
The law of invariance – Do things really change? - sheetanshu_sp
Everything changes. However, I see a continuity in the way we react to them. The measures we take to counter the unknown might be small or unprecedented depending on the novelty and severity, but we seem to follow a pattern.<p>Step 1: Encounter an unknown situation
Step 2: Analyse whether we have remotely been into some similar situation.
Step 3: If yes: then try to use it as a point of reference to tackle this new situation. Then go to Step 5
Step 4: If no: Take some unprecedented measure never seen before. Then go to Step 5.
Step 5: Learn from the outcomes and improve on the solution. 
Step 6: Take measures to ensure we are prepared similar scenarios in the future. 
Step 7: Change old regulations or introduce new ones to proactively thwart any such occurrences in the future.<p>We can notice this pattern throughout our history. 9&#x2F;11, SARS, COVID-19, World Wars, Cold-War, Tsunami, Chernobyl, the British colonization of India or Lehman Brothers. The way we have responded would conform to the above algorithm.<p>The problem though is that it gives us a false sense of preparedness. Say there was a burglary at my house. What would I do? I would report it to the authorities, enhance my security, put up a better lock, put up some security cameras. All my neighbours would have learnt their lessons and the authorities would become more vigilant as well. We all are ready to handle any burglar now, aren&#x27;t we? What if burglar learns to teleport, or become invisible though? Did we think of that? Are we really prepared?<p>Stupid it might seem but the biggest tectonic shifts that the humankind has seen are because of these seemingly unknown instances that we at some point of time thought to be extremely bizarre to even consider it, and yet, there are few, be it nature, virus or human beings etc., who are working hard to make these crazy things happen, and they do happen.<p>When we look from 30,000 meters above the ground, things don&#x27;t really change, do they?
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w3mmpp
Those are very deep philosophical questions that you don't have to tackle on
your own.

Now, western philosophy is not much help on those questions, but you can look
at the buddhist concepts of samsara, the cyclical nature of existence, and
also the concept of dependent origination, which states that all phenomenas
happens in relation to one another.

When you take those 2 concepts together (if we omit the third concept of
karma), it draws an image of an universe always changing, but incrementally,
so every action us humans take to counter nature, whatever nature is here, a
virus etc, the future will be slightly modified by our actions, and also more
resistant to those same actions (because it integrates our past actions).

> When we look from 30,000 meters above the ground, things don't really
> change, do they?

Now again buddhism tell us that there's no observer or observed objects,
they're just illusions created by our unenlightened minds when we can't see
how things are really in constant motion.

I hope you don't mind the digression, it's just that imo, buddhist have a
really refined point of view on the nature of reality and change that I
thought sharing here could be beneficial to the discussion.

~~~
sheetanshu_sp
I am looking forward to learning more from the concepts you have guided me
towards. Thank you.

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kratom_sandwich
So you are saying that history repeats itself? [1] Or that there are Black
Swans? [2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbable)

~~~
sheetanshu_sp
More of a paradigm shift kind of thing.

