Contemporary occasions are immanent in one another. Contemporaneousness is defined through causal independence. If one actual entity is in neither the causal past, nor the causal future of another actual occasion, the occasions are, by definition, contemporaneous. The causal independence of contemporary occasions is limited, however, solely to “the sphere of teleological self-creation.” [252]
Contemporaneous occasions are immanent in one another, not through the relationship of efficient causation, but by virtue of the fact that “the occasions originate from a common past and their objective immortality operates within a common future . . . indirectly, via the immanence of the past and the immanence of the future, the occasions are connected.” [252] “For if A and B be contemporaries, and C be in the past of both of them, then A and B are each in a sense immanent in C, in the way in which the future can be immanent in its past. But C is objectively immortal in both A and B. Thus, in this indirect sense, A is immanent in B, and B is immanent in A.” [252] It is in this way, through the sharing of a common past and a common future, that contemporary occasions are immanent in one another.
Now that we have examined Whitehead’s conception of time, we can come to a clearer understanding of the second phase of Process. Transition begins with the completion of the first phase, the concrescence, in which the occasion arrives at its satisfaction and a novel entity obtains its full measure of actuality. This present actual entity is constituted by the concrescence in such a way that it passes into objective immortality (into the past). In so doing, the present occasion becomes the actual foundation for a novel future, a future also necessitated by the constitution of the present subject. The progress from completed actuality, through objective immortality, to novel concrescence, from re-enaction of the past to being re-enacted in the future, is a complete description of transition, the second phase of Process.
Though we have explored the meaning of the phrase “all things flow” through an examination of the two phases of Process, in which we spoke both of the constitution of permanent “things” (the concrescence) as well as of the fluency in which those things find themselves (the transition), there are several questions which remain to be addressed. Does Process have a cause or origin and if so, what is it? How is Process sustained? How does a fluent, present actual occasion obtain objective immortality? For answers to these questions, we will turn to the chapter entitled “God and the World” to examine Whitehead’s conception of God, his dual nature, and his role in the formation and perpetuation of the spatio-temporal world.
Power up and Steem on!