Is Change Possible?
Hi,
I would like comments on the following statements. It is about change.
Statement 1:
A circle is never the same as anything that is not a circle. Therefore, a circle is something that is never anything that is not a circle.
Statement 2:
"Deleted by original poster"
I would like comments on the following statements. It is about change.
Statement 1:
A circle is never the same as anything that is not a circle. Therefore, a circle is something that is never anything that is not a circle.
Statement 2:
"Deleted by original poster"
Comments (109)
Since non-existence can never be productive, much less be, Existence is eternal, as ever, and so it is not anything in particular, as random, given no possible inputs to it—that has no beginning, and so Existence is Everything, although about as unmeaningful as a Library of Babel of all possible books.
These are tautological, analytic, truths, because the negation of them is a contradiction.
Other than that, they contain no information. Giving conditions for circles, e.g., says nothing about the circle. Therefore they are generally useless propositions.
And, as stated, they have nothing to do with change.
I find defining change extremely difficult, so I will not do it. The statements, ultimately, are saying that a circle is always a circle, a square always a square, a man always a man, etc.
The Block Universe?
So instead of defining change, you’re going with the impossibility that a thing can be other than it is, and by that, denying change.
I do not think that defining change is important because my statements are saying that things remain the same all the time, which I believe no one needs help understanding.
I believe that you did not understand correctly my statements.
You didn't answer my question, but never mind. I'll proceed without your answer. A shape can change from a circle to a square. There are animations of this which you can find online. Either you're saying something logically irrelevant or you're saying something false. The statement that change is impossible is demonstrably false.
Again, I feel that you did not understand my statements.
What do you mean, "again"? This is the first time that you've bothered to reply to me, and you haven't bothered to explain why you think that, or to clarify your point, or properly address any of my replies. Just telling me that you feel that I didn't understand your statements is not helpful.
I am very sorry that you did not understand. My statements are extremely easy to understand, and, at the moment, I do not know how to get more clear with you.
When changes occur, the stuff that changed isn't the same after the change as it was before the change, sure. That's the whole idea of change. If it were the same, then it wouldn't be the case that it changed.
Oh, I correctly understood what you said alright, but apparently not what you meant by what you said.
You asked for comment, so......I commented.
I am very sorry that you're not only presumptuous, but incompetent.
Hold on a minute, now you're being sensible again. How can you just switch it up like that? You're like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
I will use a circle in the following example. Basically, I am saying that a circle is never the same as something that is not a circle. Saying that I am wrong is saying that a circle is sometimes the same as a square or something else that is not a circle, is that something you agree with?
I did not make that comment.
I understand and agree with that. Are you going to move on to my queries and objections, or is this all that you are capable of? The law of identity doesn't entail that change is impossible.
Are you saying that you agree that a circle is sometimes the same as a square?
No, you pillock.
Yes, it was intentionally directed at Terrapin Station. He was sensible there, whereas elsewhere he says ludicrously unbelievable things.
Then, I presume that you agree that a circle is never the same as something not a circle which means a circle is never anything not a circle.
Basically, it is saying that something cannot ever be anything that is not what it is, so it has to with change.
So basically: A is never the same as anything that is not A. Therefore, A is something that is never anything that is not A.
So basically: A is never the same as B. Therefore, A is never B.
I simplified the argument using letters instead of your terms, but the logic is identical (irony intended)
Your argument here is that change is impossible. However, if you add certain elements to A, and it becomes B, haven't you produced a change? So even if the law of identity holds, transmutation is a possibility correct? It therefore follow that your second statement is false, and that your first statement is simply the law of identity, which as pointed out, does not negate transmutation from A to B given particular conditions.
It might not be EXACTLY the same, though even a circle and another circle are not exactly the same. A circle can share a trait with something not a circle. For example a circle and a square are both shapes, in that way they are the same.
Either way, I don’t see how this shows change is impossible. As has been pointed out to you, change is demonstrable. Is this purely a logical exercise, like Zenos paradox?
Quoting elucid
Ok, and? Your point? You think that shows change is not possible?
If change is impossible, you cannot add any elements to A.
You have not demonstrated it is impossible as I pointed out.
You're funny. Change has to do with becoming. That a circle is a circle, and not a square, is irrelevant. It can become one.
I think maybe you're trolling.
I don't think you really believe that ethical stances are simply ways that individuals feel about interpersonal behavior. You seem to think that there are correct stances via reason.
