Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. — Ludwig Wittgenstein

However, I can't think God exists & God doesn't exist. It's impossible! My mind goes blank as if someone struck me on my head with a baseball bat. — Agent Smith

Aristotle has a lot to answer for.

I know this is a recurring theme in some of your philosophical rumination (not a criticism by the way) but when it comes to some notions I think contradictions are rather lovely. The Tao Te Ching (although I can't understand it) seems to be full of these ideas.

I knew a man once who made his money trafficking drugs and selling women. Sometimes he hurt people. He also took care of his gang and his family. He donated generously to charities (anonymously) and took a great interest in supporting the welfare of disadvantaged people. He provided money and resources to many people, often strangers, in need. I personally think this man is both bad and good. Some people simultaneously loved and hated him.

However, I can't think God exists & God doesn't exist. It's impossible! — Agent Smith

Once we enter the realm of dialethism and true contradictions you're going to have to page a professional logician or a Buddhist monk perhaps.

Someone give us an example of a true contradiction.

... a logical contradiction is a proposition that is true and false in the same sense; a proposition which is true in one sense and false in another does not constitute a logical contradiction. — Wikipedia:Dialetheism

Hypotheses

1. The language center of the brain uses non-classical logic (paraconsistent logic, dialetheism, logical nihilism) in which contradictions are permitted.

2. The language center of the brain is only partially controlled by the logic center of the brain, much like some governments rule only parts of a country, some territories under rebel jurisdiction.

3. Left as an exercise to the reader.

So why begin with Gibran?

Interesting! Did you ever examine those people who "simultaneously loved and hated him"? Did you, for example, ask them to perform what is a miraculous feat in thinking (believing a contradiction) with a simple apple, one that's not red and red at the same time and in the same sense? I think we're being misled by pseudo-antinomies. The Chinese never actually developed logic in the way the Greeks did; had they done so, they would've recognized the egregious folly of thinkers such as Laozi (Tao Te Ching). Perhaps the fault is ours, ours in the sense we assume, wrongly so, that Laozi was into contradictions.

Someone give us an example of a true contradiction. — Nils Loc

:clap: Lovely! Marvelous!

So why begin with Gibran? — Noble Dust

Unfortunately, I'm unable to scratch that itch of yours. :smile:

Did you ever examine those people who "simultaneously loved and hated him"? Did you, for example, ask them to perform what is a miraculous feat in thinking (believing a contradiction) with a simple apple, one that's not red and red at the same time and in the same sense? — Agent Smith

I did - although I didn't put it in your theatric style. The answer was simple. We love him for his big spirit, we hate him for his cruelty. The example doesn't entirely compare to existing and not existing - my example is more about incorporating the shadow side of a personality (for good or ill).

We love him for his big spirit, we hate him for his cruelty. — Tom Storm

Then it's not a contradiction, is it? There's a difference that explains the mixed feelings.

Between what is said and not meant, And what is meant and not said, Most of love is lost — Kahlil Gibran

What does this mean? I say many things I don't mean (when I get mean), and mean many, if not most, things I don't say. Still, my love is there. And there is not much lost. I can imagine though it gets confusing if you never say what you mean or never mean what you say. But maybe this can even let love grow.

Between what is said and not meant, And what is meant and not said, Most of love is lost
— Kahlil Gibran

What does this mean? — Raymond

It means that relationships are often lost because of poor communication. People fail to tell their partner how much they love them and they only hear the grumbles. Pretty common.

The universe is both divisible and indivisible.

Does this work as a true contradiction? We could believe that everything is fundamentally dependent on everything else but for the practical purposes we can speak of the whole having all kinds of arbitrary/practical/apparent parts.

"I'm sorry but your wife passed away this morning. However, she is still alive and dead as well. Best talk to her corpse person now to instantiate a true and conceivable reality."

As I walked into the room I saw her, both inert but aware, gesticulating without motion, welcoming me in her mischievous way by pretending to ignore. Tears welled in my eyes with the uncertain confirmation. "You're not still dead alive, honey? How is this impossible!" Suddenly a groan of acknowledgment issued from her throat, a final enigmatic death throw of reanimation. "Honey, I must state for the purposes of my insanity that it is not that I do not know whether you are dead or alive, but you are both these things in the same sense in a true contradictory way." She lay downright in her bed, stiff as a board, beaming with a dead pan smile and I imagined her to exclaim: "It's inconceivable!"

Once we enter the realm of dialethism and true contradictions you're going to have to page a professional logician or a Buddhist monk perhaps. — Nils Loc

I'm neither, but here is a thought for the day:

:heart:

You are looking at a red heart.

That statement may be interpreted (call it P) in a variety of ways such as

I1) You are looking at a red heart.
I2) You are looking at symbol of a heart which is red.
I3) You are looking at an image of a symbol of a heart which is red.
I4) ...

It is rather boring to point out that depending on the interpretation of P, P may be true or may be false, and since P can be interpreted in ways that could be true or could be false, P is both true and false. This is equivocation - using different senses of a word as if they are the same. Call this "EP" for equivocated P. EP is often the sort of explanation for why P is both true and false at the same time but not really a logical contradiction and hence not violative of the rules of thought.

And now..

I5) You are looking at screen with lots of pixels that are various colors that are evocative of a red heart.

This fits nicely in EP

I6) You are looking at a screen with lots of pixels that are flashing on an off at a rate that is undetectable to your brain - regardless of the ratio between on and off for a given time period of viewing, you are seeing a red heart.

Is this EP?

