More than true and false
When I find a contradiction in an argument, I feel the rush of being able to deliver a knock out. But, maybe that's overly simplistic. In Buddhist philosophy, statements can be more than just true or false. They can be:
- Always true
- Always false
- True and false
- Neither true nor false
The programmer in me has a visceral reaction against 3 and 4 because they literally don't compute. But, I'm familiar with paradoxes and the uncertainty principle. So, intuitively I know that my logic system is insufficiently descriptive. For example:
This statement is false.
If the statement is true, then it's actually false. But, if it's false, then it's actually true. So, while I understand that statements can be both true and false at the same time, I'm lost when asked how to think about them.