The only constant is change!

The One continually transitions such that it could return to itself, such as in a topological way.

Reply to TheMadFool I think your explanation is a good one. The illusory aspect of the change being the fact that it is really a transmutation, not a transformation, and the fact that nothing is static but all is in a state of transmutation.

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Reply to TheMadFool

Heraclitus:Everything changes and nothing stands still

Heraclitus nailed it beyond the range of what was perceptible to him, he who had neither microscope nor telescope. What about Parmenides?

Good thing that he mentioned illusion, because an unchanging world IS an illusion. Neither in human affairs, nor in nature does anything remain static. It can seem like human affairs become stuck in static concrete. It is a "world weary" perspective like that of Ecclesiastes -- "There is nothing new under the sun." Everything is futility. One could say that mountains rising out of the earth and then being worn away by wind and rain shows how change is illusory, but such a viewpoint is itself illusory. The galaxies have been spinning and spreading for eons, so what is new?

(Well, we've counted the eons of their spinning and spreading, that's new, and we now know they are all constantly aging (changing). Stars are born, get hot, and then cool off -- some of them blowing up in the process, spreading raw material onto the galactic fields from which new planets and stars will form. The Andromeda galaxy is headed for a collision with the Milky Way galaxy. We will all carry on, but we won't be the same afterwards.)

And, Parmenides, it looks like the universe was wound up once--it's gradually running down, and once all energies are totally spent, there will be no return. It's a once-around world.

If the only constant is change, how can it be that changes remain constant? The world would have to cease chaging to avoid violalting itself, yet if it were to change would no longer be constant. It is a contrdictory aphorism.

A world of constant change depends upon a constant absence of change. Changes must stay. There must be a instance which is a constant unchanging.

Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness That’s you, as observer.

Reply to PoeticUniverse Reply to rlclauer Reply to tim wood Reply to TheWillowOfDarkness Reply to Bitter Crank

Thanks.

I'm going to approach this issue with a negative attitude.

Change is "obvious". Dare I say even a child knows about change. A child cries when his ice cream accidentally drops to the floor - that's perceiving a change from the ice cream being available and then unavailable.

To say that change is an "illusion" we need to have a philosophy as a foundation or knowledge which requires some amount of research. In the example I gave in my post the geologist is "more" knowledgable than the sculptor or, if you prefer, knowing the chemistry of marble, the basis for no change, requires many years of continuous analysis and a lot of luck. On the other hand a sculptor, despite requiring great talent and years of practice, is unfortunately more "ignorant" of the world. Another way to look at it is the both the sculptor and the geologist would be able to perceive the marble block changing into a statue but only the geologist would know that despite the transformation in shape the marble is still marble.

Heraclitus was a great philosopher but it appears Parmenides did more research and gave more thought on the matter.

What say you?

Quoting TheMadFool

Another way to look at it is the both the sculptor and the geologist would be able to perceive the marble block changing into a statue but only the geologist would know that despite the transformation in shape the marble is still marble

I am pretty sure the sculptor would know it was the same stuff. The geologist would have, in a certain way, more information about what that stuff is. Though the sculptor would know it better in other ways. But I don't think sculptor would think he changed the substance, just the form of the substance.Quoting TheMadFool

On the other hand a sculptor, despite requiring great talent and years of practice, is unfortunately more "ignorant" of the world

I disagree. I think we are talking about two kinds of knowledge and I can't see where the skills to make a portion into what one intends is not a knowledge of the world. And I'd much rather be friends with a local hunter gatherer over an ecologist if society collapses, precisely because the former has more (useful) knowledge of the world.

I suppose I am quite Deweyian when it comes to knowledge and education for that matter.

I can't see where everything changes, however, since I don't think it could be noticed. So something is remaining the same, at least long enough to contrast and compare. Everything remaining the same, it seems to me, requires a Maya. Pretty much a dualism between appearnce and reality. Not just epistemologically, but ontologically.

Quoting Coben

I disagree. I think we are talking about two kinds of knowledge and I can't see where the skills to make a portion into what one intends is not a knowledge of the world.

You're right, especially the part where you said that Heraclitus and Parmenides possessed "different" kinds of knowledge. Heraclitus (535 - 475 BC) preceded Parmenides (515 BC) and that very weakly speaks in my favor as Parmenides would have more knowledge than Heraclitus. A weak argument but it makes sense.

