Everything changes but nothing is truly lost...?

Question

Could someone give me some examples and tell me what this applies to?

Answer 1

matter changes but its not lost, example, if you burn something it become one part becomes ash and the rest evaporate and some melt, so it just transforms.

Answer 2

Nice question. There are a few ways to approach this idea:

Science: matter and energy are always conserved, and every change is a tradeoff between matter and energy. To burn something, you add energy (heat) and lose the mass (e.g. wood). In the same way, you can't create something out of nothing. Expand this to an entire ecological or biological cycle (water evaporating, animals dying and decomposing to create fertilized soil, good becomes energy for the body, etc)

Human history: compare life today to how it was 200 or 2000 years ago. There are different hairstyles, governments, philosophies, but the core remains the same: survival, success, society, family, fun, humanity, etc.

Human experience: compare yourself today to when you were 5. You lost the short body, the cute baby eyes, but you're still yourself - you still see the world through your own two eyes.

Philosophy: A river flows over a rock. It is always a different part of the river flowing over the rock. But the river is the same. Nothing is lost in the big picture, even if the particulars are changing.

Broadly, the idea is that an essense remains, and that form or a physical aspect of that essence is what can change.

Answer 3

Think science. When you are doing experiments in a closed system, you can account for everything.

If I have an air tight tank, put in a few liters of air, some paper and a match, and light it.

First off, we have our raw materials, when the paper is burned, and the match, and the air, those things are converted to different things, but the closed system is still the same. There is now carbon in place if the paper and match material, the air is broken down into different materials.

You usually don't see this in the real world because we don't live in a closed system.

Another example.

You have 2 billiard balls. One is stationary, the other is moving. When the one that is moving hits the one sitting still, energy is transferred to the other ball, but not all of it. everything can be accounted for. We have friction from the surface the balls are rolling on, gravity. the transfer of energy from the rolling ball to the stationary ball, air resistance or drag.

Answer 4

Well the STUFF everything is made of remains, AND energy cannot be created or destroyed, it merely changed forms.

But that's it friend. Everything else is truly lost on a daily basis. Your childhood is gone, you will be a different person tomorrow, you can't step in the same river twice.

Everything changes. The process continues, but that unique combination of factors that make you and the ones you love, will be lost in time.....

....like tears.... and rain.

Answer 5

the circle of life my friend. the same amount of matter exists on earth unless of course you count crashing meteors or comets. and everything just takes on another shape. you grow with food and drink your body makes new cells while old cells die off or you excrete it rest somehow. then you die and if you are buried then you rot and your flesh becomes dirt which is food for the worms which get eaten by the birds and that gets turned into energy and growth for that animal. Nothing really ceases to exist. It just gets transformed. so we are eternal not only spiritually but physically. Just not in the same way.

Answer 6

Perhaps what you are looking for is this:

Nothing ever ends, it only changes.

Answer 7

My kitchen is being remodeled but I'm not losing anything in my kitchen.