Relativists: come and defend your philosophy if you can.

[TelecomClone]

Let us now (hopefully) get a good defense of relativism posted here, or let us dispel your relativism once and for all. It is my contention that the argument 'all truth is subjective/no objective truth exists' is fundamentally irrational. The oft-presented "but that's just your opinion!" tagline is almost always unsupported, and serves the anti-intellectual function of precluding debate altogether. Many human conclusions are certainly arbitrary, but must they be? Is the human intellect really not up to the task of perceiving reality - which would be the cognitive failure that gives rise to the inapplicability of reason, and therefore objectivity, to systemic truth and subsequently values, ethics, and morality? And if man's mind is impotent as such, how then can one even come to that conclusion when the tools with which one purports to conclude are supposedly incapable of conclusion?

In more direct terms, the logical failure that I see in the relativist argument is this. The relativist wants to conclude that there is no such thing as objective truth, all truth being subjective and, as such, the relativist precludes rational conclusivity. But in saying that all axioms as conclusions must be ultimately irrational, one is also saying that human observation is totally impotent to discern objective reality; in doing so, this position nullifies itself because it is, of course, based in that very same human observation. The relativist as such wants to arrive at a conclusion which literally undermines the tools with which he or she purports to conclude, such that he or she could not possibly conclude in the first place. It's total nonsense in that it directly nullifies itself.

Below please find that I have presented the analytical objection in question form - any relativists on the board (or devil's advocates) can now analytically respond to the question, thereby explaining just how the 'no objective truths' argument overcomes the problem that I am illustrating. I will ask the same essential question in three different contexts so that the chance of further misunderstanding is lessened. The question is as follows:


a) You say that "all axioms are equally valid." But as such, two axioms that directly contradict one another can both be valid. This is a violation of the Law of Identity, according to which, logical contradictions can not exist. For instance, the metaphysical postulate that objective reality exists, and the metaphysical postulate that objective reality does not exist can not both be true according to the Law of Identity because the one physically precludes the other. If you discard the Law of Identity in order to make this acceptable, you are saying that logic itself is invalid and, if you do that, how is it that you are able to come to your conclusion? If you aren't using logic, what method of analysis are you using and how is it valid?

b) The statement that there is no objective truth is a statement that you are making following your own observations, using a process of reasoning that integrates those perceptions with conceptions. But to make this statement is to say that your own reasoning leads you to the conclusion that human reasoning is impotent to the task of identifying objective reality. How can you use an impotent reasoning to ascertain the objective impotence of itself when you say that it is impotent to do so in the first place? If "all such truth is baseless," then isn't that very statement itself, which is a statement of truth, baseless as well? And if it's not baseless, what are you basing it upon and why is that exempt from being a baseless truth if everything else isn't?

c) An objective truth is one that is not predicated upon simple perspective. An objective truth is one that is true no matter how any individual person wants to regard it. Now, the idea that there isn't objective truth, and the idea there is objective truth, are two ideas that contradict and preclude one another:

* They can't ever both be true at the same time according to the Law of Identity.
* If the latter is ever true, then it is always true by definition.
* If the latter is never true then the former is always true by definition, which would be an example of objective truth, which is to have the statement contradict itself.

So how is it, exactly, that this is not a self-annihilating position? What analytical steps do you take to make this apparent self-nullification rational?

In summary, failing to resolve the problems presented by these questions would be to analytically establish, in order, the following regarding the statement "there is no objective truth":
a) The statement excludes any logical basis it might have for its own truth, by definition. It is therefore illogical.
b) The observation is impossible to make by definition and as such can not be made. It is therefore irrational.
c) If the statement was ever false under any context then it would always be false by definition of its only possible opposite. If the statement were true it would have to be objectively true by definition, contradicting itself. It is therefore self-annihilating.

...the textbook example of a self-annihilating, illogical, irrational point.


So please, relativists, have at it. Defend your philosophy. Illustrate once and for all that you aren't schizophrenic nutballs. I've been seeing a lot of axiomatic relativism being promulgated lately (http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=304472), and no defense of it whatsoever.

[Snowflake]

In TelecomClone's opinion.

[TelecomClone]

In TelecomClone's opinion.How old are you really?

[Snowflake]

Holy SHIT!! I've been contradicted. Maybe I should do something.

[TelecomClone]

Holy SHIT!! I've been contradicted. Maybe I should do something.Maybe try growing up?

[Snowflake]

The words, they make no sense. And seriously, do you really expect me to read all that?

[TelecomClone]

The words, they make no sense. And seriously, do you really expect me to read all that?I don't really expect you to do anything but continue to make a fool out of yourself, Snowflake.

[Snowflake]

Likewise.

[lbloom]

If "all such truth is baseless," then isn't that very statement itself, which is a statement of truth, baseless as well?

Option 1: "Firmly" pretend to know stuff, and then use the "laws of logic" dreamt up by a similarly anal fellow-sufferer to ascribe that quality to the arguments.
Option 2: Sit back and freely admit that everything sucks, option 2 itself included.

I'll take option 2, thank you.

Nothing is. Enjoy your stay. ;)

[Lee]

Relativism is a strange old thing, the obvious question springs to mind, relative to what? Relativism seems to presuppose objective reality, since everything can't be relative unless it is relative to something, you can't be relative all by yourself!

Anyway, there seems to be several flavours of relativism, usually going under the names of postmodernism, relativism, subjectivism or irrationalism. Needless to say, most are self-refuting if analysed logically, though their proponents usually dismiss logic as an objective standard with which to judge their philosophy, thus insulating themselves from criticism.

The biggest problem for subjectivists is trying to explain how mistakes happen. If the mind constructs its own experience, then all events must be constructed from the minds expectations, thus precluding the possibility of experience deviating from those expectations. A deviation from expectation is simply another way of saying that a mistake has occured.

The danger of relativism (in any guise) is that it is amoral, it teaches everyone that what they believe is true for them and that no objective standards exist. The consequence of this kind of thinking is quite frankly, dangerous. How do you settle a debate without any objective standards to settle right from wrong? You can't, everyone has their own personal truth and can act upon it. Such dogmatic, feedback avoidance allows for no reconciliation. Violence is the only method to settle disputes.

[Snowflake]

Relativism is a strange old thing, the obvious question springs to mind, relative to what?I don't know. But after all, I'm not the one calling myself a relativist, TC did that.

[Lee]

I don't know. But after all, I'm not the one calling myself a relativist, TC did that.What are you then, a nihilist?

[Snowflake]

What are you then, a nihilist?Yes, but in all fairness, I have no qualms in calling myself a nihilistic relativist, so I did :huh:

[Lee]

Yes, but in all fairness, I have no qualms in calling myself a nihilistic relativist, so I did :huh:That's okay, I think everyone goes through through a nihilist phase. I even think it is useful for destroying all assumptions, wiping the slate clean before building up from the foundations. The problem is for people who get stuck there, it's a very defeatist philosophy, for those who asked the questions, but failed to find answers.

Depending on your particular kind of nihilism, it's also horribly self-refuting, though any good nihilist will seal themselves off from any such realisation, by simply denying all methods of criticism. The problem for nihilists is that they cannot avoid the universe's tendancy to not care what they think, therefore dishing out pain and suffering when the nihilist chooses to try and ignore it.

[Snowflake]

The problem for nihilists is that they cannot avoid the universe's tendancy to not care what they think, therefore dishing out pain and suffering when the nihilist chooses to try and ignore it.Well obviously.

Logic is not merely a reason for someone to reign free their ridiculously "self-evident" opinions. If that is me denying reality then fine, but I will not (as TC has said) "grow up" merely because I deny what someone defines as their truth.

Such bias and blatant conceit will not be "honored," by me, anyway. This is a forum about the discussion of opinions, not namecalling because I disagree with someone elses logic.

