Why Change Is More Fundamental Than the Beginning

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“Change is the condition of reality.”

Why We Expect Stability

At every level of human experience, we carry an unconscious and persistent expectation that systems will eventually settle into stability, reaching a state where no further change occurs. This expectation arises because we instinctively assume that motion, tension, and instability are temporary conditions within reality rather than features that define reality itself. As a result, we expect effort to culminate in rest: careers to reach a plateau, families to arrive at lasting security, and life itself to progress toward a phase in which uncertainty gradually recedes and is replaced by something durable and predictable. This assumption is so deeply embedded in our thinking that it rarely appears as an assumption at all, but instead presents itself as common sense.

A simple example captures this intuition with deceptive clarity. Imagine a glass falling from a table, shattering on the floor, and breaking into many pieces. The event feels irreversible and final. Once broken, the glass does not reorganize itself in any recognizable way, and we instinctively treat this lower state of order as a resting point, a condition in which nothing further needs to happen. The glass appears to have settled.

From early education, physics reinforces this conclusion. We are taught that disorder increases, that structured forms tend to break down rather than rebuild, and that energy spreads out rather than gather back together. From these observations, we unconsciously infer that processes move toward completion, that breakdown represents an endpoint, and that once a system has fallen far enough, it reaches a state of rest. What we absorb is not merely that change happens, but that change eventually exhausts itself. This belief unconsciously shapes our expectations in personal life, leading us to assume a future point at which effort ends, uncertainty recedes, and stability is meant to hold.

We extend this logic far beyond physical objects by organizing our personal and collective lives around the assumption that instability is something to be endured on the way to a stable endpoint. Education is framed as preparation for a settled profession, work is framed as the path toward lasting financial security, and entire economic systems are built around promises of predictability, continuity, and eventual retirement. Even our hopes for our children often reflect the same underlying expectation, that they will reach a stage at which effort diminishes, uncertainty narrows, and the future feels reliably contained.

Yet this expectation is repeatedly contradicted by experience, even as we continue to rely on it. Careers do not truly stabilize but are reshaped by technologies, markets, and social shifts that arrive without warning. Health does not settle into permanence but requires ongoing adaptation. Societies do not reach steady states but undergo transformations that disrupt even their most carefully designed institutions.

The same pattern appears in the physical universe itself. Motion does not cease, particles do not slow into stillness, fields do not dissolve into silence, and time does not exhaust itself, even in systems that appear to have reached their lowest energy states.

This creates a quiet but profound tension between what we expect and what reality consistently delivers. If entropy leads toward lower order, and if decay appears to move systems toward rest, why does nothing ever truly stop changing, and why does motion persist even at the smallest scales, long after any intuitive purpose for movement seems to have disappeared? Why does reality continue to unfold when, by our own logic, it should already have settled?

The problem may not be that change persists longer than expected, but that our expectation of final stillness was misplaced from the start.

Why How We Explain Change Is Not Enough

Across science, philosophy, and social thought, Change is rarely denied. Motion, evolution, and transformation are widely accepted as basic features of reality. Yet the way Change is most often explained reveals a shared assumption that cuts across disciplines: that change operates within an underlying framework that is itself capable of settling into stability once the relevant forces have completed their work.

In classical physics, change is described as the result of interactions acting on matter within space and time. In thermodynamics, it is framed as movement toward equilibrium states defined by energy minimization and entropy. In evolutionary biology, change appears as adaptation driven by selection pressures acting on populations within relatively stable environments. In social theory, change is often attributed to disruptions, innovations, or shocks that disturb an existing order and then give rise to a new one. Each of these approaches captures an important dimension of reality, and none is incorrect within its proper domain.

What these explanations share, however, is a focus on mechanism rather than condition. They describe how systems respond once change is underway, but they do not explain why change never exhausts itself, or why the expectation of final stability repeatedly fails across domains. Even when equilibrium is treated as local, statistical, or temporary, as in steady-state models, it is still implicitly regarded as the natural endpoint toward which systems tend, delayed only by complexity, friction, or scale.

