The image above is drawn with a style called "paradox." It is called paradox because the image was drawn with straight lines, but it appears to have been drawn with curves. Apparently, there is a subset of people on Youtube who love drawing these things.
This was my first attempt at drawing with this style. I did the background in Prismacolor. I blended the wax with mineral spirits. The foreground with a vile of green ink that came with my glass pen as I wanted to see the contrast.
Anyway, I thought it would be fun to write a few posts on paradoxes. I could put one of these images on each post.
Now for the post: One of the primary differences between classical logic and modern logic is the role of paradoxes.
Classical thinkers recognized the existence of paradoxes, but tried to avoid them.
Modern thinkers adore paradoxes and revel in the many ways that people and society run afoul of paradoxes in their every day doings.
Many modern thinkers including Hegel, Joseph Smith, Betrand Russell and Freud built their careers around interpretations of paradoxes.
I contend that the primary difference between classical liberalism and modern liberalism is the role that paradox plays in their system of thought. Classical liberals find paradoxes juvenile while modern liberals are willing to surrender their liberties at the first sign of a paradox.
Modern conservatives love paradoxes even more than modern liberals. But that is a different story.
A paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement. Some times people use the term to describe inexplicable behavior. For example: Why does hive.blog compress images to 640px width; then display the images at 320px. Nobody can explain the behavior of Hive.blog.
For my first post of on paradoxes, I will leave you to ponder the most famous of all paradoxes:
"This sentence is false."
If the sentence is true; then it must be false. But this makes the sentence false.
This first paradox is an example of the reflexive paradox. A reflexive paradox is a statement that contains a self reference that negates the statement.
This paradox has been known since antiquity. Isn't it the most clever thing you ever heard? Well, I am off to draw a paradox in a pentagram and will get back with another famous paradox tomorrow.
Nice post, so interesting the use of paradox in our society. I want to draw one like this, so cool!
There are quite a few videos showing the technique on youtube. They are often called "zentangles" or "drawing paradoxes." This might be an easy way to make images for hive posts.
I drew this largely because I wanted to see how different inks worked on wax pencils. I did some elaborate pictures and ruined them in the drawing stage.
I was using a glass dip pen, which is messy. It looks like the patterns are best done with a technical pen on an plane surface. Many people use little sharpies.
As for paradoxes: For the most part they are amusing. Paradoxes show that there are limits to our ability to reason. Unfortunately, some political leaders use paradoxes to confuse the public and to trap people in double binds.