Section 77 (last updated 05.24.2021)
Duration
The present idea of “simultaneity” must include an understanding beyond its mere definition that something is “being done, occurring or happening at the same time” because the question becomes, what is occurring at the same time? When we fill the form of this question with the content of qualities like objects at different dimensions, say an atom as opposed to a galaxy, the question of simultaneity as a scientific one must ask, in what way is an atom occurring simultaneously with a galaxy? Moreover, simultaneity is intimately related to instantaneity, which is the sudden occurrence of a phenomenon into existence, or in other words, spontaneous, spontaneity.
The materialist science says that everything in the universe is made out of atoms, but does not explain what atoms are such that everything is complied out of them. The atomist answers that the larger scale aggregates are composed out of micro scale objects. Things in the large scale are ”aggregates” rather than objects because they are not complete, they are “slabs of nature” according to Alfred North Whitehead. What we observe as galaxies, stars and supernovas are bits and pieces from a more general substrate. This appearance of the universe when we look out into space is due to the problem of abstraction. In other words, we are only viewing “parts” of the universe that we identify as ordinary “matter”, meaning sensible, energy compositions that is picked out by perception. While the hidden aspects of spacetime, known as “dark matter”, are what is imperceptible, yet we nevertheless logically deduced, and empirically indirectly observe, it’s necessary existence. Dark matter is like gravity in that the empirical proof of it is indirect. This means that we cannot see gravity but we know it exists because it acts on, by maintaining together, all known visible matter.
Scientist today are certain that a substance in the universe coined with the fancy proverb “dark matter”, must necessarily exists, because it acts as the total amount of energy that is acting on, by maintaining, and “holding together” every form of energy in the known universe. In fact, what we observe in space as the “known universe”, called the “visible universe”, are only scattered fractions of abstractions from a more general whole.
The energy of dark matter, known as “Dark energy”, which is supposedly even more greater in quantitive measure than it’s inertial state, it’s matter. The dark energy accounts for the element of simultaneity in the universe because it contains, or it holds on it, everything all at once at one time. This is both the objects, and their events. In other terms, events are the instances as objects.
The appearing, disappearing and reappearing in and out of spacetime are the energy , states of dark matter. But this composition does not account for the massive differences between dimensions at different magnitudes. When we say there are different dimensions, we mean that they are correlated by sharing a simultaneity, but they do not compose each other, they do not physically interact, as in the case of a parallel universe, they exists simultaneously besides each other, but they never exactly “touch”, or come into contact, I.e., they never intersect.
(Add universe is mind organism, Big Bang as neurological impulse of the idea)
The question is whether the label of a “galaxy” onto a cluster of stars is one view point of the same phenomenon at a different view point. Can it be that a galaxy is one view of the same phenomena while an atom is another view of that same phenomena but from a different magnitude? An accurate illustration of an atom looks like this:
An atom consists of all the super position of an electron simultaneously present around a centre point known as the nucleus. This is no different, in form, than a bunch of galaxies around a super massive black hole.
The atom is a combination of a wave function, the form of all the particles make when they are congruent together. And the individual partials as separate entities from the whole of the group are their possible positions in the wave function. This form of an atom is exactly how clusters of stars form galaxies.
The atom is the conception of the universe stripped away from space and time and hence why it is “unbreakable” or indivisible.
Plasma is called the 4th state of matter, it is the most abundant state in the universe. All stars are magnetized balls of plasma, which is an ionized gas composed of electrons stripped away from their parent atoms. The fastest movements of electrons leads to what is known as “thermally existed oscillations”, which is what we observe as the hot state of plasma.
Whitehead process nature – time
The study of process describes form
A proper study of nature is synonymous with the study of mind; natural science should implicate mind. Nature is the locus of mind.
37;00 (time minute audiobook)
So far the passage of nature is considered in connection with the passage of durations, and in this connection it is peculiarly associated with temporal series. We must however remember that the character of passage is peculiarly associated with the extension of “events”. And from this extension spatial transitions arises just as much as temporal transition.
