Paradoxes, Dilemmas, and Western Logic

How to embrace the contradictions

The more I try to explain the complexities of human development and religion, the more that I’m finding myself talking in paradoxes. It becomes a point of frustration because a paradox is difficult to explain. One can easily state them, but to parse them to someone and make sense feels like an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. Perhaps this should be the case since the symbol itself is a paradox of destruction and creation, of devouring to give birth to something new. This symbol comes to us via Egypt and perhaps those in the East are more comfortable with this type of “logic” than people in the West whose reasoning is permeated with the principle of non-contradiction. However, if we take time to reflect on paradoxes, they might help us to live in the contradictions of life.

A paradox can be defined as a seemly self-contradictory statement, but when we further look into it will hold to be true. It comes from the Latin and Greek words, para meaning “contrary” and doxa meaning “opinion.” For example, Jesus would say, “For those who want to save their life will lose it.” In Hinduism, there is both masculine and feminine in each human being and many of the Hindu gods are often depicted in this way, with both male and female characteristics. In Taoism the notion of balance or ying yang (taijitu) is one of contradictory elements in harmony with one another. In the East, paradoxes have a long history going back 5,000 years. Paradoxes were ways to hold seemingly contradictory truths together to form some kind of creative resolution or way forward.

A paradox is also known as a dialetheia (di- 'twice' and ἀλήθεια alḗtheia 'truth'), which is a pair of statements which are both true:

 A and ~A (it’s not the casethat A), which are both true.

 At the same time, not all contradictions are true. This devolves into what is called “trivialism.” It makes trivial the need to see the truth in the contradictions. Here are examples of contradictory statements that are not true:

“My dog Blondie is a cat” or

“Phuc is married to Paula and Paula is not married to Phuc.”

That cannot be the case in any universe. It can be true in some universes that I name my dog something else, I don’t have a dog, and I’m not married to Paula (which would be sad cases), but these kinds of contradictions cannot be true in any universe. Dialetheism seems to violate what philosophers call of the Principle of Non- Contradiction (PNC) which is the thesis that no contradiction can be true. Philosophers, Jay L. Garfield and Graham Priest would say in their work, What Can’t Be Said Paradox and Contradiction in East Asian Thought that “The PNC has been high orthodoxy in Western philosophy.” The West is governed by Aristotle’s logic and in the PNC, which every philosophy student learns as a first principle, something cannot both be and not be the case:

¬(p ∧ ¬p)

However, we can imagine in our minds that something can be that way and even provide language to do so.

In an episode of Star Trek Captain Kirk used the Liar’s Paradox to thwart his robot captors :

Captain Kirk : Everything Harry tells you is a lie. Remember that. Everything Harry tells you is a lie.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd : Now listen to this carefully, Norman. I am... lying.

Norman (the robot): You say you are lying, but if everything you say is a lie, then you are telling the truth, but you cannot tell the truth because everything you say is a lie, but you lie... You tell the truth but you cannot for you lie... illogical! Illogical! Please explain! You are human. Only humans can explain their behavior! Please explain!

The Liar’s Paradox has been the cause of many pages of philosophical explanations and turmoil. But a simple solution is that both can be true: the statement is both false and true at the same time. The android cannot comprehend it because of its linear thinking, something is either a 0 or a 1 in binary code, but Kirk is perfectly fine with it because he’s not a type of guy who goes by the rules.

In Buddhism, there is a concept called anatta which means “no self.” This proposes that humans lack an underlying substance or soul. This can be exemplified by the Ship of Theseus paradox. If Theseus replaces parts of his rotting ship board by board, then eventually is it the same ship or another ship? If the cells of my body gradually die and are renewed every ten years, am I the same person or another person? Anatta is to say that we will suffer if we hold on too tightly to a concept of self, which is true. We are not the sum of our parts, and if we are too fixated on holding on to the notion that this is entirely who we are, then we will feel the pain of it as we grow older and change.

However, what else are we if not for our parts? There is also a concept of self that we need to also acknowledge. Paradox: You have a self and you don’t have a self. If you don’t have a self, then what is it that I am saying when I say “you”? If you then have a self, then what is that “self” if I cannot specify what it actually is? What makes you, you? (Credit to one of my most brilliant students to illustrated this on the white board as I was making the argument to another student on this very subject. She’ll become a Nobel Laureate one day!).

Imagine an arrow flying through the sky. The ancient Greek philosopher, Zeno of Elea (c. 490 —c. 430 BCE), would ask if it is actually moving or not. “Of course its moving,” a person would say. You can see that it is moving through the sky. But take out your phone, and take a picture of it in the air. That one instance of you taking the picture is of it not moving, because if you actually took a picture of motion, then it is not moving. A static arrow in the air is not motion. It is zero motion. And a bunch of zeros added together is still zero. The arrow is both moving and not moving. That is the paradox of motion.

This is not mere sophistry or language games, but the way in which we look at the world. Not all contradictions are true, but there are many true contradictions that hold together. These are often the ones that are deeper and metaphysical, the ones that explore some mystery and help us to grasp our world. It has been shown that being open to this kind of perspective leads to creative solutions. For example, an experiment was conducted on a two groups of people, one with a linear framework and one with perspectives that could consider at least three paradoxical statements (Ella Miron-Spektor et al. 2011). Each group was given a picture of matches, a candle, and box of thumb tacks and were given three minutes to provide a way to light a candle, adhere it to a card box wall, and keep the wax from dripping on the table. While the control group only came up with a viable solution to the problem 21% of the time, 35% of the thinkers who were asked to think in a paradoxical way solved the this candle problem (If you have a solution to the candle problem, place it in the comments). Miron-Spektor conducted other tests to see how paradoxical thinking could lead to problem solving in the workplace. It has been shown that those who are open to paradoxical thinking can more easily navigate the tensions of commerce such as profitability vs. environmental impact, productivity vs worker happiness, etc. It does not have to be a zero sum game.

More importantly, if we use Zeno’s arrow metaphor and look at human development, a person is not a slice of any time. I can’t take a selfie of myself and say either, “that’s me” or “I’ve made progress.” I can make comparisons of one point to another and see that I’ve grown in some way. There are childhood pictures, and teen pictures, and adult pictures. Still, that is not me and it does not show where I am going as a human being. What guides my path is where the arrow is aimed at, which is non-existent. It is somewhere in the future, which is a point that has not happened yet. So, my growth and development is determined by the point that cannot be captured in any slice of time. The hope is in what is in store for my future self, that which is the goal. Paradox: The future possibility that does not exist determines the present that does exist.

We do not have to resolve all the contradictions if they are both true, we can hold them in tension. This resistance helps us to live fully and appreciate the nuances of the universe, even during a sometimes-confusing world. When we are caught in a dilemma and don’t know the route forward, we might say that both paths might be good and true and we just have to take one to see if it goes where we want it to go. There is beauty in the paradox because nature itself lives in these contradictions. A seed must die in order to live and grow. Rain clouds are heavy with water, but float above us. In quantum mechanics a particle can be in two places at once, to be there and not there at the same time. There can be contradictions that lead to false conclusions, but contradictions that are both true can provide an avenue to creativity and spontaneity. It is in the latter, that when we work too hard to resolve them, rather than hold them, they become more painful for us. However, if we can see an opportunity in a paradox to explore where it might lead, it can be life giving, fruitful, and a thing of beauty.