Absolutely ridiculous (and yeah, I'm pissed off). This shit happens all the fucking time.

On second thought, why is logic the assumed verifier of truth, anyway? Seems like more bullshit.

[joft]

Why is relativism the philosophy in need of defense? Are you totally oblivious as to the multifarious motivations behind human reasoning or the cognitive/computational limitations of neural networks, also given their many evolutionary constraints? Are you really ignorant of the entire history of philosophy, science, or the sociology of "knowledge"? Oh of course, those are "soft sciences," which are just glorified stamp collecting.

Wait wait, let me slow down, I keep forgetting you're unable to even communicate with anyone who does not slowly and discretely reveal their argument step by step, so here are a few for you to tackle.

Your argument against relativism is that it is logically inconsistent.

Logic is a tool of human cogitation that is fundamentally flawed, inconsistent, and limited (see Godel's incompleteness, Chaitin's construction, or anything in the fields of information theory, quantum mechanics, evolutionary psychology, anything having to do with the human brain, etc)

Therefore, relativism's failure to conform to the laws of logic (such as the law of identity) only means that espousing relativism while simultaneously using the tool of logic may result in cognitive dissonance.

This does not prove jack shit, quantum mechanics is the most verified and validated scientific body of knowledge that we have and it's also the one that causes the most cognitive dissonance.

(edit) QED :lol:

[Snowflake]

Why is relativism the philosophy in need of defense?If you'll notice, I have not defended myself, but I will admit to an interest in attempting to do so anyway.
I keep forgetting you're unable to even communicate with anyone who does not slowly and discretely reveal their argument step by step, so here are a few for you to tackle.:wtf: ???

Edit: On second thought, I don't think Joft's post was directed at me. Please disregard this post.

[lbloom]

The concept of logic changes too much over time for it to be absolute. Unlike many of you obviously well-read people, I haven't had the time or inclination to read the tomes of the ancients on the topic, so all that jargon flying about is swimmingly abstruse.

I do know that Einstein was convinced that quantum mechanics was illogical, and spent most of his highly unproductive later life trying to rip it up, if only for entertainment. Boy, was he ever wrong. There's no innate "logic" to single, apparently uncorrelated particles forming coherent patterns in the collective. We construct theories to fit perceived experiment, assumed correct till weird stuff happens again. It takes a generation, and it's not weird any more.

Every generation of high thinkers likes to look down from their high horse of logic and split hairs. So be it.

Schrodinger's cat is one unhappy animal. It is not a mistake. It is not moral or amoral. Neither am I.

[joft]

Unlike many of you obviously well-read people, I haven't had the time or inclination to read the tomes of the ancients on the topic, so all that jargon flying about is swimmingly abstruse.
I haven't read much either, I'm just throwing terms around because I want to sound smart. But so does everyone else in this thread, and that's one of my points; just look at the title of the thread, presented as an open challenge. Oohhh, step up and fight, if you dare!

I'm sure we all know that nothing will come of this thread, nobody will be converted from either side to the other. it will attract all the usual suspects who will proceed to blow as much hot air as hard as they possibly can in each others directions, and when it (eventually) dies, each side will declare themselves the winners.

Actually, I suspect the relativists may take a tone more along the lines of "whatever," while the logical positivists over here will cling doggedly to their precious laws. that's the thing with logic, it's the most retardedly simplistic thing people are capable of thinking or saying; "Your argument is false, therefore, it cannot be true." :wtf: but that makes it really easy to hold on to and be stubborn and wait till everyone else in a given debate gets bored so the logicians can think of themselves as the winners and feel vindicated and smart. (the relativists way of doing this is more dismissal, as you can see this post itself is; "nothing will come of this argument anyway so i'm not even going to bother with you". but at least i have the slightest inkling of being self-conscious about it)

[Snowflake]

I haven't read much either, I'm just throwing terms around because I want to sound smart. But so does everyone else in this thread, and that's one of my points; just look at the title of the thread, presented as an open challenge. Oohhh, step up and fight, if you dare!Well DUH.

This whole thread exists because I pissed off TelecomeClone.
Actually, I suspect the relativists may take a tone more along the lines of "whatever," while the logical positivists over here will cling doggedly to their precious laws.This thread is a testament to that, it's pretty obvious.

[Lee]

On second thought, why is logic the assumed verifier of truth, anyway? Seems like more bullshit.Logic isn't the verifier of truth.

Logic is a set of rules, we can use these rules to determine true from false. However, logic is not the ultimate verifier of truth, how could it be? Logic has not even been a consistent system, famous logicians such as Aristotle, Frege, Russell, Boole, Leibniz etc. have all went about developing logic.

The thing is, if a logical system was the determiner of truth, then how can a logical system be false? The reason is simple, logical systems are developed by how well they work. The process is not unlike that of the development of a scientific theory, each theory is tested against experience, those that lead to errors are rejected and those that work are kept.

Logic is not just an arbitrary set of rules, logic is the cumulative success of logicians throughout history. The reason that I adopt logic in debates is simple, because it works better than the alternatives. Indeed, the usefulness of logic is apparent in the development of science and technology.

Because the rules of logic are so well tested and so successful, it's wise to adopt them, they simply work! Ultimately, that is the arbiter of truth, your own direct conscious experience, does it or doesn't it work? Logic overwhelmingly does work, this is because logicians shape logic through feedback, therefore eliminating errors in the system.

[joft]

To me it is somewhat revealing that the importance of logic is, anecdotally, usually taught by the usage of logic puzzles. logic puzzles work because they exploit basic assumptions people make about the intentions of other people, especially other people who are devising tricky puzzles to try to confuse them. they may pick the answer that actually seems least correct to them, just because they think the person presenting the puzzle wants to wow them by showing how a counter-intuitive answer like that is actually the correct one. but then, the thought may also occur to us that that's what they would expect us to do, and that the real trick is that the correct answer really is the most obvious one. that is just one possible way of boxer-dancing around and making them miss the answer each time, there are plenty of other assumptions that can be violated in the context of the situation presented in the question (if it's a word question).

those things work by exploiting how powerful the human brain is. they're "cheap tricks," but so is much other philosophy, with its intentional "sage"-like vagueness

[Lee]

Why is relativism the philosophy in need of defense?Actually, it cannot be defended even in principle. The relativist seeks to negate all premises, but any argument must be built upon particular premises.

In other words, the relativist sweeps the rug out from beneath their own argument upon reaching their conclusion, this is irresepctive of whatever method used to reach that conclusion.

This is why your comments about neural networks, evolutionary constraints, sociology of knowledge etc. are irrelevent, that is presuming you really are arguing in favour of such strong subjectivism.

You pull the same error with your critique of logic, which is dependent upon premises which you try to negate. Godel's incompleteness theorum is a good example, it is logical, it shows that any set of axioms will pose questions which they cannot answer. Your attempt to use this theorum to undermine logic also undermines the theorum, therefore rendering the argument nulled.

As for Quantum Mechanics, it is a model that is very clearly mathematically defined (i.e. logical), it makes predictions that are met by experience, one of the most vigorously tested scientific theories there is. It is counterintuitive, not illogical.

[Snowflake]

I do accept the premises of logic, but mainly in a scientific context, if that is of any value.

[Zephyrus055]

My philosophy professor said that relativism either enters confused universalism or nihilism.

[Lee]

I do accept the premises of logic, but mainly in a scientific context, if that is of any value.What is a 'scientific context'?

[Snowflake]

My philosophy professor said that relativism either enters confused universalism or nihilism."enters?"
What is a 'scientific context'?pertaining to the discipline of science and the scientific method.

[joft]

Actually, it cannot be defended even in principle. The relativist seeks to negate all premises, but any argument must be built upon particular premises.