36;20
now the distinction arises between “passage” which is fundamental and the temporal series which is a logical abstraction representing some of the properties of nature. A temporal series as we have defined it, represents merely certain properties of a family of durations. Properties indeed which durations only possess because of their partaking of the character of passage. But on the other hand properties which only durations possess. Time in the sense of a measurable temporal series is a character of nature only and does not extend to processes of thought and of sense awareness, except by a correlation of these process with the temporal series implicated in their procedures.
35;50
It is necessary however to make a distinction. In some sense time extends beyond nature insofar as it is not true that a timeless sense awareness and a timeless thought combined to contemplate a time-full nature. Sense awareness and thought are themselves processes in nature (here he is saying that thought does not exists timelessly beyond nature but it is process in nature. This can be contested on the grounds that thought is the ultimate principle of nature, and although we say that thought is inseparable from nature, thought as a process is natural, however says that passage extends beyond nature as quality of thought.) In other words, there is a passage of sense awareness and a passage of thought. thus the quality of passage extends beyond nature (that is because it is a principle of thought, which whitehead does not seem to point out).
Thiught however can be a characteristic part if an extension of nature. If nature consist of events, and thought is a quality or character in that event, then nature is just the playing out of an event, including thought and an observer, watching the event they are in passing by, and being determined away.
34;00
Nothing has yet been said about the measurement of time. Such measurement does not follow from the mere serial property of time. The measurement of time begins by estimating the adequacy of the definition of the temporal series as a formulation of experience, it is necessary to discriminate between the crude deliverance of sense awareness and our intellectual theories. The “lapse” of time is a measurable serial quality. The whole of scientific theory depends on this. Our difficulties begin when we ask; what it is that is measured?
It is evidently something so fundamental in experience that we can hardly stand back from it and hold it apart so as to view it in its own proportions. We have to first know whether time is to be found in nature, or nature is to be found in time? The difficulty of the latter, namely of making time prior to nature, is that time becomes a metaphysical enigma. What sort of entities are its periods? (if not nature). The disassociation of time from events discloses to our immediate inspection, that the attempt to set up time as an independent terminus for knowledge, is like the effort to find substance in a shadow. (because time is the very activity of knowledge itself). There is time because there are happenings, and apart from happenings, there is nothing.
33;00
The passage of nature enables us to know that one direction along the series corresponds to passage into the future, and the other direction corresponds to retrogression towards the past. Such an ordered series of moments is what we mean by time defined as a series. (what it means for time to be a series is understood as something coming before and after, past future). This “serial time” is a result of an intellectual process of abstraction. “the method of extensive abstraction”.
31;00
There are also moments of the same family such that the shorter durations in their composition are entirely separated from the given duration. Such moments are said to lie outside the given duration. Other moments of the family are such that the shorter duration in their composition are parts of the given durations. Such moments are said to lie within the given durations or to inhere in it. let A and C be any two moments of the family. These moments are the boundary moments of one duration D of the associated family. And any moment B which lies within the duration D will be said to lie between the moments A and C. Thus the 3 terms relation of lying between as relating 3 moments, a b c is completely defined. (a b c d, a b c is boundary of d, boundary is the culmination)
29;25
The durations which enter into the composition of a moment all belong to one family. Thus there is one family of moments corresponding to one family of durations. If we take two moments of the same family, among the durations which enter into the composition of one moment, the smaller durations are completely separated from the smaller durations which enter into the composition of the other moment. Thus the two moments in their intrinsic properties must exhibit the limits of completely different states of nature. In this sense the two moments are completely separated. I will call two moments of the same family parallel.
Corresponding to each duration, there are two moments of the associate family of moments which are the boundary moments of that durations. A boundary moment is defined in this way; there are durations of the same family as the given duration which overlap it but are not contained in it. Consider an abstractive set of such durations. Such a set defines a moment which is just as much without the duration as within it. Such a moment is a boundary moment of the durations. Sense awareness tells us that the passage of nature contains two boundary moments; the earlier one and the later one (past future, Hegel beginning advance and resolution time is dialectical). We will call them the initial and the final boundary.
