Introduction In today’s post, we continue our synoptic survey of metamorphology, the science of change, drawing out some of the further threads which distinguish it from other ways of looking at reality and of understanding and studying change: our view of the ubiquitousness of flux or impermanence, the persistence of pattern rather than change as what requires explanation, our focus on states-of-affairs, our photographic-negative view of nature, the nature of change itself and its relativity to point of view, our deployment of only negative explanation, the notion of exhibiting constraint, the search for specific constraints, the concepts of free fall and intervention, the revival of the mediaeval philosophical distinction between agent and patient, the nature of behavior and its role in interaction, the abandonment of the usual map-territory dichotomy, the primacy of context, the radical reconceptualization of scientific objectivity, and much more, all jam-packed into as few words as possible (only around 1800 words in fact).
The Science of Change—Part II
The Science of Change—Part II
The Science of Change—Part II
Introduction In today’s post, we continue our synoptic survey of metamorphology, the science of change, drawing out some of the further threads which distinguish it from other ways of looking at reality and of understanding and studying change: our view of the ubiquitousness of flux or impermanence, the persistence of pattern rather than change as what requires explanation, our focus on states-of-affairs, our photographic-negative view of nature, the nature of change itself and its relativity to point of view, our deployment of only negative explanation, the notion of exhibiting constraint, the search for specific constraints, the concepts of free fall and intervention, the revival of the mediaeval philosophical distinction between agent and patient, the nature of behavior and its role in interaction, the abandonment of the usual map-territory dichotomy, the primacy of context, the radical reconceptualization of scientific objectivity, and much more, all jam-packed into as few words as possible (only around 1800 words in fact).