In other words, the relativist sweeps the rug out from beneath their own argument upon reaching their conclusion, this is irresepctive of whatever method used to reach that conclusion.
I already said that your argument is that relativism logically excludes itself but the point of relativism is that it doesn't matter that it logically excludes itself because logic isn't "the final word." all you did was re-state the same argument. relativism sweeps the rug out from underneath itself only in the context of logic. are you really failing to see this? to the relativist (or the nihilist, whatever), it doesn't matter that their philosophy "proves itself wrong" in the context of a subjective system of proof, such as logic, that it admittedly (indeed, by definition) does not adhere to

[Lee]

I already said that your argument is that relativism logically excludes itself but the point of relativism is that it doesn't matter that it logically excludes itself because logic isn't "the final word." all you did was re-state the same argument. relativism sweeps the rug out from underneath itself only in the context of logic. are you really failing to see this? to the relativist (or the nihilist, whatever), it doesn't matter that their philosophy "proves itself wrong" in the context of a subjective system of proof, such as logic, that it admittedly (indeed, by definition) does not adhere toWhich is why all your comments about neural networks, Godel's incompleteness theorum, evolutionary constraints etc. are all meaningless, by your own standards, you are trying to argue your point whilst simultaneously denying all methods of argumentation.

It's an amoral and feedback avoiding position. It's the philosophical equivalent of clasping your hands over your ears and screaming until people leave you alone.

Nobody can defend relativism any more than they can support relativism. Since everything is relative. The absurdity is that relativism is not a philosophy anybody really lives by, even relativists, it's just some nonsense to spout in a philosophical discussion.

[joft]

Which is why all your comments about neural networks, Godel's incompleteness theorum, evolutionary constraints etc. are all meaningless, by your own standards, you are trying to argue your point whilst simultaneously denying all methods of argumentation.
whether or not they are meaningless by my standards is beside the point, i was using them as examples of things that can be dealt with in the confines of logic that demonstrate the limitations of that logic. and i don't need formal methods of argumentation as defined by rhetorical convention, i'm perfectly capable of thinking and arguing by virtue of the fact that i possess a human intellect, something that convention (especially in the extremely "left-brained" pedantic western logical tradition) falls far short of appreciating

if the truth of something depends upon its usefulness, then our next obstacle is the question of what it's useful for. I already said that it's useful as an extremely stubborn form of debate, and that can arguably be said to have led to as much atrocity in history as appeals to emotion or religion have (see the Soviet Union, Maoist China, both secular political systems built upon logical extrapolation from economic theory). and it's easy to imagine how it might continue to lead to more atrocities, with America's newfound neoconservatism, "benevolent" hegemony, and pre-emptive military doctrines.

what else is it useful for? developing more precise and efficient means of exploiting and destroying the environment/ourselves/each other? great :rolleyes2

[Lee]

whether or not they are meaningless by my standards is beside the point, i was using them as examples of things that can be dealt with in the confines of logic that demonstrate the limitations of that logic. and i don't need formal methods of argumentation as defined by rhetorical convention, i'm perfectly capable of thinking and arguing by virtue of the fact that i possess a human intellect, something that convention (especially in the extremely "left-brained" pedantic western logical tradition) falls far short of appreciatingAgain, your own philosophical position render all of this nonsense, irrelevant ramblings that have no more bearing on truth than anything else. That's why your philosophical denial of everything is like clasping your ears and screaming until everyone goes away.


what else is it useful for? developing more precise and efficient means of exploiting and destroying the environment/ourselves/each other? great :rolleyes2You demonstrate your own misunderstanding here.

Whether something is useful or not depends completely on what your intentions are, what is useful for one person depends upon values that need not be shared.

Whatever goals you have in life, the vast majority of possible actions you can take will result in an error. Logic is a set of rules that have worked in the past, that can be trusted to help eliminate many of the possible errors which you could make, before you make them.

It is close-minded to the extreme, amoral, egotistical and completely immune to all experience which might cast doubt upon it. I can't argue against your position, but likewise, you cannot argue for it. It's utterly pointless.

Sadly, we share the same world, and the relativists amoral position is not something that can be ignored.

[joft]

Again, your own philosophical position render all of this nonsense, irrelevant ramblings that have no more bearing on truth than anything else.
showing inconsistencies within a given closed philosophical system is a classic relativist (or nihilist) approach. it's why we never fully adopt any one of them. to me, relativism (or nihilism) is just an acknowledgement of the nature of "reality" to transcend the confines of any closed philosophical system.


That's why your philosophical denial of everything is like clasping your ears and screaming until everyone goes away.
if that's the impression you're getting from my written words then i'm sorry you think that. my actual disposition is one of near complete detachment and non-chalant debate for fun. relativism isn't important to me.

(edit) ok that's not really true, the debate is somewhat important to me. I'm bothered by people who are able to stay with one worldview, because i can't


Whether something is useful or not depends completely on what your intentions are
that's my point. human intentions underlie all of our attempts to understand nature, including logic. relativism is just a refusal to ascribe to a single one of those attempts

[Snowflake]

Sadly, we share the same world, and the relativists amoral position is not something that can be ignored.Amoral?

You're calling me amoral?

Well fuck you too, buddy!
Logic isn't the verifier of truth.You're exactly right, so don't call me fucking amoral.
It is close-minded to the extreme, amoral, egotistical and completely immune to all experience which might cast doubt upon it.So in other words, you lied. You should have said "Logic IS the verifier of truth." Please don't contradict yourself in front of the kiddies, thanks.

[Lee]

Amoral?

You're calling me amoral?

Well fuck you too, buddy!Nihilism is amoral, so is relativism, subjectivism etc. they are all amoral. They are a denial of any common standards of anything, including morality.


You're exactly right, so don't call me fucking amoral.Okay, explain how you are not amoral. Is there such thing as right and wrong? is it possible for you to give a reason why any particular action is immoral without abandoning your nihilism?


So in other words, you lied. You should have said "Logic IS the verifier of truth." Please don't contradict yourself in front of the kiddies, thanks.You clearly do not understand. It isn't just about logic, it is about any method of making any decision or foriming any opinion.

Nihilistic relativism is just a denial of everything and anything, even itself. All evidence and criticism are meaningless, morality, truth, falsity, rationality, irrationality, good, bad, up, down, left, right. It's all meaningless, just a figment, an illusion, an arbitrary void of incomprehensible gibberish. All is relative, nothing really exists, nothing can be known, including knowing that nothing can be known, we all might as well not exist, learning is impossible, it's all in your imagination.

[kuranes]

Saying "that depends" could be looked at as a logical way of approaching flexibility. Or someone could say it is "being a relativist".

[Snowflake]

Wow, that is bad, damn, I must've opened a can of worms.

[Snowflake]

Saying "that depends" could be looked at as a logical way of approaching flexibility. Or someone could say it is "being a relativist".For that matter, denying anything someone argues "as fact" could be retorted as relativisitic, as indicated by this thread.

Why is it that insults are never specific in nature, but rather can seemingly be applied at the whim of the wind?

So something so minor as "denying logic" gets one dubbed "amoral" (whatever the fuck that means, morality is a whole other can of worms).

[joft]

Nihilistic relativism is just a denial of everything and anything, even itself. All evidence and criticism are meaningless, morality, truth, falsity, rationality, irrationality, good, bad, up, down, left, right. It's all meaningless, just a figment, an illusion, an arbitrary void of incomprehensible gibberish. All is relative, nothing really exists, nothing can be known, including knowing that nothing can be known, we all might as well not exist, learning is impossible, it's all in your imagination.
I think you might be fighting a straw man here, because I don't know anyone who really believes that as you present it.

[Ferrus]

I think you might be fighting a straw man here.
Really? I thought it was generally accepted as the nihlist paradox.

