Late Night Ideas

[Unome]

I tend to realize my best and most insightful ideas at night, as do most other people.

So this is the thread for it! Post your late night ideas here:

[Hithaeglir]

I'm quite the opposite.I'm mostly productive in the morning,after a good night sleep.

[Dictator]

Hire a stunt double to do the boring things.

[Unome]

Here's a late-night idea:

Opposites do attract, but not both ways…

Tonight I was thinking about how people claim that "opposites attract". Well, the answer is yes and no. Because opposition implies an imbalance between two people. For example, one person is strong, another weak, one person rich, another poor, one person intelligent, another stupid. Can we then say that weakness is attracted to strength, poverty attracted to wealth, and stupidity attracted to intelligence? It's not entirely true. Because attraction needs context. Is it a sexual attraction between man and woman? Is it platonic attraction between two males or two females, friendship? Is it a difference of age, young and old? In terms of sexual attraction, it cannot be true that both a weak person will be attracted to a strong person, or vice-versa that a strong person will be attracted to a weak person. Do you see the problem?

Because that which is 'better' (superior) is not attracted to the inferior quality. Strength is not attracted to weakness, nor wealth to poverty, nor intelligence to stupidity. Instead opposition of traits leads people to find compensations of other traits. For example, let's say an ugly man was attracted to a beautiful woman, or an ugly woman was attracted to a beautiful man. There is attraction one way through opposition, not both ways. So what opposition truly does, is force the inferior quality to compensate and bring a different value to the relationship. For example, if a person is ugly, then s/he must compensate with strength, wealth, or intelligence.

So opposites attract, but only through the compensation of other traits. Context reveals this observation. What opposition does, and opposite types of people, is allow two different people to compensate for their own strengths and weaknesses among each-other.

For example, let's say a guy and girl are attracted to each other. One is stupid and weak, but wealthy and beautiful. The other is intelligent and strong, but poor and ugly. This would allow the pair, together, to compensate for all strengths and weaknesses. And this is what is truly meant by "opposite attract". It does not imply that a person who is only stupid, poor, weak, and ugly is going to have any significant interaction with somebody who has all of the best traits, intelligent, rich, strong, beautiful, etc.

So "opposites attract" really means "opposites force compensation".


Not only is this true for humans, animals, and sexual attraction… but it also maybe true physically and chemically as well.

[Unome]

Speaking the truth is never a crime but;
Yelling the truth is always the most unforgivable crime of all.

[Unome]

Men are creatures of Need.
Women are creatures of Desire.

You need to eat.
But you want to eat steak or ice cream.
You do not want to eat stale noodles or moldy bread.

Need is a measure of quantity.
Desire is a measure of quality.

[Darth Revan]

So "opposites attract" really means "opposites force compensation".


Not only is this true for humans, animals, and sexual attraction… but it also maybe true physically and chemically as well.

Incorrect generalization. You are falling prey to a well known mistake: Using language to build your ideas.

Human tongues are more often than not, incomplete and lacking in terms of clarity, complexity and long term continuity. This happens here with the word opposite.
What you understand with opposite in your paragraph is merely adjectival. The sense of the sentence can also however, understand opposite in a contextual manner, which is then constructive.

Opposites attract each other because qualities, resources and capacities in the universe never exist in the same place and moment at once. Instead, if one is found in a particular circumstance, it is likely that other one will be absent. A complete approach will find what is best in each case, and know how to use it.

What you're describing is simply an anecdotal extrapolation of the sempiternal desire by those bereft of qualities, to be the equals of those that do possess them.

In other words:
What can truly 'oppose' a strong man, is not a weak man. It is another strong man with a different set of principles and methods.


That is the contextual reading of opposite that you need to use for this sentence.

Adjectival understanding, like you correctly pointed out in your paragraph, simply leads to a non-sensical clash that produces little other than reaffirming what was already known: It is better to be strong than weak, it is better to be free than enslaved, it is better to be physically appealing than repulsing. So forth.

[Unome]

I believe that context was addressed when differentiating the numerous types of opposing qualities of different things or people.

It is not enough to say that "hot is opposite of cold, cold opposite of hot" etc. when applying the idea of opposition/opposites to something like… attraction or sexual attraction.

As mentioned, in terms of sexual attraction, what is attractive is the means of compensation that a male has or does, that a female has or does not. And vice-versa, females compensate their own weaknesses in ways that males do not. It is through these categorically different compensations that the real "Attraction" occurs.

That attraction is not necessarily a matter of opposition or opposite, but, something categorically different.


For example, you would not say that green beans are the opposite of snowflakes, nor are they complimentary.

[Darth Revan]

, what is attractive is the means of compensation that a male has or does, that a female has or does not. And vice-versa, females compensate their own weaknesses in ways that males do not. It is through these categorically different compensations that the real "Attraction" occurs.

That attraction is not necessarily a matter of opposition or opposite, but, something categorically different.

We are in agreement.

Opposition can however occasionally be a real vector of benefit. Suppose a passionate, yet prone to emotional episodes person, meets an uninspiring, yet calculating, person. Theoretically opposed, yet using both of them to compensate for each other's shortcomings, is certainly the best course of action.

But you are correct now regardless.

A modulated way to formulate it would be like this:

Complementary attraction hapens horizontally, between different virtues and qualities (e.g the quick witted and the resolute), and not vertically, between different levels of the same quality (e.g the 'beautiful', and the 'ugly' in terms of appearance and appeal).

[Darth Revan]

Make sure those around you are strong and efficient, not because of empathy or solidarity, but because an useful instrument will always come in handy when least expected