This is Alpha, the first-born, when he was 2YO.
This is Beta, the second-born, when he was about 2YO.
This is Gamma, the third-born, when he was about 18MO.
Opposite Day
Jan
25
2012
“Today is opposite day!”
That’s what Alpha told me a while back.
I forget to what he was responding. Whatever it was, he said something and then said it was opposite day, in order to let me know that his answer was the opposite of what he said. I’m sure he heard that somewhere at school, because I know we had never used that phrase here before that point.
I decided to use his declaration as a teaching point, both in logic and in truth. “Truth” being to mean what you say and “logic” being to have your words make sense.
The truth part of the lesson is obvious, and I didn’t dwell on that. Mainly because that wasn’t the fun part. The fun part was the logic part.
“If today really is Opposite Day, then what you said is false, which means that today is not opposite day,” I countered. I then went on to explain that opposite day can never happen. Or, more specifically, if a day really were opposite day, you could never tell anyone.
The phrase “today is opposite day” is always false.
- If it were opposite day, saying “today is opposite day” would mean that it is not opposite day.
- If it were not opposite day, then the statement is false right off the bat.
And the phrase “today is not opposite day” is always true.
- If it were opposite day, you would have to say “today is not opposite day” to convey that information.
- If it were not opposite day, then the statement is true right off the bat.
So if the only phrase that is ever correct is “today is not opposite day”, how can you tell the difference between a normal day and opposite day?
According to the internet, most people seem to think that January 25th is National Opposite Day. However, that makes no sense. My vote is for 12/21. Although 11/11 would qualify, it isn’t as obvious and it is already taken, as far as national days go.
Maybe, if those 1/25 guys as too entrenched for opposite day, I could start lobbying for 12/21 to be National Palindrome Day every year.
Now the sons of Gad lived opposite them in the land of Bashan as far as Salecah.
1 Chronicles 5:11
This little article thingy was written by Some Guy sometime around 6:07 am and has been carefully placed in the Ponder category.
January 25th, 2012 at 10:24 pm
You can’t say “The phrase ‘today is not opposite day’ is always true” and then start your logic argument with ‘if it were opposite day’…
That would make the phrase untrue.
Oi, me head…
January 25th, 2012 at 11:11 pm
But then the phrase would be true again, because … umm … it just would.
January 26th, 2012 at 7:01 am
This reminds me of the old movie where the computer trying to take over the world is defeated by its creator assigning it to compute a single statement: “I am lying.” Eventually, it destroys itself attempting to calculate the impossible.