[Lee]

I think you might be fighting a straw man here, because I don't know anyone who really believes that as you present it.Well, I realise that over the top description is rarely held, usually weaker forms of relativism are prefered. Nonetheless, they tend to fall into the same problems of amorality, self-refuting and refusal to accept any form of feedback.

It renders discussion meaningless.

[Hustler]

I think you might be fighting a straw man here, because I don't know anyone who really believes that as you present it.

This whole thread has been about nothing more than waging war on strawmen since the first post.

[Snowflake]

Damn, I think that was the first post in this thread that has made any sense.

[Zephyrus055]

In post-modernism, I thought that the central philosophy was "everyone is after power." Relativism is consequently a philosophy of empowering idiots.

[mgb]

In post-modernism, I thought that the central philosophy was "everyone is after power." Relativism is consequently a philosophy of empowering idiots.

Maybe you should stick to math, you seem to have a better grasp of it.

[mgb]

As for this entire thread, I'm just going to post this:

http://www.intpcentral.com/uploads/MagrittePipe.jpg


Prove it wrong, logically.

[Zephyrus055]

Maybe you should stick to math, you seem to have a better grasp of it.
Awww, ok.

Relativism is just your source of power; empiricism is mine. According to my empirical standards, your relativist theory makes no point. It basically amounts to:

A likes X + Y is wrong for A
B likes Y + X is wrong for B So?

[songbird36]

I think you need to distinguish in your argument between "truth" and "reality" - the two things occupy quite different spaces in philosophical argument. A thing is capable of being "true" logically, for example, even if it is false in reality. For example:

(a) All Americans live in Florida
(b) TelecomClone is an American
(c) Therefore TelecomClone lives in Florida

Your initial argument seems to be based on Descartes "I think therefore I am" statement. All we "know" from that is that there is some entity capable of thinking. It doesn't get us any further towards the objective nature of the reality of that thing (i.e. the "what is it"? question).

[mgb]

Awww, ok.

Relativism is just your source of power; empiricism is mine. According to my empirical standards, your relativist theory makes no point. It basically amounts to:

A likes X + Y is wrong for A
B likes Y + X is wrong for B So?

I think relativism in grading would work really well for you, especially when it comes to emperical subjects like math. I'm sure your above formulas make a great deal of sense to you and you are probably giving yourself an A+ for them right now.

Relativism is no source for power. Neither is post modernism. They diffuse power, if anything. There is no power in everyone having an equal amount of power.

[Zephyrus055]

I think relativism in grading would work really well for you, especially when it comes to emperical subjects like math. I'm sure your above formulas make a great deal of sense to you and you are probably giving yourself an A+ for them right now.
Lol, whatever.


Relativism is no source for power. Neither is post modernism. They diffuse power, if anything. There is no power in everyone having an equal amount of power.
Yeah, it maybe empowers the masses + definitely the messenger.

[TelecomClone]

I don't know anyone who really believes that as you present it.It does not matter whether or not it is consciously held as such because the philosophical implications would seem to remain exactly as stated in any case (and I'm eagerly waiting for counterexamples to illustrate that wrong); a person can hold a one-kilometer long beam and insist that it is only half a kilometer long, but he or she will nevertheless collide with objects up to one kilometer away when turning regardless of this unfounded denial. This thread is an opportunity for relativists to illustrate that they aren't being anti-intellectual and ducking thought altogether by espousing this philosophy, doing so by discussing what the bounds of their philosophy are and why the philosophy can't be applied to the issues that I have raised. Is there a flaw in my original post that saves relativism? Great, so point it out. You spend so much energy in this thread mounting indignation, attacking logic by citing logic in support of your attack (which as Lee points out is self-nullifying), and anti-intellectually maligning the fact that I'm trying to engender honest argument - as if that's some kind of sin. But you don't actually present any argument in favor of relativism of your own. I don't know what the problem is, but there only seem to be six or eight people on this entire board who'll actually bother exploring ideas with any kind of resolution.

As one of those few, and as usual, Lee I think embodies the voice of reason in this thread. As he points out repeatedly, the issue is not confined simply to logic. The relativist in declaring that the human mind is incapable of objective conclusion negates the conclusively of human thought altogether. I ask in my original post By what means are these conclusions being reached? I point out that relativism appears to fail logically and go on to ask how, if not logic, are they being supported? And what have we received in response? Attacks on logic! Why can't you - any of you - address the question? I was under the impression that this board was populated with thinkers; don't you ever explore your own thoughts? How are you arriving at them, if not analytically? If not logic, what means of analysis? My ears are open to any explanation. Are you Feeling for values, or what?

[TelecomClone]

I think you need to distinguish in your argument between "truth" and "reality" - the two things occupy quite different spaces in philosophical argument. A thing is capable of being "true" logically, for example, even if it is false in reality. For example:

(a) All Americans live in Florida
(b) TelecomClone is an American
(c) Therefore TelecomClone lives in FloridaThank you, songbird, for actually beginning to explore the issue. In regards to the above: your example illustrates why philosophy is worthless unless it deals with reality and, indeed, most philosophy attempts to do just that for that very reason. Rational philosophy, or philosophy that is intended to be rational, is axiomatically predicated upon reality - or at least what we know of reality. Where the premises are false, the philosophy is logically false; the objective falsehood of a renders the argument false. I define philosophical truth, which is what we're looking for here, as corresponding in an internally and externally consistent manner with reality.



Your initial argument seems to be based on Descartes "I think therefore I am" statement.Yes: I think, therefore something is. As I explained here (http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=283349&postcount=20).



All we "know" from that is that there is some entity capable of thinking. It doesn't get us any further towards the objective nature of the reality of that thing (i.e. the "what is it"? question).But how can that be used in defence of relativism? Relativism is a conclusion, purporting to outline a truth. Where does it come from? How is it supported? How is it the case that it does not negate itself, as it seems to? If not logic - and it does not appear to be a logically sound position - then what means? That's what I want to know.

[mgb]

Yeah, it maybe empowers the masses + definitely the messenger.

You aren't empowering the masses. Distributing power evenly doesn't empower any one person. It's the opposite of empowerment, it's anarchy. You are making a false assumption that the masses will use their power together. Really, you are just confusing post modernism with communism.

[mgb]

But how can that be used in defence of relativism? Relativism is a conclusion, purporting to outline a truth. Where does it come from? How is it supported? How is it the case that it does not negate itself, as it seems to? If not logic - and it does not appear to be a logically sound position - then what means? That's what I want to know.

Isn't your dislike of relativism completely subjective?

This thread really isn't about you trying to understand relativism, which you are claiming here not to, it's about you being right about it being wrong. You aren't really inviting anyone to argue with you, just trying to prove you can be more right than other people, which is kind of funny because that just relegates your entire thread to relativism, as in you are better relative to another member, but not really proving anything in the grand scheme of things.

[mr. treat]

Isn't your dislike of relativism completely subjective?

This thread really isn't about you trying to understand relativism, which you are claiming here not to, it's about you being right about it being wrong. You aren't really inviting anyone to argue with you, just trying to prove you can be more right than other people, which is kind of funny because that just relegates your entire thread to relativism, as in you are better relative to another member, but not really proving anything in the grand scheme of things.

nonrelativists: want to know they are right.

relativists: don't give a shit.

[Zephyrus055]

You aren't empowering the masses. Distributing power evenly doesn't empower any one person. It's the opposite of empowerment, it's anarchy. You are making a false assumption that the masses will use their power together. Really, you are just confusing post modernism with communism.
I made no such assumption, and I said that the masses may be conditionally empowered, but definitely the messenger of relativism is gaining power if people believe him.

[Google Monster]

Determinism all the way.