You clearly did not understand me if you think I am trolling. If something cannot be anything that is not a circle, it is always something that is circle.
Well, sure, there are stances that I'd call correct, and I arrive at them through reason. But reason isn't the driving force. Moral emotions are the driving force. And obviously I don't mean correct in a useless, imaginary objectivist sense. Maybe you adopt that interpretation in order to say that there's no correct answer, but that seems wrongheaded to me.
Yes, until it becomes a square, like in the animations that you can see with your own eyes.
And you're definitely trolling.
Can't moral emotions be any stance imaginable?
My point for creating the thread is to help people understand those statements, not prove that change is possible or not possible.
Hypothetically. What's your point?
What about the statement that a circle can't be a square, but it can become one? Do you understand that statement?
If they can be any stance imaginable, how do we get to any being right or wrong via reason?
Doesn't that mean that a circle can be a square?
Wait you dont think reason plays a part at all? That someone has a moral stance that is contradictory and illogical doesnt matter to you at all, cuz they cant be right or wring about such things? Is that right?
I'm probably misunderstanding you but both statements appear tautological to me.
Is there a hidden conclusion using the two statements? I can't see it. Kindly clarify it. Thanks.
As to the question "is change possible?" I think the answer is both "yes" and "no" depending on what it is that you're focusing on. For instance, a baby, x, is born, grows up, becomes old and then dies. That's a description of change. However, throughout these events x is always human- x never becomes something else, right?
However, I don't know which philosopher suggested it, we may divide the properties of objects, those by which we discern change, into primary and secondary, the former defining the object/substance and the latter being merely incidental. If we do this then change may come out as illusory - changing dresses doesn't change the person. I think the whole change-no change claims reside at this fundamental level of reality.
It's about change in property of things.
It's impossible to get to any stance being right or wrong without the moral feeling which drives us towards right or wrong, and without the faculty of reason to reach that conclusion. And why would you disagree about right or wrong, correct and incorrect, on subjective and relative terms?
No. It means that a triangle can be a seagull.
On what basis? How do you know that?
A thing is not what it's not. That's just saying it is what it is which isn't very helpful to someone like me.
Do you mean that becoming isn't possible, the Parmenidian way?
If you have the time can you post your interpretation of it here?
Thanks.
Quoting elucid
I'm not great at logic but this reminds me of the old "You never really get there" argument. Imagine you're on a pitchers mound throwing a softball to a little league player. Let's call him Timmy. So you toss the ball and Timmy swings his bat, but first he has to swing his bat half the initial distance, then half of the remainder, then half of what remains after that. This goes on forever infinitely dividing so that the bat never actually reaches the ball.
In reality little Timmy hits the ball, the ball hits your nutsack, and you hit the ground.
When something actually happens to it by an outside force, then a future instance of it stops being unchanging and changes. This argument only holds true in the past, where once something has happened it "happens" forever.
You're not equivocating moral right/wrong and right/wrong in the sense or correct/incorrect or accurate/in error here, are you? When I say that this is the sort of stuff that we can't get right or wrong I'm saying that we can't say something accurate or in error about it (insofar as moral stances go, where we're not simply reporting what moral stances people happen to have). I'm not saying that we don't have moral dispositions, that we don't think that various things aren't right or wrong.
People will reason from stances that they take to be foundational in a given instance (what people treat that way can change on different occasions). Quoting DingoJones
They can't be right or wrong, correct, because the foundational stances can't be right or wrong. As an analogy to logic, we can't have sound arguments in ethics (stemming from premises that are ethical stances), because we can't have true premises--and every single ethical argument, no matter the content, is valid because of this, because validity obtains when it's impossible for premises to be true. (At least in traditional logics rather than relevance logics.)
Usually when people have moral views that seem contradictory or illogical relative to whatever they'd consider foundational views, it's a matter of the views not being expressed in a way that's qualified with respect to what their disposition actually is.
People can have contradictory dispositions, but that's not as common.
But an abstracted hypothetical circle is only its shape. The line of the circle is not made of anything and has no width. So if you change a hypothetical abstraction into a different one, you have changed its essence. But this doesn't say much about real life.
I think you can make this argument better, and I think the way people are brushing it off is both not charitable and facile. But that said, it does need some work.
Sure. But that's just an example of abstraction.
"Just" = "only" = "it's not something else than"
In other words, it's not really the same thing. That's only an abstraction. It's a way we think about it, by way of performing an abstraction.
would it be fair to say you see the hoop of leather as equivalent to the Heraclitian river?