27;53 (add here chance void)
An abstractive series is a route of approximation. There are different routes of approximation to the same limiting set of the properties of nature. There are different abstractive sets which are to be regarded as routes of approximation to the same moment (potentialities add here chance in the spherical void is the atom of possibilities). A moment is the class of all abstractive sets of durations with the same convergence. Provided that we can successfully explain what we mean by “the same convergence”, a moment is merely a class of sets of durations whose relations of extension in respect to each other have certain definite peculiarities. The intrinsic properties of a moment are the properties of nature arrived at as a limit as we proceed along any one of its abstractive sets. These are the properties of nature, at that moment, or at that instant.
26;16
(add here to definition of abstraction) This set of such durations is the “abstractive set of durations” (abstract or theoretical duration, potential). An abstractive set as we pass along it converges to the ideal of all nature with no temporal extension, to the ideal of all nature at an instant, but this ideal is in fact the ideal of a non-entity. What the abstractive set is doing is to guide thought to the consideration of the progressive simplicity of natural relations as we progressively diminish the temporal extension of the duration considered. The quantitative expressions of these natural properties do converge to limits, though the abstractive set does not converge to any limiting durations.
The laws relating these quantitative limits are the laws of nature at an instance, although in truth there is no nature at an instant, and there is only the abstractive set. An abstractive set is met when we consider an instance of time without temporal extension. It sup-serves all the necessary purposes of giving a definite meaning to the concept of the property of nature at an instant. This concept is fundamental in the expression of physical science. The difficulty is to express our meaning in terms of the immediate deliverances of sense awareness. In this explanation a moment is the set of natural properties reached by a route of approximation.
24:00
The further characteristics of the continuity of nature so far as durations are concerned arises in connection with family of durations. There are durations which contain as part any two durations of the same family, for example a week contains as parts any two of its days. The definition of “a moment of time”: consider a set of durations all taken from the same family. Let it have the following properties. 1) of any two members of the set, one contains the other as a part, and 2) there is no duration which is a common part of every member of the set (there is always a missing part).
The relation of the whole and part is asymmetrical (because if it was symmetrical the part would just be the same whole since to be a part is a disproportional section of the whole isolated by the very fact of that capacity which abstracts it as not the whole). For example, that if A is part of B, then B is not part of A. The relation is also transitive, the durations of any set with the properties just enumerated must be arranged in a one-dimensional serial order in which as we decent the series we progressively reach durations of smaller and smaller temporal extension. The series may start with any arbitrarily assumed durations of any temporal extension, but in descending the series, the temporal extension progressively contracts and the successive durations are packed one within the other like the nest of boxes of a chines toy.
But the set differs from the toy in this particular, the toy has a smallest box which forms the end box of its series. But the set of durations can have no have smallest duration nor can it converge towards a duration as its limit. Because the parts either of the end duration or of the limit would be parts of all the durations of the set, and thus the second condition for the set would be violated. (if there is a common part of every member of the sets, all the members of the set would be part contained by that common part, which must suppose a whole in which that part that contains all parts also be part of. This eliminates the idea of whole for the whole is not the part that contains all parts, but it is rather the relations of all the parts as not sharing any common part).
(add this to how the human organism being the recent stage of universal development to known consciousness bears precisely the transitive relation between whole and part in relation to the universe. When we zoom into the layers of the organism, cell, molecules etc. we decent the series reaching durations of smaller and smaller temporal extension, like a chines toy. The problem is that we do this inductively, we work form an inverse positon beginning with the most developed stage and decent backwards towards the more fundamental sates, and so it appears that the more fundamental states have smaller temporal extension. But there are better reasons to assume that universal development works precisely in the inverse manner.
That the human organism being the most advanced present state, is with the least temporal extension because the objective decent begins with the more fundamental stages like the atomic with the highest temporal extension and downwards towards biological life. This is how it seems when we empirically observe the temporal extensions of solar systems, they have much higher temporal extension than relations on earth. This is one problem with starting with “any arbitrarily assumed durations of any temporal extension”, because what follows from this arbitrarily given position is a lower and lower decent of temporal extension in any case.
