Process thought is an expansive branch of philosophy which expresses the significance of time, and how events are not predetermined and fixed, but rather dependent on the past. This temporal fluidity demonstrates how previous experiences, actions, and occurrences can influence and affect the future through both directly causal and inadvertent means. Alfred North Whitehead, a key contributor to the tenets of process thought and philosophy, applied this ideology to show how reality is a “web” of interstitiality, composed of prior events and occasions which impact the present and the future. This network of strands is inextricably connected, both causing and becoming everything that simply is, ever was, or can be. Further, process thought supposes there is “empty space” connecting these strands to characterize life and to allow for external influences to shape and construct new connections to this infinite, ever-expanding web. This philosophy can be effectively applied to a variety of perspectives, one of which is the interconnectedness of ecological systems across time. Organisms and their interactions with their environment have the ability to affect completely unrelated and independent ecosystems across the globe, in what has been commonly depicted in popular media as a “butterfly effect”. Process thought and its fundamental ideologies, such as concrescence, are significant philosophical beliefs that posit concepts like the value of causality versus indeterminism, and are crucial in understanding the intricate and interdependent relationships of the ecological processes that occur around the world.
At its most fundamental level, process thought supposes that every prior event, occasion, and organism has, in some form or fashion, contributed to every current event, occasion, and organism, and both will impact future interactions. In other words, everything is connected and interdependent. Process philosophers recognize the merit of how self-determinism and self-causation, at least partially, influence future events. I find this ideology consistent with my own beliefs, both on a personal and logical level. Rationally speaking, it makes sense that my actions today may influence my decisions tomorrow or the decisions of those around me. I picture every action and decision across the world as one ripple in a huge pond; that one ripple expands and interacts with the ripples around it, which then interact with the ripples around them. In this way, causality is contingent upon previous and current external factors. However, these factors may only partially contribute to the outcome of an event. It is still vital to recognize that despite the ripple of water forming from a past occasion to flow into other surrounding ripples, each ripple maintains its own essence and properties. Though it may be influenced by the past and present, every ripple still has attributes integral to what makes it a ripple of water and not, say, a ring of fire. Therefore every thing and occasion has its own individual identity and purpose, but it may be– and usually is– influenced by its environment and other deciding forces.
Personally, I tend to focus on the indeterministic aspects of process thought in relation to free will and causality. After all, what would be the purpose of life if every aspect of it was predetermined and I had no true choices? What would determine my values and qualities if they were not completely representative of myself? Who would I be, if my actions and decisions were not wholly made of my own volition? Some may argue that there is no point in living a life that is not, technically, your own. While I do not want my desires to be my motive for employing process thought as a valid philosophical argument, it does address this concern by claiming that “life is characteristic of “empty space”” (Higgins, 2011). Higgins illustrates the “web” of interstitiality, where every strand is representative of an event or organism and they are all integrally dependent and resultant of each other. Each vertex of this web where events connect is composed of “empty space”; in this sense, “empty space” refers to the freedom everything has to be influenced, to be changed, to become. Higgins uses this web to clarify the complex “spatiality” and interconnectedness of the world with the past, present, and future, stating that “within these middle spaces… living occasions are able to cut across their prehensions at dimensions that did not exist before that moment.” (p. 150). I interpreted this as a portrayal of how the events of this universe exist in the moment and, while they can be influenced by prior determinants, there is a sense of spontaneity in each second and each action that can open countless other possibilities for the future. Each juncture of “empty space” holds this possibility, giving the web an additional dimensionality. On one level, there exists what has been and what is, but on another exists the fluid realm of what could be, which is constantly changing as new connections fuse and take form. This interpretation of reality shows how the world and its interactions cohesively work together to provide reality, and demonstrates how “we who are finite moments participating in an infinite process need more than our own individual inventions of meaning– even if we cannot escape the constructive process” (Keller, 2008, pg 24.)
This Whiteheadian perspective presents the distinguished and faceted philosophical realm of concrescence, which posits that “the most basic units of reality… are events which arise through relations that precede them, and perish into a new set of relations that succeed them” (Higgins, 2018, pg 232,233). These instances present themselves in the “empty spaces” of the interstitial web by acting as bursts of spontaneity through which new events and occasions can successively rise or diminish. The act itself only occupies one unit of time, one moment where the event either occurs or it does not. Whitehead’s view on the temporality of these events regards concrescence as an “emergence” of possibility and actuality as opposed to an ordered, predetermined aim.
