The example of how young children learn to become accomplised walkers, learning how to deal with gravity, movement, obstacles, etc., is truly fascinating and, indeed, revealling of what it is to be human being, embodied and living in a pre-existing social world, and having to learn all sorts of complicated skills within the whole process of growth and living a life.

Indeed, how the human body moves from being intrinsically “out-of-balance” and becomes increasingly accomplised raises very important questions and opportunities for research into human nature and also the nature of the world within which we are an inherent part.

However, I do have some reservations about the use of the term “permanence” here, especially in relation to Heraclitean thought into change as a permanent and all pervasive essence of existence.

It seems to me that when we learn how to walk, or how to navigate difficult terrain, such as ice or snow, we are dealing with the problem of how to achieve a state of equilibrium within a complex situation of opposing forces, resistances, and tendencies. This is a process of moving from inequilibrium to equilibrium, wherein additional factors while arise in a complicated, changing. and open ended world can destabilise the state of equilibrium, requiring the achievement of a new state of equilibrium. Human growth is a process of learning how to deal in instability and achieve states of equilibria. This can be seen in terms of a punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution, at both the macro and micro levels of dealing with social evolution and individual growth, in a complex, open ended, and changing world. This is analogous to what Buddhist thinking (and Giles Deleuze) terms as the journey of ten thousand plateaus.

However, the concept of “equilibrium” is an immament concept to the phenomenon. It is experiential and can be studied and understood in phenomenological terms. It is more a question of change/persistance rather than change/permanence.

This immanent concept is quite distinct from the transcendent concept of permanent and all pervasive change that is inherent to Heraclitean mysticism (which Heraclitus based on nous, an intuitive connection with the mind of the divine, and illuminated in analogy with fire.)

Unless we are mystically endowed with divine knowledge, we mortals have no experience of anything permanent and all pervasive. We are localised and temporal. We live on islands of persistance and change.

The Heraclitean transcendent concept of permanent and all pervasive change is what we would call in our modern terms as a metaphysical concept that is used to explain experience, something that we bring to experience and project over it. My concern is the way that this kind of metaphysical concept is implicit in many fashionable philosophies and ideologies today, ranging from post-Nietzschean poststructuralism to New Age poetics, while the proponents of such doctrines consider themselves to be free of transcendent concepts and metaphysical thinking, when they are not, and, unlike Heraclitus, they do not acknowledge the mysticism inherent to such concepts. Will the gods forgive such ingratitude?

It seems to me that God has not only outlived Nietzsche, but She (truth is a woman, after all) has taken on a new identitity and is living in hiding in the thoughts of those who reject the possibility of eternal and universal knowledge while paradoxically allowing themselves to pronouce that all is change and there is no permanance.

The example of how young children learn to become accomplised walkers, learning how to deal with gravity, movement, obstacles, etc., is truly fascinating and, indeed, revealling of what it is to be human being, embodied and living in a pre-existing social world, and having to learn all sorts of complicated skills within the whole process of growth and living a life.

Indeed, how the human body moves from being intrinsically “out-of-balance” and becomes increasingly accomplised raises very important questions and opportunities for research into human nature and also the nature of the world within which we are an inherent part.

However, I do have some reservations about the use of the term “permanence” here, especially in relation to Heraclitean thought into change as a permanent and all pervasive essence of existence.

It seems to me that when we learn how to walk, or how to navigate difficult terrain, such as ice or snow, we are dealing with the problem of how to achieve a state of equilibrium within a complex situation of opposing forces, resistances, and tendencies. This is a process of moving from inequilibrium to equilibrium, wherein additional factors while arise in a complicated, changing. and open ended world can destabilise the state of equilibrium, requiring the achievement of a new state of equilibrium. Human growth is a process of learning how to deal in instability and achieve states of equilibria. This can be seen in terms of a punctuated equilibrium theory of evolution, at both the macro and micro levels of dealing with social evolution and individual growth, in a complex, open ended, and changing world. This is analogous to what Buddhist thinking (and Giles Deleuze) terms as the journey of ten thousand plateaus.

However, the concept of “equilibrium” is an immament concept to the phenomenon. It is experiential and can be studied and understood in phenomenological terms. It is more a question of change/persistance rather than change/permanence.

This immanent concept is quite distinct from the transcendent concept of permanent and all pervasive change that is inherent to Heraclitean mysticism (which Heraclitus based on nous, an intuitive connection with the mind of the divine, and illuminated in analogy with fire.)

Unless we are mystically endowed with divine knowledge, we mortals have no experience of anything permanent and all pervasive. We are localised and temporal. We live on islands of persistance and change.

The Heraclitean transcendent concept of permanent and all pervasive change is what we would call in our modern terms as a metaphysical concept that is used to explain experience, something that we bring to experience and project over it. My concern is the way that this kind of metaphysical concept is implicit in many fashionable philosophies and ideologies today, ranging from post-Nietzschean poststructuralism to New Age poetics, while the proponents of such doctrines consider themselves to be free of transcendent concepts and metaphysical thinking, when they are not, and, unlike Heraclitus, they do not acknowledge the mysticism inherent to such concepts. Will the gods forgive such ingratitude?

It seems to me that God has not only outlived Nietzsche, but She (truth is a woman, after all) has taken on a new identitity and is living in hiding in the thoughts of those who reject the possibility of eternal and universal knowledge while paradoxically allowing themselves to pronouce that all is change and there is no permanance.

…. this leads us to the question of, within the terms of a Heracltean way of thinking: how are we, as beings of constant change, in a world of constant change, able to recognise that permanent and all pervasive truth?

Even though today it is quite unfashionable, since Nietzsche’s madman announced the death of God, but perhaps some Platonic conception of transcendence lingers on even in our most Heraclitean moments…..

…. this leads us to the question of, within the terms of a Heracltean way of thinking: how are we, as beings of constant change, in a world of constant change, able to recognise that permanent and all pervasive truth?

Even though today it is quite unfashionable, since Nietzsche’s madman announced the death of God, but perhaps some Platonic conception of transcendence lingers on even in our most Heraclitean moments…..

…just brilliant, a portable antidote to so many Platonic/Aristotelian frames trapping us to think life is all the same, fixed, closed, unchanging… or what a bell says, waking us to all the choices of action in each present moment.

…just brilliant, a portable antidote to so many Platonic/Aristotelian frames trapping us to think life is all the same, fixed, closed, unchanging… or what a bell says, waking us to all the choices of action in each present moment.