Image by Anh Nhi Đỗ Lê from Pixabay.

“To be, or not to be” is one of the most broadly quoted lines in modern English.  

Pervading innumerable works of theatre, literature and music, Hamlet's famous soliloquy speaks to a cultural affirmation entrenched in our idea of opposites.  

The ordinary view of opposites is analogous to our experience of light or sound vibrations, restricted to two separate aspects: on or off. Accordingly, life appears as “Now you see it, now you don’t.”

Though, might we be overlooking the equally unifying component of the world of which these very opposites proclaim?

Western thought traditionally adopts the belief that 'polar opposites' are flagrantly foreign and unrelated.  A lineage traceable to Aristotle's logical axioms: you can’t choose both - it’s black or white; one or the other. Any reconciliation of extremes is a contradiction in terms.

But Aristotelian logical laws are underwritten by basic metaphysical assumptions about how the world ultimately is, namely, how we conceive of specific entities as separate from another.  It's this demarcation of things that extends to how we divide opposites, be it life and death, something and nothing, or black and white.

Beyond the Western lens, Eastern philosophy provides a historically different aperture to our experience of dichotomy. But ‘different’ only in so much as an alternative view is the other side of the same proverbial coin.  

In the Tao Te Ching, the eminent Chinese sage Lao-Tzu (c. 600 BCE) imparts this profound, yet deceptively elementary perspective:

“Recognise beauty and ugliness is born. Recognise good and evil is born.
Is and isn’t produce each other.”

And later:

“True words resemble their opposites.”

These remarks are demonstrative of the Chinese yin-yang symbol. There is no yin (the dark, negative principle) without yang (the light, positive principle), and likewise no yang without yin. 

Moreover, in Taoism (and Chinese Buddhism) the following equation is often represented: “Difference is identity; identity is difference.” The Chinese word for “is” means something more akin to “that,” in English notation. This is not an intimation of something qualitatively identical, rather it means “is in relation to” or “necessarily involves.”

This is formerly termed the ‘principle of co-existing counterparts,’ which Buddhologist David Ruegg called “the complementarity of binary concepts and terms.” 

Equivalently, there are no mountains with only one side, or waves displaying a crest without a trough. In one sense yin and yang are quite different from each other, but just because they’re different, they’re identical.  

This idea is central in the concept of non-duality (“not-two”, advaita) derived from the Hindu school of Advaita Vedanta and extending across Buddhism, Islam, and even to areas of Christian and neo-Platonic traditions. 

Extremes often have a deceptive resemblance between one another. The highest and lowest notes of the musical spectrum are alike in that they are both inaudible, yet extremely different. 

In fact, this analogy demonstrates a process whereby attainment of any extreme position is the point where it meets the shadow of, and thus turns into, its own polar opposite, something the psychoanalyst Carl Jung called “enantiodromia” regarding psychological states.

In the everyday, our attention focuses on the distinction of entities from non-entities, or solid from space. Thus we restrict our gaze to a central vision or ‘spotlight consciousness’.  

While this aids our analysis of the subjects under scrutiny, we pay a heavy price for the ignore-ance of everything beyond this parochial field. 

If we therefore deem that being and non-being are unrelated, we become anxious. This extends to, among many aspects, our existential fear of our own mortality – the fear that the yin (negative side) may triumph over the positive side, and here our troubles commence.

This notion was further endorsed by twentieth-century theoretical physicist Julius Oppenheimer, who declared that holding apparently contradictory concepts in harmony is essential for a full picture of reality, from quantum mechanics to running society.     

Appositely, to recall our earlier example, the crest and trough of a wave are in fact interdependent: the waves constituting sound are not constantly unadulterated; sound is but a rapid alternation of sound/silence. For without the gaps of silence between sounds, we wouldn’t know what sound was. Our conscious attention seems to ignore intervals, yet without them, we would be wholly ignorant of pulsation. 

