[Avodah] dinosaurs

[hankman]

RMB wrote:

Usually eilu va'eilu isn't about a question of truth, but of law. You
could have two valid rulings that contradict, each flowing from TSBP
following the proper rules of pesaq.

CM:

You seem to take solace in the fact that the rules of TSBP can lead to inconsistent pesak (but not inconsistent truth) under EvE. (BTW this seems to contradict your previous position vs R'nTK). Shifting the paradox from ultimate truth to Halacha does not put me any more at ease with the problem of understanding EvE. Halacha reflects the underlying truth so in principle nothing has really changed with inconsistent pesak (in cases with no middle ground such tamei or tahor, mamzer or not etc)

RMB wrote:

Someone who can only see shadows could see two very different
shadows of the same object. Both shadows accurately represent a mapping
of G-d's supernal truth to the limitations of human experience, even
though they contradict.

CM:

This does not help me much in understanding EvE either (with all due respect to the Maharal). First of all, you have now introduced a case that DOES have a middle ground, which here is the whole that neither A or B sees in its entirety. (eg. think f(x,y,z), but A only sees f(x,y,k) while B sees f(x,k',z)). But more to the point, EvE still leads to paradox because you now need to explain the reason for different perspective, why A saw only points "a" while B chose to see only points "b." If EvE tells us both are right in their choice of perspective, you have not answered anything.

RMB  wrote:

R' Tzadoq (Resisei Lailah #17) writes about how the law of contradiction
only exists bepo'al. When dealing in machashavah, a thought always
invites contemplation of its opposite. People believe contradictory
things all the time. 

CM:

Again, I am left without an answer I can be happy with. Shifting the discussion to the realm of machashava doesn't help. It still must be rationally consistent. 2+2=5 isn't OK just because it is in machashava. It is not just false when bepoal I try to stuff five pigeons into four cubbyholes, but false even in the abstract thought in my mind. Just because people sometimes have irrational thoughts doesn't make the thought any more correct. I may contemplate 2+2=5 but I will conclude (if I am rational) that 2+2=4.

RMB wrote:

Why invoke arcane physics when we can discuss halakhah in terms of the
roshem on people?

CM:

Sorry, it was just a metaphor. I liked R'nTK's expression "Schrodinger's Mamzer."

RMB wrote:

dialectics and antinomies ....  Kantian or Hegelian dialectics 

CM:

Now we are above my pay grade   I try to restrict myself to the 10,000 most common words in the dictionary and stay away from Hegel (I once sat in on the first few lectures in a course on Hegel and  understood nothing as I thought none (very little) of it made any sense to me.

RMB wrote:

That way, we can blame eilu va'eilu on the human
ability to entertain conflicting thoughts, to be ambivalent, to hold
dialectics and antinomies.

CM:

So you are saying EvE is not a sublime truth in Torah, but rather a reflection of human failing?

Kol Tuv

Chaim Manaster
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