The framework developed in this column departs precisely at this point. Change is not treated as an activity occurring within reality, but as the condition that makes reality incapable of remaining still. Equilibrium is therefore not a destination temporarily postponed by imperfect dynamics, but a limiting condition that systems can only approach without ever reaching, because existence itself begins with asymmetry. Change does not disrupt an otherwise stable world; it defines the most basic constraint under which the world exists.

This shift does not compete with existing explanations, nor does it invalidate them. Forces, processes, and adaptations continue to describe behavior within reality with great precision. What they do not address is why the background against which they operate never becomes static. They explain what happens when systems change, but not why change itself never exhausts its domain.

Once Change is understood in this way, a further question becomes unavoidable. If change is fundamental rather than incidental, why does reality not dissolve into incoherence, why do structures persist under ongoing change, and why do some give rise to new emergent capabilities while others lead to collapse. Answering this question requires moving beyond descriptions of interaction and toward an explanation of structure itself.

This is where the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity becomes necessary. It does not explain how change occurs, but rather why change is unavoidable, why it cannot settle, and why, in a universe defined by persistent asymmetry, certain structures endure and give rise to new capabilities while others fragment and disappear. Existing theories of change illuminate different layers of reality. The contribution of this framework is to situate those theories within a deeper architectural understanding of why reality, across physics, biology, and society, continues to unfold rather than settle.

Why Change Is Not a Force, a Process, or an Outcome

When we observe constant motion and transformation in the world, our natural reaction is to seek a cause of change. We ask what force is acting, what mechanism is at work, or what process is unfolding over time. This is how explanation usually works, both in science and in everyday thinking.

In doing so, we implicitly assume that there is a stable background on which these causes act, and that change is something added to an otherwise settled reality. Change is therefore understood as an event within the world, rather than as the condition that makes the world unable to remain still in the first place.

Yet this approach quietly assumes what it seeks to explain, because any account that treats change as the result of forces or interactions already presupposes a framework in which those forces can operate. Forces do not act in the absence of space and time, and interactions cannot occur without entities, relations, and dimensions through which influence can propagate. Even the most fundamental physical descriptions, therefore, begin not with the origin of motion itself, but with an existing architecture in which motion is already possible. Whether we describe gravity in Newtonian terms as an attraction between masses or in relativistic terms as the curvature of space-time itself, the explanation still operates within an already unfolding universe, telling us how motion occurs within that universe but not why motion never exhausts itself.

This is why Change cannot be classified as a force. A force, in any physical sense, describes a local interaction that operates within an existing structure. Electromagnetism, the weak interaction, and the strong interaction explain how specific properties of matter influence one another under defined conditions. Gravity, even when understood not as a force but as the geometry of space-time, still describes how matter and energy behave once space-time already exists. None of these descriptions addresses why reality does not settle into perfect symmetry, nor why motion persists even when systems appear to have reached their most stable configurations.

Change cannot be reduced to a process either. A process implies a sequence that moves from an initial state toward some terminal condition, even if that condition is defined statistically rather than exactly. What demands explanation, however, is the absence of any final state in which transformation ceases. Motion continues at the smallest scales, long after we would intuitively expect it to end, and rearrangement persists even in systems that appear fully formed. Treating Change as a process therefore reintroduces, by assumption, an endpoint that reality itself never reaches.

Nor is Change an outcome, for it is neither what remains after instability has done its work nor the residue left behind by disruption or decay. Outcomes belong to particular systems operating at particular scales and within specific contexts, whereas Change operates prior to any system, scale, or context in which an outcome could be defined. It does not describe what happens after equilibrium is disturbed, but explains why absolute equilibrium cannot exist in the first place.

This distinction reverses a deeply held intuition. If change is understood as something that occurs within reality, then stability appears as the default condition and motion as the anomaly that requires explanation. If, instead, Change is understood as the structural impossibility of perfect balance, then motion becomes the natural expression of existence, while stillness becomes a special and temporary condition that can exist only under constraint.

