ATEMPORAL CREATIVITY: EVOLUTION BEYOND LINES AND SPIRALS more

Atemporal Creativity Evolution Beyond Lines & Spirals Zayin Neumann J Zayin Neumann, M.A. is a doctoral student at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he is working at the intersection of various contemporary wisdom traditions, a process-oriented philosophy of science, and a deep intuition into the gifts offered by an evolutionary theory of consciousness. Zayin organizes and facilitates workshops on integral cosmology, holistic integration/ sexuality, various forms of shamanism, and leads contemporary rites of passage. He has a private practice in the Bay Area. Contact: 2735 Elmwood Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705. 415.793.9683. Zayin@ Freedomtoinhabit.com ean Gebser’s work offers a vision of time-freedom, wherein the modern soul is able to free itself from the constraints of the world that is quickening all around us. Other contemporary authors offer Integral visions of their own, but it is in this time-freedom, this anachronon that Gebser shows his particular form of genius. This atemporal vision of reality is a direct critique of what he terms biological and historical theories of evolution. He states quite clearly that “the mutational process we are speaking of is spiritual and not biological or historical” (Gebser, 1985, p. 37). By this he means that a linear (historical) view of reality is a both a serious over simplification of the facts, and a very onerous mistake. In its simplest form, evolution tends to be thought of as a linear developmental process. For Jean Gebser, “Chronological time is but one aspect of a more encompassing phenomenon” (Gebser, 1985, p. 284). This chronological time is held in contrast to the various cyclical experiences of time that can be found throughout our indigenous wisdom traditions, where ‘time’ is closely aligned with the movements of nature, and has far less directionality inherent to it. There are also experiences like that of some of our nomadic ancestors (i.e. the aboriginal peoples of what is now called Australia) where time is a barely punctuated dream-time. Following the work of Gebser, we can easily deepen these basic insights into different ‘times’ by exploring the language and art of those people who fall within his Magic, Mythic and Mental epochs of human consciousness. Alongside these epochs Gebser also considers timelessness— a lived experience that has little or no reference to what we would consider ‘time’. He also speaks to an atemporal time-freedom that is currently unfolding and rooting itself in actuality. Rather than a linear model of evolution, Gebser speaks of time as irrupting, which he tells us is the “profound and unique event of our historical moment” (Gebser, 1985, p. 283). There is a leap or mutation which will not happen in (linear) time, but rather will concretize all the various lived experiences of time. Such a mutation will include linear time, but will not in any way be limited to or by linearity. He tells us in an essay entitled ‘Psyche and Matter’ (Gebser, 1996) of time as a ‘preexisting whole.’1 In The Ever-Present Origin, Gebser (1985) writes that the “coming to awareness of time” in its full complexity is a precondition for the awakening consciousness of time-freedom. The freedom from time, in turn, is the precondition for the realization of the integral consciousness structure that enables us to perceive the aperspectival world” (p. 289). Within the unfolding Integral mutation time itself has been realized and concretized, and the whole of time is free to express itself in the myriad of ways that is its nature. Three basic examples are of point-like ‘Magic’ time, cyclical ‘Mythic’ time, and linear ‘Mental’ time. Evolution, as an ‘Integral’ understanding, must accommodate and express the full richness of just such a time, without relying too heavily on linear Mental time. To accentuate this time-freedom Gebser points to Einstein’s theory of relativ1 We must be careful here not to fall into Ken Wilber’s pre/trans-fallacy. Gebser is not suggesting that Origin has always existed as a static whole. He is speaking to a phenomena akin to Whitehead’s understanding of eternal objects and epochs of existence. wherein absolute freedom exists within a basically given set of possibilities. To put this another way, a child does not experience the same Origin as the adult mystic in that different possibilities are ingressed (made actual) within the experience of each. Spring 2010 13 ity,2 Picasso’s cubism, and the words of Rilke, T.S. Eliott, and Jorge Guilleniv3 as various expressions of this coming anachronon. There are countless examples that could be given of more contemporary expressions of this impulse. We will explore the work of these artists and thinkers here as this paper is less about what the coming mutation of consciousness will be experienced as, and more about the actual process of evolution itself. In order to account for such an atemporal experience of ‘time’ we must introduce a level of complexity into our thinking that is not available to us in a simple linear causal understanding of reality. We must ask the question, “How does Gebser’s thought manage to honor an evolutionary intuition, while not falling into the linear developmental trap?” The answer can be found in the work of Alfred North Whitehead as he endeavors to illustrate how true novelty can come into the world. Creativity Whitehead’s First Principles The crux of the comparison between Whitehead and Gebser lies within Whitehead’s consideration of propositions, but in order to get there we must first attempt a brief summary of three of his first principles. To this end, Whitehead’s metaphysical project is an attempt to come to a set of general ideas that is sufficient to the Freedom from time is the precondition for the realization of the integral consciousness structure that enables us to perceive the aperspectival world. task of interpreting the entirety of our lived experience. Whitehead is quite aware that this is no small undertaking. He is quick to inform us that it is in fact an impossible task for the human mind to enter into, and yet it must be done. Metaphysics, when seen in this light, becomes more of a practice, a way of living more akin to Gebser’s verition (living-in-beauty) than to a new system capable of describing in axiomatic truths the way things are. Gebser tells us that the efficient form of the Mental