Do you like contradictions?

What the word “contradictions” is associated with? Something negative, correct? Oxford Thesaurus lists the following synonyms for contradiction: conflict, clash, disagreement, opposition, inconsistency, mismatch, and variance.

It used to have a negative connotation for me too. But later it evolved due to my activity as a scientist. In the science, as you know, a contradiction resolution is the primary activity: a contradiction between theory and experiment, between different theories, between different experimental results – all have to be resolved, and each resolution brings new results and discoveries. That is why my attitude to contradictions began to change – from straight avoidance to actively seeking and resolution.

There is one exception though. There is a contradiction, where the solution is given, and there is nothing to dwell and ponder over. I mean male-female relations. The solution is: man is always wrong. It is just given. There is nothing to resolve. Men, don’t waste your time. It will be only worse.

Contradiction identification is instrumental in science, in engineering – in any activity that requires decision making for that matter – buying a car (I want to drive a new Mercedes, but can afford a used … very used Corolla), doing home improvement project (utility vs. beauty, utility vs. price), investing money (higher rewards come with higher risk only).

The contradiction resolution can be helpful not only for decision making. Any other activity can benefit from it too. For example, arts yield more pleasure when one discovers an underlying structure based on the clash and balance of opposites.

Or, let us consider parent-child relations. What if your son or daughter contradicts you? What if your son or daughter never contradicts you? What do you prefer?

On one hand, we want our children to be good citizens – to behave, to conform. On another hand, we want them to stand out, to change the world for better, to be creative (and eventually move out of our house). Balancing these two is a problem in its own rights. But we complicate the matter even more by telling children only one – “correct” – way to do things, without corresponding acknowledgment of many alternative ways of life. We set up a trap for our children by telling them that the world is free from contradictions.

But wait a minute. Is not it true? Philosophy states (Ayn Rand coined this phrase): “Contradictions do not exist. Whenever you think you are facing a contradiction, check your premises.” Intuitively, we understand it quite well. We need to adjust our world model in the light of the new facts. Contradictions do exist… between our world model and the world itself. So to say, “between our ears.”

But the child does not know it. So, what can he or she do when a contradiction shows up? If my father is correct, then the fact I see, feel, and touch does not exist. Am I crazy? Or … maybe … my father … was … wrong?! (I am not talking about a teenager here, who is always confident and knows definitely who is correct.) By teaching a child only one – correct – side of the story, we inevitably set him up to face a very difficult problem. The “funny” thing is that we do it for just opposite motivation: to make his life easier. The child follows us and – bang! – the trap springs.

Unable to find an immediate solution, our child postpones it, adds the contradiction to their world model, and carries on. Then they see another contradiction and add it too … then another one … and we end up as we are – people who navigate in the world based on strangely twisted models filled with contradictions. Should we then be surprised by observing underachievement in ourselves and in our children?

As we grow, we manage to excuse our lack of success and to lower our expectations. Is not it easier to admit that people are different in abilities and be done with it?

Lucky we, we have the ability to correct our world models, pull those contradictions from the dusty corners and resolve them, if we want. But why to keep them there in the first place? That’s how I am trying to live now – by actively resolving contradiction at the point of their origin. And, when it happens, I inevitably enjoy many benefits.

I have read it somewhere, and I like this phrase very much: “An exclamation that indicates a great discovery is not ‘Eureka!’, but ‘Oh! That’s funny!’” All great discoveries came from some kind of contradiction resolution. Read, what great inventors and great thinkers say about it.

Oscar Wilde (Phrases And Philosophies For The Use Of The Young, 1894): “The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.”

King of Denmark, Frederick IX announced that he was conferring the Order of the Elephant on Bohr. This award was normally awarded only to royalty and heads of state (the only other Danish scientist who received that honor was Tycho Brahe, in 1578). Members of the Order of the Elephant have their coats-of-arms displayed on a wall-of-fame at Frederiksborg Castle. Since Niels Bohr did not have a coat-of-arms, he designed one himself around the Tai-Chi (yin-yang symbol) and a motto in Latin: “Contraria sunt complementa” (“Opposites are complementary”).

And here what Tristan Tzara writes about Dadaism – the great art movement of the beginning of the twentieth century: “Freedom: Dada Dada Dada, a roaring of tense colors, an interlacing of opposites and of all contradictions, grotesques, inconsistencies: LIFE”

Contradictions do not exist, but we encounter them every day. They beg us for resolution. They are drivers of our creativity. They are lighthouses that navigate us to great discoveries.

I cannot say that I like contradictions every time I encounter one. But I love when their resolution brings me the joy of discovery.

Talking about contradictions…