By "no parts", do you mean no separable parts or no parts at all?

Going with the latter interpretation, say we're dealing with a perfectly indivisible singularity. Now the question is: Let's say that over time, this atom transforms from state A to state B thanks to natural laws: A ---> B

If state B was reached because the atom was previously in state A, would that manner of causation qualify as "affecting itself" in the sense you intended?

By "no parts", do you mean no separable parts or no parts at all? — absoluteaspiration

If by separable parts you mean that it has parts but they cannot be by any means separated (I'm aware this would be the literal meaning of "separable parts", I just wanna be as clear as possible), then I would say that by "no parts" I mean no parts at all.

If state B was reached because the atom was previously in state A, would that manner of causation qualify as "affecting itself" in the sense you intended? — absoluteaspiration

Now, I will answer with another question. Could there be change in an entity that has no parts? What sort of change, or transformation, would this be?

Yes. We ourselves are simples - entities with no parts - and we can change what mental state we are in.

Again, how can there be change when there are no parts? Please, please, please! Answer the question! Explain to me the process in which something changes when it has no part at all! What changes? In which property of this "simple"is there a variation of such nature that it can be said it experiences change? Change is of something, and it implies a "transformation", that takes place in this something, from one state to another that if able to affect its environment would affect it differently from its original state. What is different in one state compared to the other so that they affect their environment distinctly?

We ourselves are simples - entities with no parts - and we can change what mental state we are in. — Bartricks

So apparently we are in fact … entities with parts … because there is some distinction between global selfhood and particular states of mind that it is is useful to mention …

[sigh]

:up:

:up

Origami-folded paper? Fluctuating vacuum? Knotted string? :chin:

Can a unity act on itself EDIT: directly? — Daniel

Yes. There are some examples inside astronomy.

Sun: Every second, the Sun's core fuses about 600 million tons of hydrogen into helium, and in the process converts 4 million tons of matter into energy. The central mass became so hot and dense that it eventually initiated nuclear fusion in its core. It is thought that almost all stars form by this process.

I answered your question. The text you quoted was change in an entity with no parts. If you want a concrete example, a photon can spontaneously decay into an electron and positron pair. These are all fundamental particles.

Through an intermediary, yes; by itself, nyet!

The sun has parts.

If you grant that the self is an entity with no parts, which sounds questionable to me, then you could argue that the change in state in each step is an entity with no parts interacting with itself:

A ---> B ---> C ---> ...

What about a photon decaying into an electron-positron pair?

What about a photon decaying into an electron-positron pair? — absoluteaspiration

Haven't you answered your own query?

Yes, but his own parts. The sun acts and affects directly itself.

Unless you're agreeing with me, I don't understand how. An elaboration would be much appreciated.

I believe the OP asked for an entity with no parts.

Unless you're agreeing with me, I don't understand how. An elaboration would be much appreciated. — absoluteaspiration

I'm way in over me head mon ami! Sorry.

Yes, but referring to an entity which is made by parts and acts thanks to them.
If you check the universe there are tons of entities with no parts which can interact and affect themselves directly. Stars are the main example and the sun is one of the biggest stars

If you check the universe there are tons of entities with no parts — javi2541997

And some of them are...

If you grant that the self is an entity with no parts, which sounds questionable to me, — absoluteaspiration

My ontology is structuralist and holds that all entities are hylomorphic processes. So I simply reject this view at root rather than merely thinking it questionable. :grin:

This applies even to fundamental particles. After all, even photons are “composite” in being a linear superposition of a weak hypercharge boson (B) and a weak isospin boson (W3) according to Standard Model effective symmetry breaking.

then you could argue that the change in state in each step is an entity with no parts interacting with itself:

A ---> B ---> C ---> ... — absoluteaspiration

One could argue it. But fundamental physics would again caution against it. Contextuality rules in quantum theory.

As I argue in the other question thread, the systems view prevails. Everything is a holomorphic structure. So there can be no partless wholes or wholeless parts. Everything arises from a process of local and global interaction between material potential and formal constraint.

I am a mind, a simple thing. Now, being simple means having no parts. But it does not mean having no properties.

One of my properties is that I think. That, note, is a state of a thing. It is not the thing. It is a state it is in.

