Aug 21, 2005 20:08
I have been thinking a lot lately of the concept of opposites. If you are an old Star Trek fan you may remember a few episodes where Kirk or Spock changed places with their parallel universe “evil opposites”? The point of these shows is that Kirk’s opposite comes into our universe, and just as good as Kirk is- this guy is bad. Therefore he's Kirks “opposite”.
So I was thinking about what my opposite would be like- and my wife’s and some of my friends and so on- until I came to the conclusion that it’s not possible for anything that exists to have a true opposite. The principle part of that phase is in “existence”. The primary attribute - the first and most important part of anything that exists - is its existence itself. Therefore its opposite principle would start with nonexistence. Richard exists/ Richard does not exist. If this is the case, which I am sure it is, it doesn’t exist- therefore there is no such thing as true opposites when speaking about things that truly exist.
So getting back to Kirk’s opposite- maybe there might actually be a universe where there is a Kirk that is a great actor, but that wouldn’t be an opposite - just a fresh change.