In this view, Change is neither an active principle pushing the universe forward nor a hidden engine driving events from behind the scenes. It is not a cause but a constraint, not a mechanism but a condition, which ensures that once existence is even slightly uneven, it must continue to rearrange itself over time. Change explains why events never cease to occur, even though it does not explain why any particular event occurs.

By understanding Change as neither a force, nor a process, nor an outcome, the inquiry's guiding question necessarily shifts. The problem is no longer why systems move or transform, but how structures arise that can sustain persistent asymmetry without collapsing. Change explains why motion and transformation continue, but not why they take any particular direction. That task belongs to the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity, which describes how energy continues to cycle through structure and direction under conditions in which Change is fundamental and unavoidable.

Change as the Impossibility of Total Equilibrium

Once Change is understood not as a force or a process, but as a condition that precedes all structured interaction, its most important consequence becomes clear: total equilibrium is not merely rare, but structurally impossible. Equilibrium can appear locally, temporarily, and under specific conditions, but it cannot become absolute, because existence did not begin in perfect balance and therefore cannot return to it. The persistence of motion is therefore not a failure of systems to settle properly, but the inevitable expression of a reality that never possessed a fully symmetric resting state.

When the element of time is added to this picture, the illusion of permanence becomes even clearer. What appears stable to us is often only stable relative to the narrow timescales of human experience. Stars, including our sun, seem fixed and enduring, yet they emerged at a particular moment in cosmic history and will eventually exhaust their internal balances and disappear. The duration of this process feels immense from a human perspective, but it is finite nonetheless. Stability, even at astronomical scales, is therefore not the absence of Change, but a long-lived configuration in which opposing processes remain temporarily contained across time.

This is why equilibrium in physical systems is always constrained. Even so-called closed systems reach only statistical or dynamic equilibrium under conditions that already assume an unfolding universe. Atoms occupy stable configurations, yet their constituents remain in motion, and chemical bonds persist even though electrons never come to rest. Even the lowest energy states permitted by known physics are therefore not states of stillness, but states of constrained activity. Stability is achieved not by removing tension, but by holding it within a structure capable of sustaining it without collapse.

The same pattern appears beyond physics: biological organisms maintain homeostasis only through continuous metabolic activity, ecosystems reach dynamic balance only through constant exchange and adaptation, and social systems achieve periods of order only by absorbing and redistributing pressure rather than eliminating it. Across domains, equilibrium is therefore not a terminal state, but a managed condition that persists only as long as underlying tensions remain contained.

Understanding change as the impossibility of total equilibrium resolves a longstanding confusion about persistence and motion. Motion does not continue because systems are poorly designed or because interactions fail to dissipate properly, but because there exists no configuration in which all asymmetry disappears. Reality does not move toward rest and simply fail to arrive there; rather, it does not move toward rest at all, and what it produces instead are layers of temporary stability, each capable of holding tension at a particular scale and level of organization.

At this point, a crucial distinction becomes unavoidable. Change explains why change cannot end, but it does not explain why some systems respond to unavoidable change by disintegrating while others respond by transforming. If equilibrium cannot be final, then the difference between collapse and endurance must lie in structure rather than in the presence or absence of change itself. What now demands explanation is why certain structures can maintain ongoing imbalance in a way that gives rise to new capabilities rather than to breakdown.

Answering that question requires a law that explains direction without intention, persistence without stasis, and growth without equilibrium. That task belongs to the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity.

Why Change Gives Rise to Increasing Complexity

Once the distinction between Change and structure is made, the problem shifts from persistence to organization. If change cannot end, then the central question is no longer why motion continues, but how enduring structures emerge that can absorb ongoing asymmetry without fragmenting. The Universal Law of Increasing Complexity addresses this question by describing the conditions under which tension does not merely persist, but becomes the source of new functional capabilities.

At this point, explanation must move from condition to system organization. Change keeps tension alive, but organization determines whether that tension leads to collapse or transformation. A universe governed only by Change could, in principle, express asymmetry through endless fragmentation, producing only transient configurations that appear briefly and then disappear. The fact that reality instead gives rise to atoms, molecules, stars, planets, cells, organisms, societies, and institutions points to the presence of a directional constraint that operates without intention and without foresight.