I see everything as equivalent to the Herclitian river, really. ;-)
Quoting Terrapin Station
Who is this 'I', then? that that sentence applies to? All 'you' see is what you see now. Someone else would be seeing parts of that set of everything...
or?
Yeah, your self is dynamic, too.
Or not existent over time. So in each instant there is a fixed self. There is no self that is dynamic.
Right, your self is not identical through time--nothing is.
I understand about foundational stances, but you are saying it doesnt need to at least be internally consistent? You think someone thats not making any sense at all is still valid in their moral views?? In other words, you abandon reason and sense as a standard for anything ethical/moral?
You always say morals are not something anyone can be right or wrong about, but if a person doesnt even need to make sense then isnt it more accurate to say you don’t believe morals exist rather than that they are based on anything (feelings)? If there is no distinction at all between feeling and morality, then why have you bothered to co-opt the language (use the terms of ethics/morals) at all? I would think you would describe morality as an illusion or somesuch instead.
Logically, yes. Traditionally, in logic, any argument with contradictory premises is valid. That's because the logical definition of validity is that validity obtains just in case it's impossible that the premises are true and/or the conclusion false. That's the whole idea behind "everything follows from a contradiction" (aka the "principle of explosion").
Re not changing the language, etc., the belief that there's anything other than feelings to morality is what's mistaken and what's a misunderstanding what we're saying when we "do morality." Abandoning the language would be surrendering to an "objectivist co-opting" of the language. I think it's better to understand what's really going on when we make moral utterances.
Right and wrong, along with correct and incorrect, with regard to morality, are relative. It's not a category error. You're just deciding to interpret it that way.
So you don't actually believe that morality/ethics is subjective. Probably because you don't actually believe that reason/rationality is subjective. Maybe you'd say you would call them that, but you can't be using the terms in the same way I'm using them.
Lol, I knew that you would focus only on that one sentence. The rest of my post was meant to elaborate what exactly I was getting at. Lets address my “other words” instead, I should have been more careful with my words.
So do you abandon all reason and sense when ethics are involved?
And for the language, that doesnt explain why you wouldnt explain ethics/morality as an illusion. It seems like thats what you think other people have concerning morality/ethics.
I didn't address that again because I'd say the same thing I said earlier ("People will reason from stances that they take to be foundational in a given instance (what people treat that way can change on different occasions)_._._._plus the three later paragraphs from that same post). So it's not that you abandon reason, but there can't be a stance that's wrong (alethically)/incorrect/mistaken etc. via reason.
Ethics isn't an illusion because it's really a way that we feel/think about things. It's just like saying that our emotions in general aren't an illusion.
There is no purpose to reasoning though, it doesnt matter how a person arrives at any ethical/moral position, or even that they make any attempt at all to make sense. If you arent concerned about being consistent with reason, in what way are you not abandoning it?
Re the illusion, the distinction that morality is something different than the way you feel is an illusion in your view right? Im not talking about the feelings themselves as being an illusion.
In other words, I'm just descriptively saying that we reason about things we at least temporarily take to function as foundational moral stances. Which is true. We do that.
I'm not endorsing or prescribing reasoning about foundational moral stances, especially not as a way to arrive at moral stances with "more normative weight" or anything like that.
Quoting DingoJones
Yes, but morality is the feelings/dispositions we have. Again, ceding moral talk to people who want to assert that morality is something "more" than that isn't something I'd go along with.
Re ceding moral talk, what do you mean “go along with”? It cannot be correct or incorrect for them to talk about it however they want to right? If they feel like morals are objectively reasoned, thats not something they can be correct or incorrect about, is that right?
I do. Feeling this way or that way about something is very clearly subjective. I just reach a different conclusion to you regarding correct and incorrect, because I go by a relativist interpretation instead of an objectivist interpretation. I'm more pragmatic than that. The conclusion that there's no correct or incorrect is unacceptable, as it doesn't reflect our strong intuition. Relativism solves that problem.
As if reason didn’t already have the means to trick us on its own, from which we try to abstain, we turn right around and consciously use it to purposely trick ourselves.
In the words of my ol’ buddy Father Guido Sarducci, what a farging waste of brain cells.
Lol, what?
I don't see how that has anything to do with change being impossible.
If I smash my computer in front of me (which is a square) into a bunch of pieces and then re-arrange those pieces into a circle, didn't a square just become a circle?