[TelecomClone]

This thread really isn't about you trying to understand relativism, which you are claiming here not to, it's about you being right about it being wrong.Relativism appears to be very wrong. I've never seen a defense of it. I'd like to see one, such that I can better conclude whether it is as anti-intellectual as it appears, being commonly offered up when a person wants to nullify a debate without going to the trouble of thinking about it and making an argument, or whether it actually has some kind of substance or merit. I like substance, I like ideas with merit, I like knowledge.



You aren't really inviting anyone to argue with you, just trying to prove you can be more right than other peopleWhat a retarded interpretation of this thread - and yet another way to duck the issue. Endless dodges and ducks, for such a simple question. There is no ulterior motive or hidden strawman, there is no ego trip or mind game. Get over these pseudofreudian conspiracy theories, please. I'm interested in truth - it doesn't matter if that truth comes from my argument or someone else's argument. Is relativism truth, as it purports to be? Why? How? What of the problems it seems to generate and proceed to suffer from?

[mr. treat]

relativism = dependent origination.

[Hustler]

It does not matter whether or not it is consciously held as such because the philosophical implications would seem to remain exactly as stated in any case (and I'm eagerly waiting for counterexamples to illustrate that wrong); a person can hold a one-kilometer long beam and insist that it is only half a kilometer long, but he or she will nevertheless collide with objects up to one kilometer away when turning regardless of this unfounded denial.

One kilometer long according to whose reference frame? This was an extremely poorly chosen example, as special relativity requires that there is no absolute reference frame for measuring distances or times. Try again.

PS -- This doesn't even take into account the mass of the beam. I assure you if the beam were roughly the same mass as our galaxy, some very interesting dimensional warpature would occur whereby the linear distance and actual distance of the beam could be legitimately disputed.

[joft]

Relativism appears to be very wrong. I've never seen a defense of it. I'd like to see one, such that I can better conclude whether it is as anti-intellectual as it appears, being commonly offered up when a person wants to nullify a debate without going to the trouble of thinking about it and making an argument, or whether it actually has some kind of substance or merit. I like substance, I like ideas with merit, I like knowledge.
you like things with "substance" (content) that you agree with, you like your ideas. i've given several arguments in defense of relativism, including debunking your supposed disproof of it. you just refuse to acknowledge them as valid arguments, because you disagree with them. welcome to reality, where people can be absolutely convinced of diametrically opposed "truths". that's relativism

you must seriously have a blind spot where it comes to being self-conscious if you think these "pseudofreudian" accusations are meritless. do you read your own posts? do you even know what you're saying as you say it? you sigh in such sanctimonious disappointment with the small number of level headed individuals who really pursue debates to their conclusion, of which you are of course one

[TelecomClone]

This was an extremely poorly chosen example, as special relativity requires that there is no absolute reference frame for measuring distances or times. Try again.It would certainly have been poor if it was a physical argument, Hustler, but it wasn't. It was symbolic: the point being that the implications of the relativist position would seem to immediately cause problematic interactions further down the line, regardless of whether or not a relativist has bothered to explore the philosophy to that extent.

[Chimera]

My views are a bit of mix. At the most basic level of choosing your premises, there is a point where the choice is irrational. After that, I agree that logic is the most useful tool for going from premises to conclusions.

However in practice I think I go about it backwards, I develop an intuition about something and then test it against logic. I find logic useful, but not very fertile when it comes to new thoughts and ideas. So I tend to play fast and loose until something has gotten to the point where I can subject it to more formal criticism.

Does that make me a relativist? I try to hold myself to my conclusions, even when it's not convenient. I don't change rules on the fly because it will give me a temporary advantage.

And yet, I realize at the most basic level, that many of my premises are arbitrary. I looked for a foundation and couldn't find it. A bedrock, something to stand on that was firm and undeniable, so that everything that followed would be held up by it. Well the randians say the bedrock is "A is A", reality exists and is understandable. I agree with the first part, but reality is not always perfectly understandable to me, so I see it as unstable ground, perhaps the best of a bad lot, but not certain. And furthermore, I don't see any moral implications whatever to this if you choose it as your bedrock. I could be both a saint and tyrant with this as my foundation.



a) You say that "all axioms are equally valid." But as such, two axioms that directly contradict one another can both be valid. This is a violation of the Law of Identity, according to which, logical contradictions can not exist. For instance, the metaphysical postulate that objective reality exists, and the metaphysical postulate that objective reality does not exist can not both be true according to the Law of Identity because the one physically precludes the other. If you discard the Law of Identity in order to make this acceptable, you are saying that logic itself is invalid and, if you do that, how is it that you are able to come to your conclusion? If you aren't using logic, what method of analysis are you using and how is it valid?

Well this only states that you cannot hold both axioms at the same time if they contradict or preclude eachother. It says nothing to the validity of said axioms. I agree in this case that both cannot be right, but both certainly can be wrong.


b) The statement that there is no objective truth is a statement that you are making following your own observations, using a process of reasoning that integrates those perceptions with conceptions. But to make this statement is to say that your own reasoning leads you to the conclusion that human reasoning is impotent to the task of identifying objective reality. How can you use an impotent reasoning to ascertain the objective impotence of itself when you say that it is impotent to do so in the first place? If "all such truth is baseless," then isn't that very statement itself, which is a statement of truth, baseless as well? And if it's not baseless, what are you basing it upon and why is that exempt from being a baseless truth if everything else isn't?

This is a false choice, you're presenting observations as either absolute or worthless. Observations are all we have for gathering information about the world, that I agree with, but they are not perfect, nor do they always lead you to the correct conclusion. Someone could make a completely irrational choice, based on feeling alone, and still get closer to the truth than someone using pure logic if the latter's observations are faulty and they choose poor premises as a result. Your logic can be perfect from then on and you can still be wrong.


c) An objective truth is one that is not predicated upon simple perspective. An objective truth is one that is true no matter how any individual person wants to regard it. Now, the idea that there isn't objective truth, and the idea there is objective truth, are two ideas that contradict and preclude one another:

I think in practice you're limited by what is knowable. In mathematics, your axioms are defined, your rules of inference are defined (though always vulunerable to a counter example), and you can state objective truth with a high degree of certainty. Not complete certainty, but about as close as you can get.

Do you think any human on the planet understands natural laws to such an extent that they can draw similar conclusions with a similar degree of certainty to mathematics? I know I certainly don't, and if that makes me a relativist, so be it.

[TelecomClone]

you like things with "substance" (content) that you agree with, you like your ideas.I wouldn't expect you to know, joft, but a great deal of the ideas that I currently hold - including my position on this particular issue - were positions that I lost in argument over the years. I like ideas that are logical and stand up to duress, no matter who came up with them, and I have no qualms with changing my stance on an issue if a strong counterargument is offered. You know, I was a nihilist once. I subscribed to (moral) relativism once. The arguments were exposed as fallacies by individuals who held a superior perspective, and therefore I changed my position. So there goes your entire premise.

[meshou]

It was symbolicOuch! Symbols are pretty much things to be interpreted!

I'm not a relitivist, but do think many things ARE relitive, and think answers to many questions will rightly change depending on what you value or do not value.

But then I believe in this trickly morality business.

[Hustler]

It would certainly have been poor if it was a physical argument, Hustler, but it wasn't. It was symbolic: the point being that the implications of the relativist position would seem to immediately cause problematic interactions further down the line, regardless of whether or not a relativist has bothered to explore the philosophy to that extent.

If it was symbolic, then you have managed to make a symbolic case for relativism by making a completely erroneous argument. One person says the beam is a kilometer long, but the other says it's half a kilometer. They're both right. Nice symbolism.

[TelecomClone]

One person says the beam is a kilometer long, but the other says it's half a kilometer. They're both right. Nice symbolism.The length of the beam is objective, no matter what you want to call the length or how you want to quantify the length. The point, again, is that the person holding the beam imagines it to be shorter than it is. That symbolism is fine.

