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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 March 2022
In his Concept of Nature Whitehead gives the following definition of the term “co-presence”:
I call two event-particles which on some or other system of measurement are in the same instantaneous space ‘co-present’ event-particles. Then it is possible that A and B may be co-present, and that A and C may be co-present, but that B and C may not be co-present. For example, at some inconceivable distance from us there are events co-present with us now and also co-present with the birth of Queen Victoria. If A and B are co-present there will be some systems in which A precedes B and some in which B precedes A. Also there can be no velocity quick enough to carry a material particle from A to B or from B to A.
1 The Concept of Nature, p. 177–78.
2 According to the relativistic definition two events are causally unrelated when their distance in space is greater than their separation in time multiplied by the velocity of light.
3 Durée et Simultanéité, p. 101.
4 It is true that a real fusion of microphysical particles does occur in some nuclear reactions which would seem to indicate the possibility of complete spatial coincidence. But with the fusion of two particles into a new one their dynamical difference would disappear.
We do not have to forget moreover, that the concepts of “position” and “velocity” lose their traditional meanings on the microphysical scale.
5 He should have added: “including the ‘light-particles’ or photons …”
6 Process and Reality, p. 486–88; Adventures of Ideas, p. 251.