Dualism, contradictions, opposites and paradoxes Options

At the forefront of our reality, we experience things dualistically. White and black, hot and cold, up and down, you and me. Many philosophers will contest that this dualism is an illusion, and that the paradoxical nature of the world, is actually the truth. Can something truly exist without its opposite? Does that entail, if so, that what seems to be opposed are actually components of the same thing? Does separateness really exist, and weather it does or not, should we think dualistically?

Philosophers of the board, please share your opinion.





ॐ Z ॐ

At the forefront of our reality, we experience things dualistically. White and black, hot and cold, up and down, you and me. Many philosophers will contest that this dualism is an illusion, and that the paradoxical nature of the world, is actually the truth. Can something truly exist without its opposite? Does that entail, if so, that what seems to be opposed are actually components of the same thing? Does separateness really exist, and weather it does or not, should we think dualistically?

Philosophers of the board, please share your opinion.
ॐ Z ॐ

I am a strong believer of Dualism, with no dark no light etc... with no light no dark. Feminine and masculine as one trait, all in one energy. Religion detests dualism for their personal benefits, the solitary believer or (philosopher) can be a dualist or not, but to understand beyond ourselves, essentially, is what dualism assists.

I believe Dualism is essential and provides us with life, we are of both extremes in one, yin-yang itself.

Dualism implies separation and without separation there can be no creation, as that which does not have an opposite cannot be defined and therefore does not exist. The biblical tradition tells us that God separated Light from Darkness followed by the waters of heavens from the waters of earth. Astronomy tells us that the Big Bang results in the separation of anti-matter from matter. Quantum Mechanics tells us that the separation of equal quantum energy is the basis of atomic physics, so that both Light and Matter are products of wave-particle duality. Computers, man’s creation, are a result of dualism as well. Without binary code we could not have this discussion.

No wonder dualism is prevalent in almost all religious traditions, and no wonder the mystical concern of God's duality/plurality(1=2=3) is prevalent in so many esoteric paths. Without dualism there cannot be movement (time), without dualism there cannot be life, without dualism we return to the primordial void.

I got this from Stephen Hoeller: I have a sandwich. To be one with the sandwich, I can't just look at it, or sit with it, I have to eat it. Therefore, I am separate from the sandwich and this implies that there are AT LEAST two things in the Universe, these being me and the sandwich. Or to put it another way: To be one with the soup you must eat it.

Even in Zen there is this idea of "Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." There is a sense that action is necessary, and why? - because beings are separated from the things that they need, like heat and hydrating fluids. I don't think anything is truly non-dual, and the wise non-dualist recognizes paradox as part of his worldview... a kind of dualism that is required by the brain in all but one or two rare states of consciousness. Then you have some people who are obsessed with the non-dual, but never express anything but a confused dualism.

Dualism is here to stay. Pluralism is a swamp and the non-dual is pretty hard to grasp, when it shouldn't have to be grasped at all!

I am a strong believer of Dualism, with no dark no light etc... with no light no dark. Feminine and masculine as one trait, all in one energy. Religion detests dualism for their personal benefits, the solitary believer or (philosopher) can be a dualist or not, but to understand beyond ourselves, essentially, is what dualism assists.

I believe Dualism is essential and provides us with life, we are of both extremes in one, yin-yang itself.

Greetings Death Stalker,

I would agree that without there being light, there would be no darkness for there would be nothing to measure the light against, also without the subective sense there would be no objective sense. All things that are in existence show some form of duality, for the prime reason that it takes a subject to be opposited against an object in order for the subject to gain reflection of itself, thus subjectifying itself through objectivity.

I would however disagree that Religion detests Dualism, in fact I would say that the major Religions of the world especially Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Islam and Christianity thrive through the Dualistic concepts of their being One All Beneficient God, and One who stands as Accuser or Opposer. Each of these Religions have given qualities, descriptions, and attributes to the forces that originally shaped the Universe. These Religions have also created an Anti-God or one who Opposes all that is God. This Dualistic approach is the way they gain adherents, for if there were no enemies, then of course their would be no disease, there would be no famine, there would be no pestilence, they needed something that was different from what they espoused as Good (God) so in the Christian they formed the Evil (Devil) and turned completely natural occurances into either having favor with God, or falling away from God and expereincing all sorts of trials and tribulations.

