Relativism vs. the absolute

[Dhul Fiqar]

I don't believe in absolute fact. I believe that rational forming of oppinion should replace a rational search for universal truth.

Objectivists are fond of using the same technique they always use - to give example after example of a principle at work - the implication being that there is no exception and thus they have found an absolute. But by my definition - it just an oppinion that happens to be shared by most or even all - or a principle that simply applies to everything we currently know and understand. People always "knew" it was physically impossible for a human being to fly through the air - and pretty much everyone agreed on this. And in their way, they were "right" - in that nothing in the human experience or on the planet earth in their time gave ANY indication that human flight was possible.

An oppinion of fact, no matter how widespread or seemingly universal in it's applicational potential, is by definition still an oppinion subject to change.

Hypothetically, let's say 99% of the world conceded that purple was their favorite colour, would it be an empirical fact that purple was a superior colour, set apart from all others in that it's "truely beautiful"? Of course not - it is just a widely shared oppinion based uppon rational "fact" and experience. But what if no one had ever seen pink - and uppon seeing pink some people changed their minds, would Purple now be any more or less "beautiful" in an absolute sense? You see the problem with absolute values and truths - they are always subject to the context they are perceived in - and are thus by definition not truly universal at all.

Why should we then assume that just because Communism, Catholicism, Islam or any other schools of thought hold varying levels of appeal to us (or even the majority of the world for that matter) makes them any more true or false in an "absolute" sense? Shouldn't it be enough that you, and/or your people, believe in something, why this need (common in religious circles) to render it an absolute and inalterable value just because it holds true in most or even all documented cases? Are we to re-invent the world every time a contradiction puzzles our minds or differing insights emerge (an anti-purple movement for example),
or should we instead seek to live according to our hearts, our intrinsic beliefs that are shaped both by our
particular circumstances and common humanity?

I believe conflict could be greatly reduced if people simply gave up the notion of universalism of concepts
and accepted: NOT that nothing is true, but on the contrary, that anything can be.

--- G.

[The Feral Underclass]

There can not be variations of truth...it is impossible....if a TV is made and placed in a room where some people frm a remote amaxon tribe are and it comes on, they may believe it is a machine used for the gods to show them certain things....they may believe that it is some world where people are trapped inside....either way, it does not negate that fact it is a television.

One of my friends once said to me "is this a wall" I said "of course it is", and he said "only because you where taught it was a wall".....this is completly illogical....humans advanced, decided they needed to seperate certain rooms and so created a wall...a lump of brinks put together was given purpose and became a wall.....just because someone might teach you that it is actually a toilet does not negate the fact that it is a wall....

the analagy of prefernce of color can not be used to define how we should live our lives....if people like purple and some people like pink are just examples of individuality....islam and christainty are false, because god just can not exist, therefore it is rediculas to believe in them as a code for living.

please read my thread about the meaning of life in "existentialism" and it outlines what I think the meaning of life is.....communism and/or anarchism are simply ways to achieve that meaning....the universal truth is that we exist to experiences, and these social philosophies show how to realise that universal truth.

I believe conflict could be greatly reduced if people simply gave up the notion of universalism of concepts
and accepted: NOT that nothing is true, but on the contrary, that anything can be.

But anything can be....just under the right context....an equal and fair society based on collective responsability...anarchism!

[Dhul Fiqar]

Why is a wall a wall? I am sure you don't think it is because walls are a universal concept - that walls are somehow an absolute.

A wall is just a word we use for bricks that we like to put together to form barriers between spaces we call "rooms" inside structures we call "buildings". None of this is absolutely factual in the sense that it has, is and always shall be so - it is arbitrary and based on current circumstances of a single species of simian living on a single planet in a single solarsystem on the edge of a single galaxy. It's not "a wall" unless you understand what it isn't - what the alternative is. I.E. you need to understand the concept of a wall to know what it is - a monkey might use a wall as a smooth surface to crush his fruit on - he would then lick the pulp of the wall. Works for him - why is it not an "ugg-ugg" - as he likes to call it all hard things one can crush fruit on? =D

That is what I mean by context.

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

There can not be variations of truth...it is impossible....if a TV is made and placed in a room where some people frm a remote amaxon tribe are and it comes on, they may believe it is a machine used for the gods to show them certain things....they may believe that it is some world where people are trapped inside....either way, it does not negate that fact it is a television.


So it's a television because the culture that produces something gets to decide what it is? So it is no longer glass, metal and plastic because it has been turned into a TV? I would contend it is still exactly the same glass, metal and plastic it always was - we simply created a concept called "Television". Concepts are really at the heart of what I am talking about - we interpret our world through them and nothing else.

A concept is never absolute :)

--- G.

[The Feral Underclass]

Everything has a concept, everything has a pre-destined meaning...a tv has a meaning - to watch programmes, a watch has a meaning - tell the time, a wall has a meaning - to seperate rooms.

These concepts where desgined by us humans. We need something to seperate our rooms, therefore we will put together some brinks and call it a wall...however, in germany it is called die maur, does it lose it's meaning....no, it is still a room seperating device.

We can safly assume that aliens living on another planet need something to seperate their rooms, they come up with the theory of seprom the meaning of which is to seperate rooms....is this wall still a wall because it is called seprom....yes, because it has the same meaning.

we go further....is a wall a wall because it has another use...no! if you build a room seperating device and a monkey comes along and uses it as a plate, that does not make it a plate....a room seperating device has one meaning, to seperate rooms, it could have another purpose, but it does not negate what it is.

The meaning of existance is different, because life is not pre-destined. religion was created for a purpose, it had meaning...the purpose was to explain existance...It's not "a wall" unless you understand what it isn't. Ok...life can not be to serve god. it is impossible for god to exist, therefore it negates the meaning of religion and therefore the meaning of life. So we no it isnt religion. Is it the persuit of material things? which is what the meaning of life is now...no, because we can live in a world where we do not need to persue material things but have them free....so what else can be the meaning of life. Where is the truth. experience...it is everlasting and ever increasing, life is to experience existance...so, once you have come to that conslusion you look at society and say 'well how do we achieve the meaning of life'....by using anarchism...anarchism leads to the meaning of life, and therefore is truth!

[Dhul Fiqar]

Everything has a concept, everything has a pre-destined meaning...a tv has a meaning - to watch programmes, a watch has a meaning - tell the time, a wall has a meaning - to seperate rooms.

I think you misunderstand the point of my argument - I know full well it has one particular meaning to you. Why do you insist it must have the same meaning to everyone else when that is clearly not the case?

The differences between languages is 100% irrelevant because mosst concepts are not bound by language - a door is still the same concept if you call it a "hurð" - the Icelandic word. That does not mean that this particular door has any absolute value to every living thing in the galaxy. Homo sapiens sapiens find it a useful way of keeping each other out of certain spaces - that is all the concept is.


we go further....is a wall a wall because it has another use...no! if you build a room seperating device and a monkey comes along and uses it as a plate, that does not make it a plate....a room seperating device has one meaning, to seperate rooms, it could have another purpose, but it does not negate what it is.

So when you create something you get to name it and create the concept that the name applies to? So what? It's still just your perception of what you did with raw materials that were around for billions of years before anyone ever thought of building a house - let alone a wall. Why do you get to waltz along and decide that it is a wall and nothing else?

:)

--- G.

[Valkyrie]

Hmm. I can see that science is going to overlap in this forum too.
However, it can't be neglected to consider that the theory of mechanical absolutes, i.e., Newtonian physics was spectacularly siderailed by quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. Until there is thought up a plausible Unified theory of everything,--- Absolutes can't really be counted on.

Dhul, I love your flight theory! I agree! and it's not that humans cannot fly, or there are physical laws against that-- it's more less human beings are not at the evolutionary point to biologically adapt to aerodynamics. Probably be so in the millenias to come though. Need it with the roads the way they're jammed.

[The Feral Underclass]

I did not "waltz" along and call it a wall....it was a concept thought of many centuries before me, it was a concept that brought meaning to a lump of bricks which seperates rooms.

I can see your point. Your point is, that nothing can be certain because what one person considers one thing to be, may be consiederd to be something else by another....fine, I can accept that, but for me, a wall is a wall, no matter how you percieves it or for what purpose you use it....

I think that language is relevant, i was demonstrating that because someone calls it something else, does not make the meaning of it any different...you can call a door 'huro' or you can call it a plate, the meaning of what it is, remains the same.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Paris: Great point - I was hesitant to bring Schrödinger and co. into this - but now that you mention it even the laws of physics aren't absolutes... yet =D

--- G.

[Dhul Fiqar]

Originally posted by Libertarian [email protected] 16 2003, 12:10 AM
I did not "waltz" along and call it a wall....it was a concept thought of many centuries before me, it was a concept that brought meaning to a lump of bricks which seperates rooms.

I can see your point. Your point is, that nothing can be certain because what one person considers one thing to be, may be consiederd to be something else by another....fine, I can accept that, but for me, a wall is a wall, no matter how you percieves it or for what purpose you use it....

I think that language is relevant, i was demonstrating that because someone calls it something else, does not make the meaning of it any different...you can call a door 'huro' or you can call it a plate, the meaning of what it is, remains the same.
Fair enough, but I think you fundamentally misunderstood what I was saying, because your very use of the words: "for me, a wall is a wall, no matter how you perceive it" sums up what subjectivity is all about.

I never claimed it wasn't a wall to you - or me - just that it wasn't a wall from all perspectives. Language, as I said, is not the same as conceptualization - concepts stand independant of the particular language used to describe them. You don't have to know how to speak Arabic to know that you and the Arab world have the same idea of what constitutes "a tree" - it is the concept and not the word that is at issue. :)

--- G.

[The Feral Underclass]

Fair enough, but I think you fundamentally misunderstood what I was saying, because your very use of the words: "for me, a wall is a wall, no matter how you perceive it" sums up what subjectivity is all about.

if you, an educated individual, someone of intelligence looks at a wall and say that you percieve it to be a banana do not have a grasp of reality....i percieve a wall to be a wall and so do you...so do my friends, and so does everyone else....i hope.

concepts stand independant of the particular language used to describe them. You don't have to know how to speak Arabic to know that you and the Arab world have the same idea of what constitutes "a tree" -it is the concept and not the word that is at issue.

Exactly....and that was my point.....you say that someone else could percieve a wall to be a plate, and therefore is valid because that is what they call it, but it does not make it valid, because a wall is a wall....Icelandic people call a door Huro, germans call a wall maur, but it dosnt stop it being what it is because it is called something else :ph34r:

[Dhul Fiqar]

Originally posted by Libertarian [email protected] 16 2003, 12:32 AM
if you, an educated individual, someone of intelligence looks at a wall and say that you percieve it to be a banana do not have a grasp of reality....i percieve a wall to be a wall and so do you...so do my friends, and so does everyone else....i hope.

*sigh*

I didn't even alude to such a thing. I said a wall is a concept - because you conceive that it is a wall and thus understand it's context - i.e. a house. I also am a homo sapien sapien and live on planet earth - so naturally I recognize a wall as being just that - a wall. That doesn't mean it is one in any absolute sense - is all I am saying.

I suppose it comes down to semantics - but we can probably just agree to disagree on that point - ironically enough =D

--- G.

[The Feral Underclass]

I didn't even alude to such a thing. I said a wall is a concept - because you conceive that it is a wall and thus understand it's context - i.e. a house. I also am a homo sapien sapien and live on planet earth - so naturally I recognize a wall as being just that - a wall. That doesn't mean it is one in any absolute sense - is all I am saying.

Genuinly excuse me if I appear stupid....but if you accept it is a wall, how then can you accept it could possibly be something else.

The Italic writing is the part I don't really understand.

[Dhul Fiqar]

I don't think I can really explain it any better - just because someone or even everyone perceives something to be a certain way does not mean it is that way in any absolute sense - it is only what it is to us because we are here to conceptualize it as something. It is a bit like "a tree falls in the woods" - but not quite.

I am not saying this is an uncontroversial idea - just outlining it.

You might want to look up some stuff on "cognitive relativism" - although that is just one form of relativism which I find particularly interesting.

--- G.

[The Feral Underclass]

It is an interesting point i will definatly read more about it.

[BuyOurEverything]

How can existence exist? There is nothing that it can exist in relationship to as by its very definition it is everything that exists.

[redstar2000]

Being lazy as always, may I suggest that if there are "no absolutes", nevertheless some things are "closer" to "absolute" than others...a lot closer.

"Supernatural" ideas are very distant from "absolute truth"; many scientific concepts seem to approach "absolute truth" quite closely...in our interactions with the world, the world responds "as if" those concepts were absolutely true or very close to that.

Which is not to say that we won't get even closer in the future, even if the "absolute" like the speed of light can never be completely attained.

I've heard that one of the buzz words in the high tech biz these days is "five nines"--meaning 99.999% accurate, reliable, whatever.

That seems "good enough" to me.

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