Further, every such occasion appears in phases, two of which involve the “physical pole” and the “mental pole”. This duality of the material versus the conceptual distinguishes the events of the world, more specifically how they came to be and what they may become. Each event’s physicality is fixed and unchanging, dependent upon that which came before it; everything is affected by and affects everything else. For Whitehead, all events or occasions are initiated into existence by this pole, which consists of no more or less than the entirety of the past. An example of this from an ecological perspective would be the “environmental inheritance” that has been delivered to us by previous humanity, one that has irrevocably altered the substance and climate of our biosphere. We have inherited a world that has experienced and undergone obvious changes in terms of biodiversity, environment, and climate. The question now is: what will we do to change it? Or will we continue to hand down the responsibility to future generations until it is too late? Although we cannot change what we have inherited, “we can choose how we inherit it” (Higgins, 2018, p.234) and what future generations may inherit from us. If the physical pole resides in the unalterable past, then the mental pole encompasses the future and the possibilities of each undetermined reality. Through the mental pole, each event “decides” how it will interpret its past, and as a result, what it will become through that past. The becoming of each and every moment has some semblance of possibility where it still possesses the ability to change or alter. In this way, we have the freedom to take advantage of a moment’s potential, as well as run the risk of ruining how far we have already come.
Holistically, process thought describes how every event and occasion flows into the next moment and perishes into an influence on future events; everything has some importance or significance. The world is comprised of organisms and actions that have a correlational, intrinsic value to each other in a “butterfly effect”. One directly applicable example involves the “long-term rise in the average temperature of Earth’s climate system” (https://www.acs.org, 2018). Global warming has precipitated the extinction of species, altered weather patterns across the biosphere, and permanently modified ecological niches and systems. This phenomena has been increasing rapidly since the Industrial Revolution, as the worldwide fossil fuel expenditure continues to rise exponentially. For over two centuries we have contributed to carbon emissions and the proliferation of greenhouse gases through urban development and deforestation. The causality of our actions on the world around us and future events exemplifies the interconnectedness of all things and their influence on each other. Our extreme involvement in global warming due to CO2 emissions, fossil fuels, and a variety of other factors, has caused the Earth’s overall average temperature to increase approximately 1.62 degrees F since 1880, with a projected temperature increase of 3.6 degrees F in the next century (https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/). Current and historical actions have a direct correlation to climate change; the global growth rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide has risen at an unprecedented rate. This has caused sea levels to rise as a result glacial melts, ocean acidification from the absorption of CO2 into the water, and extreme weather events in the form of droughts, precipitation, and hurricanes due to the impact of climate fluctuations on humidity and temperature levels.
If global warming as a result of human industrialization and deforestation were to represent the “physical pole” of process thought, then the future and concurrent climate change would represent the “mental pole”. We have been handed our “environmental inheritance… by the last few centuries of human civilization” (Higgins, 2018, p.233) and are now left to decide how to receive it. The concrescent nature of our ecological civilization is located at the “empty spaces” where the indeterminate future lies, and where the possibility for environmental change resides. Process thought, when applied to the natural world and our interactions with it, demonstrates why we need to recognize the consequences of our actions and the resultant impacts on future events. Globally, billions of tons of fossil fuels are consumed and released into the atmosphere, from electricity usage to fuel oil emissions to industrial and manufacturing production. In turn, the ozone layer of the stratosphere is depleted and destroyed from these gases, resulting in a warmer global temperature. As temperatures warm, weather patterns become more chaotic which affects sea levels, crops, and human infrastructure. Our actions have led and continue to lead to a chain of events that is detrimental to the condition of our biosphere.
Whitehead philosophized “the unfading importance of our immediate actions, which perish and yet live forevermore” (Whitehead, 1929, p.351). Process thought emphasizes the interconnectedness of these actions, and how they are all separate yet dependent on one another. There have been series of events, of possibilities fulfilled and diminished, that have led to where we are today in human history; one small variation in any of these occurrences could have caused a drastically different outcome. Every action and event exists in that moment of time, but extends beyond temporality to influence its environment in a ripple effect. From an ecological perspective, this is consistent with controversial matters in today’s society such as global warming. I believe the first step of correcting this centuries-old error is understanding the full impact our behaviors have on the world around us; driving cars and leaving the lights on and factory smog all contribute to greenhouse gas production, and although our actions may seem inconsequential, they amass devastating consequences when included along with the 7.5 billion people across the world. We have to begin taking steps in the right direction before it is irreversible; we must choose to take advantage of the opportunity presented in those “empty spaces”, and make sure the ripples positively influence their surroundings to make a wave of difference, before that possibility cool becomes reality.