It is hard to say if you cannot rule out the possibility of things disappearing and appearing to make it seem like things are changing.
You are not trying to explain it in a different way. You are repeating the exact same truism ("a thing is what it is and is not what it is not") over an over again. Despite the thread title, you have not attempted to move on from here to discussing anything relating to change. You seem to think that the implication for the impossibility of change from that basic law of identity is so obvious that you cannot even spell it out. But in actuality it's because this one tool that you are wielding is inadequate for the job. You have confessed at the outset that you don't know how to define change. That is the root of the problem: you cannot reason about something that you cannot grasp with your intellect.
Here is my crack at it. The ordinary concept of change has two aspects to it: identity and difference. Change is possible because these two aspects are not in conflict with each other: a thing can preserve its identity through time, even if something about it is different from one time to another. For this to make sense the law of identity alone won't do; we need to have (at least) two identity scales: coarse-grained identity and fine-grained identity.
When we see a cup, we readily identify it as a single gross object - a cup. In our mind, this object preserves its identity through time by maintaining its structural and compositional integrity (within reasonable bounds), as well as by maintaining space-time continuity. A small chip or discoloration may not cause the cup to lose its identity, but being crushed or dissolved in acid will. A cup preserves its identity through the passage of time and through continuous translation and rotation in space. But another cup that simultaneously occupies a separate region of space constitutes a separate identity, even if it is otherwise indistinguishable from the original. We may mistake their identities at times, but we think that there always is a fact of the matter about which is which.
Our idea of what a cup is constitutes its coarse-grained identity that subsumes inessential distinctions - fine-grained identities. In other words, the coarse-grained identity (Cup) can be seen as a (possibly infinite) equivalence class comprised of fine-grained identities: Cup yesterday, Cup today, Cup on the table, Cup on the dish rack, clean Cup, dirty Cup, new Cup, chipped Cup, etc. That we can distinguish between these fine-grained identities, while at the same time lumping them all under the same coarse-grained identity is what makes change in the ordinary sense possible.
Does it really? When would we be dead? I know you said we would be dead "by now", but when the circle disappears and the square appears, wouldn't there be a square "by now"?
Suppose, you are something that exists at time 12 pm. Once it is 12:01 pm, the guy (you), which existed at 12 pm is non-existent now.
Yes, but that square is not that circle, they are two different things.
There are no objects that are identical with themselves over time, although it appears to us that the world consists of parts that have continued on from “a moment ago”, and thus still retain their identity in time. There are little deaths of parts as well as little births of parts happening all the time, as atoms coming and going, and more changes.
The self is thus not so rock solid as it seems.
The moment-to-moment changes differ from Death
Only in degree. In essence, they are identical,
Although at the opposite ends of the spectrum.
I guess that would be true.
Right.
Quoting elucid
I think the problem with this is not that there would be no circle at one point (or that we would be dead), but that the circle would have to stop existing, and that the square would have to start existing. But let's say we grant that. It seems the time between the circle's non-existence and the square's existence is indifferent. How long do I, the guy that exists at 12 pm, exist before I become the next guy? Maybe you didn't really mean "a circle becoming non-existent and a square appearing is possible" and you just happened to say it that way.
Statement 1 in your first post says,
"A circle is never the same as anything that is not a circle."
If a circle must be a circle and cannot be something else, time is irrelevant. I mean, you could omit all time-related words and say,
"A circle is the same as anything that is not a circle. Therefore a circle is something that is not anything that is not a circle."
"Something existent is not the same as something non-existent. Therefore, something existent is something that is not non-existent."
A circle would be a-temporal, the same way a man is, the same way something existent is, the same way something non-existent is, etc.
The reason I created this thread is about that eternal property of things.
There are no permanent temporary things but just the permanent eternal. What's thought of as a 'thing' is series of events, as a hub of relations, a process.
What is the basis of the semblance, you might ask. Nature is kind of a ‘possibility gestalt’, the whole world occurring anew each moment; however, the deeper reality from which the world arises, in each case, acts as a unity in the sense of an indivisible ‘potentiality’, which can perhaps realize itself in many possible ways, it not being a strict sum of the partial states. But… who really knows.
As you probably know, accounting for change was a major issue for the ancient Greek philosophers. As Parmenides (and Plato and Aristotle) would have agreed, a circle never is and never can become a non-circle. Think of Plato's eternal and unchanging Forms.
