One of my favorite quotes actually embodies this pretty well.
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Doublethink:
"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just as long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies[..]"
1984, George Orwell
For example, it's possible to appreciate that in the US people need some means of getting an education in order to get a job while at the same time realizing the demand for quality education far outstrips supply, which when paired with federal loans inflates the cost of education so much that it puts it farther out of reach for people.
That's a problem with a solution that exacerbated the problem while trying to solve it. Processing both doesn't involve telling deliberate lies, it just means the solution is more complex than we'd like to admit.
The issue with polarized politics is that it encourages one-mindedness. Instead of trying to understand where your political opponents are coming from, you are encouraged to reject them and their ideas as "the enemy". A very anti-intellectual "Us versus Them" mindset.
If two theses conflict each other at least one of them (perhaps even both) must be wrong. That is basic science. This is also why physicists still try to unify general relativity and quantum physics. So instead of accepting multiple ideas use your mind to
1. create predictions that each of the conflicting theses imply, such that the two theses will do different predictions, which if they can't be observed will convince you that the thesis was wrong.
2. develop an experiment with which you can observe these predictions
3. execute the experiment
This is too simplistic. They can be partially right as well as partially wrong. Is light a wave or a particle? Well, it depends.
Two opposing half-truths form a paradox. While some paradoxes can be resolved, by finding a deeper theory that unifies them, some cannot. To draw an example from the political realm -- more relevant to this discussion -- here are two truths:
(1) We are all in this together.
(2) Each person is responsible for their own life.
These are both true, but conflict. And I do not think there will ever be a final resolution of this paradox. In some situations, the first principle is more important; in others, the second. Hashing out which is which is a never-ending debate, and a critically important one.
> This is too simplistic. They can be partially right as well as partially wrong. Is light a wave or a particle? Well, it depends.
In this case both statements (light is a wave and light is a particle) are simply wrong and as current scientific matters stand the description given by quantum physics seems to be the correct one (at least for about 70 years no experiment could be given that has disproved it).
Are two sides of a bridge opposing each other or conflicting with each other?
In a client-server security model the client usually wants as much as it can take and the server wants to provide as little as it has to. Are these opposed, or in conflict?
Than it's not an opposition.
> In a client-server security model the client usually wants as much as it can take and the server wants to provide as little as it has to. Are these opposed, or in conflict?
Now you create a malicious client which will pretent it has little, say, computational power or network capacity. So the server will have to do lots of work. Voila - a good beginning for a DoS attack. :-)
So, yes, these goals are in conflict and such an attack is a falsification of the soundness of your security model.
When you say a "malicious client" you are misunderstanding the purpose of my analogy. A malicious client would be "the enemy". I'm talking about a client that is interested with engaging with the service, not just shutting it down. The client may like to have all the information and resources the server has available to it, (for example, perhaps a facebook user might want to see when people look at their photos, not just like/comment) but the server needs to consider the experience of all the clients and users, not just the one. So there is opposition (but not conflict!) between the two. The client will not be allowed to have this information, even though the server has it. Conflict would be manifested by the user abandoning the service (or attacking it, as in your example) because of this incompatible or insurmountable difference.
It all comes down to heuristics, and differing heuristics are not mutually exclusive.
The comment also fell for the trap of falsely equating opposition with conflict.
As a thought experiment, take the issue of abortion. GP is telling me that certainly either "Abortions should be allowed because of the mother's rights" or "Abortions should not be allowed because of the unborn child's rights" is WRONG. Tell me how anyone could possibly create an "experiment" which would result in a meaningful answer. How would you measure the morality and goodness of the event in a way that everyone could agree upon? Do you see the problem?
The problem here is that biological and neurological research has a long way to go to resolve the question after what week of pregnancy what level of consciousness or intellectual capacity is there. So at the moment there is no way to answer this question in an acceptable way.
To keep two opposed ideas in mind should be done with the aim of solving contradictions.
If you can distill a better abstraction you are solving the contradiction and you finish with only one idea.
In fact, a big part of the current disagreements is holding oneself oblivious to the different paradigms held by those with opposing views. If you presume they are working from the same assumptions, then of course the only motivation for their views must be malice or some other vice. But that is rarely the case.
I love the irony in following the first quote by holding both quotes in my mind, and considering that there is some wisdom to both.
The GP is talking about the ability to think and find the truth, Orwell is talking about using the same skill to lie (to oneself and the others).
And, going further, I think the root of the danger found in Orwell's doublethink lies even lower -- the danger starts with holding even one idea as a binary absolute that perfectly reflects the real world. Ideas, particularly ideas which can be reduced to language, are more like Platonic forms, which elements of the natural world might fuzzily reflect but will never perfectly embody.
Bonus: Heraclitus on Wikiquote: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Heraclitus
Probabilities work much better. "I'm 50% certain of A and 50% of not-A", which means complete ignorance. A "80% A" means you have an opinion, but you acknowledge a 20% possiblity of being wrong. If anybody claims "100% sure of something", it is an obvious sign of idiocy.
Something something Sith, something something absolutes :)
Opposed ideas does not always mean that both ideas have the same level of validity.
Some ideas are provably wrong. "Depolarizing" allowed climate change denial and anti-vaxxers, for example, to gain a following because we didn't stamp them out quickly and strongly.