Everything changes...or does it?
exploring change, permanence and the self through pre-socratic thought
Am I the same person I was yesterday? If I am constantly changing, what does it mean to truly be ‘me’? Can anything remain itself whilst it changes? If everything changes what can we hold on to?
These are the questions I kept asking as I was diving into the pre-socratic Greek philosophy as part of my September Curriculum. Identity wasn’t something that these philosophers explicitly questioned but their theories on metaphysics (the study of what is real, and what it means to ‘be’) naturally leans into it.
Heraclitus famously said:
You cannot step into the same river twice
Neither you or the river is the same. Everything is changing; it is the fundamental principle of the universe, he argues. But if everything changes, what allows a thing to remain itself?
Heraclitus offers two solutions: the first using the river itself. A river is a river precisely because it is in constant flow, its identity depends on that change. Another example is fire, the fundamental element in his cosmology, a fire remains a fire regardless of how it flickers, grows, or dims. It is that flux itself that provides stability in its identity.
Another translation of the river quote may help here:
Different waters flow over those who step into the same river
This emphasises how the river is simultaneously the same and different - a unity in flux and identity persisting amid change.
Enter Parmenides, traditionally presented as a contrast to Heraclitus. He argued that change is an illusion. For change to happen, something would need to transform into something else, but ‘what is’ cannot become ‘what is not’ because non-being cannot exist:
What can be said and be thought of must be; for it can be, and nothing cannot
Everything that exists must be eternal and ungenerated otherwise it would have emerged from non-being which is impossible.
Underneath surface transformations reality remains unchanged. It is permanent and stable. Fire, the river, and all existence maintain an enduring essence despite surface level changes.
Heraclitus and Parmenides are traditionally presented as contrasting philosophies. Heraclitus: everything changes against Parmenides: nothing changes. But, the contrast is more subtle than that.
One way I tried to understand this subtly is through the Ship of Thesues Paradox.
A ship sets sail. Over time each and every part of that ship is replaced. Is the ship now still the same ship that left the harbour?
Both Heraclitus and Parmenides would likely argue that the ship, as altered, is the same ship that originally set sail - but based on different rationale:
Heraclitus might argue that the replacement of parts is precisely why the ship remains the same, its identity depends on continual renewal.
Parmenides would likely say that the underlying essence of the ship (i.e., its “being”) remained constant, regardless of surface changes.
Both arguments would say that the ship’s identity remains whether through continuity amid change or permanence beneath surface transformations.
These philosophical thoughts got me thinking about the changes in my life and how it has shaped my reality, my ‘being’. Am I the same person I was last year? Would I want to be? Is our constant stage of change, like Heraclitus’ river, the very thing that makes us human?
Something about the arrival of Autumn and nature’s reminder that change is constant, needed in fact for renewal, prompts reflection on the impact of change on identity.
If this essay resonated with you - let me leave you with a journaling prompt:
If everything is in constant flux, what is it that makes you, ‘you’?