[TelecomClone]

I'm not a relitivist, but do think many things ARE relitive, and think answers to many questions will rightly change depending on what you value or do not value.Some issues are fully subjective, I agree. Relativism, however, is a philosophy which asserts an objective truth about human knowledge and/or the human intellect that precludes knowing such truth and thereby self-nullifies. That's the problem here.

[meshou]

Some issues are fully subjective, I agree. Relativism, however, is a philosophy which asserts an objective truth about human knowledge and/or the human intellect that precludes knowing such truth and thereby self-nullifies. That's the problem here.I don't think I've ever met one. I know people who will switch to it when losing, however.

[joft]

So there goes your entire premise.
oh man, yu got me :duel: :ouch:

[Lee]

I don't think I've ever met one. I know people who will switch to it when losing, however.That's why I consider it an ego-saving feedback avoidance philosophy.

It's anti-knowledge because it refuses to learn from error.

[lbloom]

[OT] Is there anything in an MBTI profile that I can figure out and clue myself in early about which side of the camp a person will tend to lean? I want some practical life-savers out of all this cannon fodder please.

[Hustler]

Relativism appears to be very wrong. I've never seen a defense of it.

Perhaps you should consult a philosophy book which endeavors to defend relativism. As I identify more with Pragmatic skepticism as it falls in line with cogito ergo sum, you won't get a defense of relativism out of me. The following seems to be the heart of the matter for you:


It is my contention that the argument 'all truth is subjective/no objective truth exists' is fundamentally irrational.

I mostly agree with that. I disagree in part for skeptical reasons, but not because I think relativism is correct. I suspect many INTPs (the majority at this site) are of a similar opinion. Whatever the case, my opinion on the matter is not germane to giving you the argument you're looking for. Like I said, go find a book. While you're at it, read up on relativity so that you can choose better analogies for philosophical arguments.

[Hustler]

The length of the beam is objective, no matter what you want to call the length or how you want to quantify the length. The point, again, is that the person holding the beam imagines it to be shorter than it is. That symbolism is fine.

Alright, you don't understand special relativity. Maybe you've never been exposed to it or whatever. Not a big deal, as it's not exactly a required part of getting an education. Anyway, all you need to know about it for purposes of this discussion is that length is not an objectively measurable quantity. It is subject to a phenomenon called Lorentz contraction depending on the frame of reference of the observer and of the observed object. People in different frames will assign a different value to the length of an object, and they will all be correct, as there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference.

[mgb]

Relativism appears to be very wrong. I've never seen a defense of it. I'd like to see one, such that I can better conclude whether it is as anti-intellectual as it appears, being commonly offered up when a person wants to nullify a debate without going to the trouble of thinking about it and making an argument, or whether it actually has some kind of substance or merit. I like substance, I like ideas with merit, I like knowledge.


What a retarded interpretation of this thread - and yet another way to duck the issue. Endless dodges and ducks, for such a simple question. There is no ulterior motive or hidden strawman, there is no ego trip or mind game. Get over these pseudofreudian conspiracy theories, please. I'm interested in truth - it doesn't matter if that truth comes from my argument or someone else's argument. Is relativism truth, as it purports to be? Why? How? What of the problems it seems to generate and proceed to suffer from?

So do some research on relativism, or better yet, take a class on relativism at a university or community college. Construct your own defense of it and then deconstruct that. Then you can decide if it has substance or merit. If you like knowledge so much, prove it. Why should anyone have to give you a lecture on it here? What do we get out of it? Intelligent debate? Obviously not since you are admittedly unintelligent on the subject.

I don't really have to duck the issue, you are ducking it all by yourself with your initial post.

Is relativism truth? No. Is anything? No. Does "truth" as a concept matter? No. I don't see why that is so difficult to wrap your mind around.

[Hustler]

Is relativism truth? No. Is anything? No. Does "truth" as a concept matter? No. I don't see why that is so difficult to wrap your mind around.

I wonder if it would be hard to wrap his mind around a 1 kilometer beam. Well, I guess it would depend on the frame of reference. In some, it would be. In others, not so much.

You know, though, I think joft gave him (and others) a very good lesson on the subject. I have to commend joft for an excellent series of posts throughout this thread.

[Zephyrus055]

I think that:

Truth is a cognitive construct that affirms a statement coming from experience and/or a standard.

For example:

A experienced X. A accepts X as true.
A experienced X and Y in sequence. A accepts as truth that X causes Y.
Note: A good scientist would repeatibly do experiments and control the environment to actually verify that X causes Y.
A experienced X and R,Y,Z, and T. A correlates X, R, Y Z and T In these series of examples, truth depends on the results someone experienced.


or


A experienced Philosophy X. A experiences Y but represses it because it contradicts X. X is A's standard of weighing what he/she accepts as true. In this example, truth depends on a standard where anything that contradicts it is false.

Relativists may claim that the mind organizes information and the senses perceive sensory data relative to the individual perceiving it. Consequently, because experience is subjective, truth is also subjective.

*STOP*

Aww, crap. I don't know what to say to that.

[mgb]

I think that:

Truth is a cognitive construct that affirms a statement coming from experience and/or a standard.

For example:

A experienced X. A accepts X as true.
A experienced X and Y in sequence. A accepts as truth that X causes Y.
Note: A good scientist would repeatibly do experiments and control the environment to actually verify that X causes Y.
A experienced X and R,Y,Z, and T. A correlates X, R, Y Z and T In these series of examples, truth depends on the results someone experienced.


or


A experienced Philosophy X. A experiences Y but represses it because it contradicts X. X is A's standard of weighing what he/she accepts as true. In this example, truth depends on a standard where anything that contradicts it is false.

Relativists may claim that the mind organizes information and the senses perceive sensory data relative to the individual perceiving it. Consequently, because experience is subjective, truth is also subjective.

*STOP*

Aww, crap. I don't know what to say to that.



What does that have to do with this thread? Is this thread called, "What does Imperator055 think about logic and truth?"

I don't think you get it.

[TelecomClone]

oh man, yu got me http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/images/smilies/duel.gifhttp://www.intpcentral.com/forums/images/smilies/ouch.gifThat's right, joft, I did. You made an assertion in attacking my mode of argument that is patently false on all fronts, dramatically so infact in that what you see here is the product of the very opposite of your comfortable assumption. I guess that leaves you posting emoticons and rolling your eyes into the void once again, because you have nothing.





Why should anyone have to give you a lecture on it here?
Perhaps you should consult a philosophy book which endeavors to defend relativism.I suppose that I could just "go read a book" instead of debating almost any topic on this message board. But one cannot have an argument with a book, and I prefer the interactivity of debate. Surely that would tend to be a major draw to having a discussion forum in the first place? And nobody is being forced to respond to this thread.



While you're at it, read up on relativity so that you can choose better analogies for philosophical arguments.Although the analogy is fine, omg, forgive me!!1



Anyway, all you need to know about it for purposes of this discussion is that length is not an objectively measurable quantity. It is subject to a phenomenon called Lorentz contraction depending on the frame of reference of the observer and of the observed object. People in different frames will assign a different value to the length of an object, and they will all be correct, as there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference.The 'length' of the object is a constant, Hustler, because the object itself is not changing. What changes is the quantification of that length - x kilometers, y meters, et cetera - and that's perspective (measurement), which regards the objective (the beam). What changes is the perception of, and thus quantification of, an objective - not the objective itself. The beam will still collide with objects closer to the person holding it than the extent of the beam, again upholding the symbolism of the analogy.

[mgb]

I wonder if it would be hard to wrap his mind around a 1 kilometer beam. Well, I guess it would depend on the frame of reference. In some, it would be. In others, not so much.

You know, though, I think joft gave him (and others) a very good lesson on the subject. I have to commend joft for an excellent series of posts throughout this thread.

