some questions

[SHATOUSHKA]

is it necessary to experience both opposing
forces in order to appreciate one side?

this may seem obvious. but my question is
a bit more complex.

for example:

is it necessary to experience cold in order
to appreciate heat? or is this some layered
value placed on reason? if we assume that
our reason justifies our appreciation...
can't we also assume that if we were to
never experience cold, that we -- through
deduction/reason -- could understand what
'loss of heat' means?

i've never lost my life... but i can reason
what the loss of it is in comparison to
living.

so is it necessary to experience the opposite
of X in order to appreciate/understand one
side?

[TastinGood]

of course you can experience a specific force, as you put it, without having experienced the direct opposite to that force.

however you may just not register completely what you are indeed experiencing.

it reminds me of a line from a great movie i once saw....

"How can you taste the sweet without ever tasting the sour?"

"The sweet's not as sweet without the sour."

[diluted]

i think what you are trying to determine is the depth of experience and appreciation as tg said

The sweet's not as sweet without the sour

so i think you can full experience something without experiencing the opposite but you will not have such an in depth appreciation for it. However having said this some things can be appreciated fully without ever experiencing it ie your explanation of life vs death

how about this as an example LOVE superficial as it may seem to some (perhaps you guys im not sure how you view it) is something that can be fully apprecitated without ever knowing the opposite which would be hatred ive been able to fully appreciate love though ive never had full blown hatred however this is something that is totally personal and can be defined so differently by each indiviual that it is hard to take reasoning out of it so moving to something more simple like hot and cold is totally different in my opinion because the parameters of deffinition are so much more stringent ie hot is hot and cold is cold there is a point where everyone can agree that is cold and that is hot there is not however those same points in love, life or death


so basically what im saying is it is a matter of perception and perception may or may not change based on future experience ie the perception of hot may not change once one has experienced cold though it is possible that it will change (the perception) so when all is said and done this question can only be answered on a individual basis in my opinion and with comparable parameters so it is possible to either fully or nt fully appreciate an experience such as hot without experiencing its direct opposite

[zelazny]

Ehm, i'd just like to sneak in and say that opposites 'are' not opposites, but are merely viewed that way. Hate and love are considered opposite in some way, but they are still two emotions on themselves, just like sweet and sour are considered opposite because they differ most from eachother but they are still both different tastes.

In the same way to live is something else than death, but the whole view of oppositeness is probably the result of the human .eeh.. perception.
I'll have to dig in my gestallt, but i think there was a name for this sort of percepting.

[zelazny]

I guess what i'm trying to say is that there are no opposites, so therefore it's silly to say that you cannot know one thing before you know it's opposite.

You might get a different perspective, by being at a completely different viewing point (the "opposite") , but that doesn't tie that viewing point to the original.

Or : Every other view adds to the getting to know of something. There is no 'complete' knowing, but there is a growing of your array of experiences with this thing.

<font color="#6699ff" size="1">[ August 09, 2003 12:21 AM: Message edited by: zelazny ]</font>

[SHATOUSHKA]

my point to this thread was the fact that everyone
seems content on setting some conventional
value on meeting BOTH extremes....

i'm not sure why this is

[zelazny]

The more extreme the other viewpoint, the wider your view on the subject?
You do get to know something better by watching it from another viewpoint, and if you extremely change it, your perception of the object will become.. 'wider' i guess.
And i can imagine how one is glad of this widened perception and connects it to the viewpoint.

[Alex]

My favorite line of all time comes from Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

"If the pleasure remains, does it remain a pleasure?"

I think, no.