Impermanence

[Philosophy Now]

Hiroshi Satow remains placid in the face of change.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/132/Impermanence

[RCSaunders]

Hiroshi Satow remains placid in the face of change.

https://philosophynow.org/issues/132/Impermanence

Those in the East or the West who have a problem with the fact that everything changes and nothing lasts forever have that problem because they would like reality to be other than it is.

Two quotes (from memory) address the issue:

"Most view the enjoying of a good woman like enjoying the taste of wine by keeping one's mouth always full of it." [GBS] I think most think of life in the same way, that one should always be enjoying pleasure.

"My god, one moment of ecstasy, why is that no enough for a lifetime?" [Dostoevsky] It is, of course. Even if it is only one moment of supreme bliss or joy or satisfaction, it is worth living for.

[Hiroshi Satow]

Hi. I think you are right. We want to have a thing forever, but everything is subject to change and decay to our sadness. The point is, it is true that nothing lasts forever, but some may be contented with the idea of impermanence because they find some beauty in it.

The beauty of impermanence and Wabi-sabi goes against that of Plato. In Plato's theory, a thing is beautiful when everlasting, universal, unchangeable, and perfect. This understanding of beauty concerns what I call Platonic aesthetics. (I think we can say that this sense of beauty Shelley named Intellectual Beauty.) We look up to and yearn for perfection. In impermanence and Wabi-sabi, in contrast, we find something is beautiful when it is aging, subject to change and decay, seen and/or felt and confirmed in individuum: In short, when it is imperfect. It is the imperfection of each individual thing that is beloved and attractive.

[Jai]

I agree with Plato and those seeking a permanent god archetype for truth, beauty and love. However we live in the impermanent world, and the poet uses skillful means to see the archetype of permanent fulfillment through reflection on the passing views of nature.

[Impenitent]

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” ― Heraclitus

-Imp

[Immanuel Can]

I kept writing a response on impermanence...

...but my computer kept erasing it.

[Nick_A]

As creatures within creation we must experience the reality of impermanence. Yet consciousness is drawn to the eternal unchanging. How can this be possible?

[I Like Sushu]

Hi. I think you are right. We want to have a thing forever, but everything is subject to change and decay to our sadness. The point is, it is true that nothing lasts forever, but some may be contented with the idea of impermanence because they find some beauty in it.

The beauty of impermanence and Wabi-sabi goes against that of Plato. In Plato's theory, a thing is beautiful when everlasting, universal, unchangeable, and perfect. This understanding of beauty concerns what I call Platonic aesthetics. (I think we can say that this sense of beauty Shelley named Intellectual Beauty.) We look up to and yearn for perfection. In impermanence and Wabi-sabi, in contrast, we find something is beautiful when it is aging, subject to change and decay, seen and/or felt and confirmed in individuum: In short, when it is imperfect. It is the imperfection of each individual thing that is beloved and attractive.

Simply a matter of contrast really. A blemish on the landscape can make the vista ‘more beautiful’.

Also, I’d be careful with translations of ‘beauty’ fro Greek. Beauty in geometry (abstract formulae) are nit exactly the same as the more ‘obvious’ beauty of sensibility. The Greek term ‘kalos’ is an interesting one.

[Hiroshi Satow]

"A blemish on the landscape can make the vista ‘more beautiful.’"

I agree.

It may be interesting to compare the beauty of imperfection with Platonic beauty of perfection.

According to Plato, when an object is beautiful, it is that the object shares some trait with Beauty itself. I'd like to say that an object is the more beautiful because it has in itself something that is not beautiful, not perfect. What matters is imperfection, not perfect 'beauty.' Just as spices add interest to our cooking, so does imperfection add spice to an object or a work or art.

[Hiroshi Satow]

Imperfection includes mutability, obscurity, asymmetry, agedness, absence, crookedness, poverty, plainness, fragility, and the like.
Perfection is eternality, clarity, symmetry, freshness, presence, straightness, richness, brightness, durability, and so on.

It may be safe to say that, in some cases, paradoxically, imperfection makes an object the more beautiful and remarkable than perfection does.

In ancient Athens, people might have said, "Socrates is conspicuous by his absence," when they didn't find that handsome sage in Agora. It is his absence that allows Socrates to stand out, not his presence.

Or some may think, at the sight of a woman in a tight-fitting dress, "That leaves nothing to imagination." What makes imagination active is not clarity but obscurity, and it is imagination that activates our sense of beauty.

[Skepdick]

It may be safe to say that, in some cases, paradoxically, imperfection makes an object the more beautiful and remarkable than perfection does.

Such is the case of greek architecture. The pillars of the Pantheon were engineered to compensate for visual distortion due to the imperfection of our eyes.

The pillars were intentionally built skew so as to appear straight. The floor is curved so as to appear flat.

[attofishpi]

It may be safe to say that, in some cases, paradoxically, imperfection makes an object the more beautiful and remarkable than perfection does.

Does that mean, we, as the observer are imperfect?

[Immanuel Can]

If all things are impermanent, then impermanence is not the permanent state of things.

One day, things will be permanent, and impermanence will not be the state of things.

So the observation of impermanence is, at most, a merely temporary one.

[attofishpi]

If all things are impermanent, then impermanence is not the permanent state of things.

One day, things will be permanent, and impermanence will not be the state of things.

So the observation of impermanence is, at most, a merely temporary one.

Static time? Impermanence becoming permanent? - complete darkness my friend.

[Skepdick]

If all things are impermanent, then impermanence is not the permanent state of things.

One day, things will be permanent, and impermanence will not be the state of things.

So the observation of impermanence is, at most, a merely temporary one.

Impermanence is temporary.

Maximum entropy is permanent. The Eternal Nothing.