Despite being little recognized today, one can't underestimate Whitehead's impact.
It was almost as if a sledgehammer was taken to our old way of thinking, the Cartesian Mindset, that mindset built on the conviction that mankind, through rational logic, could explain the world, explain reality, by breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces.
Whitehead's masterpiece _Process and Reality_ was published in 1929. In this book he declared a clear break with the materialism of Descartes, pointing to a new paradigm of reality that he called 'Organic Realism', the foundation for a new process philosophy.
To say this book is difficult to read would be a gross understatement. Every paragraph must be carefully parsed as he challenges the reader with new ideas using words in new ways. But you sense him groping for a new understanding for himself and others as he tries to make sense of the profound implications of a new reality revealed through quantum physics.
In this quantum reality, there are no fundamental building blocks from which a logical mind can build a concrete _structure of order_. Instead, there are moments of emergence from a formless unknown, which he called 'actual occasions', that create reality through unfolding momentary relationships.
A reality defined by quantum forces of 'fluent energy', not by the concrete objects that we can perceive and measure with our senses.
The implications of this new understanding had a profound impact on writers, philosophers, and mathematicians in the 20th century and laid the foundation for our new creative economy.
Next: Imagination Unleashed
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