Yes or No?
Today on Ask Cahlen I'm answering the question, "Yes or no?"
The person who asked this made sure to clarify that it was a serious question and so I'll go ahead and answer it and say, "Yes and no." The reason I say that is because I believe, to steal a phrase from George Kavassilas, this is a universe of contrasting expressions.
Now I don't think all universes are necessary like this but it definitely seems to be that our universe is. So just a few examples... You can't have up without down. Without down up wouldn't make any sense. In order for up to exist you have to have the opposite of it which is down. The same would be true of light and dark. You can't have dark without light. Dark is the absence of light and so in order for darkness to exist there has to be something called light.
So there's lots of different examples of that. I'm sure you could think of many more and I think that's basically how the universe works. Even when getting into physics and stuff like that there's the electron and then there's the proton which seem to be opposites of each other, and then even the electron itself has an opposite other than the proton which I think is called a positron which is basically the inverse of what an electron is doing. Even if you think about just the wave, and everything in the universe is essentially energy which is just vibration, and vibration is going back and forth between two opposites.
So that's that's what how I understand the universe to operate, and so if the question is just, "Yes or no?" then I have to answer, "Yes and no." I hope that was useful! I'm not sure what the question was aimed at.
If you'd like to ask any other question you can go to http://ask.cahlen.org. You can search to see if I've already answered the question, and if I haven't you can submit it there I'll get an email and I'll answer it as soon as I can.
Thanks for watching and I hope to see you next time!
Cahlen Lee
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I believe you are conflating "identity" with "reality".
I believe you are conflating opinion (perception, cognition) with fact.
There are some concepts that are logically incoherent (fnords).
For example, "nothingness" cannot possibly exist.
It can only be "no size" at "no place" and at "no time".
This renders the statement "space is infinite nothingness" nonsensical.
Does this mean that "something-ness" is instantly invalidated because it has no "true" opposite? Not at all.
Another example is "infinite".
No substance can possibly be "infinite".
It can only be "the largest (in)conceivable size" at "every (in)conceivable place" and at "every (in)conceivable time".
Necessarily obliterating anything else in existence.
This renders the statement "space is infinite nothingness" doubly nonsensical.
Does this mean that "finite" is instantly invalidated because it has no "true" opposite? Not at all.
You're right that these things can be stated more subtly. Darkness does not exist, it is simply the absence of light, yet they are still opposites. The same is true for nothingness.
A bounded set can have an infinite number of elements. There are infinite numbers between 1 and 2 (e.g. 1.0139828489, 1.987327172, etc.).
"nothingness" is fundamentally incoherent. At best it's imprecise.
Please try not to conflate the hypothetical with the real.
Nothing real can be infinite. This is a tautological fact.
Are you saying light and darkness are not opposites?
Finite is a concept which wouldn't exist without the concept of infinite, whether possible or not.
I think in mathematics "infinity" is imaginable, one can express numbers infinitely. What logiczombie meant is, I believe, that you cannot apply mathematics as a mental game with matter as a real substance as opposites. Or in other words, you cannot compare the idea of "infinity" with the non-idea - the real experience - of finiteness. A space, which represents the largest imaginable nothing - as for example in Startrek, a space without stars near and far - can only represent the nothing, if some thing "pushes" at the border to the nothing. Then however, it is not pure nothing, but only a very large space, which does not collide with matter, but only as far as one reaches the border.
Infinity is an idea, a concept, as you say, that we can have intellectually. But not because we know the opposite - the finiteness. In fact, we don't know the finality/death from our own perspective, since we haven't died yet, but can only witness the end of others. Infinity is rather an assumption than an experience. On the other hand, many of the pairs of opposites you have mentioned are real experiences like darkness and light.
On the other hand, I consider the infinity of continuation of consciousness possible in any case philosophically and spiritually. Something that lies beyond the calculable, physically comprehensible and explainable reality.