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Francesco Amati

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Does Anything 'Become' Something?

Does anything 'become' something? Does Winter become Spring? If so, then there would no longer be a Winter. How can anything that becomes something return to what it previously was? If it's in an entity's nature to 'be' what it will 'become', then how can it actually 'become' what it already 'is'?

A butterfly, metaphysically, is a 'being' waiting to 'be'. Its process is the egg > caterpillar > butterfly. A caterpillar can't become anything other than a butterfly. Whether it turns into a butterfly is irrelevant because its only potential is to be a butterfly. Once anything 'becomes' something, it is assumed that what 'anything' becomes, the manifested 'something' never was. If this is the case, then the caterpillar can be something other than a butterfly; however, if that were true, then would the egg pave way for the caterpillar or something else?

The same can be said about an acorn to a tree or a sperm to a baby. Therefore, is the process to 'become' an illusion that physically manifests what anything already is? Is 'to become' the same or different as 'to change'? Is anything 'new' or only 'relative'? Did the chicken come before the egg? Did this post metaphysically exist before it was posted into physical existence?

What say you?

Topics: Aristotle Plato metaphysics philosophy
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    Francesco Amati

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    Apr 22 2012: Laura,

    As I read your response, I felt as if I was reading my thoughts, down to the way you explained your thought process. That's exactly what I was I inferring with this question. Your response is exactly what I've come to realize and understand.

    Thank you.

    • Laura Proudfoot

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      Apr 23 2012: Thank You, Francesco. I think it comes from a different perspective, one that I started to see more of when I realized as a child that , for instance, I find that the concept of reincarnation makes sense to me. What i mean by that is more of a whole in all aspects of being - spirit as well as physical. i saw it in patterns, such as rivulets on the sand as the tide, that came in, now goes out. If I think of the human body as having many, many parts, but at the same time having a whole, as well as being, possibly, an image of the universe, which is made up of all sorts of parts and yet is a whole --well. I think that is characteristic of all of everything. It is all divided and sub-divided, and yet all part of a whole. The parts can't exist without the whole, and the whole, without the parts.

  • Laura Proudfoot

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    Apr 20 2012: Here's another thing: We, as humans, name things. In order to communicate the idea/ item/being/concept to others, also to remember them ourselves. Do animals do this? Probably not. So a egg/pupa/caterpillar/butterfly is actually the same thing, in different stages. It does not think of itself as different things. We do
    . Does the universe 'think' of itself in its different parts.? Would a universal God think of all the parts, or the whole? Or both?

  • Laura Proudfoot

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    Apr 20 2012: Maybe this is what is meant by "we are all a part of the whole." Maybe in our linear experience of time, this is how we see things, but in (another) reality it is all happening at the same time. Maybe it is all just aspects of the same existence, but we just see it separately. We, as humans, like to take things apart down to their smallest components, but an egg/ caterpillar/ butterfly are all parts of the same thing. (as well as those things it ate, and how it decays after death back into the earth.) Maybe this is all simply parts of the whole universe, and we just see it in parts. If one looks at the earth or the universe from outside one sees the whole; when we look at it from here, we see its parts. We can experience it from both directions.

  • Peter Prue

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    Apr 18 2012: You call it a butterfly. What if we were to call it the clouds, sunshine, or water that made possible the leaf the caterpillar ate to 'become'. It would still in the moment of it's being, be all it is.
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    Jonathan Romero

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    Apr 17 2012: Anything can become something just as something can become nothing. Think back to states of matter. Chemical and Physical Changes. Depending on the action things can revert back to their original state. Just as a human developes from an egg into an adult, at some point the adult ages and reverts back into a childlike state till they expire and are put back in an egg (AKA a Coffin). It is all in the way you percieve things. In regards to the eggs and caterpillars...Caterpillars have the potential to be a moth or a butterfly.
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      Francesco Amati

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      Apr 17 2012: This is a good explanation, but whether a caterpillar becomes a moth or butterfly is irrelevant because it can only 'be' those entities. Now, if it wasn't in a caterpillar's nature to be, say, a frog, but something manipulated its evolution (forced evolution), then the word 'become' would be appropriate because it was never in its nature to be a frog. However, the evolution process of an egg > caterpillar > moth/butterfly is a 'genuine change/transition'.

      That being said, does a caterpillar become a moth/butterfly? No. It is already a moth/butterfly, but just waiting to 'physically' be.

