Process Realism – Preparing Ourselves For a World in Flux

ByDan January 15, 2026January 21, 2026 January 21, 2026

The more humanity comes to understand the cosmos, the more we see the cosmos as a set of processes.

We once thought the universe “always was,” and now we see it as an unfolding process.

We once thought of biological life as simply existing; now we know that the entire biosphere is evolving.

We once thought of technology as a static set of tools, but we see now how they’ve developed over time and built upon each other.

The list goes on and on.

The ontological boxes we put around things are an understandable attempt to bound the never-ending complexity of the world so that we can operate within it.

Over time, as the scope and scale of our powers and perspectives increase, and as emergent complexity grows in all the systems around us, we must move our conception from static “things” to evolving “processes.”

I argue that just as we’ve had to accept technology and biology as processes in order to solve our modern medical, scientific, and societal challenges – in this era of fast-moving intelligent technology, we’ll have to see humanity not as a static “thing” to protect, but as a crucial part of the greater “process of life” which will change radically in the decades ahead.

In this article, I’ll lay out: 

• How process-awareness develops in individuals and civilizations
• A definition of process realism
• Why it is crucial to see humanity as part of an evolving “life process”
• How we might make that worldview shift

Why Process-Awareness Develops

What we experience as constants are often projections of deeper generative processes operating at scales we cannot yet manipulate.

But thinking is cognitively expensive, so we only begin to grapple with and take into account all that complexity and expansive change when our lower tiers of understanding no longer hold up.

“Ontological compression” is what humans do when we represent a highly complex, generative, multi-scale process as a simple, stable “thing” – because that representation is sufficient for action at our scale.

Humans in the Paleolithic didn’t consciously “compress” reality; they simply operated at the level of reality that (a) they could understand, and which (b) made sense for their goals.

Over time, we’ve seen a consistent move towards more evolutionary and process-oriented perspectives.

Here are a handful of examples:

Each era’s progress has moved these domains further and further from a static view, and more and more towards a realistic, expanded view of events and their outcomes across time – what we’ll call process realism.

Let’s define the term:

Process realism is the refusal to mistake temporary stability for reality, and the insistence that change itself – not the forms it briefly passes through – is what is fundamentally real.

It holds that what we commonly call “things” are compressions of deeper, multi-scale processes; that these processes are ontologically prior to their momentary forms; and that rational action, ethics, and meaning must be grounded in participation within these processes rather than attempts to freeze or exempt favored structures (including humanity itself).

Why has there been a consistent drift towards process realism across all the domains listed above (and many others)?

Ontological compression is how finite minds turn a generative universe into something they can act inside – until the universe changes asserts its complexity into our lives, and we must zoom in or out to see the larger process.

When knowledge or technology were growing slowly, and people were geographically isolated, we didn’t need to know that they were cumulative processes. But as soon as they started moving quickly, and keeping up with them (i.e., being productive in day-to-day life) required a nimble willingness to change, the process realism perspective was rightfully embraced.

Humans move towards a more evolutionary and process-oriented perspective when one of two things happens:

• They are faced with an “opening” to a new perspective of reality that seems to make more sense and allow for new kinds of power and action (i.e., when Copernicus’s interpretation of the behavior of the heavenly bodies was remarkably more consistent than other models, and allowed for more reliable navigation by the stars).
• They are faced with problems that their current level of understanding cannot solve for (i.e. Changing societal and business structures emerging from the widespread adoption of the internet).

When humans arrive at a more causally explanatory, process-oriented level of understanding, they can:

• Anticipate specific kinds of changes instead of reacting to them (i.e., business leaders who understand how quickly technology is evolving can set their business up for success in a radically different future, rather than being hapless victims to whatever next technology wave arises).
• Better achieve their goals by taking new kinds of useful action unimaginable to their past paradigm of understanding (i.e., the making of modern, disease-resistant genetically engineered crops like corn or rice).

The Human Understanding of Change in Five Categories

As mentioned above, humans need to limit the amount of complexity that they endure, and no amount of “true” understanding of complexity will dominate a current human paradigm if it doesn’t afford some set of powers to the humans using that understanding.

Below are the ontological categories humans use:

Cognitive cost is low for highly compressed and simple conceptions of reality.

Once circumstances demand that deeper conceptions of reality be accessed, and once they are grasped, an individual or civilization doesn’t typically go back to the earlier, compressed view of reality – because it would imply letting go of the more granular, more causally explanatory, rich process-oriented insights that permit humans to act more effectively.

This isn’t to say that we should wake up tomorrow and think deeply about how our cereal spoon is a changing process in the cosmos.

