actual occasions

English

Etymology

Coined by Alfred North Whitehead.

Noun

actual occasions pl (plural only)

1. The final real things in the universe, that are "experiential" in nature rather than strictly material. The most basic thing or construct in the universe. Some Whitehead scholars would hold that trillions of Actual Occasions compose one quark. Actual occasions make up everything, even empty space:
   • "Actual entities--also termed Actual Occasions--are the final real things of which the world is made up. There is no going behind actual entities to find anything more real. ...The final facts are, all alike, actual entities; and these actual entities are drops of experience, complex and interdependent." Whitehead, A.N., Process and Reality: an essay in Cosmology, ed. by Griffin, D. and Sherburne, D., New York: The Free Press, 1978.