The Only Thing That Won't Change is Change

The Only Thing That Won't Change is Change

Peter CHEN, Ph.D.

"The only thing that won't change is change!" is a famous catch phase by John Chamber, the CEO of Cisco, a gigantic networking company. Back in the era of dot com boom, it stirred up much discussion and created massive pilgrims devoting themselves to revolutionize the world of business. "You either do eBusiness or you are out of business", the second catch phase further accelerated this global atmosphere, stimulated this gold rush toward business innovation. Now, almost a decade later, the dot com boom has gone the vertically opposite direction and went bust. Moreover, ironically, the only business that gone out of business seems to be the one that went eBusiness. Despite the dot com boom created more doom than del.icio.us, more Takafumi Horie than Larry Page, the business community has learned its lesson and consented on a consensus that change or, more specifically, innovation, is perhaps the most important Critical Success Factor to excel in today's fiercely competitive world of global business that gone mad. Similarly, a retrospective examination of our history since the advent of industrial revolution and market economy also reveals and confirms that change or progress is imperative moreover cherish for the betterment of civilization. Therefore, it is only most obvious that businessmen continue to promote with zealous campaign that "The only thing that won't change is change!"

Looking up to the heavenly father, the stars continue to illuminate the darkly sky decorate our nights with mythical stories. These folktales have told us that it is a noisy full house up there but yet modern astronomy have educated us that the cosmic space is void, silent and mostly certainly dull. This change of perspective was against the belief of Roman Catholic regime and it only prevailed after many great men's have sacrificed their life repelling against the wrong doctrine. This crucial change in perception has ignited, disseminated and eventually reset the course of men's evolution. Yes, the night sky does change daily and almost never repeat itself but the North Star always and only points toward North. Yes, the season changes but the winter is always cold and the summer is always sweaty hot. We have all realized that although everything change, there is an order hidden beneath these changes that can not be changed and there is more to "the only thing that will unchanged is change!"

Ancient Chinese recognized this hidden order in the chaotic nature and studied it intensively. As Albert Einstein has once said, "I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details", the ancient Chinese share the exact same desire. Uncountable writings were produced recording these concealed laws of nature. The "I Ching", Classic of Changes, written by Zhou Yi, is a typical example which continues to fascinate the intellects today. It is often believe that one can perceive and manipulate the destiny by mastering "I Ching". The Chinese strongly believed that prosperity and long life can be attained via utilization of this learned knowledge and were utterly interested in employing it to reveal the mythical faith and fortune telling over any other usages of its implication. Consequently, although ancient Chinese were the first to invent paper, gunpowder and other wonders, there are only sparkles of creations flourished from this vast written knowledge. It is tragic that this delusion of knowledge was never acknowledged until the aftermath of the Opium War. Tibetan is the holy land with most living Buddha today yet it remains to be one of the poorest regions on earth. With all his respected and mighty wisdom, these living Buddha can only preach about suffering but is incapable of uplifting us away from agony. 盛噶仁波切, a proclaimed living Buddha and author of the autobiography, 我就是這樣的活佛, who loves to dress like a movie star and commends the ability of psychic reading. It is only insane to conceive this so-call living Buddha with such an extraordinary gift from God can ever solve the Goldbach Conjecture, engineer a perpetual machine or discover the cures for AIDS. It is impractical for us to ask him to fortify our society and it is only dreadful to watch many of his blinded followers delude to believe in his fabulous power and journey though life in misery. To these worshipers, it would be their dearest blessing to be enlightened that "The only thing that must change is change."

While astrology was also witnessed and is still commonly practiced nowadays in western world, the conflict of cultural interest has originated a completely distinct interpretation and deployment on the God's thought. Instead, the astronomy and the school of science are formed moreover the scientific philosophy gradually dominates and becomes the paradigm in modern evolution. Descartes' "I doubt, therefore I think, therefore I exist" is now a foundational element in scientific thinking. Disbelieve, doubt, question and curiosity become the motivation of exploration into Mother Nature; and, as we progressed, we think and we learned. Gradually, we accumulate our observations, comprehensions and via experimentations, formulations of theorems and proofs of articulated laws beyond reasons of any doubts, we gradually denounce the God's authority. Issac Newton is arguably the best representation of this alternate school who Voltaire stressed, "It is to him (Issac Newton) who masters our minds by the force of truth". Newton has shaped and set modern science on the course which it has followed ever since. The empirical prerequisites of the pure science commend it to be based on observable phenomena with formed theory capable of being tested for its validity. This consistency in nature allows us to make repeatable, reliable, concrete and quantitative predictions on future events. The scientific knowledge extracted from the observations must therefore always exert coherence and science is consequently afoot on the unchangingness. In short, there must not be uncertainly involved. Perhaps, Albert Einstein said it best, "I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice." An extreme example of this is, even the mighty God with omni power can not make the sun rises from west and sets on east, the sun can only rise from the east and set on west. Rooting on this simple unchangingness, the scientific understandings of the Mother Nature have expanded exponentially and accelerated toward infinity in all directions. In addition, this unchangingness also augments the power of men and allows Friedrich Nietzsche jumped onto the extreme declaring that "God is dead". To the men practicing scientific philosophy, there is always a concealed order in seemly chaotic wilderness. It is therefore understandable to be skeptical and condemn "The only thing that will change is change!"

