Subject: Re: Process Philosophy From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 13:37:36 -0500 (EST) Prof. Peter Scott wrote: "Do you think that Whitehead's process philosophy has anything to contribute to the what-is-CS discussion?" A student replies: "Would this affect CS in the sense of making it seem phenomenological instead of a natural science? [B]ecause not only processes, but experience are given ontological status rather than something transcending experience, like matter or energy (which could be foundation of processes without positing some kind of panexperientialism). Some type of process philosophy would transform CS from a science to a philosophy or an experimental phenomenology perhaps." My comment: It wouldn't just be CS that would be affected if processes, rather than matter or energy, were taken as the fundamental things making up the world. And, as G. Strawson points out in the book I cited in a previous message, there might be lots of ways for processes/experiences to combine without producing more processes or experiences. ======================================================================== Subject: Re: Process Philosophy From: "William J. Rapaport" Date: Sun, 31 Jan 2010 14:47:11 -0500 (EST) Peter Scott responds: "Great comments, the connection is surely there to be developed. And to your observation that "It wouldn't be just CS that's affected if processes ... were taken as the fundamental things making up the world," 20th century physics in both its general relativity and quantum wave-equation formulations agree that objects are just snapshots of processes, entangled ones at that. Shadows in the Cave."