Welcome to the Club of Liars!
It just hit my liar’s forehead that the phrase “To err is human” is an example for a variation of the liar’s paradox. But it’s true, isn’t it? ;-)
Maybe, the trick here is that we have already stopped seeing ourselves as humans. Erringly. Anyway, I should write it on my forehead. Then, at least others can read it.
You know, bloggers are humans, too. Most of them. Most of the time.
Don’t even mention dichotomies!
Those who speak of dichotomies are none but liars.
Forgive them their dichotomies for they know not what they do.
Concluding my recent praise of Stefan Böschen’s Praise The Paradox I wrote
He was lucky nobody listened to him.
Here are 2 excerpts from the transcription of an audio recording of the conferences final discussion:
To begin with, Stefan fosters his praise of paradox by stating that part and counterpart complement each other. He explains that thinking of any thing means to distinguish the thing from what it is not, its opposite. He then underlines the importance of this concept with a short reference to life’s essential interplay of order and chaos.
The next speaker replies:
What I am still missing is consciousness.
And he continues to tell a story of the demise of corner shops, small groceries and merchants, and how we are all involved.
At a second occasion, Stefan Böschen reinforces his praise of the paradox. He refers to its ambivalence and its inevitability. Finally, he reminds us to be sensitive to unintended side-effects of decisiveness and unambiguity, and that this sensibility should be one of the objectives of any educational system.
The next speaker (by the way, not the same) replies:
This, simply, is not enough.
He says, he misses analysis and perspective. And he concludes with “this will lead us nowhere”, cuts himself, and continues to reply to someone else.
This is about Stefan Böschen, because it is not. I know Stefan because I do not. You know, I am lying about him because I do. And, he does too.
It’s been my pleasure to meet Stefan Böschen at the conference on Future and Ignorance where he gave an interesting talk about politics of knowledge. Stefan is an adept of self-contradiction. Probably, we were naturally attracted by each other and therefore we found ourselves in a sunny morning session playing ping-pong with the paradox of hedonism. In other words, we were laughing our heads off.
At the conference’s concluding discussion, though, Stefan repeatedly said three words: Praise the paradox.
Sincerely. I smiled. This was the essence because it was not. Like when you pursue the paradox its magic is lost. The gospel’s message is the joy of singing.
Praise the paradox.
Because it is one. Stefan said he’d sing it, yet it’s no cant. His utterance is no praise for praise’ sake, no praise of praise. It’s a courageous expression of an insight. Seeing the paradox at the bottom of life’s heart. The frugal philosopher saying No to himself with a content smile. Playful like an innocent dog, the yet unnamed cynic.
Praise the paradox.
Bald words. Raising their voices against themselves, leaving us with bare bones of all of life’s choices. Naked ideas that cannot but provoke which is why they do not.
Says he who still questions their affordability. Still with a smile on his face.
Stefan’s praise of para-dox, this concept that infamously contra-dicts anything and everything within reach, me, you, him- and itself, denies the distinction of Good and Bad, right and wrong, knowledge and ignorance. Praise of paradox denies denial.
In the end, this is responsibility.
God, he was lucky nobody listened to him.
Well, nobody but a liar.
I prefer openness about one’s own ignorance above that about others.
Ich ziehe die Offenheit über das eigene Nichtwissen der Offenheit über das
Nichtwissen anderer vor.
An interesting conference about Future and Ignorance (“Zeit der Zukunft, Über den Umgang mit Nichtwissen“) took place and time from April 28th to April 30th, 2006.
People from many completely different fields of activity have met to discuss implications of what we do not know, of the unknown, of ignorance, and — as I tend to call it — of the not-known.
Talks were given e.g. by a historian, by philosophers, sociologists, epistemologists, and theologians, by an expert of modeling, and someone from an insurance company; all talking about diverse aspects of what we know, and what we do not know, and what we cannot know.
Yet, not one of them has defined knowledge, let alone not knowing or ignorance.
You! Yes you. You are a typical disfinist. — I mean, of course, one has to distinguish finite and infinite disfinism, self-referent and intentional disfinism. Moreover, we should also investigate spatial and temporal aspects of disfinism. But, let me tell you once again, your disfinism is stunning.
High art lying.
