In response to a remark from Steph.
I am sure I have said something about this last year in French, but I’m incapable of finding it.
Update, 11.2011: here is the original French post — Déséquilibre.
What characterises life is constant lack of stability. From a biological point of view, the basis for life can be said to be oscillating chemical reactions. They are not equilibriums, they oscillate from one state to another, back and forth, back and forth. Their existence makes the biochemical reactions upon which life relies possible.
Mind is not separate from its biochemical foundation. Even if it cannot (and will never be) totally explained in biochemical terms (hear Paul Ricoeur), without the biochemistry behind it there is no “thought”. So we might as well say that our interior lives oscillate in a way similar to these chemical reactions. We are a system in perpetual dis-equilibrium.
Things are stable and constant only when we are dead.