Activity

This is just a stub; I will fill this essay in when I have clarified my thoughts on this topic.

A dichotomy is commonly perceived between stasis (existence) and process (activity). I would like to point out that although it is generally held that

• things exist
• actions happen

• existence happens
• actions exist

Thus, existence and change are two equal observations on the same system; existence is not more fundamental than change.

Something of particular interest to me is the existence (and reification) of process as an entity: what is a process or activity, and how can you represent it as a thing... not as a series of snapshots of its progress, nor as a formula for how it is to procede, but the ``live'' activity itself?

This is of interest to me in two ways: in Computer Science, to examine, reason about and modify a process (in the sense of a running program) you need to be able to represent the process (my PhD was largely concerned with this); and philosophically, it may be a useful support for arguing about consciousness.

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For other essays, see the index to this collection; and for some other thoughts, my thoughts index.

Last modified: Sun Jun 10 22:28:51 GMT Daylight Time 2007