Kevin's Watch

Well, this will probably end up being another of my failed experiments, but we'll see. Basically, I'm going to throw out a subject, maybe a few quotes and links, and let it go from there. If someone wants to put forth a new topic, just let me know. I plan on changing the topic about every week or so.

First up, Paradox
From The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy

A paradox arises when a set of apparently incontrovertible premises gives unacceptable or contradictory conclusions. To solve a paradox will involve either showing that there is a hidden flaw in the premises, or that the reasoning is erroneous, or that the apparently unacceptable conclusion can, in fact, be tolerated. Paradoxes are therefore important in philosophy, for until one is solved it shows that there is something about our reasonings and our concepts that we do not understand...

And these should be familiar

This power is a paradox, because Power does not exist without Law, and wild magic has no Law; and white gold is a paradox, because it speaks for the bone of life, but has no part of the Land. And he who wields white wild magic gold is a paradox for he is everything and nothing, hero and fool, potent, helpless and with the one word of truth or treachery he will save or damn the Earth because he is mad and sane, cold and passionate, lost and found.

philosophy.fas.nyu.edu/docs/IO/1158/revengetex3.pdf
dingo.sbs.arizona.edu/~thorgan/papers/Two.Envelopes.and.Foundations.htm

What are we to do with this topic? Give examples? Argue for or against? It's an interesting experiment, but I don't want to take it in the wrong direction right out of the gate.

There is no wrong direction. Just run with it. (I thought about putting up something more controversial, but I had to go with the covenant tie-in)

I feel that the term paradox is often misused instead of the word oxymoron. For example "Sweet sorrow" is an oxymoron and not a paradox, because both words are elastic enough to accommodate the amalgamation.

The quote:

This power is a paradox, because Power does not exist without Law, and wild magic has no Law.

I believe this one is a nice example of part of the dictionary definition: we don’t know enough the true nature of the objects of the premises (wild magic, power and law).

I think we need to decide the type of Law of which we are speaking.

Human Law? The Laws of the Universe?
In terms of Covenant, we are obviously speaking of the latter.

But the Lords, Giants, Stonedownors, Woodhelvennin--they don't understand the Laws of the universe. This point is proven by the different creation myths that exist in the land. No person or race in the Land or elsewhere in the Arch of Time (Except maybe Foul himself, but his POV on the subject is never given) knows for sure how their universe was created, and therefore also do not know all its laws.

To say that wild magic (Power) is Lawless and therefore is a paradox is incorrect.

Before Covenant's arrival in the Land, they knew nothing of white gold except that which was written in old songs and legend.

But how can one hope to understand something that is not of ones world? How can understanding be gained when there is nothing to study?

White Gold/wild magic is not a paradox--not Lawless--rather, it is not understood, and the Laws that govern its use/existence are not understood.

I love oxymorons! Jumbo shrimp is a good one. My favorite is the putty used to fill nail holes - Plastic Wood.

Anyway, I think paradoxes are usually simply the result of the things mentioned in the Oxford definition.

Are you calling the people of The Land ignorant Ur-bane????

A paradox should be para-doctored.

Can't remember who said that, but it's always stuck in my head.

Nice idea Syl, although what I can say about paradox(i?) (es?) I'm not sure. I tend to think of the time-travel conundrums that we recently mentioned in another thread when the term crops up, that and the obvious Covenant allusion.

Anybody have an example of an unrefutable paradox which forces us to accept the apparently self-contradictory nature thereof?

Niels Bohr wrote:The opposite of a trivial truth is false. But the opposite of a Great Truth is also True

Walt Whitman wrote:I contradict myself? So what if I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.

--A

Avatar wrote:Anybody have an example of an unrefutable paradox which forces us to accept the apparently self-contradictory nature thereof?

Does such a thing exist?

Does such a thing exist?

Sure, they abound in quantum mechanics. The fact that really small objects behave like both particles and waves. This is paradoxical because the properties of waves and particles cannot be reconciled, yet both descritions mathematically describe electrons, photons, etc.

