/lit/ - Literature

>If philosophy is an adventure, involving the creation of new concepts, this is because every aspect of life and thought already is (and always must be) creative. Whitehead insists that creation is not a rarity; nor is it something that happened only once, at the beginning of time. Rather, the process of creation is essential to the world as a whole; it is a generic feature of existence as such. Of course, there are always different degrees of creativity; a living organism is more creative, and generates considerably more novelty, than a stone. But even a stone is not a stolid, motionless entity. It is rather “a society of separate molecules in violent agitation." And these molecules, or the atoms and subatomic particles composing them, are themselves eventful, which is to say creative. For Whitehead, “ ‘creativity’ is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact;" it applies to every actual occasion, without exception. Indeed, each actual occasion is creative in its very nature. For each new occasion is “a novel entity diverse from any entity in the ‘many’ which it unifies,” and out of which it emerges. The “creative advance into novelty” is thereby “the ultimate metaphysical ground” of everything. It is worth reflecting on how strange and untimely Whitehead’s attitude is...

you wouldn't think that a harmless dude who looks like this could be the greatest patrons of sci-fi compatible philosophical adventure of the 20C. but if you're going to alpha centauri like a true gent and can shoulder the dual responsibility of philosopher-scientist, you can go with alfred's cosmological blessing. and the amazing thing is that unlike us he had no idea deleuze exists or is going to exist. a lot of the true hallucinatory craziness that D&G produce comes not only out of their own bromance, but also out of a break with lacan, plus bergson, spinoza, and nietzsche. alfred gets all of these places on his own in his cozy armchair.

the man wanted you to have an *adventure* when you did speculative philosophy. that is way cool. what an absolute boss this man was.