Death, in this sense, analogously constitutes the trough in a wave, for which without it, there would be no crest (namely, life).  Could it be possible then, that one's existence contains both being and non-being such that death is merely the “off” interval in an on/off pulsation which is surely eternal - since every alteration to such pulsation (namely, nothingness) would duly imply its presence?  Might we then surmise that we are an eternal existence perhaps needlessly afraid of one half of itself on the basis that we have identified ourselves entirely with the other half?  To consolidate this point, we don’t encounter a front with no back, or the “heads” side of a coin without “tails.”

Accordingly, Gestalt psychology (German for “figure” or “pattern”) provides the standpoint whereby the whole sum of an object is perceived rather than its sole components.  The quintessential Gestaltist theory of perception is that of figure-ground organisation: a type of perceptual grouping which is necessary for recognising objects through vision. 

To illustrate, the very words you are presently reading on this page constitute, in this case, the “figure” while the accompanying whiteness comprises the “background.” Initially, we assume these two aspects could not be more opposite. They are entirely separate since we can demarcate them with consummate ease, leading to the conclusion that the black text is one thing, and the white page another. To say otherwise would be an affront to our common sense.

This is a somewhat perverse way of stating that if we concentrate on a figure, we tend to ignore the background. Just like the sound/silence equation, it is not possible to focus on both the figure and background at once, only a swift fluctuation between the two is attainable, yet we get the illusion that we are able to focus on both at once. Nevertheless, recognition of the text in front of you could not occur without the contrastive backdrop, just as we cannot know what the outline of a person looks like when abstracted from the context of the background of their figure. 

But what would happen if the background were to vanish? In order to see a figure, the background is necessary for doing so. Thought it is not merely that the background is one entity, and the figure another. This interdependence is indicative of a tacit connection between the two so-called separate constituents in question. Indeed, each constituent is respectively opposed, but this very opposition is inseparable. And this is the case for virtually everything in the world. 

Because we distinguish things from their background, we distinguish one side from another, or up as opposed to down. But what would materialise if we attempted to arrange everything in the set so that everything were up and nothing were down? We would invariably fail, because “up” is unintelligible apart from “down.” In fact in a more profound sense, if everything were up, then likewise nothing would be up – since there would be no contrastive allowing us to discern what ‘up-ness’ instantiates. 

To hammer this point home, we sometimes hear the normative dictum that “Everyone is unique,” but this, by the same token, simultaneously implies that no-one is unique since we could not differentiate who was unique from who wasn’t if indeed it was the case that everyone was unique. That is to say, any term that can be applied to all members of a category subsequently loses all meaning. So if we negate something’s putative opposite, we thereby simultaneously negate the initial thing we sought to isolate.

From another standpoint, though, we might notice that “yes” tacitly implies that there is such a concept of “no,” without needing to explicitly mention the latter.  In short, yes implies no, just as self implies other.

We seem to believe, however, that the two are indeed divisible from one other. However, when we endeavour to negate one side of any given duality and possess the other in isolation, we do something profoundly nonsensical.  Rather like someone who ceaselessly attempts to get rid of the left by constantly turning right and so is therefore compelled to go round in circles. 

To illustrate, if we, in our minds, disregarded the south pole of a magnet, there could not then be a concept of a corresponding north pole. Moreover, if we physically attempted to saw off one end of the magnet, we will always be left with the north and south pole – that is, a singular object, even if we were to reduce the magnet to microscopic fragments.  To an extent, this explicates our arbitrary delineation of opposites, since, whatever we enact upon the magnet, there are always two poles of a single entity.  Regarding thought and language then, we are able to separate such things, but in experience this is an apparently futile errand.

What's more, it appears that the very conceptual frameworks we deploy in warranting our differentiation of opposition is contentious in its own right. At the most abstract level of ontology (the study of being), a discussion about opposites naturally befits the fundamental concepts of existence (being) and non-existence (non-being). In his eponymously named work, the other-most prominent Taoist philosopher Chuang-Tzu (c. 369-286 BCE) explored aridity of this issue:

“There is something. There is nothing. There is a not-yet beginning to be nothing. There is a not-yet beginning to be a not-yet beginning to be nothing. Suddenly there is nothing. But then I don’t know whether nothing is or isn’t. Now I’ve said something, but I don’t know whether what I’ve said meant anything or not.

