Editing Process philosophy (section)

==== Time, causality, and process ====
Inherent in each actual entity is its respective dimension of time. Potentially, each Whiteheadean occasion of experience is causally consequential on every other occasion of experience that precedes it in time, and has as its causal consequences every other occasion of experience that follows it in time; thus it has been said that Whitehead's occasions of experience are 'all window', in contrast to Leibniz's 'windowless' monads. In time defined relative to it, each occasion of experience is causally influenced by prior occasions of experiences, and causally influences future occasions of experience. An occasion of experience consists of a process of prehending other occasions of experience, reacting to them. This is the ''process'' in ''process philosophy''.

Such process is never deterministic. Consequently, [[free will]] is essential and inherent to the universe.

The causal outcomes obey the usual well-respected rule that the causes precede the effects in time. Some pairs of processes cannot be connected by cause-and-effect relations, and they are said to be [[Spacetime#Basic concepts#Space-like interval|spatially separated]]. This is in perfect agreement with the viewpoint of the Einstein theory of [[special relativity]] and with the [[Minkowski space|Minkowski geometry]] of spacetime.<ref name="Naber">Naber, G. L. (1992). ''The Geometry of Minkowski Spacetime. An Introduction to the Mathematics of the Special Theory of Relativity'', Springer, New York, {{ISBN|978-0-387-97848-2}}</ref> It is clear that Whitehead respected these ideas, as may be seen for example in his 1919 book ''An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge''<ref name="Whitehead 1919">Whitehead, A. N. (1919). ''An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge'', Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK.</ref> as well as in ''[[Process and Reality]]''. In this view, time is relative to an inertial reference frame, different reference frames defining different versions of time.