Opposites, defined...

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by DarkEyedBeauty, Jun 21, 2005.

  1. DarkEyedBeauty Pirate. Registered Senior Member

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    What is meant by the word 'opposite'?

    A lot of people mean by 'opposite', the opposite end of a scale. (Ie: Hot is the opposite of cold.) But temperature is a continuum, therefore has no ends. Another level of this includes the idea that cold is simply the lack of heat. So, is the opposite of hot (~hot)?

    But it doesn't seem like opposites are negations of positives. That doesn't seem to explain the entire story.

    And what of life/death? They seem to be opposites. We can say, using the above example of negations, that death is indeed (~life), but there is still an implication of having once had life, which changes the scenario. Also, is life the opposite of death? Is life (~death)? Maybe. But this case seems like two points on a scale moving distinctly in one direction.

    Thoughts?
     
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  3. Onefinity Registered Senior Member

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    I think that you are on the right track with seeing continuums. Opposites are thought-objects produced by the human mind, sometimes out of necessity, sometimes out of habit. Unfortunately, some cultures can get carried away from the reality of continuums and dwell in the opposites. Let's take the concept of Yin and Yang, or the two halves of that famous Yin-Yang symbol. Many people, at least in the West, see these as representing opposites. They aren't opposites; they are complements. The most important part of that image is not the black side or the white side, but the line between them - the line that simultaneously differentiates and unites them.
     
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  5. DarkEyedBeauty Pirate. Registered Senior Member

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    Do you think something can exist without an opposite? With the continuum, it seems like the answer would be yes. With a scale where opposites are the extreme ends of the scale, no. They are defined by being not what the other is.
     
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  7. lixluke Refined Reinvention Valued Senior Member

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    wtf. You're confused about the meaning of opposite? Ever seen a light switch? What is so difficult? What are you trying to get at?
     
  8. TheHeretic Registered Senior Member

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    well temperature does have an absolute zero
     
  9. Nasor Valued Senior Member

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    What is the opposite of a light switch?

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  10. DarkEyedBeauty Pirate. Registered Senior Member

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    Semantics. Simple enough concept for you?
     
  11. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    You look for your opposite to balance yourself like a ying and yang. To do that could lead to much friction but that friction could keep you interested in whoever you find opposite to you. Of course the best thing for you to do is to find someone that is similiar to you and what you enjoy. Many find that opposites attract for it seems they enjoy the clashes of intelliect they have with each other. I , on the other hand, find that just discussing worldly things is enough to keep a good conversation without the friction that sometimes happens with opposites
     
  12. glaucon tending tangentially Registered Senior Member

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    The Heretic has a point; temperature is a poor example, as it is not a continuum. Nevertheless, in most cases, it does appear that what we are quick to call opposites are more properly defined as points on a scale. I think this propensity we have for oppositional thinking is firmly rooted in our minds. The simplest categorizatinal act is one of opposition: there/not there. It's from this 'binary' type of relation that we move on to further categorize.
     
  13. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    In logic there are opposites, and there are also contraries. The can be defined.
     
  14. lixluke Refined Reinvention Valued Senior Member

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    No not simple enough. Opposites are opposites. There is not much else to it.
    Which semantics are you considering?
     
  15. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    1,999
    The things we say are opposites aren't opposites all the time.

    That seems to be your point, you have a good example with life and death.
    The opposite of death could also be birth, unless you are talking about the state of death, in which case it could in fact be life - but the opposite of living could very well be considered never existing, since a dead thing is much more like a live thing than no thing.

    The opposite of light is definitely not darkness, which is just the absence of light, not "anti-light."



    EDIT - can something exist without its opposite? What is the opposite of a feather?
     
  16. Onefinity Registered Senior Member

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    401
    A feather has no opposite. However, a feather - and any physical or conceptual object - can be described in terms of an interlocking set of complement pairs (or what I like to call "differelations)." Here is how it works: in order for "feather" to exist (or to be discerned), there must be:

    long-short; soft-hard; rigid-flexible; whole-part; animate-inanimate; few-many; straight-curved; push-pull; and many other differelations that when put together define "feather" as a distinct entity.

    I have made up a list of 250 or so of these differelations, and am (slowly) in the process of defining their basic relationship to each other. Once that is done, it will constitute a kind of "ontic code" that can be used to describe anything in our universe in terms of how observers differentiate and relate things.

    A simple example I like to use is the pair "front-back." To figure out what pairs make it up (and what pairs it differentiates), I have to ask "what do we need in order for there to be a front-back (or simply a "front" and a "back" in general)?" The answer, in this case, is the pairs "left-right" and "up-down." In other words, the difference between left-right and up-down is front-back. This is just a small sample of a vast matrix that I call the "differscape." It's not easy to work with many of these, but it's a fun puzzle.
     
    Last edited: Jun 25, 2005
  17. tosk Registered Member

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    4
    oposite is relative, as everything, as good, bad, ...

    the more two things are opposite the more similar they are. if you would have to describe two things which are exact opposites you could desciribe them with exactly the same words and add only one extra word to one of the descriptions - the word "negative" or "not".

    for every thing it is possible to find an opposite on this way:
    you list all properties that the thing has, and opposite thing should have properties which are opposite to these properties. so opposite thing of feather would have these properties: it would be heavy, dense, not soft, very big or very small, alive, it would talk, ... an elephant maybe.

    but "opposite" is really nothing else than abbreviation for "the most different".
     