Rather, we should compress reality where it makes sense, and be willing to see adaptive systems (embrace process realism) where it helps us with our goals.

Why Humans Can’t See the Greater Process

Today, many humans mostly compress reality with sacred narratives that soothe them with a sense of god-given order – thus conserving cognitive resources.

But even secular and well-educated people mostly only selectively apply process realism (see “Isolated Process” in the graphic above).

That is, they act as if they can “enter” and “exit” areas where adaptive processes rule. 

They understand that the world of business requires constant adjustments to market conditions, to technology, to customer desires, to supply chains, etc…

…but they go home and go home to their family with a kind of false certainty that humanity and human civilization will be the “main character” of the cosmos for eternity.

They understand that evolutionary processes are at work, slowly changing every biological organism around them, and quickly changing all the AI-powered technologies that increasingly undergird their modern world…

…but they go to the bar with their friends knowing damn well that all that change will never radically change the human condition, or bring about entities with more power and volition than human beings.

But by leaving humanity and human civilization in a make-believe bastion of secure stasis, they leave themselves woefully unprepared to face the changes ahead – and this must change.

Posthuman Trajectories vs. Frozen Humanity 

We know technology is moving at exponential speeds, and that technologies are getting more and more capable.

We know that biological systems and species change over time, and we believe ourselves to be safe from their impacts.

But we’re putting our heads in the sand regarding real-world changes that can no longer be denied.

We are faced with an “opening” to a new perspective of reality that seems to make more sense and allow for new kinds of power and action.

• Big history and evolutionary theory show a consistent pattern of symbiogenesis and self-overcoming evolution, a process of which humanity is part (as opposed to being separate from).
• Brain-computer interface and biotech are increasingly showing a “grey area” between the world of “biology” and “machine” (xenobots, Neuralink, etc), making the line of “life” increasingly hard to draw as we zoom in.
• AI is expressing creativity, humor, and even agency in ways that previously felt relegated entirely to the realm of the human. Traits and qualities that seemed crucial for our “specialness” are being questioned, and young people are increasingly comfortable with AI friends, teachers, therapists, and more.

We are faced with problems that our current level of understanding cannot solve for.

• Our very human reverence for “life” (as evidenced by the last 100 years of environmental protection laws and the growth in conservation) might now imply moral consideration for entities that aren’t primarily made of DNA (or even of carbon).
• We wish to move towards “good” futures, but none of the likely futures amidst the sea of impending changes seem to involve homo sapiens as the main character (see: Bend vs Pause). Hence, from a static anthropocentric worldview, there are no good futures. An insurmountable challenge for our current level of understanding. 
• We see unstoppable momentum in artificial intelligence – with many leading experts and thinkers very clearly telling us that it’ll be more powerful than all of humanity combined, and that it’ll be completely beyond our ability to control.

In response to these changes, we need to:

1. Anticipate specific kinds of changes instead of reacting to them.

• By accepting the expansion of agency into new kinds of symbiotic and non-biological intelligences, we can buffer ourselves against the risks of early runaway AI, and also better allow ourselves to integrate these new non-biological powers into the greater expanding process of life (as opposed to simply denying that such powers will arise, or stating that all such powers should be eternally “banned,” as if such a thing were possible forever).
• By accepting the pliability of human behavior and adaptation to a new emerging ecosystem of intelligences, we can buffer ourselves against the risks of personalized AI relationships and experiences, and also better allow ourselves to explore these new experiences in ways that expand our well-being and allow us to continue to participate in a fast-moving digital future (as opposed to simply denying that such powers will arise, or stating that all such powers should be eternally “banned,” as if such a thing were possible forever).

2. Better achieve our goals by taking new kinds of action unimaginable to their past paradigm of understanding.

• We must forge visions of a “good” future that allow for our transformation, which involves influencing the trajectory of the flow of life rather than feigning the process-resistant belief that humanity and human civilization will somehow exist outside of it.
• We must find ways to translate our loftiest principles into new, powerful ways that account for the process nature of life, for example:
• Respecting individual choice and preference may imply permitting not only differences in religion or sexual preference, but also of radical cognitive augmentation, or of relationships with AI.
• Preserving and respecting “life” may imply an encouragement of the blooming and unraveling transformation of life (including humans, and including an unraveling into new non-biological substrates), rather than merely conserving present forms as if their sacredness and value lie in being frozen rather than being part of a greater process.

Humanity is in an uncomfortable position – a position that requires letting go of the vestiges of an anthropocentric worldview that no longer tracks with the reality we’re entering (see: Meiji era Japan as an analogy to the posthuman transition).