(...)

“If we’re already one, can I say it? But since I’ve just said we’re one, can I not say it? The unity and my saying it make two. The two and their unity make three. Starting from here, even a clever mathematician couldn’t get it, much less an ordinary person! If going from nothing to something you get three, what about going from something to nothing? Don’t do it! Just go along with things.”

Firstly, Chuang-Tzu calls to attention the arbitrary nature of our division between nothing and something. As demonstrated above, when we begin to examine our distinctions between things, we become entangled in an infinite regress, to which no definitive line can be drawn to separate such entities and so our linguistic concepts become somewhat nonsensical, since we cannot honestly decipher between “something,” and “nothing.” In the same way, the aphorism “Everything is temporary,” appears to be contradicted by the fact that the very nature of transience is eternal. In other words, impermanence is itself a form of permanence and vice-versa; so has our initial statement really said anything at all?

Secondly, he appeals to the point that simply by categorising something as a totality is self-contradictory by its own assertion. For to declare that existence is “One” tacitly implies there is something other than this concept of oneness, otherwise, how could we know what oneness was in the first place? On the other hand, we discover that to say the world is “Many” things initiates the same ensuing consequences. This is not, however, to infer a form of monism whereby everything merges into a continuum, resulting in the abolishment of all definition. For how could we conceive of infinity without the finitude of definitions?

Moreover, when observing the most basic opposition of nothingness and something, we believe there is nothing more different. Nonetheless, upon a second look we notice that the component we refer to as “nothingness” is, by our very recognition, identified as something. In other words, nothing is precisely something by its very obsolescence. This comes as a startling inversion of our common sense. By grappling with this duality, we find that if it’s the case that our concepts of nothing and something are arbitrary distinctions, we are engaging in a kind of psychological short-sightedness. 

Furthermore, in this example we notice that the distinct meanings behind what is conceptually posited as “nothing” and “something” respectively have no observable or even conceivable difference apart from those very conventions themselves. For example, if we were to ask a colleague to empirically show what nothingness was, or even to cognitively conceive of it, they would be unable to do so. Firstly, wherever our colleague would attempt to ascribe nothingness, they would instruct our gaze to an area of space. But by deeming space to be constitutive of “nothing,” the person would instead be pointing toward all the objects inhering in that very space or “nothingness” itself. 

As for trying to imagine nothingness, our attempt invariably culminates in our cognition of eternal darkness, or something of the kind, which is precisely to conceive of something, namely darkness. Conversely, if we then asked to be shown “something,” the respondent would point to anything in their immediate field of vision. But how could this so-called something-ness honestly be demonstrated or conceived? Hence, if nothingness was initially shown to be conceptually untenable, likewise, how can there be the explicit contrastive termed as “something”? 

As was hitherto mentioned, this is because it appears to be impossible to differentiate two polarising concepts from one another, making the concepts themselves decidedly capricious. When our view of polarity is inverted in this way, we can understand the subtlety of the concept of non-duality, and as the Mahayana Heart Sutra puts it most famously, “Form is empty; emptiness is form; form is not different from emptiness; emptiness is not different from form.”

So, how on earth are we to discern the interdependence of opposites?  The unifying perspective of distinct entities should not invoke that all entities blur and become suffused with an omnipresent interior light, or a continuum of underlying miasma constituting the ultimate unity of all things. It does not require us to give up all notation and promptly forget our name and address. By being the very abstract, differentiated, impertinent entities that we perceive things to be, they inherently manifest their implicit connection. That is, the differences we denote between entities are precisely the same thing as their unity. 

