becoming

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

Becoming is the real activity through which forms arise, hold together, transform and pass. The manuscripts reverse the idea of finished beings that merely undergo change: an apparently enduring thing is a provisional stabilization of relational processes. This activity is constrained rather than arbitrary and can retain unresolved potential for further transformation. Its physical, living and social realizations need not share one mechanism or possess feeling.

Explanation

AB presents this reversal as a philosophical wager and preserves the reality of stable things: their continuity is an achievement to explain, not an illusion to dismiss. The glossary’s verbs-before-nouns formulation is therefore stronger than saying that everything changes, yet it does not make a rock alive or every process sentient. Simondon’s becoming is a dimension of being, the resolution of incompatibility without exhausting potential; the author’s broader synthesis is not assigned wholly to him or to Whitehead.

PB distinguishes the generation of something definite from change that happens afterward. Its possible-to-actual formulation and local present describe one articulated process, without a single cosmic now. Countable “becomings” name particular processes or trajectories. The categorical functor model translates this maintained identity interpretively: it leaves logical identity intact and supplies neither the actual selection of an outcome nor a proof of felt life or obligation. Its ethical model further restricts the objects to configurations with a life.

RB1 aligns Simondon and Kastner structurally while preserving their disciplinary and interpretive differences. Formal undecidability remains distinct from ontic indeterminacy. RB2 develops precarious biological self-production, embodied participation and historical stabilization; biological, affective and ethical value do not entail one another. RB3 makes becoming an operation requiring energy and propagation, not a logical deduction from possibility. Its recurring grammar preserves different mechanisms and remains answerable to evidence. Processual persistence contests sealed, unchanging substance without rejecting numerical identity or proving every related metaphysical conclusion.

Scope and attribution

A proposed process ontology, not a new empirically proved universal mechanism. Countable instances and specialized living, ethical and model contexts preserve their local conditions. AB’s direct glossary formulation and each book’s own definitions support the core account.

Attribution

AB — The Actual Book

AB’s glossary defines becoming as the root reversal from finished things to ongoing activity: verbs come first, while nouns name what activity stabilizes. The flame, murmuration, rock and body are illustrations of real patterns rather than evidence that all mechanisms are identical. Becoming is patterned rather than chaos, and Simondon’s dimension of being retains unresolved surplus. The author calls the view a wager, identifies possible failures and keeps plural scientific inquiry as a constraint. Whitehead is discussed as a comparison, while the stated personal lineage runs through Simondon. Living self-production and feeling are scoped achievements: a rock does not have a living system’s stakes, and the source denies that every process or every sensible thing is sentient.

The rock’s thingness remains real and dependable. Process priority does not turn ordinary stable things into mere appearances or deny the mind-independent resistance of the world.

Generativity and cumulative novelty are conditional: much of the universe is inert, and the source identifies failure where the relevant conditions hold as a challenge. Mere disorder and arbitrary possibility are not the proposed process thesis.

The author’s wider synthesis is not a single-source doctrine. Whitehead’s comparison and Simondon’s stated lineage remain distinct; the Simondon/Kastner resonance is not identity or proof, and spacetime emergence is explicitly unsettled.

Personal experience of openness does not establish ontic indeterminacy, and the transactional thought experiment provides no independently discriminating measurement.

Processual continuity does not make a rock alive, a bacterium a feeling subject, or the sensible world secretly mind. Differences of mechanism and organization remain material.

The law grammar remains revisable and answerable to better argument or scientific findings. The Heraclitus epigraph uses Kahn’s translation, while the Simondon epigraph has its actual 2020 source note; no new translator identity is assigned.

Authorial body/glossary synthesis with explicit philosophical-wager status, Simondon lineage, attributed Whitehead and Heraclitus comparisons and exact epigraph apparatus.

Occurrence locators: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 44, 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 76, 83, 84, 89, 91, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 152, 154, 158, 171, 172, 174, 176, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183, 185, 186, 191, 194, 198, 199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211; Epigraph: 9, 35, 43, 66, 118, 139, 216; Epilogue: 214, 216, 217; Glossary: 221, 222, 223, 224, 225; Thinker register: 227, 229, 233; Notes: 234, 235, 237, 238, 239, 243, 244, 245, 248, 249; Appendix: 266, 268, 269, 270, 271, 273, 279, 283, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289; Authorship account: 274, 275.

PB — The Possible Book

PB distinguishes becoming from the trivial claim that everything changes: it asks how anything definite exists to change at all. The manifesto calls being a temporary stabilization, while the Tractatus describes the possible becoming actual through local events without a single cosmic now. The countable expression a becoming denotes a particular unfolding pattern; the categorical translation represents an entity as a functor from a time/process category and labels the identification interpretive. Numerical identity is not rejected. The formal ethical module specifically models configurations with a life, and the artificial-system case requires organizational self-production rather than sentences. All formal passages retain the AI-assisted draft warning, incomplete model status and the inability to supply an outcome, experience or a binding ought.

The author’s personal life motivates the inquiry but cannot establish its truth. The chosen Simondon/Kastner resonance is explicitly not proof; extending it across domains is the author’s responsibility, not the theorists’ joint claim.

