Rethinking Cancer

Process Ontology, Creativity, and Cancer as a Chaotic Concrescence

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2026.279

Keywords:

Process philosophy, Cancer ontology

Abstract

This article redefines cancer through Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy. Challenging models that frame cancer as a genetic error or stochastic mutation, I draw on Whitehead’s principle that “creativity is the ultimate causality.” Cancer thus emerges as a chaotic creative process: a concrescence wherein cells, dissociated from the organism’s integrated social order, construct a new relational nexus, guided by a deviant subjective aim. This framework explains therapy resistance, heterogeneity, and metastasis, and suggests therapeutic strategies should redirect pathological creativity, rather than target static entities.

References

Boumahdi, Soufiane, and Frederic J. de Sauvage. 2021. “The Great Escape: Tumour Cell Plasticity in Resistance to Targeted Therapy.” Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 19, no. 1: 39–56. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41573-019-0044-1.

Cancer Genome Atlas Network. 2012. “Comprehensive Molecular Portraits of Human Breast Tumours.” Nature 490, no. 7418: 61–70. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature11412.

Chattopadhyay, Subhayan, Jenny Karlsson, Michele Ferro, et al. 2025. “Evolutionary Unpredictability in Cancer Model Systems.” Scientific Reports 15, no. 1, article 20334. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-07407-6.

Gatenby, Robert A., Ariosto S. Silva, Robert J. Gillies, and B. Roy Frieden. 2009. “Adaptive Therapy.” Cancer Research 69, no. 11: 4894–4903. https://doi.org/10.1158/0008-5472.can-08-3658.

Hangauer, Matthew J., Vasanthi S. Viswanathan, Matthew J. Ryan, et al. 2017. “Drug-Tolerant Persister Cancer Cells Are Vulnerable to GPX4 Inhibition.” Nature 551, no. 7679: 247–250. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24297.

Lopes, Francisco, Bruno R.B. Pires, Alexandre A.B. Lima, Renata Binato, and Eliana Abdelhay. 2025. “NF-κB Epigenetic Attractor Landscape Drives Breast Cancer Heterogeneity.” npj Systems Biology and Applications 11, no. 11, article 135. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41540-025-00611-0.

Marine, Jean-Christophe, Sarah-Jane Dawson, and Mark A. Dawson. 2020. “Non-Genetic Mechanisms of Therapeutic Resistance in Cancer.” Nature Reviews Cancer 20, no. 12: 743–756. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41568-020-00302-4.

Nik-Zainal, Serena, Helen Davies, Johan Staaf, et al. 2016. “Landscape of Somatic Mutations in 560 Breast Cancer Whole-Genome Sequences.” Nature 534, no. 7605: 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature17676.

Prigogine, Ilya. 1997. The End of Certainty: Time, Chaos, and the New Laws of Nature. Free Press.

Prigogine, Ilya, and Isabelle Stengers. 1984. Order out of Chaos: Man’s New Dialogue with Nature. Bantam Books.

Whitehead, Alfred North. 1978. Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology. Free Press.

Downloads

Published

2026-04-28

How to Cite

Tez, M. (2026). Rethinking Cancer: Process Ontology, Creativity, and Cancer as a Chaotic Concrescence. Philosophy of Medicine, 7(1). https://doi.org/10.5195/pom.2026.279

Issue

Section

Perspectives