This is not a question of imposing upon the world of differences some kind of abstract unity in our minds. One doesn’t have to take to the streets emphatically declaring, “Relax, all things are fundamentally one!” For this belief (formally know as monism), as we have seen is self-effacing because we cannot isolate oneness without a tacit implication or recognition of something other.  Also, this unity cannot be pure oneness as opposed to multiplicity, as both respective terms are themselves polar.  Rather, it seems the very differences and the explicit individuation of things is that which manifests and advertises their implicit unity. 

To demonstrate, difference is marked by pragmatic fictions such as borders, lines or boundaries – but these do not only divide things – they conjoin them. All garden fences belong to both parties, because all boundaries are held in common. We wouldn’t know what your plot of land was if it weren’t for deciphering my plot of land. This can be tested immediately by simply observing the objects in your current field of vision, you realise that the outline of every object in your visual field would be unidentifiable unless it was differentiated from the surrounding objects occupying its periphery. When we extend the microcosm of our current visual field to the macrocosmic entirety of the world, we can then comprehend the implicit commonality of all differences.

In exactly the same way, one’s sense of being a distinct “me” is precisely the same sensation of being one with the entire cosmos. This may sound extravagant, but just as a back is a condition of there being a front, the feeling of “other” is a condition of your being yourself. This comes as a startling rebuttal of our scientifically entrenched ego-centric world-view that we are, relative to the universe, inconsequential little organisms on a tiny rock-ball named Earth. Nothing seems more dissimilar to us than the cosmic vastness of space occurring long before and after our tenure as a human species.  More parochially,  if we didn't experience ourselves as so distinct from our so-called external world we would perhaps be less likely to subjugate and deplete our environment of its resourcefulness.  

On the other hand, we can now fully comprehend the subtlety of non-duality as an intersection between monism and dualism, which distinguishes from simple uniformity.  Granted, the term has its own opposite “duality,” and it is for this reason that, much like art, language cannot evade dualism.  Yet, by convention of perspective, the artist can sketch two-dimensional lines toward a so-called vanishing-point, evoking the third dimension of depth.  

Equivalently, non-duality is taken to represent the ‘dimension’ whereby explicit opposites have implicit unity.  This idea is again characterised in Vedic literature, specifically the Upanishads, in form of the Sanskrit phrase “Tat tvam asi,” translated as “Thou art that” or “You’re it,” referring to the realisation of the absolute equality of ‘tat’ (that) – the ultimate, ineffable nature of all phenomena (Brahman), with ‘tvam’ – the individual self (atman).  

If then, on this perspective, self/other, organism/environment and being/non-being are poles of the same process - that is one's true existence.  However, unless we resort to the artist who harnesses the duality of language as something pointing beyond itself, the tacit connection between opposites, it appears, can only be articulated in terms of opposition - in the form of analogy, metaphor and myth.  But the issue may not simply be that words are labels for mutually exclusive classes.  It might be that the object of our discussing opposites is so basic to our existence that we cannot even make it an object to behold.  

Or similarly, as wittingly professed by 18th century Polish rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk: “[...] But if I am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am not I and you are not you.” In other words, the perennial take-away here is specifically that our sense of unity is inseparable from our sense of difference.  And while this cannot be verbalised, there is surely no harm in our linguistic conceptions such as being/non-being or figure/ground, as long as we recognise our indulgence in the game being played.

But does this new-found understanding make any difference? Does it make anybody happier to have acquired this viewpoint? Admittedly this does not make someone immune to human emotions and frailties.  The point here is not an endeavour to silence feeling or cultivate bland indifference.  It is to see beyond the superficial notion that what is good may be wrested from what is evil.  In fact, Buddhists refer to the ‘ultra-stoic’ persona evoking someone who represses fear and emotion such that they end up with none left, and so may as well be inanimate as a lump of rock. 

But the premise of the idea discussed here does not entail that. It means rather that one no longer harbours the cyclical anxiety over being anxious. Again, Chuang-Tzu articulates this outcome with deft efficiency: 

“What is this (shi) is also that (bi), and what is that is also this. That is both right and wrong. This is also both right and wrong. So is there really a this and a that? Or isn’t there any this or that? The place where neither this nor that finds its counterpart is called the pivot of the Way. Once the pivot finds its socket it can respond endlessly.”

