andy-k wrote:

Change (as a noun): "a passing from one form or place to a different
one" (synonym: alteration) ..... "a thing to be used in place of another
thing" (synonym: substitute).

So this seems to jibe with either a substance rearrangement of what
existed before (continuity of "something" that is merely transformed);
or the brute replacement of a prior step with a new one (discontinuity,
no transformation -- no insurance in that scenario that the new world
even has anything in common with the old world other than faith that
memories are *truth* tellers).

A "third" possibility (hysteresis) would be if the old condition hangs
around briefly to affect the configuration of the new condition and thus
provide a mold or *cause* for the persistance of "what was". That is,
the old condition isn't instantly eradicated by an abrupt manifestation
of the new. But at first empirical consideration, there seems to be no
"old state" ghostly fused with the "new state". If it lingered, this is
as metempirical as all the other moments of the past (in right "now"),
as well as the idea that a "now" has assimilates and carries the past
(Whitehead's idea?).

Actions don't float on their own (biting doesn't engage in biting), so
"change" defined as that (non-noun) needs something engaging in the
transition. An action can't be abstracted away from thing(s) and seem to
make sense in language and the empirical world. A "new world" that
brutely manifests to replace a "former world" never engaged in a change
from one condition to another (it didn't exist before).

posted by Ecce