      Idea ('Being') > Manifestation ('Be') > Realization ('Is')

      This can be translated as: A 'being' will 'be' what it 'is'.

      Does this imply that everything is metaphysically pre-determined? According to my realizations/philosophy, yes.

      All of that which is will never become, but will always be. All in one and one in all.

  • Mary M. 50+

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    Apr 17 2012: Some humans are still trying to become human.......they are slowly but surely undergoing a metamorphasis.

    Your post existed in your head.........an idea was born, then it came to fruition once you decided to share it with us.

    Great question.
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      Francesco Amati

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      Apr 17 2012: Thank you. It's not always easy to relay, but I felt this would be a good place to discuss this.
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    Shallow Water Walker

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    Apr 16 2012: The words used to describe a 'thing' relies on the characteristics of said thing at a given point in time, e.g. the season depends of which part of the year we are in (as well as hemisphere). It's hard to refer to something by what it will become at a future time, rather than what it currently is. This is purely in reference to words used to describe something at current time.

    That being said, there are different notions of equivalence in math. For instance, a square and a circle are equivalent in the homotopic sense (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homotopy). Even though we view a square and a circle as having distinct definitions, the two may be viewed as equivalent when asking the question "Can one be continuously transformed into the other?" and this question hits at the heart of your caterpillar/butterfly and winter/spring examples.
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    Francesco Amati

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    Apr 16 2012: 'A butterfly becomes a butterfly' makes more sense, if only to realize that something doesn't actually 'become' anything than what it already 'is'.

    As for your second question, I believe that time is only infinite, successive moments within an infinitely stretched moment (individual entities within one universal entity). There are no yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows; only befores and afters. Age and time are irrelevant, but are used to understand our world through the third-dimensional, human, experience. Change is the only universal constant.

    I don't believe there is a fundamental difference between getting out of the pupa and getting a little older other than the change of its physical appearance and what those physical abilities allow the entity to do and not do.

    Lastly, the whole is the sum of all of its parts that make it what it is. What is Earth? A concept. All that encompasses Earth makes it what it is, which includes us.

    Another way to think of this is the following:

    A term, say a 'bird', is what it is before its definition is defined, only waiting to be realized.

    All that exists, is everything that always was, is, and will ever be; a perpetual cycle of infinite universal existences among all that exists.
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      Krisztián Pintér 200+

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      TED Translator
      Apr 16 2012: actually i didn't want you to answer as quickly as you can, but more like inspire thinking.
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        Francesco Amati

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        Apr 16 2012: The questions you posed were questions I have asked myself, in different ways, to reach the understandings relayed in this discussion. Where there is knowledge, there are less thoughts. We are only limited by concepts, not our imagination.

        Do you think that language is the definitive outlet for expressing knowledge that can not be proven empirically? Does language (words, numbers, symbols, etc.) restrict the expression of 'knowing'? Can anything be esoterically 'known' before it is exoterically explained?

        Knowledge inherited vs knowledge contracted
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          Krisztián Pintér 200+

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          TED Translator
          Apr 16 2012: i believe my question is still open.

          what is the fundamental difference between

          pupa -> butterfly

          and

          butterfly now -> butterfly a moment later
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      Frans Kellner 100+

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      TED Translator
      Apr 17 2012: To be or not to be, that's the question. To be what or anything, is irrelevant and ever changing.
      Being resides in non being until it becomes manifest as something opposite to something else.
      The heart of the matter is nothing, the dance of its expressions cyclic.
      Realization of all potential is the life experience.
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        Francesco Amati

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        Apr 17 2012: I don't believe I could have expressed this understanding any better. It is difficult to communicate this to many people and I think it's because the general thought process is subjected to the physical reality, often delegated by the analytic side of the brain. This tends to restrict 'creative' thinking, which opens portals to many subjective, universal, 'truths'.

        Thank you for your clarification.
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    TED Translator
    Apr 16 2012: you could develop that line of reasoning further in two directions:

    1. does the statement "a butterfly becomes a butterfly" makes more sense? we could also ask: can now-caterpillar become second-later-caterpillar? what is the fundamental difference between getting out of the pupa and getting a little older?

    2. what things are in the first place. how the butterfly is different than its wings, legs, etc? how those are different than their atoms? what is the boundary of a butterfly? as the butterfly becomes butterfly from the caterpillar, the atoms composing it do not change a bit. the individual carbon and oxygen etc atoms survive the process unchanged. so as many of its cells. what is the whole?
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