Since May 2014, Kent Bye has published over 1500 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's an oral historian, experiential journalist, & aspiring philosopher, helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.
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Since May 2014, Kent Bye has published over 1500 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's an oral historian, experiential journalist, & aspiring philosopher, helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.
#1708: How Process Philosophy Centers Experience. A Prismatic Tour of “Whitehead’s Universe” by Andrew M. Davis
Voices of VR
1 hour 40 minutes 34 seconds
2 weeks ago
#1708: How Process Philosophy Centers Experience. A Prismatic Tour of “Whitehead’s Universe” by Andrew M. Davis
I interviewed Andrew M. Davis about his forthcoming book titled Whitehead's Universe: A Prismatic Introduction on Thursday, December 4, 2025. It's absolutely the best introduction to Alfred North Whitehead's work in Process Philosophy, and I can't recommend it enough. The worst part is that it isn't set to release until sometime next year, but you can get an early look at some drafts if you sign up with some of Davis' upcoming Whitehead's Universe courses that are being offered in January and February 2026.
Whitehead's Process Philosophy centers the human experience at the center of it's philosophy, and therefore focuses on the dynamic flux and flow of experience as we inherit past memories, anticipate the future, decide what actions to take moment to moment, and synthesize it all through our feelings which help to solidify our core memories through the peak emotional experiences of our lives. Davis helps us navigate through Whitehead's neologisms, which are attempting to rewire our brain to think about the nature of reality in a completely new and different way.
The subject-predicate and noun-emphasized object-oriented structure of the English isn't doing us any favors, but thankfully the immersive experiences that are offered through immersive art and entertainment is very much oriented into the dynamic flux of our experience, through what is theorized as presence theory in virtual reality. I have my own elemental theory of presence, and in this conversation with Davis I discovered that there's a lot of resonance with how Whitehead is reconceptualizing the nature of reality into a more verb-based event ontology.
This is my fifth deep dive on Process Philosophy, and so be sure to check out my other conversations here:
#965: Primer on Whitehead’s Process Philosophy as a Paradigm Shift & Foundation for Experiential Design
#1147: Thirteen Philosophers on the Problem of Opposites: Grant Maxwell’s Integration & Difference Book & Archetypal Approaches to Character
#1183: From Kant to an Organic View of Reality: Scaffolding a Process-Relational Paradigm Shift with Whitehead Scholar Matt Segall
#1568: A Process-Relational Philosophy View on AI, Intelligence, & Consciousness with Matt Segall
#1708: How Process Philosophy Centers Human Experience. A Prismatic Tour of “Whitehead’s Universe” by Andrew M. Davis
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Music: Fatality
Voices of VR
Since May 2014, Kent Bye has published over 1500 Voices of VR podcast interviews featuring the pioneering artists, storytellers, and technologists driving the resurgence of virtual & augmented reality. He's an oral historian, experiential journalist, & aspiring philosopher, helping to define the patterns of immersive storytelling, experiential design, ethical frameworks, & the ultimate potential of XR.