I agree. And he did it with style.

[bergenski]

I've never seen a defense of it.

From Wikipedia:

Defenses


Contradictions such as "all beliefs are equally worthless" appear irrelevant, as they constitute arguing from the premise. Once you have said if the X is absolute you have presupposed relativism is false. And one cannot prove a statement using that statement as a premise. There is a contradiction, but the contradiction is between relativism and the presuppositions of absoluteness in the ordinary logic used. Nothing has been proven wrong and nothing has been proven in and of itself, only the known incompatibility has been restated inefficiently.
Another counter-argument uses Bertrand Russell's Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_paradox), which refers to the "List of all lists that do not contain themselves". Kurt G?del (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del), Jorge Luis Borges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges), and Jean Baudrillard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Baudrillard) have famously debated this paradox.
A very different approach explicates the rhetorical production of supposedly 'bottom-line' arguments against relativism. Edwards et al’s influential and controversial "Death and Furniture" paper takes this line in its staunch defence of relativism.
A strong epistemological relativist could theoretically argue that it does not matter that his theory is only relative according to itself. As long as it remains "true" according to a relative framework, then it is just as true as any apparently "absolute" truth that a realist would postulate. The dispute lies in the distinction between whether the framework is relative or absolute, but if a realist could be persuaded it was relative, then the relativist theory could exist logically within that framework, albeit accepting that its "truth" is relative. A strong epistemological relativist must remove his own notions of universal truth if he is to embrace his theory fully, he must accept some form of truth to validate his theory logically, and this truth, by definition, must be relative. In other frameworks his theory might be regarded as untrue, and so the theory cannot exist here. Looked at from this perspective, with all notions and premises of universal truth removed, the notion of strong epistemological relativism is logically valid.

[joft]

That's right, joft, I did. You made an assertion in attacking my mode of argument that is patently false on all fronts, dramatically so infact in that what you see here is the product of the very opposite of your comfortable assumption. I guess that leaves you posting emoticons and rolling your eyes into the void once again, because you have nothing.
now you're kicking me while i'm down, have mercy! :cry:

[Zephyrus055]

What does that have to do with this thread? Is this thread called, "What does Imperator055 think about logic and truth?"

I don't think you get it.
Relativism affirms the statement that truth is relative, but I attempted to refute relativism by giving an alternative definition of truth, and to provide clarity to the discussion. But I ended up supporting relativism and now I'm mad at myself.

[Hustler]

I suppose that I could just "go read a book" instead of debating almost any topic on this message board.

Yes, please do that. Not only would you not be here posting a bunch of crap while you were reading, but it might give you information which could then elevate the level of discussion you bring to the forum.


Although the analogy is fine, omg, forgive me!!1

No, it was awful. If anything, it supported relativism because it was so bad.


The 'length' of the object is a constant, Hustler, because the object itself is not changing. What changes is the quantification of that length - x kilometers, y meters, et cetera - and that's perspective (measurement), which regards the objective (the beam).

The 'length' IS the measurement. It IS the perception. The 'length' is not constant. It does change. What you are trying to say is that the object has a constant length in its own reference frame. Incidentally, that's also false, but for different reasons.


What changes is the perception of, and thus quantification of, an objective - not the objective itself. The beam will still collide with objects closer to the person holding it than the extent of the beam, again upholding the symbolism of the analogy.

Do I need to invoke quantum mechanics now as well, to inform you that your prediction of an inevitable collision is incorrect? Whatever the case, your analogy was still faulty. You are taking the outcome of hitting an object of distance d from person p to indicate that the beam has a length of at least d. You're wrong. It doesn't indicate any of that. Now, amazingly, you're also right. It indicates all of that. Moral of the story: don't turn to the real world to debunk relativism.

[Hustler]

now you're kicking me while i'm down, have mercy! :cry:

Is this relativism in action or just pure, unadulturated dramatic irony?

[joft]

it depends

[last_caress]

If a hamster runs on an imaginary wheel in a forest and a tree falls on it, is south park still funnier than family guy?

[joft]

If a hamster runs on an imaginary wheel in a forest and a tree falls on it, is south park still funnier than family guy?
my penis just exploded

[Hustler]

If a hamster runs on an imaginary wheel in a forest and a tree falls on it, is south park still funnier than family guy?

Those conditions are not only sufficient for making South Park funnier than Family Guy, they are necessary.

[Google Monster]

What is truth if all that exist is the same? Is it how one interprets the same thing?

[songbird36]

consistent manner with reality.

Yes: I think, therefore something is. As I explained here (http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=283349&postcount=20).

But how can that be used in defence of relativism? Relativism is a conclusion, purporting to outline a truth. Where does it come from? How is it supported? How is it the case that it does not negate itself, as it seems to? If not logic - and it does not appear to be a logically sound position - then what means? That's what I want to know.

OK here's where relativism comes in - in trying to describe what the "is" actually is. This is where Descartes work leaves a large hole. Logically, something must exist if we are able to apprehend our own sensory and cognitive processes (I have thoughts/senses, therefore I must exist). Relativism holds that the "I' which exists is subjective - apprehensions of it may vary as between myself and other individuals, just as the apprehension of any other established reality may vary in terms of content/description as between individuals. Logic/rationalism cannot establish the nature or properties of a thing, although it may be used to predict such qualities with reasonable accuracy.

Here's an interesting extract from a Wikipaedia summary of "Foundationalism" which outlines the basis of rationalism and empiricism, and where both doctrines currently stand in modern epistemology:

"Rationalism is the general name for epistemological theories that maintain that reason is the source and criterion of knowledge. Rationalists generally hold that so-called truths of reason are the (most important) epistemologically basic propositions. The historical continental rationalism expounded by René Descartes rejected empiricism entirely, while modern rationalism asserts that reason is strongest when it is supported by or consistent with evidence and hence relies heavily on empirical science in analyzing justifications for belief. René Descartes famously held that some of these truths are known innately and therefore constitute epistemologically basic innate knowledge, a view not commonly held in modern rationalism.

Empiricism is the general name for epistemological theories that maintain that sensation reports are the source and criterion of knowledge. Classical empiricists generally held that such reports are indubitable and incorrigible and therefore worthy of serving as epistemologically basic propositions."

[lbloom]

What is truth if all that exist is the same? Is it how one interprets the same thing?

The point is not whether or not whether all things that exist are the same or not - it's how you can prove that there is a thing. That "interpretation" you speak of is all-important. Folks get so complacent in what can be readily deconstructed by analogies and methods that have worked before that they turn very hostile when they come across a scenario where their comfortable "hard logic" fails. That just being regressive. Each genuine break-through in human knowledge has occurred inspite of such vehement opposition. Unfortunately, each of these then becomes the holy grail of the next generation of nay-sayers, who refuse to look beyond what they already know.

Some of you folks really need to go take a course on modern physics. But then, of course, you'll either a) come back whining about how there's too many evil-looking inverted triangles and greek letters and how much professors suck and how nobody seems to bring out the "spirit" of the subject, OR b) be a j and get an A and be smug and pretend to know all about it. There's a world of infinite beauty in those equations; only, you'll have to *want* to understand. But that's too much work, and it requires a certain openness of mind. What's familiar isn't all there is to life.

Kudos to joft and kuranes for taking the time to put up coherent replies (although I don't know why). Me, I need some beer.

[Google Monster]

Aww, like the 5 string theories eh? Thats why they made the M-theory. Of course they are still trying to prove the thing exist too.

[Ivy]

I guess I never interpreted philosophical relativism to mean "all axioms are equally valid." It always seemed like an affirmation that we're limited by our perceptions and our intellects, and the conclusions we reach aren't always going to correlate to that which objectively exists independant of our perceiving it. Like a wider kind of agnosticism.