Instead on Aristotle's account, it is particular things (form/matter composites) that are the subject of change. For example, a circular (inflated) car tire can become a non-circular (deflated) car tire. As the example shows, it is the car tire, a particular existent, that is the subject of change, not the form.
Things that physically exist are in an eternal state of change, nothing stays the same.
What is immutable are abstract definitions/concepts. For example, a circle is not a thing in itself but a mathematically defined concept. A physical thing can for a moment in time, approximate the shape of a circle, such as a planet, a coin, a baseball. But after the physical thing eventually crumbles, there is only the definition left.
After the last conscious mind capable of formulating such a definition ceases to exist, even the definition will disappear.
Unless one believes in the existence of God, is which case abstract concepts will never cease to exist because the mind of God would hold such concepts beyond the limitations of time.
They're not. It's an illusion. Like the value of philosophical discussions of this sort.
A circle is always a circle. To disagree is to say a circle is always not a circle, or sometimes a circle is not a circle.
Change the stupid circle into a triangle or something. The circle ceases to be a circle, because it was cahnged into a triangle.
What's the actual problem here, or the topic even?
Once this circle becomes a triangle, what is that circle at this moment?
This circle is not existent at the moment. It has been changed, or it changed, into a triangle.
I thought that the original topic was "change is impossible". Well, it is not. If you change a circle, a triangle, a geodesic tri-point transformation of an ancient Indian burial ground into something else, you've made the change.
I can't see any difficulty there.
If something changing means it becoming non-existent, then we should be dead by now. And are somebody else who thinks that they were somebody else in the past and have done those things.
You may want to argue that our experiences from day to day change our psyche, and our metabolism and aging process and diseases change our physical being. In that case, one person is changed into another person. The person went from one formation to another formation, in other words, changed, and s/he is a different person. But s/he does not need to be dead to be different from what s/he had been. Two different people can coexist or exist in chronolgical sequence. There is no need to die to go into inexistence... if you change, your old self goes into inexistence, and a new self is created, but no death needs to be involved in this.
A circle is never the same as a square. Thus, a circle is never a square. Otherwise, it is either sometimes or always the same as a square. Thus, sometimes or always a square. This principle applies to all things.
"A circle is never the same as a square." simply means that, at time T, the thing can not be both a circle and a square. But it could be a circle at time T and a square at time T'-this is the whole idea of change.
That saying is rather about the challenge of constructing a square with the same area as a given circle by using only a finite number of steps with compass and straightedge.
Per Wikipedia: "In 1882, the task was proven to be impossible, as a consequence of the Lindemann–Weierstrass theorem which proves that pi (?) is a transcendental, rather than an algebraic irrational number; that is, it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. It had been known for decades that the construction would be impossible if ? were transcendental, but ? was not proven transcendental until 1882. Approximate squaring to any given non-perfect accuracy, in contrast, is possible in a finite number of steps, since there are rational numbers arbitrarily close to ?.
"The expression 'squaring the circle' is sometimes used as a metaphor for trying to do the impossible"
I am not talking about squaring a circle. I am basically saying something circular is never the same as something non-circular. Thus, something circular is something that is never non-circular. Thus, something circular always remains circular. I am just using something circular in this example, I am not saying it is true only for circular objects. I am saying that the following statement applies to every property of everything.
If change is an illusion the illusion of change is constantly changing.
It's easy to say change is an illusion. It's also easy to say the idea that change is an illusion is an illusion.
I would like to see your justification. Why would that be the case?
That particularly seems odd to say.
Imagine that we take this table:
And take a saw to it so that we end up with something like this:
Would something circular remain circular in that case?
Agreed though it appears tautological.
Quoting elucid
Begging the question.
The word "never" is doing something odd.
In the premise it expresses the contradiction existence vs non-existence which is acceptable.
In the conclusion it makes a claim about the world viz. that existence is eternal. The premise doesn't support this conclusion.
Clever.
If it is not true, it means that something circular is sometimes or always the same as something non-circular. We know it is not always true, we obviously can see that.
A circular object being the same as a square one would mean that it is circular and not-circular object at the same time.
Yes. But note the "at the same time" part that you have omitted in the first premise, you have said that "A circle is never the same as anything that is not a circle." which is different from what you are saying now. A circular object can not, at the same time, be both circular and non-circular. But, at a later time, it can be something non-circular and it would not be a circular object at that time.
So, i do not think the premise holds any water (maybe it's true if you look at it from the law of identity, but that does not support your consclusion).