Opposites attract

I have the fortune of reading lil` couzin's english language group project report. I've read the first part of their report, which explores the usage and meanings of un-adjectives, like unhappy, unattractive. Since they have not yet patent or published it, i'll only talk/critique about their observations rather than their conclusions. By my critique, i'm not saying that they did badly, the report was well-written.

They made the following observations :
"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy."
"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive."
"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable."

But what is the meaning of opposite. We can say that black is the opposite of white. But black and white are colors, what properties make them opposite of each other? What is to stop us from saying red is opposite of blue, and gold is opposite of silver? And by extension could we possibly say humans are the opposite of say.. tree?

In physics, we learn that white spectrum is made up of red, green and blue spectrum. By adding more colored spectrums, one could progress towards the color white. Conversely, by removing colors, one could progress towards the color black. Thus we can say black is the opposite of white, being on the opposite ends of a scale with the quantum of colored spectrum. Though through this course of argument, it is interesting to note that one could say that red, green and variations of yellow is respectively the opposite of magenta, cyan and variations of black in terms of quantities of blue.

"...in (c), unpredictable is the opposite of predictable.". So is unpredictable the opposite of predictable? If predictability is defined as the reliability of the percentage of conformance and unpredicatability defined as 1 - reliability of the percentage of conformance, then yes, upredictable is the opposite of predictable.

"In (b), unattractive is not the opposite of attractive. Ugly is the opposite of attractive." By saying ugly is the opposite of attractive, there are two errors. The first error is that the words 'pretty' and 'repulsive' are being ignored. We can observe that pretty is the opposite of ugly and attractive is the opposite repulsive. One cannot be both pretty and ugly or attractive and repulsive.

The second error is in the implication that pretty is attractive. Prettiness and ugliness is relative. For we often hear that "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.". How many times have you said someone is pretty/handsome only to encounter someone else comment to you, "Average only lah". But the beholder of beauty theory itself implies an association between prettiness and attraction. But attraction and repulsion is also relative. This opens up many social concerns. Can ugly be attractive? Is attractive ugliness an exception? These questions are out of today's scope and beyond my resources.

"In (a), unhappy is not the opposite of happy. Sad is the opposite of happy." The opposite of sad is unsad, but sadly (forgive the pun), unsad is an ill-formed word and thus rejected by the language. Can someone be sad and happy at the same time? I'm sure many of us would find it difficult to come up with an example where a person is both sad and happy. So is sad the opposite of happy?

To say that sad is the opposite of happy is to imply that sadness is in the same level of hierarchy as happiness. Unhappiness could be due to sadness, anger, jealousy. Can a person be angry and happy or jealous and happy at the same time? So is sad the opposite of happy or is angry the opposite of happy? While a person cannot be sad and happy at the same time, it has only served as support to prove that sadness and happiness mutually exlcusive, not neccessarily opposite. It has done nothing to indicate the quantum which one can progressively increase/decrease to traverse from sadness to happiness.

When a person says he is not unhappy, he could in fact be many things, including happy or content. If sad is the opposite of happy, which implies the vice versa that the opposite of happy is sad, what then is the opposite of unhappy? Interesting enough, it is easier for people who are not unhappy to spontaenously become happy as compared to unhappy people.

If we were instead to associate unhappy as the opposite of happy, then a reasonable quantum could be established. One could hypothesize that by taking away negative agitators (sadness, anger, jealousy) and adding positive agitators (contentment, high self-esteem), one could become mobile on the scale of unhappiness and happiness.