**Links to**: [[04 Concepts as pre-dictions]], [[Double consciousness]], [[Cognitive Dissonance]], [[Polycomputation]], [[Logic]], [[Kant]], [[Principle of Contradiction]], [[Paradox]], [[Paraconsistent logic]], [[Dialetheism]], [[Graham Priest]].   >But whereas nominal definitions (A = A, ‘a triangle has three angles’) are based on the necessary implication between subject and predicate (principles of identity and non-contradiction), such that truth is easily demonstrated, real definitions are contingent and their analysis is infinite or ‘virtual’. That is to say, whereas the laws of mathematics and logic are necessary, metaphysical possibility does not involve contradiction. After all, the proposition ‘Adam does not sin’ is not necessarily false; other possible worlds are conceivable in which a different Adam refrains from eating the apple. Outside the individual existence of substances, the paradisiacal predicate of non-sinning subsists and insists as a possible mode of existence without contradiction. It therefore obeys a different logic or reason than that of attribution. > >van Tuinen 2019, p. {missing}.   There are various things to say about contradiction. Quite literally, it is (or should be) something that does not **do** as it says.^[But this is only if we take a certain perspective on language, one that assumes a background neutrality of it being mostly descriptive, prescriptive and, in general: scriptive. See also [[Script]], [[Maladaptive scripts]], [[11 Post-Control Script-Societies]]. If we think of language as poetry, or even music, then contradiction—as the capacity for something to be something more/different than what “neutrally” appears at face value—becomes something rather generative. See also: [[Polycomputation]], [[Buccal polycomputing]].] It _says_ against itself: _contra_-diction. So, to say it rains _and_ it does not rain at the same time is often termed contradictory because, based on experience, whether it rains or not is often a matter of _yes_ or _no_.^[Even though we know of instances in which both are possible, such as when it’s sunny and only a few clouds are present. However, the fact that there’s *any* water falling down the sky at all usually takes hierarchical representational precedence over what is interpreted, and thus even when both (rain and not rain) are happening, the fact that there is water is more salient, and thus can lead us to the interpretation that it is, in fact, raining, even if it’s in a rather unusual presentation.] Similarly, in terms of the processes that lead to outcomes in (logical) programs: a cut must be made, a path must be forked, a state must be arrived at. **Proceeding** (i.e., allowing for something to be/come a process, for something to *lead* to an outcome) implies the fact that at many points^[Though by no means at *all* points, see also [[Explosion]].] things will be Boolean. Even if this forking is as simple as: let X exist, or *not*. In terms of “holding” two thoughts at the same time (e.g., I am a person and I am also possibly the dream of an unknown creature), contradiction is the differential operation that leads to thought (which we frame in a predictive fashion) in general. Comparative, contrastive thoughts are what is needed for projection and speculation (i.e., the fundamentally predictive characteristics of whatever it is we term cognition). This entry needs a lot more: #todo. %% _________ _Related to:_ [[Foundations of Philosophy]] (EUR course). [[Set theory]], for example, has controlled consequences for contradiction. [[Homotopy Type Theory]] resolves this in a generative, perspectival way. %% ### Footnotes