The Paradox of Superficial Resemblance
You are holding two chocolate eggs. One is silver with purple dots, the other is purple with silver dots. There is a paradox: Are they superficially the same or superficially different?
You may be quick to choose the second option, since we know that both eggs contain chocolate, making them similar, and their differences superficial. But say for whatever reason you couldn't eat the chocolate, you didn't ever eat it. For the purposes of knowledge it is more important to determine that the eggs are seperate, and not identical.
Maybe one egg is yours and one is someone else's. If one of them were rotten you would want to know if it was yours. The difference wouldn't be so superficial then. In that case we would say that they are superficially the same--the similar colors and assumed contents create a resemblance.
Yet so long as we don't know exactly what's in them--so long as one might differ from the other in ways we cannot immediately determine-- there's a paradox of superficial resemblance--they may be either superficially different, or superficially the same, according to the same similarity.
Return to Essays Main
The preceding, as well as all other parts of Nathan's Philosophy and Writing are pending copyright (c) 2006, Nathan Coppedge
Main Page
Essays Main
* Conc. & Abs.
* Iterative Philos.
* Unity Intro
* Imperfection
* Occam Dispute
* Nominal Mech.
* Res. Paradox
* Metamorphosis
* Essent. Principa
* Meta-Extension
* Meta Precis
* Meta Wrinkles
* Relevantism
* Relative Dispute
* Symbolism
* Wisdom Walks
* Pragma Temp.
* World consists
* Program. Antith
* Body Real Estate
* Four Corners
* Schizo def
* Moral 2d
* Eating Acrobats
* Fork Analogy
* Sloppy Thinking
Book of Indra
Unity Philosophy
Trans Ethics
On Systems
About Writing
Quotes & Slants
Intellectualia