Negating Sentence

What did you say? And what did you mean by it?

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Pluto
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Negating Sentence

Post by Pluto »

I have now come across three sentences where they shut themselves down. I like them because they want to jump out of the straight jacket of what's right.

1. "I think we should give up our freedoms for liberty" (concerning the war of terror).
2. "Religion is man-made, that's why God sent Jesus to sort shit out" (online person posting).
3. My favourite colour is black, though I prefer white. (me).
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Harbal
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by Harbal »

Pluto wrote: 3. My favourite colour is black, though I prefer white. (me).
Black can't really be your favourite if you prefer something else to it.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Harbal wrote:
Pluto wrote: 3. My favourite colour is black, though I prefer white. (me).
Black can't really be your favourite if you prefer something else to it.
MY favorite girl is my wife, but I prefer Eva Green, who I don't know.

If I knew Eva I could try to give her my favour but I doubt she would be interested.
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Pluto
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by Pluto »

The music of Joy Division is both fast and slow in equal measures.

The exhibition was the worst and the best exhibition I've ever seen.

I love her yet hate her too.

The picture looked to the past and future, and was situated in a constantly oscillating present.

The picture was oscillating between a past and future time, yet was firmly grounded in a fixed present.

The present is fixed, yet moves continually within a greater whole.
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hajrafradi
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by hajrafradi »

1. "I think we should give up our freedoms for liberty" (concerning the war of terror).
-- Equivocation. The freedoms you give up are not the same freedoms that your liberty is promising to be. You give up your freedom from observation, but you guarantee your liberty of looking at porn (for instance).
2. "Religion is man-made, that's why God sent Jesus to sort shit out" (online person posting).
-- there is no self-negation. The man-made god sent Jesus. If man makes an automobile, and it runs against a wall and destroys the wall, it is a plausible event. If man makes a god, and that god sends Jesus to us, it is plausible.
3. My favourite colour is black, though I prefer white.
Some sort of reference must be given to make sense of this. Your favourite colour is black, but you prefer SOME things to be white. For instance, wine. Or light to read by. Or whatever.

Technically, neither are colours, btw, by some school of thinking. Black is the lack of light, and without light, colours can't be seen. White is the representation of all colours together, so it is not one colour. Technically, both are colours, btw, by some other school of thought. You can paint something black, which will be seen as a different hue from surrounding colours. You can consider white as a colour, because if you mix it with other colours, you get a resultant colour which is different (in intensity of hue.)
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hajrafradi
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by hajrafradi »

For something to be a contradiction, it must both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.

let's see if the following will satisfy this test of self-contradiction.

The music of Joy Division is both fast and slow in equal measures.
At different times, though.

The exhibition was the worst and the best exhibition I've ever seen.
Reference is different. Worst in one aspect, but best in another aspect.

I love her yet hate her too.
If you meant this truly, then it would be a true contradiction. But surely you don't want to dump her, yet she is difficult to take sometimes. You cherish her, and have warm and kind feelings for her, but she irritates you to a high level of anxiety or anger. I have to go with the "at different times" or with the "in different aspects". You wish her the best, and have tender feelings for her, but you wish she'd shut up about her mother and get down already.

The picture looked to the past and future, and was situated in a constantly oscillating present.
Oscillating means temporarily this, then temporarily that. This does not satisfy the condition of "at the same time".

The picture was oscillating between a past and future time, yet was firmly grounded in a fixed present.
Oscillation explains as per above. Grounded (in the present) is a different reference (aspect) from appearance.

The present is fixed, yet moves continually within a greater whole.
This is a visual representation of the backdrop dimension of time. This is a truly self-contradicting sentence, but its mechanism of how it happens can't be verified. Time is one thing our knowledge has no true concept of in the philosophical or physics-related senses.
Pluto
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by Pluto »

Thanks hajrafradi,

I will take onboard what you've said with pleasure and see if I cannot learn something from it.

Do you have any good examples?
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hajrafradi
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by hajrafradi »

Pluto wrote:Thanks hajrafradi,

I will take onboard what you've said with pleasure and see if I cannot learn something from it.

Do you have any good examples?
I have only examples of counter-tautologies or a priori necessary falsehoods (I am both hajrafradi and not hajrafradi), and one paradox: "Everything I utter is a lie." (some Greek came up with this one.) Also you could invoke the paradox of omnipotence: "God is omnipotent." Just one more: there is a question to which a "yes" answer is truthfully impossible. "Are you asleep?" Variations exist, such as "Are you dead?"
Pluto
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Re: Negating Sentence

Post by Pluto »

Great,

Everything I say is a lie

I like that one, it is perfect for all politicians and mass media types.

"You've got to understand", said Bush, "Everything I say is a lie."

Everything I ever said was a lie.
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