Taking "everything changes" too literally?

[wstein]

Originally Posted by Miriah

Is it true? Does everything really change?
So what was good will eventually become bad?
Do we hold on as tightly as we can to something that matters to us only for it to become completely wrong at some point?
If so, do we assume it'll become good again one day and hold on purely out of nostalgia fueled hope?
Should we embrace what appears to stay the same as the closest to truth we've got?

Yes, all 'things' change. FYI accepting this (impermanence) is one of the foundations of Buddhism.
You are incorrectly limiting change to oscillating between polar opposites.
Think about how your body changes. It ages, ceases to function, gets recycled in the biosphere. Though it might become part of new bodies, it doesn't revert back to being the young version of itself.

Even the notions of 'good and bad', 'right and wrong', things mattering, nostalgia, and hope will change.

[snowyowl]

"Everything" is a risky and mysterious word, in my view.

* It's got 2 meanings: everything-as-a-unified-whole, and the collection-of-all-individual-things. Which one is intended?

* "Everything" runs the risk of the paradox of self-reference. Eg a blanket statement like 'everything changes' includes the statement itself, so the law of change must itself change! . Whatever is true now must therefore become not true at some point in the future, if you take it totally literally. Including the conclusion I've just reached! How can this recurring paradox be resolved? I do love a good paradox!

* Change implies a reference to time. So we need to clarify our theory of time too.

I came across the belief in impermanence via Buddhism too. I've come to believe that a lot of religion is communicated in a kind of shorthand. Checking the sources, Buddhism doesn't say 'everything is impermanent', it says 'all conditioned phenomena are impermanent', ie those phenomena dependent on other phenomena through a causal relationship. You need to bring in time and cause-and-effect - big philosophical themes. The unconditioned may therefore not be impermanent, but what is the unconditioned? I'm still working on that, but I'd associate it with Nirvana, a state of mind unattached to individual things, but one with the whole, ie 'everything-as-a-unified-whole'.

[wstein]

Originally Posted by snowyowl

* Change implies a reference to time. So we need to clarify our theory of time too.

It is true that word implies time. I'm not sure what the correct word for alteration outside of time is.
In any case, that outside of time gets altered too. In fact the creation of time (within the bounds of certain universes) IS one of those alterations.

Even within the bounds of time most things don't change because of time, rather time regulates how the alteration of things occurs. Forces of nature and some would argue consciousness cause change with in the bounds of time.

[inavalan]

Can have change in the same moment of time? Surely, between probable universes!

Originally Posted by inavalan

That makes sense.

Getting to the root of the issue always works for me - and that's me too.

[Gem]

It is also a matter of perception. On the hard, solid physical level, things seem to change slowly or last longer, whereas a more sensitive perception reveals the subtler aspects of things are changing more quickly.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by snowyowl

"Everything" is a risky and mysterious word, in my view.

* It's got 2 meanings: everything-as-a-unified-whole, and the collection-of-all-individual-things. Which one is intended?

* "Everything" runs the risk of the paradox of self-reference. Eg a blanket statement like 'everything changes' includes the statement itself, so the law of change must itself change! . Whatever is true now must therefore become not true at some point in the future, if you take it totally literally. Including the conclusion I've just reached! How can this recurring paradox be resolved? I do love a good paradox!

* Change implies a reference to time. So we need to clarify our theory of time too.

I came across the belief in impermanence via Buddhism too. I've come to believe that a lot of religion is communicated in a kind of shorthand. Checking the sources, Buddhism doesn't say 'everything is impermanent', it says 'all conditioned phenomena are impermanent', ie those phenomena dependent on other phenomena through a causal relationship. You need to bring in time and cause-and-effect - big philosophical themes. The unconditioned may therefore not be impermanent, but what is the unconditioned? I'm still working on that, but I'd associate it with Nirvana, a state of mind unattached to individual things, but one with the whole, ie 'everything-as-a-unified-whole'.

Time depends on the notion that there is an enduring substance which persists from one moment to the next. Hence, if we assume there is a lasting 'something' which changes, we assume the duration of time. If there is no enduring substance then the perception of change is momentary rather than enduring. I think the 'law of impermanence' is based the premise that there is no enduring substance.

[snowyowl]

Originally Posted by Gem

Time depends on the notion that there is an enduring substance which persists from one moment to the next. Hence, if we assume there is a lasting 'something' which changes, we assume the duration of time. If there is no enduring substance then the perception of change is momentary rather than enduring. I think the 'law of impermanence' is based the premise that there is no enduring substance.

Assume being the operative word. We're brought up with a model of physical reality made of solid objects (nouns) and processes in time (verbs) as separate. It's tricky to disentangle my direct perception from this conceptual framework. I came across a talk by Alan Watts where he gives an example of a language without nouns, just verbs (I can't remember which language). I'm contemplating in terms of phenomena = process = space-time. Not time and things as separate, connected by a truth of impermanence, which seems negative, and giving me the idea of some kind of permanence in Nirvana. But, perhaps it's process all the way down.

[Miss Hepburn]

What doesn't change?
Anyone wanna start a list?
Sure you could place U238 in a sealed, safe container ---but even that would take
1,000,000,000,000,000 years to change to half. How long would it take to change less than half?
I dunno...but it would still change, even if only .000001%.

Snowyowl, thank you for making your font larger.

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

What doesn't change?
Anyone wanna start a list?

How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop? The world may never know!