The Universal Law of Increasing Complexity describes this constraint. In a reality where Change is unavoidable and equilibrium cannot exist, systems that endure are those whose structures can sustain internal asymmetry without collapsing, and whose ability to sustain that asymmetry gives rise to new functional capabilities. Complexity therefore increases not because reality seeks sophistication or progress, but because structures that can absorb tension without disintegrating remain available as stable platforms for further organization. What increases over time is not raw asymmetry or imbalance, but the capacity of structures to contain and metabolize asymmetry internally without collapse.

Seen through this lens, complexity is not a goal but a consequence. Atoms are more complex than subatomic particles because atomic structures can contain electromagnetic tension in stable configurations that isolated particles cannot sustain. Living cells are more complex than molecules because cellular organization can hold chemical disequilibrium long enough to support metabolism and reproduction. Societies are more complex than organisms because social structures can contain economic, cognitive, and moral tension across time and scale. In each case, higher complexity emerges only where structure succeeds in containing asymmetry, meaning internal imbalance, rather than attempting to eliminate it.

This process is neither smooth nor guaranteed, because structures that cannot contain their internal tensions fragment regardless of their apparent sophistication. Species go extinct, civilizations collapse, and technologies disappear when the pressures they generate exceed their capacity to contain them. Change does not favor survival, improvement, or continuity, but applies equally to creation and destruction, leaving the difference between endurance and collapse to rest entirely on structural capacity.

This is why the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity is neither a theory of growth nor a doctrine of optimism, and certainly not a promise of inevitable progress. It is a law of selection operating under conditions in which equilibrium is impossible. Structures that succeed in converting ongoing asymmetry into new capabilities persist and may give rise to higher-order forms, while structures that fail to do so break apart and disappear. Over time, this dynamic produces a directional pattern without purpose, in which complexity tends to increase because only structures capable of holding greater internal contradiction remain available for further composition.

With this, the architectural picture becomes complete. Change explains why motion cannot stop, the impossibility of total equilibrium explains why stability must always remain temporary, and the Universal Law of Increasing Complexity explains why, despite this, reality does not collapse into chaos but instead constructs layers of organization capable of holding ever greater tension without disintegration.

What remains is to examine how this logic operates within human systems, where Change is experienced as economic uncertainty, social disruption, and personal vulnerability, and where the difference between collapse and recovery depends not on resisting change, but on designing structures whose lowest stable state remains far from failure.

Why Prosperity Depends on Structure, Not on Stability

Once Change is understood as fundamental and total equilibrium as impossible, a final implication for human systems becomes unavoidable. No personal, economic, or social condition can be permanent, whether it appears as abundance or deprivation, because ongoing change is not a temporary disturbance but a defining feature of reality itself. Wealth can accumulate and disappear, health can stabilize and deteriorate, and security can be built and undone, not because individuals consistently fail to plan or act wisely, but because no state can be defended indefinitely in a universe that cannot settle.

This reframes prosperity at its root. If Change cannot be eliminated, then prosperity cannot be secured by reaching a particular level of income, resources, or success and then preserving it unchanged. Any such condition, however favorable, remains provisional. The relevant question, therefore, shifts from how stability can be achieved to how systems are designed to recover when stability is inevitably disrupted.

The same structural logic is visible across the evolutionary history of our species. In its early history, Homo sapiens faced periods in which survival itself was at stake, and genetic evidence suggests that at certain points the entire species was reduced to a few hundred individuals, while other hominins exposed to similar pressures went extinct. Survival did not reflect superiority or destiny, but the presence of social and behavioral structures that kept the species within a recoverable range. Change operated at the level of the species as a whole, and when population size and social cohesion fell below a recoverable threshold, the result was extinction rather than recovery.

