Things Change

Things change. It looks like that is going to be very hard to deny. Denying it sure as heck looks like an implicit affirmation of it. Ok, things change. But what is involved in change, at least minimally? It turns out that change is really weird. I want to try to bring out some of that weirdness is this post. We will focus on changes that are changes in something (these are sometimes called accidental changes). 

I am currently typing. A few moments ago, I was not typing. I am currently thinking about change. A few moments ago, I was not thinking about change. The dishwasher in my apt is running right now. In a few moments, it will stop. 

A few things stand out in the above examples. First, in each example, something either comes into existence or goes out of existence. My current typing exists right now, but a few moments ago it did not; my current thinking about change exists right now, but a few moments ago it did not; the dishwasher’s running exists right now and in a few moments it will not. Second, in each example, something remains constant. I continue to exist while typing and while not typing, while thinking about change and while not thinking about change; the dishwasher continues to exist while running and while not running. 

So, change involves, minimally, the coming into existence or cessation of existence of something AND the continued existence of something. There is no change in the dishwasher if it does not stop running but instead, it simply pops out of existence and a different dishwasher comes into existence that is not running. There is no real change in me if I not go from not typing to typing but instead, one person was typing and then a new person pops into existence that is typing. So, for change to occur there must be something that comes into existence (or goes out of existence) and there must be something that remains in existence. In our examples, the things that remain in existence are the dishwasher and me, and the things that come into existence are the typing (or non-typing), thinking about change (or thinking about non-change), and the running (or the return to non-running). 

We can helpfully put all of the above into a schematic form like this:

O is F at t1 & O is ~F at t2 

(where ‘O’ stands for any object, ‘F’ stands for any feature of that object, ‘t’ stands for a time, and ‘~’ stands for negation). 

Note that the above schematic form has just about all of the elements we stated above. We have something that remains constant through the temporal interval (the temporal interval is from t1 to t2), namely, O, and we have something that does not remain constant through the temporal interval, namely, F. 

What is striking about this is that change requires stability. Put differently, change requires unchange or non-change. That’s kind of weird. 

According to Feser, change requires something else. He, following Aristotle, calls it potentiality or the potential to change in a particular way. 

Why?

Well, if O did not have the potential to become F (or ~F), then O could not go from being non-F to F. This sounds pretty bland, but it's not. It sure seems like there are Fs that I could not come to have. Thus, what gets plugged into for the O will determine what kinds of F O can potentially become. For example, it sure seems like my dishwasher cannot become immaterial, and I cannot become a being without a past. So, the potentials of O are somehow part of what O is, are determined by the kind of thing that O is. These points allow us to add a bit more detail to our above schema:

            O is actually F at t1 & O is potentially ~F at t1 & O is actually ~F at t2.

In order for O to change with respect to F, it has to be the case that O has the potential to remain in existence while not being F. O has to have the potential to cease being F. 

So, change is the movement in O from being F to being ~F. Change is the movement in O from being actually F and potentially ~F to being actually ~F. 

The last element needed according to Feser (again following Aristotle) is the mover or changer. O’s change from potentially being ~F to actually being ~F requires something to bring it about. That is, the claim is that O cannot change with respect to F without there being something that brings about that change and that something that brings about the change has to be actual and not merely potential. (Note that nothing said thus far rules out O itself being the thing the brings about the change.)

Question: Why? Why must there be something that brings about the change? Why must there be something actual (in existence) that moves O from being F to being ~F?