… Where I am, most people sit on their balcony and
watch the sailboats go by. I like to do that too, although having a book next
to me does keep me from wondering when the next sailboat will fill its sails
toward the harbor of Baltimore.
So, this morning I picked up a book I had read
before. It was about uncertainty and truth. To be honest, I was not sure why I
decided to read it again.
… The wind was just right, and the page I opened had
a most telling example about ambient misconceptions and uncertainty. It read:
“While most of us believe that the sea “smells
of sea” because of iodine in the sea weeds, the actual odor molecule is
dimethylsulfide, DMS. “
Hmm, somehow that is not as romantic as iodine which
I thought I smelled from the ocean under my balcony.
Then, I found the following statement about a certain
law of contradiction-- quite obvious yet sometimes ignored:
”The
Law of Contradiction tells us that a proposition cannot be both true and false.”
… I put the book down, waited for another sailboat, and
then wanted to think of a simple example in daily life to represent this law.
And I recalled a picture I took in San Francisco.
Voila! This man, in his honesty, had made it clear, with no uncertainty, what
his truth was!
I did not need to read that book again.
May 17, 2014
© Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014
I like his (multipurpose) seat.
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