Actually Richard, I think you are speaking about 2 kinds of mistakes. The phrase "son of a barren woman" represents a logical impossibility, a self contradiction.
But mistaking the fence post for a thief is a mistake of perception. About this you are correct in that the person truly perceived a thief. But the perception itself was later discovered to have been mistaken. On Wednesday, April 16, 2014 9:10 AM, "pundits...@gmail.com" <pundits...@gmail.com> wrote: > "...if it isn't measurable it isn't real." How about atoms? > There are to my knowledge no scientists on this discussion group, so what you are reading Share is about metaphysics, not about science. In Indian metaphysics, if some proposition or statement is found to be self-contradictory, it doesn't exist. For example, if you see a thief at night, and then you realize in the light, that it was just a fence post, then the thief didn't exist - except in your mind. The presentation of the mistaken theif is real because it was presented to you, but it was not real in the absolute sense - it was an illusion, not real, yet not unreal either. Almost the whole of Indian metaphysics is based on the notion of the illusion aspect of the world of the senses. So the only way it isn't in conflict with science is because it isn't measurable. And if it isn't measurable it isn't real. It's the concept, it's wrong.
