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> >
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> > I am not sure what Woj intended, but I choose to read him as saying
> > something like this (which I might say): contradiction is a property
> > (or state) of logical systems. Logical systems are tools of the
> human
> > mind.
> >
> > --ravi
>
> ^^^^^^
> CB: But Woj is wrong. Contradictions are properties of reality,
> objective reality as well. For example, the current theory is that the
> universe started with a big bang. Surely, that was a contradiction.
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> CB: The economic contradictions Rakesh is discussing are in objective
> reality , too, not just in the ideas.
Madonna! I know we have been through this before and I don't know if it is worth rehashing.
But let us say I think the _notion_ of contradiction is best looked at as a development of "systems" of thought, _and_ that the _concept_ of "contradiction" only develops fully within the creation of formal systems of logic, calculus, etc., then I can say that "contradiction" is an attribute of those systems and of minds that think in such formal patterns.
The above statement is simply a supposition that you can either accept or reject... and I know you reject it.
But nothing, nothing at all, follows from the above supposition that can lead you to say that "contradictions" are not a part of "objective reality". One can suppose that the mind is part of "objective reality" (what ever that is) and thus formal systems that produce refined, but never "defined", concepts such as contradiction, continuity, point, line, etc. are also one aspect of objective reality.
On the other hand, I don't see where the "big bang" is a "contradiction," even within the attempt at a "formal" system which is current cosmological theory. It is similar with people who claim that current theories of "light" is some how an illustration of contradiction in "objective reality." They claim "light" is a "contradiction" because it moves like a wave and a particle. The fact that we can't conceive of wave/particle light as anything but a paradox probably only indicates the limitations of human thought. It doesn't say anything about the "contradictoriness" of light. Light just is. It is not an example of contradiction in reality.
I have no idea at all what you mean when you say that the Big Bang is a contradiction, any more than I know what it means to say that because we sometimes measure light as particles and sometimes as waves, that light must be a "contradiction". Such attributions are either a matter of definition or a matter of metaphysical preference.
Jerry
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