Although it is true as the big bang theory proposes that the initiation of the universe does began off from an arbitrarily assumed duration, which in that case makes the starting point as arbitrary an objective one. But this objective arbitrarily chosen place then becomes the objective standard whereby scientific observation must dispense with. The further argument is that the so called arbitrary chosen duration for a starting place is only arbitrary in that any process requires a starting place and there is no need for a specification for a starting place as that specification would be the starting place and so on. In that sense it can be arbitrary, but it is not arbitrary in the mechanisms of the process as those are anything but arbitrary and exhibit the nature of system.)
22:13
Sense awareness posits durations as factors in nature but does not clearly enable thought to use it as distinguishing the separate individuality of the entities of allied groups of slightly different durations. This is one instance of the indeterminateness of sense awareness. Exactness is an ideal of thought. It is only realized in experience by the selection of a route of approximation. The absence of maximum and minimum durations does not exhaust the properties of nature which make up its continuity. The passage of nature involves the existence of a family (more specifically species) of duration. When two durations belong to the same family, either one contains the other, or they overlap each other in a subordinate duration without either containing the other, or they are completely separate.
The excluded case is that of durations overlapping in finite events but not containing a third duration as a common part. It is evident that the relation of extension is transitive (like skin is see through). Namely as applied to duration, if a duration A is part of duration B, and duration B is part of duration C, then A is part of C. Thus, the first two cases can be combined into one, and we can say two durations which belong to the same family, either are such that there are durations which parts of both or are completely separate. If two durations have other durations which are parts of both, or if the two durations are completely separate, then they belong to the same family.
22;00
“there are no maximum or minimum durations. There is no atomic structure of duration and the perfect definition of duration so as to mark out its individuality and distinguish it from highly analogous durations over which it is passing or which are passing over it, is an arbitrary postulate of thought.”
(this however only describes the form of the duration as pure activity. It is also an arbitrary postulate of thought to abstract a duration pure as activity from what the activity manifest as some content, and claim that the activity contains no minimum or maximum atomic structure, as that postulation of a duration is contained by the thought which gave it that definition is definitely disclosed by that thought. if what whitehead means is to “Mark out” the individuality of a duration as pure activity without the content of that activity is an arbitrary postulate of thought, then that seems to make sense, yet that is contradicted by the very fact of proceeding with the abstraction of a pure duration, such that it has no maximum or minimum duration, for the latter so far as the duration cannot be purely abstracted unless arbitrarily from some limited content of some object with atomic structure, the duration is a defined entity of activity, the pure thought which makes the definition insofar as it is the pure individuality of the duration pure from the content, cannot be if there can be such content separate from the activity that identified it as that separation.)
20;00 Coming into being and out of being is extension (whitehead time 20:28)
The concept of extension exhibits in thought one side of the ultimate passage of nature. This relation holds because of the special character that “passage” assumes in nature. It is the relation, which in the case of duration, express the properties of “passing over”. The duration which was one definite minute, passed over the duration which was its 30 seconds. The duration of the 30 seconds was part of the duration of the minute. I shall use the terms “whole” and “part” exclusively in this sense, that the part is an events which is extended over by the other event, which is the whole.
(the whole passes over the part, minute which contains the 30 seconds as its part, has as including the 30 second as its part passed over it, this is how we can abstract the 30 second as part because it was passed over, that if the minute does not pass over 30 second, there would be no minute but only the 30 second which has passed over some of its part, say 20 second. The point is that any abstraction of a part from the whole such that to discriminate it as something individual from the whole, requires that the whole already constituted it capable of abstracting from its duration). Whole and part refers exclusively to this fundamental relation of extension. All the events can be either whole or parts. the continuity of nature arises from extension, every event extends over other events, and every event is extended over by other events.
