Process As the Unifying Principle of Physical Reality (Part 4.3 - Conclusion)

Physical bodies do behave as if they are under the influence of forces, that is, they behave according to rules which we are accustomed to call “laws of force.” For example, we say that a body is accelerated uniformly toward the center of the Earth in accordance with the laws of the force of gravity; or that magnetic bodies repel or attract one another according to the laws of the force of magnetism.

One cannot deny that bodies do behave in specific, ordered ways and according to what look like laws of force, all physical experimentation done regarding the behavior of matter stands to prove it. Yet, specific predictable behaviors which operate according to constant laws do not necessitate the presence of any force in bodies. These ordered behaviors are inherent in the constitution of the present occasion.

Take, again, a magnetic body. How the magnetic body will behave in the presence of another magnetic body, that it will attract or repel and how actively it will do either is directed and necessitated by that body’s present existence, by its concrescence, by its own process of self-completion. In this way, the question “If there are no forces, then what makes a body move?” is answered. It is the body’s participation in the second phase of Process, the progress from satisfied concrescence (being in one location) to novel concrescence (being in another location) that results in the specific, ordered behaviors of bodies and gives the illusion of force. There are no forces, only actual occasions constituted by concrescence and the transition from satisfied concrescence to novel concrescence.

Thus, all material entities reduce, in their “real internal constitution,” to the first phase of Process. Likewise, forces reduce to transition, proving themselves to be the illusory result of the existence of this second phase of Process. But physical reality is nothing more than the totality of material entities and forces. Consequently, all of physical reality reduces to process. It is under Process, begun and driven by creative advance toward the subjective aim which is God’s ultimate satisfaction, that all of physical reality, with its diverse multiplicity of being, is unified into one single existent.

We have, then, as was our goal, set forward a system in which the origin, formation, and perpetuation of physical entities has been explained, in which the motions of those entities have been accounted for without the conception of forces, and in which the diverse existents of physical reality have been shown to be unified under a single principle.

Physical entities originate from the primordial creativity, its having an actual effect on the undetermined primordial “many.” Physical entities are formed through and constituted by the manifold process of self-completion, the concrescence, and are perpetuated by their inclusion in God’s objectification of the actual world in himself.

The motions of these bodies are explained under the second phase of Process, the transition from satisfied concrescence to novel concrescence. Hence, the multiplicity of actual occasions composing physical reality, corporeal entities and their motions, are unified under the single principle of Process. Therefore, Process stands as the unifying principle of physical reality.

Power up and Steem on!