  18. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    1,999
    That seems to be one question brought up here - you say you are able to find AN opposite, but can you find THE opposite? And, if it isn't THE opposite, then it really isn't AN opposite is it?

    Onefinity- "differelations", very interesting.
     
  19. tosk Registered Member

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    4

    you can find AN opposite, one of many opposites. as i wrote, opposite is relative, it depends on what one is looking for.

    my native tongue is not english and I always have some trouble figuring out where to use "the" and "an" in sentance.
     
  20. cole grey Hi Valued Senior Member

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    1,999
    tosk,

    I didn't think you used the wrong word.
    I was just wondering if there is only one true opposite for any given thing.
     
  21. beyondtimeandspace Everlasting Student Registered Senior Member

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    I think the best way to discover the meaning of opposites is to consider a magnet. a magnet has two ends, each end having opposing polarity. One end has positive polarity, while the other end has negative polarity. The point immediately central to the two poles has a polarity of zero. This is crucial. This, however, is a perfect magnet, meaning that each end has polarity equal in magnitude to the other. It is dutiful to note that an opposite is an opposing force. However, not all opposing forces cancel each other out. A true opposite, it seems to me, is one that cancels out the other perfectly. Hence, when considering a number line, the opposite of 1 is -1, the opposite of 5 is -5. I have heard it suggested that the opposite of a thing is simply it's zero. By this I mean that, for example, the opposite of red is non-red. While this may seem to be true at first glance, it cannot possibly be true, since there are a great many things that are non-red. The opposite of existence, therefore, cannot be non-existence, rather, "un-existence." Why un-existence? Because when existence and un-existence are put together, the product is zero.

    I propose that for two things to be true opposites, the sum of their parts must produce zero. Not simply zero, however, but zero of the specific categorization of the entities involved.

    Therefore, if one were to say, "in a continuum, the sum of opposing parts equals one, therefore a continuum can contain no opposites, and therefore can actually contain no opposing parts," that one would be wrong. It is true that in a continuum, such as the spectrum of color, the sum of opposing parts equals one, specifically a light ray, it is also true that the sum of opposing colors equals zero, specifically zero colors. Hence, it is, in fact, true that colors have opposites, even though they are contianed in a continuum, since the sum of those oppopsing colors equals zero color, a light ray.
     
  22. Darkman Registered Senior Member

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    You raise some good points darkeyedbeauty, as have other people. Some of these things have been considered most recently by me, and I agree with a lot of what was posted. For example the life/death situation. While many may consider life and death to be opposites, as you so rightly pointed out death implies the previous existence of life. Something cannot die if it hasn't been living. Perhaps, again as was pointed out, that birth is the opposite of death: birth is simply the beginning of life, and death is the end of it.

    However I disagree with the argument that non- or (~)-relations exist to serve any useful purpose, as was pointed out about colour by beyongtimeandspace. As he so correctly stated, non-red is not the opposite of red because green is non-red, but on the continuum of colour (which can be seen by dividing light with a prism) green is centre where blue is the direct opposite of the colour in question. I am very interested in his argument that opposites cancel each other out to produce a value of perfect zero. And, again as he stated, if this is true then colours never cancel each other out because they simply produce a new colour.

    As for the argument about absolute zero in temperature I would argue that this is a human construct: is it actually absolute zero, or is this simply what man has stated is absolute zero. In my understanding the temperature 'zero' has been called so because on Earth this is the temperature at which water freezes. However this raises many questions. Why was this/these element(s) chosen? Simply because it/they occur in the greatest abundance on Earth? It could also be argued that these elements would freeze, and do freeze, at different temperatures depending upon the environmental conditions. For example high or low air pressure(s) causes a drastic change in boiling point, and this therefore must also effect the freezing point. And what of the freezing point ('zero') of water on a planet with greatly different gravity, or some other wildly different environmental condition? As we already know pressure effects boiling and feeezing points. This leads us onto the question of 'absolute zero' (-273 degrees C). Again, how do we know it is absolute zero? It seems that elements are used to measure the vary of temperature: mercury (used in thermometers) is simply a sensitive metal that changes state, and therefore volume, at different temperatures. But what is to say that this, or any other element, is the correct one to use? To be accurate the whole scale must be taken into account. This means that a durable element that can withstand high temperatures without dissapation, but also low ones, must be used. Perhaps mercury is a suitable candidate and this is why it is used, but what is to say that another element doesn't exist out there that is more accurate (simply because of it's ability to traverse the whole scale of temperature)? But it would seem that science is very successful as it is without using another element, so who am I to argue?
     
  23. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Darkman, permit me to educate you a little about temperature. First it has nothing to do with water, mercury etc. It has to do with the average kinetic energy and a concept of equlibrium. (You may be surprized to learn that temperat is not defined without equlibrium.)

    Once man used his senses, to define temprature, hot and cold, but this is not as reproducible as thermometers. (Try keeping one hand in very warm water and the other in ice water for several minutes, then stick both into room temperature water. - One will tell you that water is warm and the other that it is cold.)

    In a mixture of oxygen and helium (a gas with atoms having only1/32 the weight of the oxygen molecules) both will have the same temperature, or same average kinetic energy, but the helium atoms will be moving much faster to do this.

    As the temperature of any material is lowered, the average kinetic energy is decreased linearly (in direct proportion). Absolute zero is not some man made choice. it is the temperature of any substance when all the kinetic energy has been removed. That is when the atoms and molecules have no motion of any kind. (not even rotating).

    Hope this help you.

     
    Last edited by a moderator: Aug 9, 2005

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