The term moment
18;20
I will use the term “moment” to mean all nature at an instant. A moment in the sense used here has no temporal extension and it is in this respect contrasted with a duration which has this extension. What is directly yielded to our knowledge by sense awareness is a duration. How is moment derived from duration? A moment is a limit to which we approach as we can find attention to durations of minimum extension. Natural relations that form the ingredients of a duration gain in complexity as we consider durations of increasing temporal extension (the more the activity “moves on” the more complex is derived from the extension of its duration).
The word limit has a precise signification in the logic of number and even in the logic of non-numerical one dimensional series. Durations have the two term relational properties of extending one over the other. The duration which is all nature during a certain minute extends over the duration which is all nature during the 30 second of that minute. This relation of extending over, extension, is a fundamental natural relation whose field comprises more than durations. It is a relation which two limited events can have to each other. Furthermore, as holding between durations the relations appears to refer to the purely temporal extension. (between the limited events is the relation of them also limited as their relation)
Definition of Instantaneousness
17;00
“Instantaneousness is a complex logical concept of a procedure in thought by which constructed logical entities are produced for the sake of the simple expression in thought of properties of nature. Instantaneousness is the concept of all nature at an instance. Or an instance is conceived as deprived of all temporal extension. For example, we conceive of the distribution of matter in space at an instant. This is a very useful concept in science especially in applied mathematical but it is a very complex idea so far as it concerns the connections with the immediate facts of sense awareness. There is no such thing as nature at an instant posited by sense awareness. What sense awareness delivers over for knowledge is nature through a period. Accordingly, nature at an instant since it is not itself a natural entity, must be defined in terms of genuine natural entities, unless we do so, our science which employs the concept of instantaneous nature must abandon all claim to be founded upon observation.
Definition of simultaneity
15;35
It is important distinguish simultaneity from instantaneousness. Simultaneity is the property of a group of natural elements which in some sense are components of a duration (for example the share the same spatially). A durationcan be all nature present as the immediate fact posited by sense awareness. A duration retains within itself the passage of nature (time). There are within it antecedents and consequents which are also durations which may be the complete spacious present of quicker consciousness. A duration retains temporal thickness. Any concept of all nature as immediately known is always a concept of some duration although it may be enlarged in its temporal thickness beyond the possible spacious present of any being known to us as existing within nature. Thus simultaneity is an ultimate factor in nature, immediate for sense awareness.
14;00
“Time is measurable insofar as it is derivative from the properties of durations. We find in nature competing serial time systems derived from different families of durations. These are a peculiarity of the character of passage as it is found in nature. 2) for two minds the discerned components of the general facts exhibited in their respective acts of sense awareness must be different. For each mind in its awareness of nature, is aware of a certain complex of related natural entities and their relations to the living body as a focus. But the associated durations are identical. Here we are touching on that character of the passage nature which issues in the spatial relations of simultaneous bodies. This possible identity of the durations in the case of the sense awareness of distinct minds is what binds into one nature the private experiences of sentient beings. The spatial passage of nature also seems to extend beyond nature to mind.”
12;00
There are two senses in which a sense awareness is unique: first, it is unique for the sense awareness of the individual mind. Second it is unique for the sense awareness of all minds operating under natural conditions. (the whole challenges each individual mind that makes up the whole. Each individual mind that form part of the whole is challenged by the whole of which it is part).
The distinction between the two cases is 1) “for one mind not only is the discerned component exhibited in any act of sense awareness distinct from the discerned component of the general fact exhibited in any other fact of sense awareness of that mind, but the two corresponding durations which are respectively related by simultaneity to the two discerned components are necessarily distinct.” (this means that when the sense awareness of the individual mind makes a conception, that is put as distinct from the same sense awareness as conceiving the fact of the world generally. For example, when I am looking at a tree, my sense awareness of that individual object the tree is seen as distinct from my possible sense awareness of everything else but that tree.)
