Change is a fundamental concept in metaphysics concerned with how things become different while still being understood as continuous entities. Metaphysical inquiry asks what must remain stable for change to be possible, whether change affects a thing’s essential nature or only its properties, and how transformation relates to identity, substance, causation, time, persistence, and becoming. Questions about change are especially important when examining how objects, persons, and systems endure through alteration without ceasing to be what they are.