Also change is obvious or "more" obvious than no-change. The world, back then and even now, depended/depends in its functioning on the perception of change. Differentiating, change, is a very primordial skill e.g. a tiger is danger and deer is food. However, to see a similarity, which I consider the essence of the Parmenidian concept of no-change, requires more work, biology in this case. Parmenides would've said both tiger and deer are mammals. Heraclitus wouldn't have seen that without self-contradiction.

Reply to TheMadFoolThere were likely indigenous people who understood the connection between predator mammals and prey animals, and again, I'd want their knowledge over either of those guys in many situations. Further both of them can be wrong, and what would Darwin say to Parminides about the changes necessary to get to diverse mammals?

Quoting Coben

There were likely indigenous people who understood the connection between predator mammals and prey animals, and again, I'd want their knowledge over either of those guys in many situations. Further both of them can be wrong, and what would Darwin say to Parminides about the changes necessary to get to diverse mammals?

Yes you're right you know. To survive we need change but notice to face death you need the notion of eternity or changelessness. Thanks a lot

Reply to TheMadFoolYou're welcome. (if you'd said either Parminides or Heraclitis was wrong I would likely have come in to their defense).

Quoting Coben

You're welcome. (if you'd said either Parminides or Heraclitis was wrong I would likely have come in to their defense)

I just want to ask a question though?

What do you make of Zeno's paradoxes? Zeno of Elea was a student of Parmenides and his paradoxes are supposed to demonstrate his teacher's position that change is an illusion.

I suppose there really is a true contradiction between Parmenides and Heraclitus and that makes it odd why you would want to "come into their defense".

Quoting TheMadFool

What do you make of Zeno's paradoxes? Zeno of Elea was a student of Parmenides and his paradoxes are supposed to demonstrate his teacher's position that change is an illusion

I like Zeno's paradoxes. I am not convinced there is no motion. Perhaps it's a quantized universe. The fractions add up to one. Those are two rebuttals. Quoting TheMadFool

I suppose there really is a true contradiction between Parmenides and Heraclitus and that makes it odd why you would want to "come into their defense".

Either one or both. Though potentially both. IOW there could be third positions that deny both. Such as 'really there is a degree of change and a degree of things staying the same' which actually is probably what most people believe. And since that position goes against both of their positions, if someone had defended that ontology, the mixed one, both Heraclitus and Paremendies are being denied.

Reply to Coben :ok:

Heraclitus - :up:

Parmenides - :down:

They're both good, for Heraclitus promotes presentism and Parmenides promotes eternalism.

Heraclitus' fire as the basis of all is akin to energy. His balance of opposites could be seen today as analogous to virtual particle pairs and the other balances in nature.

Quoting TheMadFool

Heraclitus was a great philosopher but it appears Parmenides did more research and gave more thought on the matter.

What say you?

The way I read it is that in the times of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Zeno, et al. it was widely believed that stuff permeated everywhere, whether that stuff was elementary or atomic. Zeno believed that if stuff permeated everywhere then no room to move, so no room to change; all was one and continual with motion being illusory. Also that plurality was impossible due to no room for separation, the motionless can’t also be in motion and the continuous can’t also be discrete. He forwarded his arguments to show that reasoning about unchanging things changing leads to a paradox, such as super-tasking, with the idea that if the rationale concurs with observation then change is real but if not then change is not real. By today’s standards, Parmenides and Zeno would be considered hardcore rationalists.

However it does seem that we do experience change and Heraclitus thought that, even though the elements themselves don’t change, their configurations do in a global give-and-take between the elements. By today’s standards we may term this as conservation - the magnitude of properties in a closed system remain constant.

In contrast to both these views, the Atomist Democritus flipped it around and proposed that if experience of change then room to move, so the idea of the void was entertained which rendered Zeno’s arguments mute but the void was still widely rejected (both Plato and Aristotle also thought the idea of the void was absurd) until relatively recently.

I myself see Zeno’s paradoxes as a cautionary tale on how our observations and rationale can be both wrong and that we ought not to expect that either should concur.

Reply to PoeticUniverse :ok:

Quoting Happenstance

I myself see Zeno’s paradoxes as a cautionary tale on how our observations and rationale can be both wrong and that we ought not to expect that either should concur.

:up: