My SO said the above statement and gave me an explanation “Cold is the absence of heat or energy”, it does make sense however in my head it is like saying (in very simplistic terms) “the countryside is the absence of a city” and that is just a ridiculous statement.
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Yes, as you have noticed, it is a very overly simplified and rather disingenuous statement completely void of nuance, phrased in such a way to generate the most shock value while offering the bare minimum of truth.
It’s basically conversational clickbait designed to generate controversy, then make the person who stated it sound smart by then subverting everyone’s expectations by getting off on a technicality.
*Of course* there is such thing as “cold”; and yes, it is just the absence of heat. Heat and cold are opposites, this is not a controversial statement. If you touch something colder than your body, then it’s going to feel cold.
I can’t possibly see how anyone could argue against this fact by stating “well technically it’s just the heat going from your body to the other object blah blah temperature gradient blah blah” please just stop, you are *just defining cold in a convoluted way* and admitting it exists. You can’t have one without the other.
Other similar statements are:
* “There is no such thing as darkness”, as it is just the absence of light. Yes, of course there is such thing as darkness, you can observe it quite easily. And yes, it is the absence of light. Just because you can’t have one without the other doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.
* “Magenta is not a real color”, as it is just a combination of red and blue and does not have its own wavelength. Of course it is real, as you can easily see it; saying it’s not a real color because there’s no wavelength for it is using a very narrow and unreasonable definition of color; under the same definition, white and black aren’t real colors either, which is just absurd.
* “Money has no value”, as it is just paper that we all collectively and arbitrarily agreed has value. Yes, that’s what value means: the collective belief that something is desirable. If money doesn’t have value, then please give me all of yours. No? Didn’t think so.
Basically, if you say something like “x doesn’t exist” and immediately need to follow it up with “well I mean, of course x exists, but technically…” then you are being a smug jerk who intentionally communicates ineffectively for your own gain.
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