I am presently teaching a class on the thought of the British/American thinker Alfred North Whitehead. After a brilliant career in England at Cambridge University, Whitehead moved to America and Harvard University. In England he was most famous for partnering with Bertrand Russell in writing a two volume Principia Mathematica in which they proved that the whole of geometry is just a special case of logic. In America Whitehead wrote several interesting books, the most well-known are Adventures of Ideas and Process and Reality.

He argued that processes not objects, comprise the basic nature of reality. That is to say, he reasoned that it is energetic processes that generate the activities leading to the creation of physical reality. Another way to put his thesis is to say that it is the active relationships amongst energetic processes that give rise to physical reality. Even rocks and chemical elements arise out of the interactions of energies, not the other way around. Modern physics tells us that the physical objects we know are simply the result of “slowed down” energies.

            In other words, electrons, protons, and atoms are simply “pausing points” in the ongoing flow and interactions of energy. Just as we think of houses, trees, and committees as composites of tiny particles of matter, so Whitehead taught all physical objects are simply “slowed up” forces of ever moving energy. All “things” grow up out of combinations of interacting energies and then decay and eventually disappear as objects, but not as energies. These energies regroup to form yet other physical objects and relationships.

            Think of the paper, or computer screen, on which these words are printed. If we break these down into infinitesimal particles they eventually “disappear” only to appear again as energy moving on to hook up with others and form new objects. In physics class we called it the “conservation of energy.” The same with our families, committees, cars, and basketball teams. The parts come and go, are created and decompose, and gather together with other parts, grow again, reform themselves endlessly. Nothing is ever actually destroyed, only simply reorganized and recreated anew.

            According to Whitehead, when these energy points congregate sufficiently to have something of a life of their own, they form what he called an “actual “occasion.” When these “occasions,” for one reason or another, group themselves around a particular idea or cause, they become what Whitehead called a “nexus.”   And when “nexi” are gather together around some focal point they form what Whitehead called a “society.” But all along, what we have are gatherings, or bondings, of energy points that form a sort of woven blanket of energy points in action. Imagine a vast field of electric energy composed of interconnected and pulsating serving as the bonding factor through which their combined electricity flows.

            Whitehead’s contention is that if we look at all the various objects and aspects of the realities in the world, from pebbles to galaxies, including ideas and organizations, we’ll see reality as a vast electronic field pulsating with many and various kinds of energies. A smile, or a frown, a slip of the tongue or a wave, a fresh idea or mistake, may in fact lead to the creation of a brilliant theory, or a marvelous statue, or only a disappointment. It was Whitehad’s theory that it is all these “action impulses” and the interactions amongst them, that weave the warp and weft of our common reality, of the world as we know and experience it.

            Whitehead suggests that the reality of any initial “occasion” lasts only the fraction of a second, unless it is joined with others and helps form a “nexus,” and so on. He concludes his Process and Reality with some reflections about the reality and nature of God, as the ultimate energy working throughout reality to maximize truth, beauty, and goodness in the world. Since God is not omnipotent, we are challenged to work with the Divine energies to help bring about as much positive value as possible in the situations and time we are given. Whitehead does acknowledge the influence of Jesus, as “the Galilean,” who serves as a primary guide in the effort to help shape the world after God’s highest ideals.