No matter how hard you try, there is no sense (as in a sense that you posses/can make use of) in which you are not looking at a red heart even though you know that some portion of time (even the overwhelming majority of time) you are looking at the screen it is not a red heart. We are simply incapable of sensing what is known to be true - you are not looking at a red heart. And yet, we also know that we are seeing a red heart the whole while we are looking at the pixels that are flashing on and off.

So what do we make of I6)? P is known to be true and known to be false. We aren't changing senses as we have only one sense: what we see. Notice that the interpretation of P in this case does not change even though you justifiably, knowingly, believingly assert that you both are and are not looking at a red heart.

Try to imagine how you might demonstrate that you are not looking at a red heart while you are seeing a red heart, i.e. what sort of evidence could you adduce that gives warrant that you are not looking at a red heart? You can do a bunch of inferential proofs and demonstrations - slow things down, build analogous machines, etc. The thing is, all of those inferences do not change that you see a red heart when you look at the red heart that is not a red heart.

So go back to the beginning of my post. Look at the red heart. Now you know what it is to look at something that is and is not a red heart.

I enjoyed that.

So what do we make of I6)? P is known to be true and known to be false. We aren't changing senses as we have only one sense: what we see. Notice that the interpretation of P in this case does not change even though you justifiably, knowingly, believingly assert that you both are and are not looking at a red heart. — Ennui Elucidator

Thanks for your charitable and patient elucidation. The Dr. got paged.

I can't be certain or not whether equivocation is going on here. Hard to wrap my head around. My intuition is that this is still a case of equivocation. The reason I don't see the red heart while seeing the red heart is the knowledge that my brain is forcing the illusion because the pixels are actually flickering. Do we need the facts of a possible illusion to enter into whether we see the heart or not. We see the heart when we see it. We don't see the heart when we don't. We do not both see and not see the heart at the same time in the same sense. Seems kind of arbitrary in the end but I suppose this marks the difference between the principles of classical logic (law of noncontradiction) and other kinds.

There is a certain aspect of hilarity to this. I'll have to seek corroboration and ask others whether I'm not looking at the red heart when I'm looking at the red heart without equivocation.

Just wanted to through this into the game: a contradiction, as per Aristotle, specifies contradictory givens (propositions, states of affair, experiences, etc.) that occur at the same time and in the same respect.

2. I can't think a contradiction: Try thinking of an apple that's (all) red and not (all) red. You cant. — Agent Smith

Then how did you come up with the contradiction?

Then how did you come up with the contradiction? — john27

I said it, I wrote it, I didn't think it.

The universe is both divisible and indivisible. — Nils Loc

Try to imagine it! Can you?

Well if you say so...

Try to imagine it! Can you? — Agent Smith

I can with equivocation (?). An thing cannot be divided with regard to holistic function/identity but it can be divided in other ways. Perhaps any thing's true identity relies wholly on its function/substance. Any division that changes it transforms it.

Magic Rice

What if I divide a grain of rice and in doing so it becomes two pieces of millet. Depending on the arbitrary criteria for divisibility the grain of rice would either be divisible or not. We can divide rice into millet but we cannot divide rice into rice.

But then there could be a strange probablistic phenomena about rice. Half of the time we divide a piece of rice it would yield two pieces of millet and half of the time it would yield two half pieces of rice.

So rice can be divided into rice and into millet. Rice is divisible and indivisible with respect to its substance depending on an unpredictable outcome.

What if when we divide a grain of rice it the knife goes through it half of the time, preforming no work, like cutting a hologram and half of the time the rice divides (into millet or rice). The rice is both divisible and indivisible by some criteria. But there still is no contradiction. This is just what rice does.

God does and does not exist.

God exists when the radio is tuned to specific channels but does not exist when the radio is tuned to God negating channel.

There are only two radios in existence tuned for the moment to two contradictory channels. Therefore God exists and God doesn't exist or maybe they cancel each other out.

Does a true contradiction yield itself or do we just have to do some empirical work to resolve/reframe the engima?

Don't touch that dial!

Does a true contradiction yield itself or do we just have to do some empirical work to resolve/reframe the engima? — Nils Loc

What would evidence look like of a true contradiction? Perhaps your methods (and expectations) dictate your results.

What would evidence look like of a true contradiction? Perhaps your methods (and expectations) dictate your results. — Ennui Elucidator

Have no clue. We need a terrifyingly thinky logician, like a Bertrand Russell or an Alfred N. Whitehead to demonstrate why of what I could never understand. Or we need to read passages in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as if I (or we) had a mind for it.

SEP: Dialetheism

I can’t tell you a thing about him, but I’ve been a fan of Priests for over a decade. Once upon a time he came and visited the “old” forum. His willingness to seriously consider dialethia really opened the door to my willingness to consider affirmative evidence on its own merit and to understand why rejecting indirect proofs is important.

:up: 'My position in the establishment is a bit of a heretic but not a complete fruitcake.' ~Graham Priest

:up:

Cognitive dissonance: To hold beliefs that are mutually contradictory accompanied by stress and the aching desire to resolve the contradiction(s).

That humanity, taken as a whole, holds mutually exclusive beliefe e.g. theism and atheism, one is tempted to conclude that there are true contradictions, but this is merely an illusion. Theism & atheism, taken as index cases, only go to show that there are no good arguments for either. Given this, it boils down to making a guess, preferrably a good one, and digging your heels in until such a time as we have a sound argument for one of the two opposing views.

Plus, the contradiction can be forthwith resolved once we realize that theists and atheists are different groups of peolple ergo, no contradiction there.

If now we revisit cognitive dissonance, the question is why try to resolve it? Isn't it possible that what we think of as one individual is actually multiple personalities, each with their own weltanschauung, contradictory though they may be.