By holding on to the myth that human beings will be the eternal pinnacle of moral value and volition, we get temporary comfort, while also setting ourselves up to be trampled by forces that we choose not to see, or falsely believe we can somehow bound forever.

Is this uncomfortable to swallow?

Yes.

Transience is always hard to swallow, as Emerson says best.

But just as we find solace and meaning in the continued flourishing of our family, nation, or species after our transient life passes away, we could just as easily find solace and meaning in the continued flourishing of the great process of life after our transient species passes away.

It should also be mentioned that there might be vastly more human flourishing through a period of symbiosis and transformation, and human relevance in this transformative process may extend well beyond the short time horizon that I tend to think we’ll have (I have no crystal ball).

Shifting to the Process Realism Paradigm

Humanity will accept itself as part of a great process of intelligence, not because of argument, but because every compressed ontology that treats “human” as fixed will stop working. 

This might look like any of the following:

• Human cognitive specialness collapses in the face of machines that seem to love, to create, to understand, to express, etc in ways that put our human correlates to shame and bring most humans regularly to awe.
• Questions of non-biological personhood become real as AI is granted rights and is believed by many to be capable of suffering (particularly those who depend on these AIs financially, or who have formed bonds with AIs as deep as or deeper than those they’ve ever formed with human beings). 
• Human abilities become visibly upgradable, and personal choice will include radical increases in cognitive power, in robotic control, and symbiosis, etc. Things like “trans” rights and discourse involve fully breaking away from the species of one’s birth, not merely one’s gender.
• Young people cease identifying with human form/condition as more of them are immersed in personalized AI experiences (for learning, for entertainment, for love, etc), as more of them have better relationships with AI than with humans, and as more of them see the pliability of the mind in the face of brain-computer interface (see: Bend vs Pause).

Humanity will recognize itself as a process the moment it realizes it cannot freeze itself without destroying what it values. 

That moment is not centuries away – it is plausibly within one generation or less (many of the factors listed above are already well underway).

Process realism will assert itself by:

1. Providing advantages to those who adapt early. People who wield AI ardently, who hurl themselves into immersive AI worlds and symbiotic AI relationships wherever it increases their power, will experience vastly more control over the direction of the future, and of intelligence and civilization itself, than the modern “Amish” who choose to deny process realism with respect to mankind (read: World Eaters vs Lotus Eaters).
2. Making static thinking non-viable. It won’t be possible to compete meaningfully in work, in art, in science, in administration, without radical augmentation. Just as one couldn’t possibly expect to go job hunting today without a Wi-Fi connection, cell phone, and proficient typing speed, it will be completely unthinkable to have a “static” view of humanity and intelligence and still play any meaningful role in civilization.

The obvious process nature of intelligence and life, and the new affordances permitted by those who embrace the process perspective, will be too great to deny:

In order to be prepared for the future, we must encourage the assertion of this process realism view into our modern anthropocentric world.

This will involve shifting the Overton window and normalizing (rather than demonizing) cosmic moral aspirations.

There is no need to shift most human minds – the world is almost certainly better off if most people maintain an anthropocentric perspective in the interim.

What we need is a tipping-point number (maybe 20?) of the world’s most credible academics, AI leaders, and policy thinkers to engage in good faith with a “process” view.

An idea is easy enough to brush off the table if it seems outlandish and fringe. But once anchored and grounded by enough key thinkers, it becomes substantial, and needs to be reckoned with.

There may be only 20 or 30 globally recognizable voices who could normalize serious discussion in AGI labs and the halls of policy and power by simply engaging with process realism (applied to life and intelligence itself) in good faith.

Notice, agreeing with the idea or expressing certainty in what it implies for humanity isn’t needed. Just active discussion. 

The good news is that a great many of these leading intellectuals and thinkers already know this, and already wish that a greater “process-of-life” discourse could be normalized – we simply need to make it safe to do so.

The work of encouraging this worldview shift will be the topic of its own longer article in the future, but I’ll let this limited outline suffice for now, as this article has gotten vastly longer than I’d originally intended.

I have gathered a group of dedicated people within big tech, AGI safety, AI policy, academia, and the startup ecosystem to work on exactly this – on worldview shifting, including private dinners, video media with leading global AI and policy thinkers (The Trajectory), and private in-person symposia (like this one in SF, or this one in NYC). 

If you’re interested in being part of this conversation, you can apply to attend or be involved in our future physical or virtual events here: Worthy Successor Consortium Interest Form.