Quotes About Paradox

1. We can say it is waves. 2. We can say it is particles. 3. We can say it is both waves and particles, i.e. either of the first two will serve, at different times. 4. We can say It is neither waves nor particles, i.e. the models are our metaphors; the Etic non-verbal event remains — unspeakable.

This, of course, is the traditional Buddhist logic — It is X, it is not-X, it is both X and not-X, it is neither X nor not-X

In Buddhist Logic, then: Social fields are real. Social fields are not real. Social fields are both real and not-real. Social fields are neither real nor not-real.

It was mass hallucination. It was not mass hallucination. It was both mass hallucination and not mass hallucination. It was neither mass hallucination nor not mass hallucination.

Somehow, to me at least, either of those logics seem to fit the enigmas of our existence, here in the cock-eyed room of primate perceptor organs, better than Aristotelian yes/no choices. Of course, if after long analysis, some experiences can finally be reduced to an Aristotelian choice, that is convenient. But starting from the Aristotelian either/or may be rather constricting or strangulating.

Indeed, Lao-Tse's famous paradox, The largest is within the smallest only begins to make sense to an Occidental after she or he has understood what non-local information means in modern physics.

We never find out how many of the people "framed" by Quinlan actually committed the crimes for which he framed them — just as we never find out the definite position of a quantum particle, or how many Picassos we should really call Elmyrs. Post-modernism does not result from whim, but from growing evidence that we simply do not live in an Aristotelian true/false universe. As UMMO says, we live with a middle (or muddle) excluded by Aristotle.

Travel backwards in time? I don't see any future in it.

There is no such uncertainty as a sure thing.

The cramped harsh world he portrays is a paradoxically eloquent assertion of the importance of what is so strikingly absent from it: small acts of kindness.

In a sense, omnipotence is a form of impotence.

I am for the artist, who is more alone than he looks. I am not for the reformer, who is always active but usually has nothing to give. The real thing that you do is a lonely thing. And remember the paradox that you become more social in order that you may become more of an individual.

little about your work, tease and titillate with alluring, even contradictory comments, then stand back and let others try to make sense of it all.

It is the irony of understanding that the more you know the less you comprehend.

It is the paradox of truly perceiving that the more you do the less effective you are, and the more you hide the more you show.

The rope that pulls you from the flood can become the noose around your neck.

La corda che ti salva dall'inondazione può diventare un cappio attorno al collo.

Ask me what you wish; just do not ask me for reasons.

It is now my intention to draw out from the story of Abraham the dialectical consequences inherent in it, expressing them in the form of problemata , in order to see what a tremendous paradox faith is, a paradox which is capable of transforming a murder into a holy act well-pleasing to God, a paradox which gives Isaac back to Abraham, which no thought can master, because faith begins precisely there where thinking leaves off.

I asked, looking at the jukebox, now totally out of place, like a British police call box on the deck of the Titanic.

The command to be free is a double bind

I am a god and I am not a god. Either way, you are my creatures. I keep you alive. Inside I am hot beyond all telling, and yet my outside is even hotter. At my touch you burn, though I spin outside the sky. As I breathe my big slow breaths, you freeze and burn, freeze and burn. Someday I will eat you. For now, I feed you. Beware my regard. Never look at me.

Experimentation had made it clear that large-scale collective quantum phenomena were happening in every brain; there existed in the brain both global quantum coherence, and quantum entanglement between the various electrical states of the microtubules; and this meant that all the counterintuitive phenomena and sheer paradox of quantum reality were an integral part of consciousness.

It can be nice and still be a prison.