| The PERF Manifesto claims that choice is unavoidable because of the way people use language. What does that mean? A word can have an ambiguous meaning. The word bank can mean either the edge of a river or a place to put your money in. Even when you know you're talking about a place to put your money in, the word bank could refer to Bank of America, Wells Fargo, or any other similar institution. It could be extended to include institutions which are not so similar, such as credit unions. However, there are a lot of things the word bank does not mean. It does not mean green, or apple, or speak. In fact, there are infinitely many things which the word bank does not mean. This is true for every word in every language. No word can mean everything. No word can mean just anything. It must mean something -- an ambiguous something, usually, but still something. Not everything. Not just anything. This is a limit on language. Without this limit, language wouldn't work. Words that mean everything, or just anything, are useless. Limits are required for meaning. Meaning requires limits. The important thing about the meanings of words is that people choose them. People choose what words mean. That means they choose the limits that dominate their thinking, because we all use words to think. |
| The law of contradiction is one of the most basic tools of logic. It says that you can't have X and not X at the same time. The PERF manifesto claims that this constitutes a definite limit to what people can know. We say this limit is definite because it is defined. The word optimist includes the idea of the word pessimist, because the optimist is defined to oppose the pessimist. The word pessimist includes the idea of the word optimist, because the pessimist is defined to oppose the optimist. People choose what words mean. This creates limits. Definition is an act of choice. Definitions represent limits. Because language is useless without definitions and limits, the People's Entropy Research Front claims that choice is unavoidable. Many things are known by their opposites. Many things are defined to oppose. That is what makes many concepts intelligible, because it limits their meaning. Limits to meanings are unavoidable. However, no particular limit is unavoidable. Defining words is unavoidable. However, no particular definition is unavoidable. The law of contradition is a useful tool in setting unavoidable limits to our thinking. However, many people behave as though it were the only valid limit to thinking. Many people behave as though the law of contradiciton were unavoidable itself. This is what the PERF manifesto calls the danger of dichotomies. Applying the law of contradiction often results in the creation of a dichotomy - a division in two parts. Hot and cold, good and evil, short and tall are all examples of dichotomies. With simple dichotomies, it's easy to see that they're not necessary definitions, just useful ones. But more complex dichotomies can make it appear as though no other definition were possible, and that is never the case. The definitions created by the law of contradition may often be the most useful definitions for a given context, but they are never the only possible definitions. There are always more than two choices. In fact, there are always as many choices as there are people to choose. Learning to see beyond the definitions created by the law of contradiction is a step toward creating new limits for your own thinking. It's a step toward genuinely independent thought and creative fulfillment. |
| The Law of Contradiction |
| Intellectual Anarchy 101 |
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