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ivesjz
Banging On A Bit
75 Posts |
 Posted - 20/12/2005 : 12:08:15
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I've just spotted the quotation Paddy uses for his signiture:
"Death is more Universal than life. Everyone dies but not everyone lives",
and it got me thinking.
It's an empirical truth that everybody dies (but it's not a conceptual or analytical truth insofar as it is falsifiable), but can it be true that 'not everyone lives'?
It depends on the scope of 'everyone'. It seems that to be a member of the group 'everyone' one must first be 'someone' (a person), that is one needs to be alive - to at least have been conceived.
However, if a 'person' is not alive - if a 'person' has never been born - then there is no person to speak of.
Therefore, it is a necesary requirement to be member of the group 'everyone', that one is alive. This means that the statement, 'not everyone lives' is an analytical falsehood, akin to saying 'not all triangles have three sides'.
So, it is actually the case that 'everyone' does live, because if one is a member of the group 'everyone', it is an analytical truth that one must also be alive.
You can argue against this by establishing that personhood precedes life (for argument's sake, let's say conception) - which I think is in fact argued by the Mormon Church...
Merry Christmas!
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"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action
arises by itself?"
Lao Tzu (Dao De Ching)
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RichL
Old Hand
15 Posts |
Posted - 20/12/2005 : 15:26:15
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I Wish to argue...
triangles only have 2 sides..
inside and outside !!
Bar Humbug to one and all.
"the pointy end goes in the other guy" |
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Antonik
Old Hand
16 Posts |
Posted - 12/02/2006 : 22:35:24
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I think that you are looking at the quote in the wrong way. You seem to be taking the emphasis on 'everyone' where as i see the emphasis on 'lives'. If you die then as you said you have been alive but what i think the quote is going on about is what have you done with your life. To be alive you merely need to eat and breathe but then you could say that that is just surivial. To live you need to expand your horzions and reach your potential. In that case then not everybody lives but everyone survives - and dies.
"For that which once existed is no more, and that which was not has come to be; and so the whole round of motion is gone through again." Ovid, Metamorphoses |
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ivesjz
Banging On A Bit
75 Posts |
 Posted - 13/02/2006 : 09:00:32
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Nice Mich! I think you're absolutely right 
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"Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action
arises by itself?"
Lao Tzu (Dao De Ching)
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Paddy's signiture quotation