Of course Dualism does have as a core concept the Separateness of One thing from the Other, and I would would agree that through Dualism Life is much more diversified than any concept I could otherwise perceive. Yet one point I would like to share is that, regarless as much and as often as I have tried to become completey at One with the Universe in Mind, Body, and Soul, I honestly don't think that I have ever experienced Unity of this sort. I personally have reached the point where I believe that to be at such Unity with All that is, would equal being totally abosrbed without any form of distinction, and I for one like the I, in Me.


Respectfully,
Helel (Joseph)

Dualism is a useful tool to understand contrasting relationships between two things. But "truth" is the core problem. First, opposing relationships are the paramount of dualism. That is, in the case of dualism, it attempts to identify a contrasting/bi-polar relationship between two disjuncts - A and B. In anywhere else, like say weighing different options (like what to have for lunch) there can also be a C, D, E..., as many disjuncts as can be considered. But dualism works strictly with A and B. In any dualistic comparision what makes it logically *valid* is that neither can be the other. A does not, and cannot equal B or vise versa. (my logic professor called them "exclusive" comparisons as appose to inclusive, in which A can be B but dualism is exclusive only). If its not valid we create contractions. Consider life vs death. In the literal, absolute sense, a person cannot be both living and dead.

Yet, in my experience there seem to be many contradictions to this universe, or at least what we think we know about it. For example, if a person is dead how can they live on in some kind of after life? Dualism can't really help one to understand a relationship between life and death and life after death without adding additional disjuncts or changing the meaning of the words "life" and "death". And the meaning of these words, as well as all others, are where truth comes into play. What is truth? Fact? The meaning of truth depends heavily on the context in which it is used. If we agree that only facts are true then dualism cannot be used to prove any "truth" to any kind of after life unless we can prove it as fact. However, if we agree that truth is a rational opinion about what is fact, then its possible to understand life and death beyond life and death (after life) and the dualism between the two would be true. So lets consider, in this case, that:

disjunct A = Life AND (and/or = +) Death
" B = Life after Death.

Now we have a valid comparision to make. See inorder for dualism to really work one has to be able to indentify two disjuncts. Simple things like day and night, either and or, left and right are easy. But comparisions between complex (where A or B are phrases and/or have multiple terms) or subjective (where the meaning is based on opinion/context rather than fact) disjuncts are harder because most people don't have the capacity for language to use words correctly and in a context that they or others can understand. So using dualism to understand say fact vs. fiction is very difficult. We're left with unsolved equations fact = ? fiction = ?. Both are fairly subjective and the answer to the equation depends on the context in which they are used. We'd like to think that fact cannot equal fiction. Yet we create theories. There are so many mathmatical therums that form the basis for all the engineering and technology we use, yet nobody can make absolute fact out of the the therums. Then fact becomes fiction when it is an opinion or is disproven. Thus Fact = the context of its meaning and Fiction = the same thing. Now by comparing the two we see that both can equal the same thing. Thus attempting to figure out what is fact or fiction can be a messy process dependant soley on the nature of the word usage.

Looking at something on the scale of the universe is very difficult thing to do and virtually impossible, at this time, because of how little we actually know. The problem with using dualism to understand things of enormity - like the universe - are the limitations of human knowledge and cognitive functions. Again language - how do we discribe individual things we don't even know exist? The only way is to catagorize those things into one disjunct - A = what we don't know. The other catagory becomes B = what we do know. Everything we don't know falls under catagory A and everything we do know falls under catagory B. Ideally, we try to keep the conscepts we add to either as simple as possible. But in order for dualism to work there has to be an opposite - night and day, life and death these are easy enough that we know them intuitively. But what about galaxies? Whats the opposite of a galaxy or star, planet, frog, or say a phrase like planetary system or simian life form? We know what these things are but how do we identify the opposite of it? I'm not saying there is no answer or that dualism cannot answer such questions, just its difficult. If we take a mathmatical approach to understand dual relationships of such consepts the opposite of 1 = -1. Therefore the opposite of a galaxy is simply no galaxy. Like life vs. death life is is the presence of life and death is the absence. Good is the presense of good and evil is the absense. In order for this approach to work certain comparisons cannot be made - the opposite of the sun is not the moon. 1 doesn't equal -2. The problem is our knowledge. There are so many things we don't know. For example - the sun/moon comparision. Say we don't mean the litteral sun or moon but their "energy". First we have to define the terms then identify they are indeed opposite, but its possible.