This is an exhibition of the temporal passage of nature, namely one duration has passed into the other. (this is what makes time temporal (chronological), when one particular fact seems to pass after another, where the passing itself is the general fact is seen as distinct from the two particular events that pass into each other using that very general fact of passing)
“Not only is the passage of nature an essential character of nature in its role in the terminus of sense awareness, but it is also essential for sense awareness for itself, it is this truth that makes time appear to extends beyond nature, but what extends beyond nature to mind is not the serial and measurable time which exhibits merely the character of passage in nature, but the quality of passage itself which is in no way measurable except insofar as it obtains in nature.” (the passage of nature is not only a fact of nature but also essential fact of sense awareness as factor of nature. What extends beyond nature is the quality of passage itself, which is the idea of passage, and it is measurable insofar as it extends nature itself, or that sense awareness and nature being connected as the same terminus by the feature of passage, constitute extension by the idea of extension as applied to nature by mind)
“Passage is not measurable except as it occurs in nature in connection with extension. In passage we reach a connection of nature with the ultimate metaphysical reality, the quality of passage and duration is a particular exhibition in nature of a quality which extends beyond nature. For example, passage is not only a quality of nature which is the thing known, but also of sense awareness which is the procedure of knowing.” (the known and the knowing are the same continuity of the passage. Sense awareness shares the same passage of nature insofar as reason is the unity of nature and sense awareness both of which are the equivalent features. Sense awareness shares the same passage of nature insofar as it is feature of mind )
11;00
The process of nature exhibits that each duration happens and passes. The process of nature is also termed “the passage of nature”. The fundamental principle of Time is explained as the passage of nature which is exhibited equally in temporal and spatial transitions. Our ordinary understanding of measurable time only exhibits some aspect of the more fundamental fact of the passage of nature. It is in virtue of its “passage” that nature is always “moving on”. It is involved in the meaning of the property of “moving on” that not only is any act of sense awareness is just that act and no other but the terminus of each act is also unique (the idea of moving on constitutes why we have uniqueness and particular)
9;00-10;00
The unity of this general present fact is expressed by the concept of “simultaneity”.
Simultaneity is the relation between two events assumed to be happening at the same time in a frame of reference. According to Einstein’s theory of relativity, simultaneity is not an absolute relation between events; what is simultaneous in one frame of reference will not necessarily be simultaneous in another.
Whiteheads understanding of simultaneity is inverse to that of Einstein’s. The “general fact’ is the whole simultaneous occurrence of nature which is now for sense awareness. This “general fact” is what whitehead calls the discernable. The discernable is a “duration” meaning thereby “a whole of nature which is limited only by the property of being a simultaneity”. (whitehead believes that sense awareness can derive a conception of the whole of nature as some object) Further in obedience to the principle of comprising within nature the whole terminus of sense awareness, simultaneity must not be conceived as an irreverent mental concept imposed upon nature. Sense awareness posits for immediate discernment a certain whole, called a duration.
A duration is a definite natural entity. a duration is discriminated as a complex of partial events, and the natural entities that are components of this complex are thereby said to be simultaneous with this duration. Also in a derivative sense they are simultaneous with each other in respect to this duration. The word “duration” is perhaps unfortunate insofar as it suggests a mere abstract stretch of time. This is not what whitehead means, a duration is “concrete slap of nature limited by simultaneity which is an essential factor disclosed by sense awareness”. “Nature is a process, as in the case of everything directly exhibited in sense awareness, there can be no explanation of this characteristic of nature. All that can be done is to use language which may speculatively demonstrate it, and also to express the relation of this general factor to other particular factors.
7;18
The disclosure in sense awareness of the structure of events classifies events into those which are discerned in respect to some further individual character (vision below), and those which are not otherwise disclosed except as elements of the structure. These signified events include events in the remote past and future. We are aware of the latter as the “far off periods of unbounded time”. (the future and past are periods of times because they are locations in the space that all nature at a moment) but there is another classification of events which is also inherent in sense awareness. These are the events which share the immediacy of the immediately present discerned event.
