Of Logic and Fuzziness

Disclaimer, Warning, Whatever – LONG RAMBLING POST. Approach at own risk.

Mysterious Duality.
The theory of opposites.
Bear with me please.
I have tons to write on Navarathri with lots of saree photos but I need to pen my thoughts on paper, more accurately, on Notes on my red covered iPad.

Received some rather sad news last week. Sudden passing away of a friend. More sad news which I am unable to reveal. Then some exhilaratingly joyous news.
Digested most, if not all of it. Slowly understood, accepted that one cannot exist without the other.
How do I measure the happiness that I feel, if I have not felt sadness? How do I know the room is dark, if I have not seen light?
And that there are many shades of dark, of light, many frequencies? of pain, grief, joy, bliss.

Learnt in maths, about the binary system – ones and zeros. Of logic. A and not A. Then when I studied computer science, and subsets within that vast stream of knowledge, artificial intelligence, machine learning, realised that there are certainties, uncertainties, paradoxes, and that logic is allowed to be fuzzy. Yes. An expert system? Prediction system? Knowledge-based system? we’d developed could diagnose a patient with a particular type of anaemia with a certainty factor of some amount. At that age, I believed this to only be applicable to machines, maths, physics. Over the years, have come to understand that this is a simulation, more accurately, an emulation of the theories of the Universe.
Those of us who dabble in some maths and physics will know that relational logic is a nonaxiomatic, nonlinear form of reasoning, and is not constrained by the laws that govern conventional mathematics and deductive logic. The latter state that “an entity cannot have both attributes A and not-A, and that entities can have either the attribute A or not-A, but nothing in between”.
We know for a fact that such laws cannot possibly apply to the Universe in its entirety. So many entities possess both attributes A and not-A : none of us is entirely feminine or masculine, having characteristics of both genders. The world we inhabit is not black and white, but has shades of grey.
This world, to some, may seem attractive, to others, strange, uncomfortable. A matter of individual perception and preference?

Growing up, I used to think Lewis Carroll’s classics featuring his seemingly confused heroine Alice were masked horror stories for children. Why then would Alice be constantly changing size, being in claustrophobic situations, zooming through rabbit holes, meeting the weirdest outlandish creatures.
And then, reading, re reading the Classic, some where along the way, the older, maybe thinking-me realised much of the characters, quotes represent our version of life. The previously misunderstood (by me) smiling Cat spoke such wise words “We’re all mad here” and aren’t we all? I mean who decides who’s mad and what being mad constitutes.
Philosophical-without-knowing-it Alice says “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle.” Isn’t that the quintessential mystery we are all trying to solve, to unearth who we are?

Lewis Carroll was the pen-name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a brilliant mathematician/lecturer at Christ Church College, Oxford. And boy did he know a thing or two about logic. He wrote books about it! But as his profound illogical stories reveal, he intuitively knew that our world does not fit perfectly into our conventional reasoning patterns. And that is why his classics have struck a deep chord in the child and adult me. Because his world is Real. And we have stoped acknowledging that in our living today.
The story of Through the Looking Glass begins with Alice at home in a room that is familiar to her. Then she wonders what life would be like on the other side of the mirror. She pretends that there is a way of getting through it, and she suddenly finds herself in the looking-glass room, peering into the room she has just left.

So what did I want to say here? Did I want to convey that for Something to exist the opposite or the negative of it must be there too for us to appreciate the Something? Or did I also want to say that like Alice, things look different when you’re on the in looking out or the out looking in? Perspectives? Contexts? A case of grass being greener?
I now have no idea why I mooted this in the first place. Probably because I was sad, then happy, then sad, then happy and the happiness multiplied and became more real compared to the sadness? Or was it just because I wanted to showcase my Saree? Left behind for me by my mum when she visited in June. (Matched with a silk black blouse with gold sleeves from another Saree). A soft cotton gossamer silk, with translucent checks, white body and black borders and pallu, a case of A and NOT A?
OR,

Let’s use fuzzy descriptions, a creamy body and greyish borders and pallu.