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Single Idea 23790

[filed under theme 7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes ]

Full Idea

Processes can be modelled in two ways. They are drawn out events encompassing many changes, but dissectible into short-lived states, none including change. Or they are continuous and impenetrable, and to split them is impossible.

Gist of Idea

Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events

Source

Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 09.3)

Book Ref

Williams,Neil E.: 'The Powers Metaphysics' [OUP 2019], p.211

A Reaction

Obviously a process has temporal moments in it, so the unsplittability is conceptual. I find the concept of changeless parts baffling. But if processes are drawn out, they can't be basic to ontology.

The 21 ideas with the same theme [accepting purposeful sequences of happenings as existents]:

13213 All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle]
15768 An actuality is usually thought to be a process [Aristotle]
15389 In Whitehead 'processes' consist of events beginning and ending [Whitehead, by Simons]
11092 A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine]
12683 Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
22626 Process philosophy insists that processes are not inferior in being to substances [Rescher]
16554 Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14760 Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider]
8979 Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons]
8981 Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons]
12836 Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons]
12841 I don't believe in processes [Simons]
14947 Any process can be described as transfer of measurable information [Ladyman/Ross]
23784 Processes don't begin or end; they just change direction unexpectedly [Williams,NE]
23790 Processes are either strings of short unchanging states, or continuous and unreducible events [Williams,NE]
14562 A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
19480 Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt]
19479 Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt]
19481 Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt]
20468 Quantum mechanics deals with processes, rather than with things [Rovelli]
22629 Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson]