Blogs: Unassigned Entry #3: The Dialetheia

   In logic, there is a basic principle: nothing can be both true and false. This law of the excluded middle has been known since the time of Aristotle at least. What if it was untrue, that is, what if there was something that is in fact both true and false, a true contradiction? Dialetheists answer with a resounding 'yes', and such true contradictions are called dialetheia. This view is controversial; in classical logic, everything is proven by a contradiction, and so a contradictory theory is completely useless. Most dialetheists counter this objection by denying that everything is so proven, such logics are called paraconsistent logic. As complicated as logic can be, paraconsistent logics are even more detailed. However, the dialetheia is not limited to ontological claims. Even if a person believes in the law of excluded middle, the dialetheia can be useful. Many time in our lives, we have inconsistent information. While we hope that all such confusion will be cleared up in time, in the mean time it would be nice to be able to deal with it logically. A related use is in computer science. Sometimes a computer's sensor will be broken, but the data it transmits might still be somewhat usable.