The actual does not exhaust the real, and cumulative novelty is conditional on retention. Local becoming does not require a shared cosmic now.

The functor, maintained identity and coalgebra are representations with the local label identification interpretive. The source keeps numerical identity intact; an evolving entity need not be qualitatively unchanged to remain itself.

The formal skeleton is deliberately partial and globally disclosed as drafted with a language model, with real risks of error and a requirement for expert/literature/proof-assistant verification. It supplies no proof of genesis, feeling or obligation.

Open actualization is a distinct specified model with posited world assumptions. The transactional reading is adopted rather than derived and does not generate offers, confirmations, spacetime or an actual selected outcome from the finite model.

The ethical category’s objects are configurations with a life, not an assertion that every entity or process has stakes. The source distinguishes archived weightings from own stakes and requires evidence of self-production/repair before applying the life-bearing-system case.

The reproduced ChatGPT line Becoming is Being belongs to a separately framed provocation. It supplies no independent definition evidence or authorization for an artificial agent’s claimed stakes.

Authorial manifesto, aphoristic and autobiographical formulations with a separately qualified formal rendering. Reproduced AI is distinct; no fictional voice is silently relabelled authorial.

Occurrence locators: 9, 28, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 41, 59, 64, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 126, 127, 143, 146, 147, 152, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 162, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 184; Reproduced AI exchange: 16, 17, 18; Literary application: 26, 43, 46, 47, 51, 52, 72, 76; Epigraph: 112; Reproduced historical essay: 202, 204.

RB1 — The Real Book, Volume I: The Possible Is Real

RB1 begins with the author’s generative-realist wager that forms arise, stabilize, transform and pass. Its Simondon account describes stable objects as momentary agreements and gives becoming/ontogenesis as a dimension of being rather than a framework surrounding it. The exact Simondon and Kastner quotations remain separate voices. Their comparison is structural, not one theory, shared mechanism or empirical confirmation; the claim that spacetime is one form of becoming retains its interpretation-specific context. Developmental, biological and network examples describe maintained relational organization with their own conditions. The formal-undecidability section is explicitly marked not ontic indeterminacy, so the lexicon does not turn a limit of proof into proof of physical openness.

The text’s broad thesis is a philosophical wager and preserves order as an achievement. Its use of process vocabulary does not abolish real persistence or claim a finished universal system.

Simondon’s critique concerns the real energetic/material process missing from the hylomorphic account; it is not simply refusal of form or denial of structured material conditions.

The complete Simondon and Kastner quotations preserve their author cues and actual native notes. Simondon’s expanded ontogenesis is not silently equated with every quantum account or attributed to Kastner.

The author’s homology concerns generative organization and excludes identity of substance, causal mechanism, explanatory domain, material substrate or common ancestry. The process comparison is not independent physical proof.

Kastner’s needle image is transaction by transaction, with the second edition narrowing a row to one stitch; no plane of simultaneity or global row of becoming is supplied.

Formal undecidability is explicitly distinct from ontic indeterminacy. Turing’s general impossibility is not a claim that every individual computation is unknowable; exact theoretical source statements remain attributed and are not independently re-proved here.

Biological novelty is neither creation from nothing nor purely stochastic, and relational-network persistence involves ongoing adjustment/repair. An achieved self is not a static substance, while numerical identity is not redefined by this source assessment.

Authorial source synthesis, Simondon and Kastner quotations with native author/locator anchors, and attributed scientific and formal comparisons kept distinct.

Occurrence locators: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 52, 61, 65, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 85, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 117, 119, 120, 123, 127, 128, 131, 133, 134, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 143, 155, 157, 158, 159, 160, 164, 170, 191, 192, 193, 197, 199, 203, 225, 236, 237, 240, 245, 246, 249, 250, 251, 257, 258, 260, 263, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 276, 282, 283, 284, 287, 289, 291, 292, 299, 300, 301, 302, 305; Notes: 3, 66, 105; Epigraph: 5, 9, 291.

RB2 — The Real Book, Volume II: Becoming Is Being

RB2 develops becoming through embodied life and a later explicit reversal of substance-first metaphysics. A living being persists through precarious self-production, metabolism and regulation, not a fixed essence; extended criticality is attributed to Longo and Montévil. Things remain real as relatively stable patterns within flow, relation and repetition. Novelty becomes cumulative only under selective-retention conditions, and processes have different temporalities. The law grammar is historical and revisable, but its human linguistic analogy does not make the physical world depend on speakers or minds. Biological value, felt value, another’s significance and ethical obligation remain distinguishable stages that do not entail one another.

The particular living realization is a precarious flow of self-production, not a criterion imposed on every physical thing. Longo/Montévil’s extended-criticality proposal and exact cited limits remain attributed.

Anti-entropy is an attributed distinct observable for organization, not entropy with its sign reversed or a cancellation of entropy production. Local order requires energetically open metabolic work.

Biological, affective, empathetic, ethical and institutional value are not automatic equivalents. Each may enable the next without entailing it, and archived verbal traces do not thereby inherit the stakes.

