[April 1st, 2011] Do we always need Yang?

[winkio]

People have this idea that there are always two opposites in every situation: there is no good without bad, not happiness without sadness, no life without death.  This is simply not something that applies universally.  There is only positive temperature, we only move forward in time, entropy only increases.  

This came up again because some economics friend was talking about economic choices, and how they simply choose to maximize the total benefits, even if it produces some costs.  What if there was a different choice that could be made where there were zero costs, but less total benefit?  The economists would ignore it.  

Simply put, every decision does not have to involve costs, or pain, or the bad side of things.  In many cases, we can make decisions that only result in good consequences.  I think that this is what we should strive for.

EDIT: to clarify, the two questions are:
1.  Do opposites always have to exist?
2.  Maximize gain or minimize loss?

[Kagutsuchi]

People have this idea that there are always two opposites in every situation: there is no good without bad, not happiness without sadness, no life without death.  This is simply not something that applies universally.  There is only positive temperature, we only move forward in time, entropy only increases.  

This came up again because some economics friend was talking about economic choices, and how they simply choose to maximize the total benefits, even if it produces some costs.  What if there was a different choice that could be made where there were zero costs, but less total benefit?  The economists would ignore it.  

Simply put, every decision does not have to involve costs, or pain, or the bad side of things.  In many cases, we can make decisions that only result in good consequences.  I think that this is what we should strive for.

EDIT: to clarify, the two questions are:
1.  Do opposites always have to exist?
2.  Maximize gain or minimize loss?

1. There is no "anti-mass" as far as we know, though I guess it could exist theoretically.

Without sadness, you wont know what happiness is now will you? You can have happiness without sadness, but you won't know it. And I guess we could equally say we know we are alive because there is death. Without death it would just be a steam of experience (watch Code Geass).

There is only positive temperature because it is pointless to talk of negative temperature. Temperature is a result of the v_rms of the atoms, which is always positive. Time is not a vector, and therefore has no direction.

2. Maximize gain, why would you minimize loss if your total gain is less?

EDIT: By "as far as we know" I mean empirical knowledge.

[winkio]

A few weeks ago, I would have agreed with your answer, but not any more.  Think about it:

Maximizing gain is the strategy of war (kill some to save more) and corporations (reduce costs to make more money).
Minimizing loss is the strategy of medicine (spend a ton of money and many people's time and effort in order to extend the life of a single person) and of community service (prevent poverty and tragedy)

Now think about any evil robot movie ever made.  The robots revolt and enslave the human race because they are maximizing gain.  Take I Robot for example.  In order to protect the humans, they tried to take over their society.  That is an obvious inhuman error in judgement. 

I think humans actually try to minimize loss.  That's why we save someone who is in danger of dying even if it means injuring ourselves (reasonably assuming two injuries are less loss than one death).

[Blizzard]

Wow, I never looked at it this way. O_o I agree, minimizing loss seems to be the more natural choice.
As for opposites, I think they are necessary in some cases, not always. Just like Kagutsuchi said, if we didn't know about sadness in the first place, we wouldn't be able to appreciate happiness. That is why people who have experienced pain are much kinder to others because they know how bad it is and they don't want others to feel the same pain. On the opposite side a spoiler person will always be spoiled because they never had to work for anything. They only know happiness and getting what they want. It's the default mindset, there is no alternative.

[winkio]

So by your logic, the people that live life to the fullest are only those that have been to the brink of death?  The people that are the most generous are the people who have had nothing?

I'm still trying to wrap my head around my opinion on this, but I think that there doesn't actually need to be the opposite to have a strong presence of something.  Of course, your statements are correct in many cases Blizz, but there are enough exceptions to warrant an alternate explanation.  I think understanding is the key to strength.  Usually, experiencing the opposite of something increases your understanding, but there can be some cases where people completely understand something like kindness without experiencing a large amount of pain.

[Blizzard]

Well, if you are taught to be kind, you will be kind. I'm not saying that you exclusively have to had to go through hell to appreciate something good. But yeah, only those people who have faced death probably know the true value of life. Only those who have had nothing once know how much their generosity will help.

[winkio]

I'm saying that in some cases, other people can understand the true value of life without going to the brink of death, and those that have everything can understand how much their generosity will help.  Maybe it's through interaction, maybe it's through a dream, maybe it's through careful study, but I think people have the ability to actually understand these things in the same way as someone who has experienced the opposite.