And many philosophers believe that humans are a paradox still unresolved by centuries of speculation. Mind/body dualism has been unraveled since Descartes' time (most successfuly--in my opinion--by phenomenology), but the paradoxical nature which gave impetus to such thinking has merely receded to even more difficult and esoteric levels of thought and experience. Our experience as a subjective self in an object world is still very much paradoxical.

Fantastic examples Malik23

I like it. Especially that last one. A subjective self in an objective world.

Interesting. Although, I must ask, is the world really that objective? Or are you speaking literally?

--A

I think the wave/particle thing is just our ignorance talking. If these really small objects always behave like particles under certain circumstances, and always behave like waves under certain different circumstances, then they're following specific laws of nature. The apparent paradox is caused by our imperfect attempt to define what we have learned from our limited perceptions.

These two quotes of Eknath Easwaran, which I've quoted before, deal with the "subjective self in an object world" idea.

Sankhya is not trying to describe physical reality; it is analyzing consciousness, knowledge, for the sole purpose of unraveling the human being's true identity. So it does not begin with the material universe as something different and separate from the mind that perceives it. It does not talk about sense objects outside us and senses within and then try to get the two together. It begins with one world of experience. Sense objects and senses are not separate; they are two aspects of the same event. Mind, energy, and matter are a continuum, and the universe is not described as it might be in itself, but as it presents itself to the human mind. As they say in the "new physics," it is not just an observable universe but a participatory universe.

Brahmavidya and conventional science both begin when a person finds that the world of sense impressions, so transient and superficial, is not enough in itself to satisfy the desire for meaning. Then one begins to stand back a little from the senses and look below the surface show of life in search of underlying connection. But the sages of the Upanishads wanted more than explanations of the outside world. They sought principles that would unify and explain the whole of human experience: including, at the same time, the world within the mind. If the observer observes through the medium of consciousness, and the world too is observed in consciousness, should not the same laws apply to both?

Fist and Faith wrote:

It does not talk about sense objects outside us and senses within and then try to get the two together. It begins with one world of experience. Sense objects and senses are not separate; they are two aspects of the same event.

Great quotes Fist.

--A

Fist: Could be ignorance, but then again, to me quantum mechanics never made ANY sense. I am deply awe struck by those who comprehend i.

By the way, I've go one! Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!

A pro-lifer who endorses capital punishment.

Now there's a paradox

Prebe wrote:
By the way, I've go one! Oh! Oh! Pick me! Pick me!

A pro-lifer who endorses capital punishment.

Now there's a paradox

Not really, if you think about it. A pro-lifer's stance is that every baby(fetus/zygote) deserves a chance to be born and live. If that baby grows up and uses his chance to kill, that same pro-lifer could endorse capital punishment knowing that at least the baby-now-adult got a chance to live.

True, if pro-life means anti-abortion. But I was trying to discourage the 'pro-life' term, if it is nothing but a euphemism for anti-abortion.

If you want to call yourself 'pro-life' you should be against killing anyone regardless of the reason.

or anything, being a pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-euthenesia, anti-death penalty vegetarian.

but why are some many pro-abortion folks anti-death penalty? for the destruction of innocents but for the saving of murderers? that makes little sense.

What about plant's rights?

SgtNull wrote:or anything, being a pro-life, anti-abortion, anti-euthenesia, anti-death penalty vegetarian.

I suppose in that case you could use the term pro-life, to save some space

I was merely stating that many people, who claim to be pro-life, endorse capital punishment. They should not - by calling themselves pro-life - to make it seem like it is everybody else, that are against life, when in fact pro-capital punishment anti-abortionists subscribe to the taking of conscient life, while objecting to killing a fetus with scarce neural connectivity, or even more extreme: a zygote.

I think you have the answer to your question in that last sentence.

Cail wrote:What about plant's rights?

I thought that might come up. In my view it only underlines how bad a term pro-life is, because it is charged; for the very good reason mentioned above. If the charge contained therein cannot be endorsed by those who use it they should find another term. Preferably one fitting the subject of the discussion at hand (I don't mean this discussion btw).