epoch is an expression of directive, discursive thought. This as opposed to the deficient expression of the Mental described by Gebser as divisive, is immoderate hair-splitting. We can feel in the efficient form of the Mental a tendency towards the broadening of our horizons towards greater transparency. In this broadening towards transparency we see Whitehead’s project, and essential to this project is a set of general ideas that are coherent, logical, and necessary for the task at hand. These general ideas are logical in that they do not contradict one another. They are coherent in that they presuppose each other, and cannot be understood separate from one another. They are necessary in that there is some one thing that is, and that beyond which no relationships can be understood rationally. This one thing for Gebser is the ‘Ever-Present Origin’, and Whitehead informs us that it is towards the essence of something True novelty, Whitehead tells us, is neither dependent on efficient causation, nor on linear development. This point is absolutely crucial to the intuition of an Integral epoch of which Gebser writes. If Whitehead can clarify exactly how novelty can arise in a non-linear, acausal way, then Gebser’s work has far reaching and deeply pragmatic ramifications. It is interesting to note the long standing tension between the thought of Einstein and that of some of his contemporaries; most notably Neils Bohr. The inability of contemporary physicists to accommodate both relativity theory and quantum physics acts as another pointer in the direction of the mutation Gebser discusses. Einstein can be seen as a clearly modern thinker, while Bohr clearly of the postmodern camp. The struggle between them becomes a moot point within the unfolding Integral mutation, at least that is the assumption of this paper. 3 In Psyche and Matter (1996) Gebser quotes many of these authors. Jorge Guillen is quoted as writing, “The events - where are they, when did they take place? There is no so called history. There was a glowing, and this still is glowing. A single day, deeply engraved in our recollection, entrusts itself to the eternal present.” Gebser goes on to quote Arthur Eddington as saying, “Events do not happen; they are just there and we come across them. The ‘formality of taking place’ is merely the indication that the observer has on his voyage of exploration passed into the absolute future of the event in question.” 2 similar to this Origin that his speculative philosophy strives. The three general ideas that Whitehead settles upon are Creativity, eternal objects, and actual occasions. I will attempt to define these three principles before moving on to a consideration of propositions. Actual occasions tell us stories about what has been. For Whitehead they are the only ‘really real things’ in existence. They do not exist in isolation, but rather are the satisfaction of a subjective choice, predicated on the concrete experience of everything that has been actual, juxtaposed against everything that is both relevant and possible for the subject, or occasion, that is making a decision. This is a dense sentence, and it holds Whitehead’s key to the very nature of actuality. The process of becoming ‘actual’ requires three phases of what Whitehead terms concrescence. The first phase operates with an emphasis on the physical pole of life. Absolutely every single occasion that has actualized itself (actual occasion) tells the story of what has been by being felt as the concrete past actual world (physical prehension). The concrescing occasion literally feels the entirety of the actual universe. As it feels the entirety of the universe, it is also presented with an array of everything that exists in potential relevance to its past experience. Here it makes a choice (the second phase of concrescence) as to how to proceed. It can place its emphasis on the physical pole, and more or less bring the past into the present in a conformal fashion. It can also place more or less emphasis on the mental pole, thereby allowing a greater possibility of freedom and novelty in relation to its past. Once the occasion makes a decision it moves into the third and final phase of its process of becoming. It has a moment of actual existence in which it enjoys or appreciates the decision it has made. It then becomes the objective past of future actual occasions. In effect, the occasion is a process of feeling, considering/ choice, and appreciation. Inherent in this process of becoming, there is also the subjective aim of any concrescing occasion. Much consider- 14 ReVision Vol. 32 no. 1 ation must be given to subjective aims within the context of relating the decisions and enjoyment of occasions to the movement of evolution. We must consider in depth the origination of particular subjective aims, and of larger ecological and societal (in the sense of Whitehead’s societies of actual occasions) aims. I will touch on these issues when discussing propositions later in this paper, albeit only briefly. Returning to the three phases of concrescence, there is absolutely no actual existence outside of such a process of becoming. Whitehead tells us “[t]here are not ‘the concrescence’ and ‘the novel thing’: when we analyze the novel thing we find nothing but the concrescence... abstraction from which there is mere nonentity” (Whitehead, 1978, p. 211). The world, then, is made up of a series of processes, rather than a diversity of discrete and isolated things. This is so important that it must be emphasized again. There is no static knower, no passive known, these terms are relative and actuality is one of process not substance. For Whitehead this is the great mistake of the Western philosophical tradition. “In the place of the Aristotelian notion of the procession of forms, [the philosophy of organism] has substituted the notion of the forms of process” (Whitehead, 1968, p. 140). This point can be very controversial. It is beyond the scope of this paper to delve more deeply into the subject, and yet we must assume this point if we are to continue in our endeavor to understand through Whitehead’s lens how novelty can be introduced into actuality. In order to better understand this introduction of novelty we must come to a working knowledge of what Whitehead terms eternal objects. Eternal objects, he tells us, are pure possibility. They are in no way connected to any definite set of actual occasions. They ‘exist,’ not in actuality, but in potentiality. The greater the emphasis that is placed on the mental pole and conceptual prehensions, the more possibilities or eternal objects will become relevant. All eternal objects are possible, always, but for each actual occasion, only those eternal objects that are relevant to the particular occasion are recognizable. Relevance here is a matter of emphasis on physical and mental poles, in relation to past actualities, contemporary context, and subjective aim. At one end, a complete emphasis of the physical pole would mean that absolutely no novelty would come into existence. The past would simply repeat itself ad infinitum. On the other extreme, a complete emphasis on the mental, absolutely all novelty would be possible. Nothing would ever “actually” exist, as The world is made up of a series of processes, rather than a diversity of discrete and isolated things. There is no static knower, no passive known, these terms are relative and actuality is one of process not substance. everything would always be possible, in effect disallowing the process of decision. Both of these extremes are hypothetical, because in our lived experience we experience ourselves as striking a balance of emphasis between the mental and the physical. Complex occasions emphasize the mental for particular durations, but must test these adventures against the test of ingression. They must bring their emphasis back to the physical pole, with a decision to actualize the felt possibility. As more complex occasions begin to influence less complex (occasions that have heretofore placed limited emphasis on mental pole) occasions, a greater variety of eternal objects can be ingressed in actuality. If less complex occasions influence more complex occasions (a kind of habituation by peer pressure) with regard to what is possible, less variety is possible. This dance appears to be essential to the very nature of reality. In order to understand actual occasions and eternal objects we 4 The reader might notice that at this point the when of becoming has not been discussed. This is an important issue, and brings up a fourth foundational principle. As Creativity is a movement towards conjunction and novelty, there must be a counter movement towards disjunction and entropy. An overemphasis on Creativity could be similar to an overemphasis on the stage of evolution, at the disregard of the stage of devolution (the natural death and decay inherent to actuality). It is beyond my own understanding of Whitehead to discuss in any detail how he would address this issue, but the issue itself is instructive concerning our topic. If there were only evolution, only an emphasis on the mental pole, the when would be a moot issue. The entirety of actuality would realize itself as everything that is possible, and nothing at all interesting would happen. There would simply be all that is possible. The when requires the dance of the physical and mental poles. For actual occasions to exist as unique individualities, not having realized themselves as everything that is possible, there must also be some principle at play that restricts their ability to realize all eternal objects at once. I will call this principle Soil. I cannot go into any great detail regarding Soil here. This is because I do not know exactly how Whitehead deals with this issue. must attempt to penetrate the mystery of this dance between physical and mental polarities. We can now approach Whitehead’s third principle, ‘Creativity’. We have come to understand that actuality requires a decision, whereby what has been chosen can be experienced. Without a decision, there is no actual occasion. The greater the freedom of choice that is possible, the greater the variety of eternal objects that can be ingressed or experienced. The question arises, “Why experience or actualize an ever larger number of eternal objects? Why is there novelty at all?” When Whitehead looks at his own experience, he sees a tendency towards greater complexity, freedom, and novelty. This is his experience, and so his metaphysics must account for this. He sees Creativity, the many become one and are increased by one, as the basic impulse of the Kosmos. Inherent in the very structure of reality is an expansion towards novelty. By including this third foundation, he can account for not only the how of becoming (actual occasions concrescing), and the what of becoming (eternal objects ingressing), but the why of becoming (Creativity) as well.4 Spring 2010 15 We have only just touched upon what is possible in considering Whitehead’s metaphysics. In our own small way, we have added to his incredibly successful project meant to render the essence of becoming transparent. We could spend several years and many papers delving more deeply into these three principles, unheard of self-reflexive act. It is in the dawning of evolutionary thinking that we begin to look back on ourselves and penetrate deeply into the how, the what, and the why of becoming. We also begin to know the when and the where of becoming. In the Integral mutation both time and space are set free, no lon- but for now we will move on to Whitehead’s consideration of propositions. Propositions Our purpose within this essay is to account for the introduction of non-local acausal novelty via the activity of evolution. In order to effectively deal with Whitehead’s answer to this riddle we have introduced the three first principles mentioned above, namely ‘actual occasions’, ‘eternal objects’, and ‘Creativity’. Having done this we can now move to the focus of our consideration of what Gebser terms spiritual evolution by looking to Whitehead’s rendering of propositional feeling, propositional thinking, and rational knowing. Evolution is clearly one of the greatest discoveries of the Integral mutation of consciousness. It is through the dawning realization of an evolutionary stage of becoming that we begin a heretofore 16 ReVision Vol. 32 no. 1 ger subject to the measurement of stick and clock. I would like to suggest that by so completely teasing out the how of evolution, Whitehead has managed to accomplish in his own way the new freedoms of ‘diaphaneity’ and ‘verition’ of which Gebser speaks. His explication of propositions is the fullest understanding of the means by which freedom and novelty are introduced into any system that I have come across. I will proceed now to delve into his careful consideration