Re: Qualitative vs. Quantitative Object Context Change & Dialectics

From: Universe (universe_at_tAkEcovadOuT.net)
Date: 03/02/04 

Date: Tue, 2 Mar 2004 00:42:20 -0500

[Enhanced Repost]

Aristotle defined a syllogism as “discourse in which, certain things being
stated
something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being
so.”

Given that Aristotle, its "papa", gives contradiction a prominent place in
Formal
Logic, which overall mainly rest upon thinking that places hard and fast
lines
between categories and has little place for shades of gray it should not be
a
surprise that the extension of, the next phase beyond, Formal Logic,
Dialectical
Logic, revolves around contradiction.

Formal Logic is an abstract summary, a generalization, of an important way
that
objects interact in the real world.

But as we all know objects interact and involved precisely with shades of
gray and
malleable, non-fixed boundaries as objects come into being, collaborate and
even
struggle against other objects as they perform various life roles, and then
ultimately
pass away, transforming into new and other vibrant role responsible objects.

Dialectics being a superset of Formal Logic investigates and summarizes how
"shades
of gray" affect objects. Dialectics doesn't just touch on, but is anchored
in the
contradictory interaction of objects that Aristotle speaks of.

For "thoroughness", the complete paragraph that mentions the above by
Aristotle
is given:

"Aristotle defined a syllogism as 'discourse in which, certain things being
stated
something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being
so.'
(From The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation, ed.
Jonathan Barnes, 1984, by permission of Oxford University Press.) But in
practice he confined the term to arguments containing two premises and a
conclusion, each of which is a categorical proposition. The subject and
predicate
of the conclusion each occur in one of the premises, together with a third
term
(the middle) that is found in both premises but not in the conclusion. A
syllogism
thus argues that because a and g are related in certain ways to b (the
middle) in
the premises, they are related in a certain way to one another in the
conclusion."

Often I state:
"Strategically (vs. tactically) Don’t Combine 2 Basic Oppositions Into 1"
"Strategically Split 1 (seeming unity of opposites) into 2 (poles)"

A dialectic is where 2 opposing objects form a union. Often a
dialectic is found to constitute or motor the essence of another
object. It is the interaction of the opposite objects in a specific
set of conditions - a specific context - that gives the object they
are the center of its contextual features and characteristics. When
there is great enough change of the context the object the dialectic
lives in, the nature of the interaction of the dialectic’s 2 opposites
typically changes enough to cause a qualitative change in the features
and the characteristics of the object that the dialectic drives.

Key aspects of a dialectic that cause change when the context of the
object they dialectic resides in, changes are:
    ~ the manner in which the 2 opposites interpenetrate one another
        [crudely just as each side of the I Ching symbol has a circle within
it of the opposite color]
    ~ the manner and conditions whereby the opposites undergo mathematical
like identity; i.e. how and in what given contexts the opposites
switch, or exchange role responsibilities
        a) at any instant 2 opposites of a dialectic may exchange from 1 to
all roles
        b) key roles for the opposites are:
            1) which plays the leading role
            2) which plays the engaging role
            3) which plays the parametrizing (constraining) role
        c) the Leading<=>Parametric* is a significant role responsibility
opposition
        d) the Engaging<=>Parametric is a significant role responsibility
opposition
            the manner and conditions which cause the opposites to come into
overall conflict
            the manner and conditions which cause the opposites to have
overall unity or peace between them the manner and
conditions which cause one opposite to overcome and "eat" the
other opposite.
        e) this may lead to a new dialectic with totally new opposites
        f) this may lead to a new dialectic where the victorious opposite
forms a new
            dialectic with some other opposite the manner and conditions
whereby the object the dialectic resides in becomes its
opposite in terms of its nature, features and characteristics
            the manner and conditions which cause the dialectic to generate
small quantitative changes in the nature, features and
characteristics of the object in which it resides the manner
and conditions which cause the dialectic to generate large qualitative
changes in the nature, features and characteristics of the
object in which it resides

* ‘<=>’ means “forms a dialectic