The ‘Way’ (Dào 道) referred to above holds its function in Chinese thought as a social or natural non-conceptual guidance structure providing answers as to how one should live and act. Chuang-Tzu’s subsequent correlative vision of the ‘this’ and ‘that’ binary offers the perspective that we no longer need to passively dwell in the anxiety of deciding between oppositions.

The key facet of Oppenheimer's point was that opposites are no longer optional because nature forces us to comprehend them at once.

The human situation seems therefore comparable to that of “fleas on a hot griddle.”  None of the alternatives offer a solution, for the flea who falls must jump, and the flea who jumps must fall.  Choosing is absurd because there is no choice.  

To the dualistic mode of thought this may appear fatalistic as opposed to liberating.  However, beholding the intrinsic relation of opposites in daily experience cultivates a state of mind enabling one to go about life with an inherent freedom and spontaneity.  Such a perspective lends itself to the outcome that the person concerned is as a consequence, unperturbed by almost anything. 

Understandably, the reconciliatory notion of opposites may appear so over-simplified it appears elementary. However, in keeping with the nature of this idea – the unity of difference is so basic that it is, ironically, often concealed by our immediate psychological delineation of entities and our social obligation to communicate as a corollary of such perceptual faculties. Perhaps though, we may be inclined to cultivate what philosopher Alan Watts called a “correlative vision” upon the world and ourselves.  Maintenance of such a view is apparently difficult in its infancy, for to ordinary perception classes and opposites appear starkly contrasted, and this is why the Upanishads describe this outlook as the path of the razor's edge.  

Life seems to present a succession of choices demanding either/or.  Solids are as much like something as something can be, and space is as much like nothing as nothing can be.  But like the tacit relation between self and world (or internal and external), the philosopher deeply requires an opponent to argue with, for without them, their own view would be both obsolete and unknowable.  Both parties would be hopelessly lost without the other, for there would be nothing to contest, and the entire domain of philosophy would cease.  So, to ‘go’ anywhere in philosophy, other than in circles, a sense of this correlative outlook seems imperative.  

Politically speaking, this notion appears to crystallise when we find ourselves in disagreement.  Every time an outlier is present, this might rather be a cause for celebration than vehement rivalry, since it’s a sure sign of a healthy, democratic society.  Or as in the words of a poem in the Zenrin Kushu, “To receive trouble is to receive good fortune; to receive agreement is to receive opposition.”  For in some sense to be is to quarrel, just as the apparent continuity of one's body is the result of the relentless subterranean conflict between micro-organisms.

Similarly, it could be apprehended that our image of a perfectly peaceful world or individual life is a conception that, on the basis that we did achieve it, we in fact wouldn't be aware we had, since such a state would be undefinable without the contrary implication of discord.  Therefore in this sense, the profundity of Nagarjuna's “nirvana is samsara” thesis finally becomes intelligible.  That is, what is taken to be a state of peace, is at once a state of unrest; or more abstractly, in response to Hamlet: for something to be it must also not-be in the same instance.  

In other words, it seems the attempt to eradicate opposition to reach a desired non-binary equilibrium, be it personally or politically, would not only be inconceivable without such opposition, it is that the very contest between the respective oppositions is precisely the harmony between them, since we wouldn't know what perfection was if we had it, and likewise we may neglect the recognition that the very imperfection of dispute is what constitutes the perfection we so desire as its outcome.  

And it is this that comprises the cylical, yet playful pursuit of something we already have - in virtue of the very act itself.  Chuang-tzu illustrates this search as if one were “Riding an ox in search of the ox.”  The predominantly Eastern alternative explicated here may provide both timely and timeless implications concerning our discourse on self, philosophy, politics, life, death, gender and various others.  

After all, shouting into a vacuum provides no resonance in which to hear one's own voice.  And on that note, we may be better off supplementing our opening question with a rhetorical addition borrowed from Zen Buddhism: what is the sound of one hand clapping?