What's the opposite of number? Not what's the opposite of 1, thats just -1. I mean what is the opposite of the meaning of the word "number"? See? And this just gets more and more complex to the point of absurdity. Dualism alone doesn't explain the universe. It can only be used as a tool to understand relationships between opposites. In that respect dualism is useful for understanding the nature of the universe and it also demonstrates the universe does indeed have dualistic qualitities. However, I think the way the universe actually opperates is anything but dualistic. I think the universe is everything and nothing, fact, fantacy, imagination, and everything imbetween and all of it existing and not existing at the same time on multiple dimentions. Something so complicated that the human mind cannot yet make sense out of the whole. I think rather than focus on the whole universe we should instead focus on our own realities. Through the exchange of ideas and experiences we will grow to be able to concieve of the gaps we have not yet discovered.

hmmm ... maybe its already been expressed but i wanted to write my thoughts before i read the others ...

duality or the polarity or the opposite is merely an illusion of separation because the 2 can never exist without the 1, hence they are never really separated ... only perception of separation exists. if you allow yourself to see the trinity, you can see that duality is merely what happens in order to create something different than what was there in the beginning ...

I believe dualism exists all over the universe. Although I also believe there are also many shades of grey. That is neither totally black or white.

There are lots of fancy words and I even saw a mathematical formula being thrown in around this topic.
In reality, it's not that necessary. Duality is just a term for the concept of the Yin-Yang, otherwise known as Ultimate Good balancing Ultimate Evil.
Sure, not many people believe in this idea because of the God-centric religions stating the fact that God is supreme, perfect, and can do anything.

Which isn't true. God can't lie, God can't be immoral, and God can't be nothing.

But I digress. The power of duality all lies in the ability to balance everything in moderation. There are lots of things supporting this, like, one glass of red wine a day helps prevent heart attacks. Hell, there's a Buddhist tradition to do 108 good things during the year for good fortune.

Any rebuttals? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Here's a nice thing to throw into the mix:

Can anything exist without it's opposite? Well... I can conceive of something that just may, but whether or not I articulate it right, is up to you to judge.

Imagine Yin and yang, good/evil, etc. Those are two concepts, right? Well, instead of considering them two wholes, consider them two halves making a whole.

Now, after that step, with the one object being (Yin/yang), is there a way to really imagine a (- (yin/yang))?

What I am saying here is that at some point above and below, there is the infinite upon infinite, placed upon infinite, powered by the infinite, to the infinite degree, of the eternal value. This is what for the moment I will refer to as the Divine Reflexive. There is no analyzing it. It is what it is. It equals itself in all analytical contexts, and there is no real other way to explain it as a whole. Why do you think the response it gave when asked what it was turned out to be, "I am what I am?"

This ends up being -that which must be accepted-. Hence, why I hold Taoists in such high regard, since their entire system of beliefs stems on the idea of accepting balance as it comes.

ow, after that step, with the one object being (Yin/yang), is there a way to really imagine a (- (yin/yang))?

I believe so. Yin and yang as one entity can be described as perfection. So how would one define anti-perfection?

The first thing that comes to my mind is Murphy's Law. Of course, that can't always be the case, but in nature there are lots and lots of examples of things negating other things to create balance. Fire and water, matter and anti-matter, electrons and protons, etc.

I also like the term you coined, Xenomancer. "Divine Reflexive." (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)