of this process. Whitehead defines propositions as stories that lure us (actual occasions) into novel futures. When I create the sentence, “I intend to not only to understand, but directly participate in evolution so as to grow a living house,” I am positing a novel future. This sentence is a proposition, and it is through such propositions that Whitehead’s foundational impulse of the Kosmos, Creativity, can ingress greater freedom into actuality. To put this more simply, propositions tell us what might be, “the sun will rise tomorrow,” and lead us towards such futures. By placing emphasis on the conceptual prehension phase (mental pole) of a concrescence, the occasion that is becoming moves away from Soil,5 towards Creativity, in order to become aware of eternal objects that have not yet been ingressed in actuality. In simple occasions this phase of concrescence is satisfied by bringing the past into the present through a decision to maintain the past conformally. Something very important happens in more complex occasions, whereby greater and greater emphasis is placed on this conceptual phase. The proposition, the statement acting as lure, enters into the awareness of the concrescing occasion, effectively becoming a new datum or object to be prehended. The proposition itself contains three basic parts. “I will grow a living house.” In this proposition, there is a definite set of past actualities that is being physically prehended. There is a particular “I” that is being referenced (This proposition is far less relevant to a door, or a dog, or a grandmother in Omaha baking cookies, than it does to the author of this paper (growing houses is relevant to the particular society of occasions that is “me”). The “I” is made sensible by being relevant to a definite set of past actualities. This ‘I’ becomes the logical subject of the proposition. Also included within this sentence are the words living and house. These two words point to a definite set of possibilities that are conceptually prehended, relative to the logical subject of the sentence. A living house could mean a tree, if the “I” in the sentence is a bird in a child’s story that is talking about its house. In the sentence above, assuming the “I” is the author of this paper, 5 See note 4. the words “living house” take on a very different meaning than the one found in the children’s story. These words make up a predicate, meaning that they consist of a definite set of possibilities that are relevant to the logical subject of the proposition. There is one more important part of the proposition above, which is the propositional feeling (also called a copulative verb). The logical subject means to integrate or actualize the predicate of the sentence. In this case, “I” mean to “grow a living house”. The propositional feeling points to the degree to which the predicate corresponds to the logical subject. “I have not grown a living house,” has a greater correspondence between predicate and subject than, “I am growing a living house.” We can see here that propositions can tend towards truth (conformal propositions) or falsity (non-conformal) propositions.6 We are not too concerned here with conformal propositions. Such propositions simply tell us what has been the case in the past; they do not lure us towards novel futures. “[F]alse propositions have fared badly, thrown into the dust heap, neglected. But in the real world it is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true” (Whitehead, 1978, p. the mechanism of evolution. It is nonconformal propositions that we will be discussing for the remainder of this section. Evolution requires a modicum of freedom wherein there are relatively few restrictions on what is possible. This means that a proposition like ‘the car is powered by gas’ provides less opportunity for evolution than the proposition ‘the car is powered by water.’ Evolution requires freedom from the past, and freedom from the past requires an increasing intensification of emphasis on the mental pole. Whitehead breaks propositions into several stages of increasing mental intensity. He is clear that his designation of stages is somewhat arbitrary in that they could be distinguished in an infinite number of ways. Following the lead of Thomas Hosinki (1993) we shall work with the three basic stages of propositional feeling, intellectual feeling, and rational knowing.7 Evolution is clearly one of the greatest discoveries of the Integral mutation of consciousness. Gebser suggests to us that evolution is atemporal and acausal, that it occurs via mutations or leaps that do not fall within linear or causal models of understanding. 259). Non-conformal propositions are our vehicles of the “creative advance,” 6 It is important to note a shift from traditional Aristotelian logic to a kind of propositional logic. Where Aristotelian logic focuses on what is similar by way of asserting categories of being, we could say that propositional logic looks for what is different or interesting. In this way we begin to focus on process rather than content. To say this another we way, we find ourselves looking for that unifying process whereby what we are considering becomes interesting and useful within our thought. This unifying process is not a sum of parts, but rather a play of “parts.” To use Whitehead’s words, we are looking for higher grade occasions that are influencing the lower grade occasions which we are considering. For a lucid account of this shift of logics see chapter one of Ernst Cassirer’s Substance and Function (Chicago: Open Court Publishing, 1923). Whitehead tells us that the first of these three, propositional feelings, indicates the feeling of a contrast between what is possible and what is actual. Once this contrast is felt, the subject (concrescing occasion) reacts to this felt sense in itself, and proceeds to make a relatively unconscious decision. If we remember back to our breakdown of an actual occasion, we notice every concrescence has three phases. It feels the concrete past, looks into the possible future, and then makes a decision based 7 Rational knowing is a term coined by Hosinski (1993) that is helpful for our purposes. It is not used by Whitehead in this particular way. on these two prehensions. We can easily make the mistake of conflating our own decision making processes with the way Whitehead is using the word here, but that would be a mistake. There are many ways in which we make ‘decisions.’ If we largely ignore all future possibilities, then we generally bring the past into the present in a conformal manner. When we do this, we are primarily working with the ‘true’ or conformal propositions we mentioned above. Propositional feelings are one step towards the mental pole from these conformal propositions, because the proposition that is being felt is not true but false. It is pointing to a possible future, not an actual one. We say that a propositional feeling is still relatively unconscious because even though the contrast between actual and possible is felt, the result is an unconscious reaction. If I am walking along saying to myself, “man, man, man” and this is true, then we are working with a conformal proposition, and no novelty is introduced. If I am walking along saying to myself, “human, human, not human, human”, then some novelty has been introduced. Maybe as I am walking along I suddenly turn left towards my home, moving unconsciously towards a place where I know I can find some reassurance that I am indeed a human. The way this example is written is important. I did not write, “I am human,” but rather, “human.” I wish to point out with this sentence a contrast that is felt between human and not human, while a certain level of non-reflectiveness is maintained. We have introduced a false proposition, not human, within a context where the conformal proposition is actually “human.” A certain amount of emphasis is placed on the mental I like to use the words Iother written in this way to show the lack of differentiation. As the reader continues they might find it interesting to consider intellectual feelings as an I-Other, where an emphasis is placed on the hyphen. When moving to rational knowing, we can start to see the relationship as , I Other, where the hyphen has gone, and an “I” stands over an apart from the “Other.” 8 Spring 2010 17 whereby a false proposition may be felt, while the action that is taken (turn left) is largely unconscious. This is an important point, which we will return to in the next section. There is just enough mental intensity in a propositional feeling whereby a possible novel future can be entertained, but not enough so that a conscious action can actually be taken By feeling into this difference, we can begin to understand what Whitehead is attempting to explain to us. He is saying that consciousness enters into actuality at the point where a contrast is felt within the duration of one event. This awareness is an awareness of relationship between an actuality and a possibility, and it requires of us to slow down, It is in the dawning of evolutionary thinking that we begin to look back on ourselves and penetrate deeply into the how, the what, and the why of becoming. We also begin to know the when and the where of becoming. to ingress this possible future. Only an unconscious action is possible at this point.8 As we increase the emphasis of mental intensity we move to the next phase of propositions, which Whitehead calls intellectual feeling. During an intellectual feeling an awareness of the contrast between what is possible and what is actual begins to take shape. This allows the formation of a judgment, which opens the possibility of a conscious decision. If I am walking along saying to myself, “human, human, humannot human, human, human, human-not human,” something new has entered into possibility. Notice the difference between, “human, human, not human, human,” and, “human, human, humannot human, human.” In the first, something different comes into the awareness of one moment, whereas in the second a contrast is felt between what is and what might be within one experience. In order for a contrast to come to “awareness” or consciousness it must happen within the same event. We can see this even more clearly when we look at the words “not human” by themselves, and then look at the words “human-not human” by themselves. The second actually requires of us to pause for a moment and consider the relationship that is present. This is not the case with the first set of words. 18 ReVision Vol. 32 no. 1 to place emphasis on the mental pole for a greater duration before coming to a decision. We are being asked to make a conscious judgment. This may seem like a simple point, but it is absolutely crucial for the discussion at hand and should not be overlooked. Whitehead is pointing out to us the very point at which consciousness enters into a concrescing occasion. In effect he is pointing at the mechanism whereby consciousness (and novelty) enters into actuality. If we take even more time emphasizing an increased intensity of the mental pole, we will come to experience that we are here calling rational knowing. Rational knowing comes into play when an occasion is able to compare and contrast over the course of several moments. In this way, a concrescing occasion can assess the value or the truth of the contrasts that are felt. One example of this would be to take a non-conformal proposition, “I am not human,” and compare it with a conformal proposition, “I am human.” This can be done over the course of several moments, so while actually feeling human, one can compare the possibility of not being human to the conformal feeling of being human. Notice what an incredible difference there is between the use of these propositions and how propositions were used within propositional and intellec- tual feelings. In propositional feeling a difference is felt, or becomes relevant within a moment. There is no “I” that recognizes this difference over the course of several moments, but rather consciousness is constellated around difference for a moment and then this moment passes into another. Within an intellectual feeling a contrast is felt. We call is a contrast rather than difference, because within one moment two polar opposites/complementarities are felt, but not in opposition or separation from one another. What is felt is not one side or the other of the contrast, but rather the contrast itself. Notice also that no “I” maintains awareness of this contrast from one moment to another. The contrast occurs within a moment of experience, that passes away into another experience. It is only in the final stage of concrescence that an I or an awareness is maintained across moments. Our contrast in a moment, becomes a kind of either-or over the course of several moments. There is an intensification along the mental pole to