Change can be good when it is needed. Changing underwear for example or cleaning the attic or buying another car. Every once in a while governments need to change, too. The issues are who (who changes one’s underwear), how (who decides which antiquities in the attic are kept or not kept) and why (when one already has three cars).
Change seems to be an authentic phenomenon. Often, change comes later than it should. Then change becomes difficult, even disastrous. Suppose one didn’t change their underwear until they were on the bus riding to work. Mariner decided to visit Guru to talk about the validity of change. He took a trip to Guru’s remote mountain retreat.
Mariner began their conversation by citing the broad dissatisfaction that exists in the world today, the turmoil of war and authoritarianism, and the fading confidence toward economics.
“Change”, Guru replied, “is an absolute part of existence. There is not one ion in the universe that exists without being the product of change in the state of its energy. Where there is energy, there is change. Otherwise there would be no universe.”
“But must change be so disruptive?”, mariner asked.
“At the level of living creatures here on Earth, change is always disruptive but in smaller scales of change, it sometimes can pass without being obvious. When a newborn has a different shade of hair, it is noticed but doesn’t seem disruptive. However, the level of DNA involved in that change that forced a modification in a sequence of otherwise ‘happy’ cells was significant.”
“But humans are so proud of their mastery of so many of Earth’s processes. Why can’t they manage change better?” mariner replied. He submitted a Wiley calendar subject to make his point:
“Your cartoon reflects the difficulty and disruption caused by change”, Guru replied. “Nothing, not an ion, a sea nettle, a crow or a human makes changes until they are forced upon them. Some changes are incremental and even greatly beneficial but these are not large changes. Change becomes disruptive when entire concepts and procedures must undergo total change in a short amount of time – that is, not as slow as evolution.”
Guru continued, “The cartoon also demonstrates that change must relate to genuine pressures that are hurting life’s processes. Making changes for ulterior or irrelevant reasons only adds to the cacophony.”
Mariner thanked Guru for his insights and headed home. Mariner’s assumption is that humans aren’t as smart as they should be about managing themselves. AI can’t do it, either – because AI is a human invention.
Ancient Mariner