the earth, which can give the same measure of distance between earth and sun, yet the perspective changes.

Distance is measured by time because it is measured by the speed it takes from one location to the other, kilometres, or kilo for weight, and meter in length, the length the distance from the top to the bottom of a single object as opposed to the distance between where that object is in relation a different object. Kilometres is the rate at which the length of an object changes position in space. the time it takes to get from andromeda to the Milky Way where the sun and earth rest, changes the distance between them.

The point is that our perception of space is confusing because standing from earth the space between stars is calculated to be massive, however from a more general perspective, stars form clusters that make galaxies appear like single bodies which are just collection of other bodies. It is no different if we zoom into our skin particles and after a certain level of magnification the space between molecules appears massive. There is always distance between objects yet each single object involves the intimate contact between other objects.

Spatially speaking it is impossible to move something without contact. However contact is just two things approaching each other resulting in a limit. if we introduce the element of time into the spatial domain, then it becomes very clear how events having vast distances can effect each other. It is ordinary to think that a crime I did years ago affects my present years later or how a future interview has the affect of making me anxious at the present. In time it is normal to thing how distant past or near future events with no immediate contact have real physical effects on the present. In time the relation between things is not the same as how things relate spatially.

Things relate spatially when they are within some kind of approximation and they are compact or in contact with each other. While in time this relation is inverted, it is of a duration extending outwards, how far of an extent it can go further away from itself, how far can two things be away from each other not nearest and not only in distance, but generally what it means for one moment to be completely separate from another. To what extent it can be as furthest as possible away. Which does not make sense spatially because something at a very far distance from something else is still disclosed within a spatial reference frame that makes them unified into the same dimension, this is what solar systems and galaxies involve, many distinct bodies separated by vast distances sharing the same spatial extension. To be truly extensive from something else means that it does not occur within the same period, that both things occur at different times per say. Furthest away from each other in time means one thing is present while the other is not.

Space defines time by distance- the longer the distance the more time

But how time affects space is by making space into a ridged and uneven plain, a bunch of different and discrete points. We call it “point” because it is the tip of a curve, points are abstraction of the obstructions of spacetime, peaks of energy that are observable to be defining of a mass in space. A point is the first thing or the last thing that can be seen at the first or the last instance of a mass. Like the top of the iceberg, it’s very rip point.

Experience is the quality of duration

The term experience is the qualitative measure for a duration, which is the abstraction of continuity in time. Continuity is the consistent existence of something over a period of time. We say “over” a “period of time”, because a period is a conception disclosing content, the identification of which contains continuity. Content however contains overlapping of differences but the experience is the maintenance of these differences in content into the same duration.

The pragmatic empirical Defines Experience as knowledge acquired over certain period of time. However more ontologically speaking the endurance throughout a period of time invariably involves knowledge. When something goes through a period of time, this is what it means to have knowledge of it. Knowledge is not merely the observation of something but the actually undergoing of the duration in time relating to a content of quality.

Also experience in the philosophies of empiricism is used to denote observation of events and facts by being in contact with them. The two fold meaning of Experience explains that what it mean to be contact is to go through a duration. Coming in contact with something is to go through its duration. Duration is what it means to be in contact. For Aristotle matter is a substrate the whole that takes on  the characteristics of activities forming it.

aims to somehow achieve a focus on everything such that the inherent constant flux is a part of the focus. In the same way focus on one object achieves some kind of order away from everything else, the ultimate aim is to achieve an absolute focus on everything else such that the order is an integration of the chaos, which so far as the present moment is considered, everything culminating up to it, is already this process.