Absolutes are absolutedly silly, the world comes in shades of grey

[rickymooston]

To save time, we often simplify the world into black and white. Often this is true for most cases, or "80%" true. Quite honestly, its a pain in the rare to have to qualify things for the minority of cases, so most people state the black and white general case, either not thinking about exception cases or assuming that other people will deal with the exception cases by themselves.

Taoists care about and communicate the existance to the ambiguity. They see the layers of the onion, they see the fractal and the philosophy cares about the fact that things are best not fully classified because of that.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/G_GBwuYuOOs&rel=0" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/G_GBwuYuOOs&rel=0</a> <--- Fractal. Another great analogy to the many layered way that the world really is, if one thinks about things enough.

There are many of these distinctions.

For example the trade off between sharing for the collective good (socialism) and greed based incentive (capitalism).

You can look at morality as a complex trade off between the interests/rights of the individual and the interests of a greater whole (his tribe, his country, humanity, lifekind, ...)

Gender is a fun example of this too. If you have a lot of shoes are you female? Or the converse?

Anyway, the thread is dedicated to that makes phrase, IT DEPENDS or the idea that the world comes in shades of grey.

[Drauthlin]

I will agree that there are far fewer absolutes in the world than we humans assign to things.

[rickymooston]

I will agree that there are far fewer absolutes in the world than we humans assign to things.

That's probably fair. Hard to think of distinctions that don't have confusing grey areas though. My rule might be applied to itself to prove it can't always be true. It becomes a paradox if its always true.