[AliveDrive]

Someone's been reading Sun Tzu

Good book, I have yet to finish it.

I think that minimal loss is generally the best solution though for the sake of argument, I know there are cases where "Go big or Go home applies".

I think it has a lot to do with one's personality.

[Blizzard]

I'm saying that in some cases, other people can understand the true value of life without going to the brink of death, and those that have everything can understand how much their generosity will help.  Maybe it's through interaction, maybe it's through a dream, maybe it's through careful study, but I think people have the ability to actually understand these things in the same way as someone who has experienced the opposite.

I just agreed with you, why are you telling me this?

[winkio]

But yeah, only those people who have faced death probably know the true value of life. Only those who have had nothing once know how much their generosity will help.

Because I disagree with that statement.

[Blizzard]

I understand that one can value something a lot, I agree with that. But you can't value something as much as a person who has lost or almost lost that same something. Somebody who was never poor can be generous and compassionate, but if they were never poor, they will never be able to value their money as much as a person who once was. If you lost or almost lost something, this experience is simply way more powerful. If you have never experienced one extreme, you can never truly experience or appreciate the other extreme fully.

[The Niche]

I almost sterilized myself and almost lost the use of my leg when I tried to jump a spike fence. So now, I don't jump spike fences from my full height.

That's kind of relevant...ANYway, what I meant to say was, that I've gone between believing in both ideas involved. At the end of the day though, I've realised that the only absolute is the lack of absolutes. So nothing can apply to everything. The classic question, "if everybody else jumped off a cliff, would you?" is of course, based on the idea that you apply the same standard to everything. And is therefore completely wrong.

[winkio]

@Blizz: Experience is not the only method of learning.  I have yet to come up with a great example on this, but people can and do learn the true value of things through other means than experience.

@Niche: your idea that "the only absolute is the lack of absolutes. So nothing can apply to everything." is itself both an absolute and an idea that applies to everything.  Your own argument is irrational and invalid.  Please no more trolling.

[AliveDrive]

Einstein theory defeats Einstein theory.

[The Niche]

@Niche: your idea that "the only absolute is the lack of absolutes. So nothing can apply to everything." is itself both an absolute and an idea that applies to everything.  Your own argument is irrational and invalid.  Please no more trolling.

Hence why it's the only absolute. My point is that a theory will apply to some things and not to others. For example:

@Blizz: Experience is not the only method of learning.  I have yet to come up with a great example on this, but people can and do learn the true value of things through other means than experience.

You can learn the true value of things through means other than experience. But not all things. And then some things you can only learn through means other than experience.

[ForeverZer0]

I don't think Niche was trolling, in fact I agree with him. You own argument supports what he said. There is no singular rule that will be true in every context, and in every situation in live. It may be a paradox to say that the only absolute is that there are none, but it is very true, and I challenge  anyone to find any realistic situation where that doesn't hold true. There will always be at at least one exception or probability, no matter how small the odds, that will defeat your argument.

That is absolute, even though there is no such thing.

[winkio]

There will always be at at least one exception or probability, no matter how small the odds, that will defeat your argument.

Then there are exceptions to the exception rule, showing that there are actually theories with no exceptions.

My point on the matter is that yeah, we can't take everything as absolute, but then again, we aren't trying to, because none of us knows what absolute is.  The whole absolute discussion is irrelevant because we are making conscious generalizations.  So what I'm trying to say is that none of the nitpicking little arguments matter because we simply do not care about them at all.

[ForeverZer0]

I'm trying to decipher exactly what we are debating here. This is a circular argument when it comes to absolutes. By stating there is, you contradict yourself, by saying there isn't, your argument is defeated by "no absolutes" absolute.

We could debate this for 1,000 years and not have really any gotten anywhere. I agree with both arguments if that makes sense.

[winkio]

you are missing the point that the entire discussion Niche started is irrelevant to the rest of this thread.

[ForeverZer0]

What is the point then?

"Absolutes" is entirely relevant to what the original post was about, you are counter-pointing the existence of opposites to everything (I assume "everything" since this was not clarified). I realize the second part of your edited post may be not align as much with this argument, but I still fail to see the "debate" factor in any of this.

This is basically the same as someone asking you if the glass is half full or half empty, and you answer "it doesn't exist".

Again I ask, what exactly are we debating?