Do true opposites need to both exist 100% and independently of the other — TiredThinker

I think that true opposites exist only when they have been defined to be as (logical) opposites. Then the terms in my view cannot be independent. You can define things to be "true" or "false" or "correct" or "wrong" and the law of the excluded middle works quite well here. Or you can draw a line that has opposite points where the line ends.

Looking for opposites in the real world will be difficult. You get then questions like what actually would be an opposite of something. Not as easy to define, actually.

The negation of infinite is finite.
The opposite of infinite ($+ \infty$) is $- \infty$.

What is the negation and opposite of nothing?

1. Negation of nothing? Something...or is it Everything?

2. The opposite of nothing is nothing itself (0 is its own opposite 0 + 0 = 0).

Looking for opposites in the real world will be difficult. — ssu

I think we do it easily a lot of the time. Did I feel nervous about the exam? Quite the opposite. I was very confident and not nervous at all It is a usefully vague term. Nervousness is not obviously and everywhere the opposite of confidence. But in this real world case it works well. It does the job it is supposed to do.

I think problems arise when we take an easy case and then try to apply it universally. There may be no universality. There may be just lots of fairly easy cases related closely or loosely.

There are many opposites: the yin and yang, good and evil, day and night, male and female, mind and body. They are the extremes and it is hard to know how they exist as metaphysical constructs or as aspects of human perception. In this way, they are part of the area often known as qualia.

It is also about the nature of duality and how people juggle the extremes as opposites. That is because there are points along continuum and the interplay of opposites. One other relevant idea is that of enantiodromia of Heraclitus. That idea was that when the extreme of one opposite was reached there would be a swing to the other pole or opposite.

I think problems arise when we take an easy case and then try to apply it universally. — Cuthbert

Something like that.

Or if we want to define just when are you nervous and when you aren't. And is it really the opposite? Is the nervousness the same or if we call 'being nervous' totally different things. You might be nervous that you will flunk the exam. You then you were nervous that during the exam your car in towed away. Or then people loudly shouting in the adjacent room make you nervous as you cannot concentrate. Are all of them the same feelings?

Your examples don't strictly speaking seem like opposites. Certainly the "woke" crowd would not consider gender to be strictly opposites. All females are not in perfect contrast with every male. Day and night is logically opposite I suppose because it depends on the earth turn which changes both together. Mind and body aren't opposite either as one controls the other and isn't as receprical.

When I spoke of opposites, the idea was about them as principles and was not saying how they play out in life. In particular, I am not meaning that real men and women are opposites but simply that the archetypes of masculinity and femininity are. Also, one way of looking at is captured in the yin and yang symbol which has the black and white sides curled up in a circle. What is most interesting though is the way the complementary opposite is also captured in each half by being expressed in the dot, or small circles in the two halves.

The yin yang symbol also has a black circle around entire symbol indicating that Yang possess Yin?

In general, a word has meaning by virtue of distinguishing that which it is from that which it is not.This is a cat, that is not a cat. But there is no opposite of a cat as anti-cat. This is flying, that is not flying, but falling with attitude. Sometimes it is worth talking loosely of opposition and opposites in various ways, but let's not try and make a metaphysics of it, because it will be the opposite of good philosophy, which as every schoolboy knows is bullshit.

Metaphysics you are saying deals more in absolutes?

Metaphysics you are saying deals more in absolutes? — TiredThinker

Here is a necessary truth, a founding exemplar for something like a TRUE opposite.

'Up' is the opposite of 'down.' No one can argue with that!

Except that the world is round, and when an Australian points down, his pointing aligns with my English up.

So a necessarily true opposite is not necessarily opposite at all. Opposite is a useful term in many ordinary situations, but it is not a useful erm for philosophy.