Being vs. Becoming

The oldest argument in philosophy. Parmenides argued that what truly is must be one, eternal, and unchanging — change is contradictory and our senses are lying. Heraclitus argued the opposite: reality is process, change is the only stable thing, and stability is just temporary form. Plato sided with Parmenides (the Forms are unchanging), Aristotle tried to do justice to both, modern physics has tilted toward Heraclitus, and Hegel's whole philosophy is in some sense Heraclitus winning the argument 2,400 years later.