So, I - this simple thing, a mind - am currently in a state of thought. And indeed, I am in other states as well, and I am no less simple for that. I am not just thinking something, I am also desiring something.

But anyway, let's just stick with one state. I, a simple thing, am in a state of thinking about beer. Now I cause myself to think about wine instead. There. Note, I am still in one state, it is just that I have changed it from being a state of thought about beer to a state of thought about wine.

So apparently we are in fact … entities with parts … because there is some distinction between global selfhood and particular states of mind that it is is useful to mention … — apokrisis

I don't know what you're talking about.

Does half a mind make sense?

No.

Minds are indivisible. They are the example par excellence of an indivisible thing.

And they can change their states.

If one understands “something” in a very wide sense, so that no weight is put on the thingness in it, then indeed some unitary being is assumed by some theologians, which has no parts at all, but can affect on itself directly, namely by self-limitation. The universe would be a result of such self-restriction.

I don't know what you're talking about. — Bartricks

I was pointing out that you had divided the mind into its general selfhood vs it’s particular contents, thus contradicting your own claim.

In that case, you've rejected the premise of this question.

Regarding the photon: Its decay is in no way caused by the bosons of which it is a superposition. In fact, the bosons don't behave like physical components in any way you might imagine. They only "exist" as a mathematical characterization of the photon. My understanding is that you could describe the superposition as an attribute of the photon, like the redness of an apple.

Could you elaborate on why the bosons nevertheless qualify as "parts" in the relevant sense?

In that case, you've rejected the premise of this question. — absoluteaspiration

Certainly I rejected it. But hopefully providing a solid motivation.

The OP posits the idea of the partless whole. I argued that this would be as nonsensical as making claims about wholeless parts. Parts and wholes only make sense as the reciprocal aspects of a system of relations.

This become clearer once we move out of an object oriented ontology and adopt a relational view. It is hard to see until we are using language that explicitly captures the idea of inverse relations, such as constraints and degrees of freedom, or integration vs differentiation.

So the OP starts with a misuse of language in my view. Rather than accept it on its own terms, I reframed it.

In fact, the bosons don't behave like physical components in any way you might imagine. They only "exist" as a mathematical characterization of the photon. — absoluteaspiration

You are making wild guesses about how I would imagine things here. But I’ve said I’m an ontic structuralist on this. So I don’t believe in material particles. It is a structure of relations that produces the observables we like to read off as “a photon” connecting A to B.

Could you elaborate on why the bosons nevertheless qualify as "parts" in the relevant sense? — absoluteaspiration

They are parts in the gauge symmetry sense. They are differentiated while EW’s SU(2) reigns but integrated once the Higgs breaks that symmetry in effective fashion to allow EM’s U(1) to be a thing.

So photons and electrons are fundamental in the sense that they are where a cascade of symmetry breaking might eventually end, but not in the sense you may be suggesting of some unbroken wholeness that grounds the whole game of material existence.

The cosmos isn’t composed of photons, electrons and protons. It arrived at them as the stable way to balance a collision of structural possibilities - the symmetries that define the Standard Model. They were the crud left as the hot soup of the Big Bang boiled away to its most enduring residues.

I, a simple thing, am in a state of thinking about beer. Now I cause myself to think about wine instead. — Bartricks

Wine on beer makes you feel queer.

Down quarks can change into up quarks and back to down quarks.

This down and up refers to their spin right? I'm no physicist.

My physics is limited as well but from my reading there is 'no particular reason' for the names given to the various quark types. Up and down has nothing to do with quark spin as far as I know.
The up and down quarks are the 'lightest' quarks, up is the lightest and then the down quarks.
The problem with the OP

Is it possible for something that has no parts, a unity/particular, to affect itself directly? Can a unity act on itself — Daniel

is that any claim of a fundamental unit is still conjecture so the answer to your question imo is YES if you are convinced that we have identified mass or energy fundamentals and NO if you are not convinced.
Even if your answer is YES, a fundamental that changes state does so through a process but there is the concept of underlying quantum fluctuations and phenomena such as quantum tunnelling (The wavefunction may disappear on one side and reappear on the other side of a barrier), which when I read about them I personally don't garnish much understanding at all.