the extent that awareness is maintained at least as long as it takes to compare one proposition with another. Rather than actual datum, non-conformal propositions become the focus of attention. Rather than focusing on what is actual, we have moved to a point where what is merely possible becomes relevant and the focus of our awareness. Within this phase of rational knowing an occasion can be so self-reflective as to consider an obviously false proposition over and against the actuality of its experience. We have now opened up the possibility of truth statements. An occasion can differentiate between human and not human, and decide whether or not what it is feeling itself as is human or is not. In effect, we have defined human. We can now compare “human”, with other things that are “not human”. Not-human might be one example, but so is tree, or skateboard. We can compare experiences that have little or no obvious relation to one another, because an emphasis has been placed on the mental pole to the extent that several propositions can be compared within the experience of one event or occasion. In addition to such truth statements, and similar value statements, notice that the occasion has recognized itself as existing over the course of several moments, and so is also able to coherently say I am human. Up until this point an “I” statement is not within the realm of actuality, but it can now be considered. We have moved from feeling a contrast and reacting in an unconscious way, to becoming aware of a contrast and making a conscious judgment, to becoming aware of a subject (an “I”) that exists over several moments (and subsequently an objective world out there).9 This has all happened because of an increased emphasis on the mental pole of an occasion.Here an occasion can be so self-reflective as to consider an obviously false proposition over and against the actuality of its experience. We have now opened up the possibility of truth statements. An occasion can differentiate between human and not human, and decide whether or not what it is feeling itself as is human or is not. In effect, we have defined human. We can now compare human, with other things that are not human. Not-human might be one example, but so is a tree, or a skateboard. We can compare experiences that have little or no obvious relation to one another, because an emphasis has been placed on the mental pole to the extent that several propositions can be compared within the experience of one event or occasion. In addition to such truth statements, and similar value statements, notice that the occasion has recognized itself as existing over the course of several moments, and so is also able to coherently say I am human. Up until this point an “I” statement is not within the realm of actuality, but it can now be considered. We have moved from feeling a contrast and reacting in an unconscious way, to becoming aware of a contrast and making a conscious judgment, to becoming aware of a subject (an “I”) that exists over several moments (and subsequently an objective world out there). This has all happened because of an increased emphasis on the mental pole of an occasion. As we have moved from propositional feeling, to intellectual feeling, and on to 9 rational knowing, we have increased the intensity of emphasis placed on the mental pole. By placing this emphasis on the mental pole, we have opened up greater and greater possibility for novel propositions and futures to be realized. If an occasion were to maintain this emphasis on the mental, then the more extraordinary propositions that may have been glimpsed would remain as potentialities only. The furthest reaches of the mental imagination will remain mental imaginations as long as emphasis is kept at this far end of the mental pole. In order for extraordinary propositions to embody themselves in actuality emphasis must shift back to the physical pole of life.10 We can see this in a person who tends towards flights of imagination. If this person is never compelled to test their imaginations against the physical limitations of actuality, then they simply wander further and further off into imagination. As emphasis on the mental continues in this way, the imaginations, or non-conformal propositions, begin to lose any reference to the physical. In effect, the predicate of the proposition has less and less relevance to the logical subject of the proposition, and so the copulative verb becomes meaningless, as the concrescing occasion cannot integrate the ever more disjunctive pieces of the proposition. Without an attempt to check the possibility of ingressing the proposition into the actual, the occasion gets lost in a world of phantasy. Having reached the limits of non-conformal propositions that have the possibility of becoming actual, we must shift It is my own assertion that the Integral epoch will require a shift from emphasis on the mental pole to an emphasis on the physical pole. So much novelty has been introduced (evolution) in our lives, that in the coming years there will be an emphasis on what I would call involution (not to be confused with Sri Aurobindo’s use of the word), rather than evolution. I find the work of Dane Rudhyar (1970) to be of particular interest here. 10 the emphasis back to the physical pole so as to attempt to involve or actualize Many contemporary theorists within the fields of Integral studies have aligned themselves with a more or less linear understanding of time, while various traditional and indigenous authors and thinkers tend towards more cyclical experiences of time. these non-conformal propositions. Here we see an end to the evolutionary stage of becoming, and a return to the involutionary stage. The seeds of possibility that have been realized must now be tested against the past actual occasions. We started this section by stating that true novelty is neither dependent on efficient causation nor on linear development. Our purpose on one level has been to call into question those theories and systems that put forward an evolution of simply located “things” through a progressive linear development. Our intention is to illustrate a view of evolution that honors the incredible complexity of what Gebser has termed spiritual evolution. By way of attempting to meet the complexity of an evolution by leaps and mutations we have delved into the collective writings of Alfred North Whitehead, paying especially close attention to the 4th and 5th chapters (pp. 256-280) of Part III of Process and Reality entitled the Theory of Prehensions.11 Our goal has been to clarify exactly how novel mutations of consciousness could enter into actuality, and in the process we have hopefully shown how consciousness itself enters into actuality. Whitehead is deeply committed to the notion of ultimate freedom. From this starting point he begins to unfold a view of reality that is non-substantive Spring 2010 19 Back to Creativity We might say that the mind-body problem of “out-there” is a deficient Mental problem within Gebser’s illumination of human mutations of consciousness. It can also be seen as a seed for the dawning Integral epoch. This is a subtle point beyond the scope of this short paper. 11 Thomas E. Hosinki (1993) suggests that very few guides are available for these complex chapters offered by Whitehead (p. p. 127n11). I have found Hosinki’s work, Stubborn Fact and Creative Advance: An Introduction to the Metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead (New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1993), pp. 99 - 127, to be a place to start. Hosinski points towards Donald W. Sherbourne, A Whiteheadian Aesthetic (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), pp. 55 - 69; and Elizabeth M. Kraus, The Metaphysics of experience: A companion to Whitehead’s “Process and Reality” (New York: Fordham University press, 1979), pp. 117 - 124. Both of these works can be useful. David Ray Griffin is also helpful on this point, Reenchantment Without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp. 320 - 350. In the end, however, we must return to Whitehead’s own work in order to find clarity within these most rewarding few pages (1978, pp. 256 - 280). in nature. To this end he is highly critical of what he sees as an Aristotelian tradition that emphasizes a procession of forms. By inquiring into the forms of process, Whitehead’s work speaks to how something truly novel can come into existence against the backdrop of Creativity. Viewed in abstraction an object appears to be passive, but when we take a closer look we see that there is no such static thing. What we find, says Whitehead (Whitehead, 1967, p. 179), is an active process of creation whereby what is novel comes into the world. “Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. Thus creativity introduces novelty into the content of the many... the many become one and are increased by one... Thus the ‘production of novel togetherness’ is the ultimate notion embodied in the term ‘concrescence.’” (Whitehead, 1978, p. 21). In considering Whitehead’s words there can be no mistaking the importance of Creativity within his thought. Based on this non-local reality, Whitehead allows himself an incredible freedom to consider multiple forms of causality. In a traditional Newtonian world, we are limited by an efficient causation that requires a simply located object to effectively run into another such object by way of producing a causal relationship.12 Such simple passive objects are for Whitehead dead and lifeless. “Thus for Newtonians”, he tells us, “nature yielded no reasons: it could yield no reasons. Combining Newton and Hume we obtain a barren concept... it is this situation that modern philosophy from Kant onwards has in its various ways sought to render intelligible. My own belief is that this situation is a reductio ad absurdum, and should not be excepted as the basis for philosophic speculation” (Whitehead, 1968, p. 135). These are strong words, and he goes on to ask, “How do we add content to the notion of bare activity? Activity for what, producing what, activity involving what?” (Whitehead, 1968, p.147). His answer? “Process for its intelligibility involves the notion of a creative activity belonging to the very essence of each occasion. It is the process (of concrescence of actual occasions) of eliciting into actual being factors in the universe (eternal objects) which antecedently to that process exist only in the mode of unrealized potentialities” (Whitehead, 1968, p.151).13 We could say that this is the how and the why (Creativity) that novelty (unrealized potentialities) are ingressed in actuality. Creativity, then, is the short answer to the question that we first endeavored to ask with regard to Gebser’s intuition of spiritual evolution over and against what he termed biological and historical evolution (and what we might call an evolution of lines and spirals). Atemporal and Creativity Evolution, I would suggest, is an Integral seed that has taken root by way of catalyzing the momentous leap of consciousness authors like Jean Gebser, Teilhard de Chardin, and Sri Aurobindo The history of contemporary science quickly points to the limitations of such a materialist view of reality. There are countless new sciences, from physics to biology to sociology that call into question such a simple system. For his own part, Whitehead was deeply influenced by the new sciences of relativity theory and quantum theory of the early 1900s. If we start to follow the evolution of the new sciences we start to see a picture rife with struggle and conflict among various authors and thinkers. Einstein and Bohr went from being great friends to finding themselves barely able to stand in the same room as one another as their careers progressed over the years (Peat, 2002). I mention these struggles by way of emphasizing the very radical nature of Whitehead’s contribution to these conversations. I would suggest that Einstein and Bohr struggled so because they were both holding on to the traditional Newtonian system that arose out of the Western version of Gebser’s Mental epoch of human consciousness. Einstein stayed the course, insisting upon simply located things. Bohr attempted to deconstruct these ‘things’ through his non-local causation, but failed to step into the radically different world of actual occasions offered by Whitehead. 