As human populations grew and social organization improved, Change did not disappear, but its scale shifted. Entire species were no longer routinely driven to extinction, yet local populations, tribes, and later nations continued to rise and fall. Wars, famines, and environmental shocks eliminated societies whose structures failed to absorb pressure, while others persisted by reorganizing themselves in response to disruption. Change remained fully present, but the structures humanity had developed were now capable of holding asymmetry at a higher level. What changed over time was not the existence of Change itself, but the level at which its consequences had to be absorbed.

In modern societies, this process has continued without becoming guaranteed. Change still shapes human life, but it increasingly operates at the level of individuals rather than entire populations, so long as social structures remain intact. Advanced societies no longer routinely face extinction or total collapse, yet individuals remain exposed to illness, unemployment, accidents, and misfortune. Where institutions succeed in containing these pressures, individual setbacks remain recoverable; where they fail, regression becomes possible, and decline can once again become permanent.

Here, the structural principle becomes explicit. In a world shaped by Change, the most dangerous societies are not those that experience ongoing change, but those whose structures allow individuals to fall below a threshold from which recovery is no longer possible. When this happens, Change no longer produces transformation but collapse, as poverty becomes self-reinforcing, exclusion becomes permanent, and misfortune hardens into destiny rather than remaining a temporary condition.

The Universal Law of Increasing Complexity explains why this pattern appears whenever endurance is observed. As structures evolve to accommodate greater internal asymmetry, the effects of ongoing change are progressively absorbed at finer scales, provided those structures continue to function. What once threatened entire species later threatened societies, and now increasingly threatens individuals, but this migration is conditional rather than inevitable. When structural capacity erodes, risk moves upward again, and collapse can occur at larger scales.

The Kibbutz illustrates this principle not as an ideology but as an architectural response to a reality governed by Change. Within a well-functioning Kibbutz, as elsewhere, individuals experience success and failure, health and illness, productivity and decline, yet no single setback is allowed to result in permanent impoverishment. The system is designed so that its lowest stable state remains sufficiently high to preserve recoverability. Before the Kibbutz, many farmers in the Promised Land faced recurring poverty and insecurity, whereas across more than a century of Kibbutz history, members have been structurally protected from falling into persistent deprivation, and their children have been afforded broadly equal opportunities to develop their capabilities.

Contemporary societies in Northern Europe show that the same principle can be implemented at national scale through modern institutions that maintain a robust social floor, independent of cultural or historical origin, and vulnerable to reversal if those institutions weaken.

Seen through this lens, the long-term direction becomes visible without invoking promise or purpose. To the extent that humanity continues to build structures capable of holding internal imbalance, such as economic shocks, social tensions, and personal setbacks, the scale at which the consequences of Change are absorbed can continue to move downward. Where such structures fail, regression remains not only possible but likely. A global safety net for humanity is therefore neither guaranteed nor imminent, yet it is structurally consistent with the pattern observed whenever recoverability has expanded.

In a universe where Change is more fundamental than the beginning itself, prosperity is not a static achievement but an emergent property of systems whose design preserves recoverability amid unavoidable change. Societies that endure do not promise permanence or linear progress but instead extend the domain in which recovery remains possible. That extension, rather than stability itself, is what allows complexity to continue accumulating without collapse across individuals, institutions, and civilizations.

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See you soon,

Nimrod

Dr. Nimrod Israely is the CEO and Founder of Dream Valley and Biofeed companies and the Chairman and Co-founder of the IBMA conference. +972-54-2523425 (WhatsApp), or email nisraely@biofeed.co.il

P.S.

If you missed it, here is a link to last week's blog, “Why Societies Need Both: Stories That Give Us Direction and Methods That Question Them“.

P.P.S.

Here are ways we can work together to help your agro sector and rural communities step forward and shift from poverty into ongoing prosperity:

* Nova Kibbutz and consultancy on rural communities' models.

* Local & National programs related to agro-produce export models - Dream Valley global vertical value and supply chain business model and concept connects (a) input suppliers with farmers in developing economies and (b) those farmers with consumers in premium markets.

* Crop protection: Biofeed, an eco-friendly zero-spray control technology and protocol.

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*This article addresses general phenomena. The mention of a country/continent is used for illustration purposes only.