for - key insight - concrescence - definition - concrescence - Whitehead - definition - The many become the one - Whitehead - definition - Res Potentia - Tim Eastman - definition - superject - Whitehead - definition - moment of satisfaction - Whitehead - definition - dipolar - Whitehead - definition - ingression - Whitehead definition - CONCRESCENCE - is the description of the phases of the iterative process by which reality advances from the past into the present then into the future - this definition is metaphysical and applies to all aspects of reality

• Concrescence is the process by which

  • THE MANY BECOME THE ONE and
  • THE MANY ARE INCREASED BY ONE
    • The "many" here refers to the past
    • the perished objects in the past environment

• There's another domain that whitehead makes reference to

  • He's a platonist in this sense, though he's a reformed platonist
  • He makes reference to this realm of eternal objects which for him are pure possibilities
  • i was mentioning Tim Eastman earlier
    • He calls this domain "RES POTENTIA", the realm of possibilities which have not yet been actualized
• And so for Whitehead
  • the realm of possibility is infinite
  • the realm of actuality is finite
• In the realm of actuality, there's a limited amount of certain types of experience which have been realized
  • but the realm of actuality draws upon this plenum of possibility and
  • it's because there is this plenum of possibility in relationship to the realm of actuality that
  • novelty is possible
  • new things can still happen we're not just constantly repeating the past

• Whitehead describes the process of concrescence or each drop of experience as DIPOLAR, having two poles:

  • a physical pole and
  • a mental pole

• Each concrescence or drop of experience begins with the physical pole

  • where the perished objects of the past environment are apprehended or felt and
  • these feelings of the past grow together into this newly emerging drop of experience
  • and then in the process of their growing together
    • the actualized perished objects of the past environment
    • are brought into comparison with eternal objects or pure potentials possibilities and
    • these possibilities INGRESS so there's
      • INGRESSION of eternal objects and
    • PREHENSION of past actualities
    • INGRESSION of potentials PREHENSIONS of past actualities

• and what the ingression of eternal objects do is provide each occasion of experience, each concrescence with

  • the opportunity to interpret the past differently
• to say maybe it's not like that maybe it's like this
• and so these ingressions come into the mental pole

• If the physical pole is what initiates the experience of each concrescing occasion

  • the mental pole is is a subsequent process that compares
    • what's been felt in the past with
    • what is possible alternatives that could be experienced that are not given yet in the past

• The subjective form is how the occasion fills the past

• The subjective aim is what draws the many feelings of the past towards the unification and the mental pole
  • where
    • the ingression of eternal objects and
    • the feelings of past actualities
  • are brought together into what Whitehead calls this MOMENT OF SATISFACTION
• it's the culmination of the process of concrescence
  • where a new perspective on the universe is achieved - This is the many have become one
• They are increased by one when the satisfaction is achieved
• It's a new perspective on the whole
• As soon as this new perspective is achieved
  • it becomes a SUPERJECT which is not a subject enjoying its own experience anymore
  • it's a perished subject
• The superject is the achieved perspective that has been experienced
  • but then perishes itself int a superject-hood to become
  • one among the many that will be inherited by the next moment of experience, the next concrescence and
• This superject has objective immortality in the sense that
  • every subsequent concrescence will inherit the satisfaction achieved by the prior concrescences

• And so this is the most general account in Whitehead's view that we can offer

  • of the nature of reality
  • the nature of the passage of nature
  • the movement
    • out of the past
    • through the present and
    • into the future

• Experience is always in the present and the satisfaction that is achieved by each moment of concrescence is enjoyed in the present

  • but as soon as we achieve that
  • it perishes and the next moment of concrescence arises to inherit what was achieved
  • and this is an iterative process
  • it's repeating constantly and it's cumulative
• It's a process of growth
  • building on what's been achieved in the past