13 Additions within parenthesis are mine. 12 assure us is more than a passing possibility. Following Gebser’s lead, it is increasing crucial that any contemporary dialogue with regard to evolution take very seriously questions about the nature of time. To this end, many contemporary theorists within the fields of Integral studies have aligned themselves with a more or less linear understanding of time, while various traditional and indigenous authors and thinkers tend towards more cyclical experiences of time. For those in the first camp, evolution becomes a developmental, progressoriented march into the future, while for those in the latter camp, evolution is something of a misnomer, as to them it is obvious that we as a species are moving away from a golden era. For this second group it is clear that we need to consider the fact that we have lost our way and need to return to that golden age. There are still others who one encounters in popular culture who raise the flag of a kind of timelessness, or an always now, or some such variation on the theme. Evolution needs to account for the various wisdoms that are represented here, and the numerous others that await our respect and attention. This is often not the case, as evolution is generally aligned with an atomistic, linear, and causal experience of reality. This leads to developmental and historical models of evolution, as well as to theories of evolution by way of biological specialization. The primary purpose of this paper has been to extract evolution from such narrow and restrictive modes of thought. Gebser suggests to us that evolution is atemporal and acausal, that it occurs via mutations or leaps that do not fall within linear or causal models of understanding. Where Gebser points us in the right direction, I have found that it is crucial to look outside his own writing for a more thorough explication of this process. For this, I have turned to Alfred North Whitehead. Whitehead (1978), in Process and Reality, makes explicit the function or the process of becoming whereby novelty comes into existence. In effect, Whitehead clarifies the actual mechanism of evolution. This is something that Gebser only hinted at, and that many other integral authors have wrestled with.14 In order to accomplish this task, 20 ReVision Vol. 32 no. 1 Whitehead puts forward a philosophy of organism, that is non-substantive in nature (process oriented), that is based on what he suggests is the most fundamental property of reality. Creativity. He defines Creativity as "the many becoming one, and being increased by one" (Whitehead, 1978, p. 21). Gebser tells us that the evolution he speaks of is an evolution of plus mutations (Gebser, 1985, p. 38). Such an evolution is one of over-determination, whereby an openness to possibility is maintained. As we have seen this notion of “openness to possibility” is akin to something Whitehead proposes through his discussion around propositions and the higher phases of concrescence. Whitehead’s metaphysic, then, gives us a lucid and coherent account of how novelty, leaps, and mutations can align with an atemporal acausal intuition into the nature of reality. Both Whitehead and Gebser are careful to make it as clear as possible that they are not speaking of linear developmental models. A Footnote By way of ending I would like to open the door for future discussions around The evolutionary philosophy of Sri Aurobindo offers an entirely different and unique description with regard to the process of evolution than that put forward here by Whitehead. Ken Wilber is another example of an important and unique voice within the field, one that tends towards a Mental lens, but which can offer a variety of unique insights. 14 comparisons of these two authors. Having made explicit Gebser’s need for a clarification of the how’s and why’s of spiritual evolution, we have spent the majority of this paper considering Whitehead’s account of the creative impulse that runs through the Kosmos. Having accomplished this task to a greater or lesser degree, future discussions might revert focus back to Gebser and his intuition into the story of how human consciousness has come to its contemporary (and potentially Integral) expression. I see an interesting and striking conversation unfolding at the intersection of Whitehead’s understanding of what he terms the “higher phases of concrescence” and Gebser’s description of the various epochs of human consciousness. Upon close examination Gebser’s mutations of human consciousness seem to express themselves as approximate corollaries of Whitehead’s understanding of concrescence (the process of becoming) in the form of conformal concrescence being related to the Archaic epoch, propositional feeling related to the Magic epoch, intellectual feeling related to the Mythic epoch, and rational knowing seeming to express clear similarities with Gebser’s Mental epoch. If we are able to outline the similarities inherent to these two thinkers, then we might just find ourselves with a logical, coherent, and necessary description of exactly how consciousness (that most novel of novel “things”) came into actuality. Such a comparison will surely offer itself as a fascinating point of departure for future conversations related to the work of these two authors, but one that will have to be saved for another day. Gebser, J. (1985). The Ever-Present Origin. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. Gebser, J. (1996). Two essays: “The conscious and the unconscious” & “Psyche and matter.”. Journal of Culture and Consciousness. 3, 86-91 Hosinki, T. E. (1993). Introduction to the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead: Stubborn fact and creative advance. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Whitehead, A. N. (1933). Adventures of Ideas. New York: Free Press. Whitehead, A. N. (1968). Modes of Thought. New York: The Free Press. Whitehead, A.N. (1978). Process and Reality. New York: Free Press. Cassirer, E. (1923). Substance and function. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. David Ray Griffin, D. R. (2001). Reenchantment without supernaturalism: A process philosophy of religion. Ithaca: Cornell University Press Kraus, E. M. (1979). The metaphysics of experience: A companion to Whitehead’s “Process and Reality”. New York: Fordham University Press Peat, F. D. (2002). From certainty to uncertainty : The story of science and ideas in the twentieth century. Washington, D.C: Joseph Henry Press. Rudhyar, D. (1970). The plantetization of consciousness: From the individual to the whole. Harper & Row: NY. Sherbourne, D. W. (1961). A Whiteheadian aesthetic. New Haven: Yale University Press. References Subscription Renewals Renew your personal or institutional ReVision subscription online: www.revisionpublishing.org Click on Subscriptions in the left hand column For renewal by mail: ReVision P.O. Box 1855, Sebastopol, CA 95473 Spring 2010 21