Cumulative novelty is conditional on functional selection, and temporal plurality is not a single universal present. The eight-law partition is explicitly a proposed carving rather than a forced number.

Grammar is an analogy of structure and historical operation, not identical substrate: physical becoming requires no mind to perform it. The process account retains realism while keeping its description corrigible.

Humans are localized embodied trajectories, and the individual/milieu relationship makes becoming co-becoming. These contextual claims retain the distinct individuation and co-becoming candidates rather than creating global aliases.

Authorial embodied and historical synthesis with named extended-criticality, thermodynamic and process-philosophy sources; neither empirical nor ethical entailment is newly certified.

Occurrence locators: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 38, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 50, 82, 83, 91, 96, 111, 112, 118, 120, 123, 124, 134, 137, 139, 140, 149, 154, 163, 164, 168, 169, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 202, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217, 219, 223, 225, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251, 252, 253, 254, 256, 257, 258, 259, 261, 264, 265, 267, 269, 272, 275, 276, 277, 278, 280, 281, 282, 283, 284, 285, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 296, 297, 298; Notes: 192; Epigraph: 181, 208.

RB3 — The Real Book, Volume III: Murmurations

RB3 states becoming as the passage from real potential into event and insists that it is an operation requiring energy, propagation and constraint, not a logical inference from possibility. Its Simondon treatment concerns partial resolution of a field and formation of individual and milieu together; a preindividual field is not hidden primordial matter. The wider account represents things as happenings that hold together, while its scientific comparisons keep different mechanisms and explicit evidential burdens. Processual identity does not reject the logical law of identity or one life’s numerical continuity. The epilogue’s own status notes distinguish persistence, quantum non-individuality and logical identity, declare RTI adopted rather than proved, make strong cosmology dispensable and identify the broader convergence as abduction rather than demonstration.

The preindividual is ontological potential without being a substance behind things. It is distinct from information as the individuating act; energy, in-formation and relations are not interchangeable or a claim that everything is mere interaction.

RTI is a philosophical resource and physical analogue among rival interpretations. Its actualization account is adopted, not established; the ontological grammar is said not to depend on RTI being correct, though its physical articulation would require re-grounding.

Constraint excludes paths as well as enabling them. Historical lock-in can make a transition practically unavailable without a timeless physical prohibition; no collapse of all impossibility types is licensed.

The grammar is usage-based and historically revisable, expressly not Chomsky’s fixed Universal Grammar. Scale equivalence is not identical mechanism, and recurring description earns stronger realist status only under risky evidence rather than retrospective fit.

Simondon’s dynamic individuation and Whitehead’s actual occasions remain attributed traditions; the manuscript author’s comparison does not make every entity a living, feeling organism in the ordinary sense.

Logical A = A and numerical continuity are not denied. Diachronic persistence and the adopted interpretation of indistinguishable quanta concern different problems; the source acknowledges four-dimensionalism as a rival reconciliation.

The strong cosmological extension is heterodox and dispensable. The broader argument is severable, convergent and abductive: no single premise entails every metaphysical conclusion.

Authorial source synthesis with embedded Simondon/Whitehead formulations and explicit interpretive, empirical, logical and argumentative-status notes.

Occurrence locators: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 43, 47, 48, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 81, 85, 88, 93, 98, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 109, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 123, 126, 128, 129, 130, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 139, 140, 143, 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 171, 173, 186, 190, 198, 200, 202, 205, 206, 207, 208, 210, 211, 218, 221, 224, 225, 226, 230, 231, 233, 235, 239, 241, 242, 244, 246, 258, 264, 266, 267, 271, 278, 283, 290, 292, 298, 302, 303, 304, 313, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 321, 322, 327, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 335, 337, 340, 341, 342, 346; Epilogue: 350, 351, 352, 353, 354, 357, 361; Notes: 392, 393; Reproduced AI exchange: 399, 401, 402; Authorship account: 403, 404; Living in a World of Relations: 345.

Sense distinctions

Becoming — generative and sustaining process

One source-confirmed generative-process sense with qualified process-instance, living, epistemic, ethical and formal treatments.

The direct definitions consistently reverse a substance-first explanation: they name the generative and sustaining activity through which forms are definite, not an additional change imposed on a finished thing. The difference between the general activity and a particular becoming is an explicit process-to-instance usage, not evidence by itself for a separate philosophical referent: PB calls the particular an entity’s trajectory and makes the functor identification interpretive. Its ethical module further limits the modeled objects to configurations with a life; this local restriction does not make every becoming alive. The living, cognitive, technical and ethical passages articulate conditioned realizations or consequences of the root process thesis, and the source itself denies their automatic entailment. Ontogenesis, individuation, actualization, open actualization, identity, epistemic becoming and co-becoming have their own entries and remain cross-referenced. This account keeps the local treatments and restrictions distinct: general, formal and ethical uses are not interchangeable, and the more specific concepts retain their own treatments.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Domain-specific mechanisms and wider analogies remain distinguished. Original definitions retain their scope; local cross-references do not rewrite them. Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.