The Logic of Change: How Fulfillment, Conflict, and Resolution Shape Our World

A Berkeley-inspired exploration of why things change

5 min readMay 2, 2025

Introduction: The Hidden Logic Beneath Every Change

Why does anything change?

We see it everywhere: rocks fall, beliefs evolve, societies transform. But what fundamental logic underlies these shifts? Can we describe change in a way that bridges physics, psychology, and thought itself?

This article proposes a simple but powerful idea:

Every change is the resolution of a conflict — a disturbance of rest and fulfillment.

Using Berkeley’s philosophy of perception as our lens, we’ll uncover how patterns in experience sustain themselves, why they break down, and how they reorganize — without needing hidden forces or mysterious substances.

1 | Our Frame of Reference: Berkeley’s Philosophy of Perception

We begin with a firm philosophical ground:

To be is to be perceived.

All I know — stones, stars, thoughts — is a stream of appearances in mind. These patterns are directly given; I do not need to assume invisible “things” behind them.

Moreover, any description (e.g., “the ball moves”) must be understood relationally — always within a reference frame, which is not absolute space or time but a framework of relations between appearances.

What matters are the regularities I can observe and track.

2 | A Personal Thought Experiment: Imagining Perfect Rest

To understand change at its root, I start with a simple reflection.

I ask: Can I imagine myself in a state where no need, no tension, no urge to act exists?

I can. I picture:

Hunger satisfied; no desire for food.
My body comfortable; no need to shift.
My curiosity quiet; no question pressing.

In this imagined state, I experience rest — not mere stillness, but a state of phenomenological completeness.

Crucially:

Rest is the ideal state where nothing calls for change — everything that is needed for continuation is in place.

This state is sustained by what I now call fulfillment:

The active condition where all necessary supports for the pattern’s continuation are present and unopposed.

Without any disruption, I notice:

No change occurs.
Rest holds because its fulfillment is intact.

This teaches me.

Change only arises when the fulfillment of rest is partially or fully disrupted.

3 | The General Pattern: Rest, Fulfillment, and Conflict

With this insight, I scan the world and see the same pattern.

Example:

A ball rolls smoothly across the floor.
Two carts move along predictable paths.
A belief in my mind holds firm.

Each of these patterns persists because its conditions for continuation are fulfilled. The ball’s path remains uninterrupted; the carts have clear tracks; the belief faces no contradiction. In each case, rest is maintained because fulfillment holds.

But then:

The ball hits a wall.
The carts collide.
A black swan challenges my belief.

Suddenly, I observe conflict:

Conflict is the partial or complete disruption of fulfillment — the appearance of incompatibility that threatens rest.

Importantly:

Conflict is not a thing.
It is a relational event: a moment when patterns can no longer both remain fulfilled.

For example:

Before collision: the carts’ motions are each fulfilled; rest holds.
At collision: their paths interfere; fulfillment breaks down; rest is disturbed.

4 | How Change Happens: Resolution of Conflict

When conflict arises, experience shows me that patterns do not just dissolve — they reorganize.

The ball bounces off or stops.
The carts scatter into new trajectories.
My belief updates to account for the black swan.

This reorganization is what I mean by change:

Change is the process by which disrupted patterns resolve conflict and restore a new, temporary state of rest and fulfillment.

Observation Conflict (Disruption of Fulfillment) Change (Resolution) A ball rolls smoothly Hits a wall; motion and wall cannot both remain fulfilled Ball rebounds; new motion pattern emerges A growing café queue Overcrowding blocks flow Line splits; order is restored Belief “All swans are white” Black swan appears; belief and sight clash Belief updates; cognitive coherence is restored

The sequence is always:

Fulfillment → Conflict → Change → New Fulfillment.

5 | What Governs Resolution?

How are these conflicts resolved so precisely? Why do I observe consistent, lawful outcomes?

Here, Berkeley’s insight guides us:

The order of experience is sustained by the universal perceiving mind — what Berkeley calls the divine sensorium.

Thus:

Resolutions are not random.
They unfold according to law-like regularities — captured by physical laws (like Newton’s) or psychological principles.
These regularities reflect the structured order of appearances, guaranteed by the greater mind.

6 | “Seeking Rest” as Empirical Shorthand

Earlier, I described patterns as “seeking rest.” Does this mean patterns have desires or goals?

No. That’s shorthand for what I observe:

In experience, patterns maintain their rest (fulfillment) unless disturbed.

This tendency toward persistence is empirically observed, not a hidden force. The language of “seeking” simply reflects the default stability of patterns when their fulfillment holds.

7 | Conflict as the Deep Logic of Causality

What, then, is the true answer to the “why” of change?

Whenever I ask:

Why did the ball stop?
Why did my belief shift?
Why did the carts change course?

I am really asking:

What conflict arose that disrupted fulfillment and broke rest?

In this way:

Conflict is the empirical skeleton of causality.

We already take cause and effect as fundamental. This view refines it:

Every cause is a conflict — a disruption of fulfillment.
Every effect is the change — a resolution that restores rest.

Far from speculative, this is the deep structure of experience itself.

Conclusion: A World of Fulfilled Patterns in Tension

The world of experience unfolds as a dynamic interplay:

Fulfillment sustains rest and allows patterns to persist.
Conflict disrupts fulfillment, forcing change.
Change restores a new state of rest — until conflict arises again.

This gives us a clear and elegant logic of change:

Term Definition Example Rest The ideal state of phenomenological completeness. A belief held without challenge. Fulfillment The condition where a pattern’s continuation is fully supported and unopposed. A ball rolling smoothly on a flat surface. Conflict A disruption that threatens or removes fulfillment. The ball hits a wall; belief meets contradictory evidence. Change The re-patterning that resolves conflict and restores new fulfillment. Ball rebounds; belief updates.

No hidden substances. No absolute space. Only the lawful choreography of appearances — patterns sustained and ordered within the perceiving mind.

By recognizing rest as completeness, fulfillment as the support of continuity, and conflict as the true reason behind change, we gain a framework that unites physical, psychological, and conceptual change within one coherent, experience-first account — faithful to Berkeley’s vision of reality.