More Changes

Change, and ruminations thereof, seems to be a recurring theme here, but it is a topic that is worthy of further and continuing exegesis, and one that is of considerable salience for me. My examination and dissection of it is an effort not only to understand its mechanisms, but to use any percipience gained of its workings to enable further metamorphoses. Right. Fundamentally, “change” is the word that we use to denote the transformation that occurs when something goes from being the same to being different. A survey of the existing thought on the subject to date begins with the earliest written philosophical texts and winds its way through the alchemy of the middle ages, early and modern physics, psychology and New Age metaphysics.

Heraclitus held that an explanation of change was foundational to any theory of nature. On the other hand, this view was strongly opposed by Parmenides, who said that reality was permanent and unchanging. Supposedly, Parmenides asked, "How can a thing change into something else? How can it be and not be?" According to Parmenides, change is merely an illusion. Medieval thought discouraged change or marginalized its importance through its focus on respect for authority. In the renaissance, change became the province of mathematicians. Newton and Leibniz created mathematical models of change such as calculus to understand flux and variation. In modern physics the concept of “delta” or change is associated with energy or motion.

Depending on one’s culture or world view, change can be seen as 1) completely deterministic, as directed by the divine; 2) random, lacking any determinism or teleology; 3) cyclical, recurring at certain intervals or under certain circumstances; and 4) evolutionary, as a response or adaptation to environmental factors. No doubt there are certainly as many other ways of viewing change as there are people and cultures, but let us assume these comprise the majority of those views. It is not difficult to imagine a system where all four of these conceptualizations of change can coexist and be observed simultaneously. The strong nuclear force that holds the nuclei in a chunk of uranium together and the weak nuclear force that causes it to decay are fundamental forces of nature that came into being at the instant of creation. They have been determined or ordained by some higher power. The electrons orbiting each of the nuclei do so under the principles described by Werner Heisenberg, they move randomly within fields or shells of probability. If we imagine a breeding population of cockroaches in a box with our uranium, we can see that its rates of growth and reproduction (change) are cyclical. If we further imagine the effects that the radiation will have on our colony, we can see change as an adaptation to an environment. But what of behavioral change?

Consideration of behavioral change, which is the aspect of change that I am pondering today, requires a brief survey of some of the fundamentals of behavioral psychology. Behavioral change takes place through the process we call learning. Learning Theory consists of a variety of theories that include, but are not limited to instincts, social facilitation, observation, formal instruction, memory, mimicry, insight, and classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning, sometimes referred to as Pavlovian conditioning, is used to form an association between two stimuli, such as smoking and driving. Operant conditioning forms an association between a behavior and a consequence, such as smoking and coughing. The consequence can be either positive, adding something to increase or decrease a behavior, or negative, removing something to increase or decrease a behavior. For the present, a decrease in several behaviors and an increase in one or two is what I am after.

I am in the process therefore, of trying to change some of my behaviors and I am wondering if it is possible to harness some of my many character flaws to drive that change. Chief among these are my selfishness, self-seeking and fear. I think of these as components of my ego which, until relatively recently in my life, was somewhat rabid. My instincts tell me that using these defects to create and power positive change is possible, if only I can discover the mechanics of how to make it work – i.e. the Jedi mind trick. There is a prayer that I have been using to enable this process and I will close this entry with it for your consideration and my own:
My creator, I am now willing that you should have all of me, good and bad. I pray that you now remove from me every single defect of character, which stands in the way of my usefulness to you and my fellows. Grant me strength, as I go out from here, to do your bidding. Amen.