It's Opposite Day!

Some people stop by this blog for the occasional deep, thoughtful piece. Others come for the humorous news. Still others simply want to bask in proximity to genius. It is these last ones I wish to disabuse of their misconception. How? well...read on.

Apropos of...well, nothing, really...I guess loosely based on the references to old kid's toys kicked off by Riot Kitty...I was reminded of a stupid game that we used to play. Someone would say or do something of questionable intellect and in response to being mocked would come back with, "Oh, it is because it is opposite day. So when you say yes it means no, and when you say no it means yes, okay?"

Simple question, right? Not really. It is actually a question which threatens to warp the very fabric of reality and send us all hurtling through nothingness at the mind-blowing speed of non-existence, haunted for all eternity by the ultimate existentialist question of what "is".

You see, the question itself poses a conundrum. If you are asked, "So yes means no and no means yes, okay?", what answer can you give?

Let us hypothesize you say "Yes". Well, the problem is, it is opposite day so "yes" actually would mean "no" and thus, by answering in the affirmative verbally you have in actuality responded in the negative. Unfortunately, since by responding in opposition to agreement you are not on opposite day, yes then reverts to its former state of existence and once again is a positive acceptance of the proffered transaction, thus rendering the day in a state of flux from which there is potentially no recovery. Yes means yes and no simultaneously but you don't know if it meant yes or no even though you know which one you meant for it to mean. But it might not mean what it meant. Or what it now means. Or what it will mean in the future.

Conversely, should you choose to reject the rearrangement of truth in meaning by saying "no" then you have in actually inadvertently chosen to accept the new boundaries of communication since no clearly means yes. To reject it, you actually had to say yes to mean no which, as we already covered, would actually have been both a rejection of and acceptance of the terms. Saying no clearly does the same thing.

You see, by saying no once the proposed change has been verbalized, the response is most easily construed as meaning, "yes" since yes would in fact be the opposite of no and this is opposite day. However, even though your intent was to reject a reversal of truth definitions your no has become a yes. Of course, this leads us back to the need to say yes to reject the terms which, as covered previously, is not possible.

So neither yes nor no is a workable answer to this conundrum. The wise person might try to avoid this tyrannical oppression of verbal communication via an alternative answer..."Maybe".

Unfortunately, this being opposite day, posing a possibility as a reply requires the opposite effect, in this case a definitive. Because "maybe" is defined as neither a negative or positive then we must go one step further to define the result. Because maybe leaves open the possibility of an event, the opposite would leave no possibility and therefore be interpreted as "no" which, as we know from prior examination, means yes. Or does it mean no?

So I would now ask you: Am I a genius? And remember...yes means no and no means yes, okay?