One of the triumphs in modern society is the compulsory education. The mandatory education emphasizes on learning of facts and constructing of knowledge from these facts; and, pupils do not anticipate and expect what we preach to change. From simple facts such as, AEIOU are five vowels in English, volume of a pyramid is (base area) X height /3, Helium gas is the lightest inert gas, to more complicate information, for instances, the Romeo And Juliet were written by William Shakespeare whom we still have no clue who he actually is, quarks and leptons are two basic constituents of matter in particle physics, the core and defining element of of AJAX aka Asynchronous JavaScript and XML is the XMLHttpRequest object which gives browsers the ability to make dynamic and asynchronous data requests without having to unload and reload a page. These statements whether simple or complex must remain unchanged and true to be utilized. Knowledge, as defined by Plato, is "justified true belief" and logically structured information. Because science institutes perhaps the largest body of knowledge today, science is regularly taught in schools. "Knowledge is power" is said by Francis Bacon and applied natural science is the best example of this. Focusing on the application of scientific research to meet specific human needs, applied science has truly thrived. Students now study, comprehend and practice the learned knowledge to become professionals. Profession is rooted on applied science. The medical doctors treat patients, the aerospace engineers design jets, the architects design buildings; all of these trained professionals base their work on the unchangingness in knowledge and all expect and trust to receive consistent results from their work as taught. It will indeed be a disaster if the results often change and are always inconsistent. In fact, as Alan Toffler has repeatedly stressed in his books, the world will go wild and we go mad, if everything is transient. With the persistent endeavor of many great intellectuals, we have systematic erected and expanded the palace of applied natural science; today, we construct endless complex marvels elevating our living standard exceeding that of the emperor in ancient orient and way beyond our greatest imagination. It is therefore only proper to celebrate "The only thing that will change is unchanged!"

Applied social science concentrates its study on human behavior and societies and while applied natural science has truly prospered, applied social science continue to lag behind. Its theories continue to meet many criticism and its applications continue to confront with skepticism. While technological breakthroughs and accomplishments of applied natural science are celebrated almost daily, the breakthroughs of applied social science faces are rare, scattered and often questionable. A closer examination on the social science reveals that conflicting to the subjects of natural science which possess no freedom to make independent decisions, the subjects of applied social science, man is expected to exert this unpredictable privilege arbitrary. This fundamental difference on the subject of study is the origin of doubts and dismays. It is only obvious that even the mighty God can not predict or control man's freewill or we would all be soulless puppet. This therefore also challenges the primary perquisite of scientific thinking that all observation must be repeatable because men always have the freedom to do the otherwise. With this inevitable defects in the nature of applied social science, one can only be astounded with the contribution of market economy and innovation on managerial skills today. There are most certainly vivid. It is the invisible hands and the visible hands working intimately that spur and unleash the engine of all creation allowing us to blossom by utilizing the God's thought. Back in my days in graduate school, I remembered learning of the Brouwer Fixed-point theorems which states that every continuous function from the closed unit ball Dn to itself has at least one "fixed point" where n is any positive integer and the closed unit ball is the set of all points in Euclidean n-space Rn which are at distance at most 1 from the origin. A fixed point of a function f : D n → D n is a point x in D n with f(x) = x. In the layman's term, it basically proves that when you take a chunk of clay and no matter how you mix this chunk of clay long as you return back to its original shape, there is always at least one point that remains exactly fixed. This seemly queer and useless theorem is entertainingly one of the major tools economists use for proving its existence and that a "minimax" solution also exist to two-agent games hence a balanced growth equilibrium always exist for today's expanding economy. Interpreting it differently, this theorem tells us that there is always unchangingness in today rapidly transient world of changes. Moreover, it is this unchangingness that comforts us, keep us sensible and not crank. In a nutshell, this fixed point, this unchangingness becomes the engine of all innovations, progresses and changes; it nurtures all of the advancements that we treasure and joy today. And, yes, we are most please to say "The only thing that won't change is change!"