Everyone Flows

Abstract This book explains why we should understand the world in general and life in particular not, as is still commonly supposed, as composed of things made of smaller things, the latter arranged into mechanisms, but as a hierarchy of processes. As such, life is constantly dynamic and active. The book illustrates this view with a detailed consideration of two especially important kinds of living process, the organism, the individual living entity, and the lineage, the process in which evolution occurs. It then explores the implications of this thesis for various topics with direct relevance to human life, starting with evolution and symbiosis, stressing the crucial interdependence of living beings, and moving to human nature and human kinds, personal identity, and freedom of the will.