opposition and dichotomy
Chris,
You are glorifying a rather doubtful logical concept.
Dichotomy, as a partition of a class (or kind) into two opposed subclasses,
has its small pluses but big minuses. Following the principle of perfect
dichotomy, when seeking the exhaustive division of a kind, you have to
divide it into two parts, one of which always make the negative opposite,
indefinite and completly indeterminate. Because of such an 'infinity of the
negative', Aristotle replaced the method of dichotomy by the method of genus
and difference, which is widely used both in logic and science.
Let's not mix up this defective logical category with opposition, a
universal (ontological) dynamic category, the origin and the source of most
radical changes in the world, where the opposites neither exclude each other
nor negate, but rather complete, so that to make a synthetic whole from its
opposing but interracting parts.
Last but not least, due to its ontological status, the principle of
opposition can be found in every sphere and realm of being: in nature
(natural selection), mind (reasoning and emotions), society (the rich and
the poor), human life (life and death), and human morality (desires and
duties). The meaning of opposition involves the most fundamental categories
whereby we reason about reality: thing and nothing, universal and
particular, same and other, one and many, necessity and contingency,
identity and diversity, division and integration, life and death, good and
evil, vitrue and vice, knowledge and opinion, liberty and slavery, truth and
falsity, as well as all sorts of conflicting ideas, theories, meanings,
reasoning and opinions.
As you may be noticed, although significant for the human brain, the
difference/integration oppositeness as applied to one kind of vegetative
cells, neurons, make only a case and example of ontological opposites, only
one specific kind of opposition in the domain of physical nature for one
specific sort of somatic cells.
Regards,
Azamat Abdoullaev
EIS Encyclopedic Intelligent LTD
http://www.eis.com.cy
----- Original Message -----
From: <chrislofting@OZEMAIL.COM.AU>
To: <standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG>
Sent: Tuesday, March 22, 2005 1:52 AM
Subject: Re: Re: Idealism vs Materialism : Idealism and the Differentiating
Element
> (my last post did not seem to make clear who wrote what!)
>
> Azamat wrote:
>
> " Materialism-Idealism distinction is the result of an innate tendency of
> the human mind to all sorts of dichotomy and duality. This opposite
> division is a bad heritage of classic metaphysics, born by the confused
> polarity of all things as abstract, ideal realities (froms, ideas) and
> material, physical realities. "
>
>
> Azamat, the use of dichotomisation to derive meaning is inherent in the
> species, and in 'lower' life forms that have neuron-derived brains - even
> the small zebra fish makes the same distinctions as we do re
> KNOWN/UNKNOWN, and showing asymmetry in the development from the unknown
> to the known, from the unlabelled to the labelled. IOW dichotomy
> processing is not something restricted to *our* minds, it is rooted in the
> neurology and as such is core to information processing. Our consciousness
> has inherited the properties and methods of applying dichotomies
> recursively and as such we exaggerate things even more through rich label
> creation through refined differentiating/integrating processes.
>
> There are TWO types of dichotomy, asymmetric and symmetric. The 'opposite'
> forms you mention come out of differentiating, over-exaggeration of
> distinction to make things 'clear'. The form reflects working within a
> level of hierarchy where, in general, all elements are the same, in
> particular we wish to extract their differences - this gives us patterns
> of guassian distributions - e.g. IQ differences across all members of the
> species (and so the SAME element). These +1/-1 dichotomies reflect a
> symmetric perspective, competitive to force the point - push AWAY and in
> that pushing elicits the bell curve. (the absolute value of the dichotomy
> reflects the sameness of 1/1)
>
> Change the dichotomy to an asymmetric type and we span levels of a
> hierarchy, we get into detecting SAMENESS across DIFFERENCES. This moves
> us into a spectral perspective, power law stuff. QUALITATIVELY we deal
> with the local/universal, worthless/priceless, 0/infinity etc etc (this
> reflects a PULSE perspective as compared to a WAVE perspective)
>
> The use of OPPOSITES aids in parts analysis, clear differentiations of
> elements of the whole - BUT, with the development of consciousness so the
> benefits of parts analysis, of perpetual mediations, has led to the
> development of us and our collective 'overlaying' the planet 'as is'.
>
> Lower the energy and things get 'closer', the focus is more cooperative,
> integrating, than competitive, more complementing. Due to this
> dichotomy-driven perspective having its apparent roots in the neuron and
> its differentiating(FM)/integrating(AM) dynamic, so it spans all levels of
> information processing to a degree where individuals are born with
> 'biases' in expression and collectives go on to express those biases such
> that some are more 'competitive' in approach, others more 'cooperative' in
> approach.
>
> Any core ontology has to cover this dimension where
> differentiate/integrate is applied recursively to give us, at the
> unconscious levels, core qualities used to communicate meanings - the
> language of the vague - that, as we move 'up' the hierarchy of expression,
> become represented in symbols/metaphors.
>
> Charles Peirce recognised the need to understand the neurology through his
> concern, after reading Broca's research, about how his left-handedness
> could affect his thinking.
>
> Since we can map the basic qualities used in Mathematics and Logic to the
> recursion of differentiating/integrating, so we source core elements used
> at the level of symbols as representitive of patterns derived from our
> sensory experience of reality - and so elements sourced in our
> unconscious. Out of that unconscious realm develops the ever
> differentiating realm of consciousness and with it the realm of universals
> in the form of labels. At that level, the diversity possible will drown
> out any long term perspectives since the diversity is LOCAL in context
> but universal in text (the more the focus on differentiting so the more we
> use stereotyping etc to communicate)
>
> Consciousness, through its idealisation skills with take patterns derived
> from 'mindless' growth dynamics, and so distorted forms, and turn them
> into idealised forms and in that idealism project a sense of the
> 'spiritual' onto 'out there' - there is no need for such an action.
>
> Chris.
>
>
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