Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Semantics & Logic

No, I don’t think so. What’s the opposite of positive? Not-positive, ie. negative and neutral? What’s the opposite of conservative (in the American political sense)? Non-conservative, ie. liberal and moderate(&radical&anarchist&fascist…)?
What is the opposite of moral? Immoral or amoral?

A good action is moral. A bad action is immoral. An indifferent action is amoral.

So much for showing that the prefix “a” means the opposite of. And even if it did, we can modify the meaning of words.

In any binary system, such as (A U B), the negation of one (-A) leads to the confirmation of the other (B). Either a Democrat or a Republican will win the election (D U R), if the Democrat loses (-D), then the opposite is confirmed, the Republican won ( R ). In this sense, Democrat and Republican are opposites. However, to make atheism and theism a binary system, you need to make atheism be defined as not theism. In this sense, atheism is the opposite of theism, and in this sense, it is impossible for somebody to be neither an atheist nor a theist.

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