These together with the discerned events comprise “all nature present for discernment”. (8;20) They form the complete general fact which is all nature now present as disclosed in that sense awareness. It is in the classification of events as the whole of nature at a moment, that the differentiation of space from time takes its origin. The “germ of space” (the fundamental principle of space) is found in the mutual relations of events within the immediate general fact which is “all nature now discernable. Namely within the one event which is the totality of present nature”. The relations of other events of this totality of nature form the “texture of time”.
6;20
The concept of “period of time” marks the disclosure in sense awareness of entities in nature known merely by their temporal relations to discerned entities. The separation of space and time is merely adopted for the sake of gaining simplicity of exposition by conformity to current language. What we discern is the specific character of place through a period of time. This is what Whitehead means by “event”. We discern some specific character of an event, but in discerning an event, we are also aware of its significance as a relation in the structure of events. The structure of events is the complex as related by the two fundamental relations of “extension” and “cogredience”. Spatial (extension) and temporal (cogredience) relations characterize this structure of events.
5;00
Entity with a certain specific relation to the thing seen would have been disclosed by sense awareness but not otherwise discriminated in respect to its individual character. An entity merely known as spatially related to some discerned entity is what we mean by the bare idea of place. The concept of place marks the disclosure in sense awareness of entities in nature known merely by their spatial relations to discerned entities. It is the disclosure of the discernable by means of its relations to the discerned. This disclosure of an entity as a relatum (group) without further specific discrimination of quality is the basis of our concept of significance. Definition: “significance is relatedness, but it is relatedness with the emphasis on one end only of the relation”. (6:15)
4;00
Each of the senses is known as one of a group of related things (relatum) existing in the general system of space relations, and the particular mutual relations as related to each other in this general system is determined. But the general system of space relations relating the entity discriminated by sight with that discriminated by touch is not dependent on the peculiar character of the other entity as reported by the alternative sense.
3:00
The discerning, which is another way of saying discriminating, is a peculiar awareness of special factors in nature in respect to their particular characters. “But the factors from which we derive this peculiar sense awareness are known as not comprising all the factors which together form the whole complex of related entities within the general fact there for discernment.” The peculiarity of knowledge is what whitehead calls the “unexhaustive character”. This character can be metaphorically described by the statement, that nature as perceived always has a “ragged edge”. For example, there is a world beyond our own to which our sight is confined, not known to us as completing the space relations of the entities discerned within our own. (the division between internal and external relations is not sharp) “The conjunction of the interior world and the exterior world beyond is never sharp”. Sounds and subtler factors float in from the outside, every type of sense has its own type of discriminated entities known as having relations not discriminated by that sense. For example, we see something we do not touch and we touch something we do not see.
2:00
The general fact that there is an occurrence comprises both sets of entities that A) the entities perceived in their own individuality, and B) what is apprehended unspecified as the relation of the discerned entities without further definition completes the general fact. We are not directly aware of the discernible except as entity fulfilling the function of total relation in these discerned relations (external relations). The discernible comprises all of nature disclosed in the observable awareness and extends beyond and comprises all of nature as actually discriminated and discerned in that sense awareness.
1:00
The scientific investigation of time commences with the general unscientific fact that “something is going on. There is an occurrence”. Whitehead derives from this general fact two factors: the “discerned” and the “discernible”. Both of which are forms of rational conception. The discerned is “comprised of those elements of the general fact which are discriminated with their own individual peculiarities”. This is the field “directly perceived” exhibiting the particularization of nature. But the particular entities of the discerned field have relations to some other entity that is not particularly discriminated in this way. This entity is identified merely on the basis that it is “a something, which has such and such definite relation” to the entities in the discerned field. Owing to the general fact that there is something going on, we are not aware of the entity fulfilling the function of relation between the discerned entities.
Passage of nature 15:00
(Add to “cover as much as space within shortest amount of time,”) Time in ultimate sense creates itself. Self-creative activity, which does not mean a self that creates, but rather is the agency of creating based on the freedom of the will. In order to argue that some self creates, we have to account for the creation of that self that creates, and in what sense is its creation part of it?)
Nature as perceived always has a ragged edge (whitehead time 3:25)