Sometimes Contrary Conclusions Are Both Right and Correct

When people see things from two different viewpoints, they can often fail to look at things from the perspective of another. Sometimes on one person is right, sometimes both people are wrong, and sometimes both are right.

The last post showed how some arguments about perspective and perception can lead to two people being false with respect to looking at an illusion which isn't even something real to accurately conclude something about. But when something real is being perceived, there can be opposing and contrary conclusions drawn about it, and both people can be right about it despite how confusing it may seem. Not that this happens often, but it can.

An obvious and famous representation of how this works is in the question of whether a glass is half-full or half-empty. Depending on the person, it is said that an optimistic and positive person will view it as half full, while a pessimistic or negative person will view it as half empty.

A glass that is empty is completely 100% empty, as there is nothing in it except for air. A glass that is full is completely 100% full, as there is nothing but a substance such as a liquid or solid that is filling up the space in the glass. Technically if you had a solid like sand, there would still be small air pockets, but you get my point about something being completely full are completely empty.

When a glass is filled exactly halfway with a solid or liquid, and the other half is not filled, then the glass is both half-full and half-empty. There is no need to argue about how one person is right or wrong, as both people are right. One is looking at the bottom half of the glass and describing what is in reality there, and the other person is looking at the top half of the glass to describe what is there in reality.

Arguments about how something is being described can happen in other situations. For example, looking through a mirror at a certain angle you might see something in particular reflected, while someone else a different angle will see something else reflected. It doesn't mean that one person is right and the other person is wrong.

But this demonstration of two people being right are correct when expressing contrary conclusions does not apply in most cases. It's only when something can be seen accurately in two different ways to properly describe something in reality.

Many times when you argue a certain point or conclusion, you're arguing about it from a specific viewpoint, vantage point or perspective. If someone else refuses to look at something from that specific perspective, they will fail to perceive something in the way that you are proposing. You can accurately argue a position or conclusion, yet someone is unable to see it are understand it because they're not looking at it in the proper way.

Sometimes in this happens people will conclude that they agree to disagree, or that everyone's opinion is as valid as anyone else's, and that there is no actual truth about something in particular being described. This is due to a failure to look at something in the same way in order to see it for what it is. We often need to shift our perspective and communicate things better, or listen better to what someone else is saying in order for us to appropriately understand what is being talked about.