[lbloom]

I guess I never interpreted philosophical relativism to mean "all axioms are equally valid." It always seemed like an affirmation that we're limited by our perceptions and our intellects, and the conclusions we reach aren't always going to correlate to that which objectively exists independant of our perceiving it. Like a wider kind of agnosticism.

(Agrees)


If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

-Francis Bacon

Dunno about that last bit, though. ;)

[Ivy]

Dunno about that last bit, though. ;)


If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end with doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Yeah, I'm not so sure (HA!) of that last part, too. All I know (HA!) is, the smartest people I know are the ones who are the least certain of what they think they know.

[Google Monster]

The truth is out there.

[Nemesis]

So please, relativists, have at it. Defend your philosophy. Illustrate once and for all that you aren't schizophrenic nutballs. I've been seeing a lot of axiomatic relativism being promulgated lately (http://www.intpcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=304472), and no defense of it whatsoever.
Is everyone the same?

[last_caress]

I guess I never interpreted philosophical relativism to mean "all axioms are equally valid." It always seemed like an affirmation that we're limited by our perceptions and our intellects, and the conclusions we reach aren't always going to correlate to that which objectively exists independant of our perceiving it. Like a wider kind of agnosticism.

Are you sure about that?

[Ivy]

Are you sure about that?

Absolutely 100% certain.

[Xenophon]

I don't have the patience to read this whole thread, but I'm gonna put in a few thoughts on relativism as I see it.

1) Saying that things are relative does not mean that nothing is "better" than anything else, it means that nothing is "best". It does not mean that nothing is "more true" than anything else, it means that nothing is "true". It is an affirmation of the infinite complexity of the universe, and the finite complexity of human beings.

2) Something being logically true is different from something being objectively true. Logical arguments are subjective constructs. We define them to be true, but they are not based on anything external. Relativism does not argue against subjective logical truth, it argues against objective observational truth.

[Nemesis]

How about this question?

Are ants strong?

[sbw]

nonrelativists: want to know they are right.

relativists: don't give a shit.

I'm a relativist then.

Scott

[Hustler]

Are ants strong?

Ants? How many?

[Nemesis]

Ants? How many?
Is an ant strong?

[Snowflake]

Fuck, did I miss anything?

What's all this . . . oh, nah. *goes back to bed*

[Google Monster]

I'm waiting for an answer to the ant question.

[Hustler]

Is an ant strong?

That's not an interesting question. More interesting would be something like, is ferunandesu smart?

Edit: Nevermind, that's not interesting either.

[joft]

they can lift ridiculously large amounts of molecules

[INThoughtPolice]

Reality and the truth of its nature exist. Logic at least makes the attempt to understand reality and this understanding may be applied for practical uses. Relativism seems to recognize the inability of humanity to understand reality and the truth of its nature however, it denies humanity's ability to obtain a limited understanding of it, this notion is disproven every time an aircraft takes off or a building is constructed. We can understand reality to an extent but we are limited in our understanding because we are only human beings. People make mistakes and that is no excuse to render logic inadequate. This is the flaw of relativism.

[mr. treat]

words on relativism:

[Spartan26]

Let us now (hopefully) get a good defense of relativism posted here, or let us dispel your relativism once and for all. It is my contention that the argument 'all truth is subjective/no objective truth exists' is fundamentally irrational. The oft-presented "but that's just your opinion!" tagline is almost always unsupported, and serves the anti-intellectual function of precluding debate altogether. Many human conclusions are certainly arbitrary, but must they be? Is the human intellect really not up to the task of perceiving reality - which would be the cognitive failure that gives rise to the inapplicability of reason, and therefore objectivity, to systemic truth and subsequently values, ethics, and morality? And if man's mind is impotent as such, how then can one even come to that conclusion when the tools with which one purports to conclude are supposedly incapable of conclusion?
Can you explain why this in and of itself isn't relativism? You have set up the argument based on your rules.

[lbloom]

words on relativism:

:lol:

[Dom]

Personally my relativsim works like this; (Oh and it's mine so I'm not suggesting it correct, merely given a conceptual defence for it)

The physical world is Objectively Real (True)

Each human mind, recieves input about the physical world via it's 5 senses.

Each human mind, then processes this information.

It is in this processing of the information that the Subjective understanding of the world is to be found. Each individual is taught how to view the world, byu their environment as well as their natural neurological preferences.

It is in the perception of existence that relativsim works. Every person perception of what they witness is different.

I like to use the idea about the world being flat. Objective truth: the world is orund. Subjective truth: The world is flat.

This subjective truth continued to be a truth that people relied upon and got rather upset about. Now these people weren't stupid but they were interpreting what they saw in a given away. There processing of the infomration was flawed. However they acted, and behaved in teh convinction that the world was flat. Even the observations of sails on the horizon did not change this view.

If people behave exactly like their subjective opinion is True then is there any real difference (within their perspective) between that and the truth?

While discussing the physical world this becomes tricky as Lee has said many times, beleiveing you can fly doesn't mean you can. I agree. However society is a very odd thing, and not as easily subjected to observation as the physical world.

Have a look at this article and see what you think:

Baudrillard Simulation and Simulacra (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html)

[rawr]

this thread is complete bullshit.

[Architectonic]

this thread is complete bullshit.

But I bet you can't prove with 100% certainty that there isn't an absolute truth. ;)

(I saw your post before the edit...)

[rawr]

But I bet you can't prove with 100% certainty that there isn't an absolute truth. ;)

(I saw your post before the edit...)


Thats why this thread is bullshit. There are relitive truths and absolute truths.


Heres an example

I think this thread is bullshit and nothing but a pointless arguement that in the end will have no net gain in anyones understanding or well being other than being able to better support your own idea. Now is that a truth? because thats the way im perceiving it.

[Snowflake]

Now is that a truth? because thats the way im perceiving it.There is NO truth. Aaaahhhh!!! I'm melting!!!

[Nemesis]

they can lift ridiculously large amounts of molecules
Yeah, but we can lift more. So whose stronger?

[Dom]

Thats why this thread is bullshit. There are relitive truths and absolute truths.


Heres an example

I think this thread is bullshit and nothing but a pointless arguement that in the end will have no net gain in anyones understanding or well being other than being able to better support your own idea. Now is that a truth? because thats the way im perceiving it.


That is your truth then,

Mine is that I belive I may learn something which improves my understanding.

Both are absolutely true,

Holding your opinion ensures you WILL NOT learn anything from this thread.

Me Holding mine ensures that I may.

Dah dah!! Relativism is thus true!

[Xander]

Okay. Question to those who refute reletavism as complete BS.

Why do you require things to be provable before you'll believe them?

At what stage did this happen?

Did you at some point turn round on your parents and ask them for a DNA test?

Have you tried throwing yourselves off a high building to test these theories?

I'm guessing that those who refute the ideas of relatavism have simply been taught to by books and teachers. They regurgitate things in some attempt to be "logical". The thing is that the regurgitation is itself a logical fallacy as I believe it is stated that "it worked last time" is not a logical reason to blindly apply the same method again. It therefore hints to me that the people who developed logic intended it to be but one tool in an intelligent mind. Not the only tool or crutch of a mind inable to deal with the unknown.

Oh and Joft, I wan't to give you a medal for your posts. Most excellent and very clear. I hate you now ;)

[Xander]

Whether something is useful or not depends completely on what your intentions are, what is useful for one person depends upon values that need not be shared.
This has been a defence of relativism courtesy of the Lee department ;)

[Lee]

This has been a defence of relativism courtesy of the Lee department ;)Sorry Xander, but you must have a brain the size of a shriveled pea if seriously think what I think you are implying. If you can't figure out all by yourself why your comment is so misplaced, then I feel sorry for you.

[Johnny]

It is my contention that the argument 'all truth is subjective/no objective truth exists' is fundamentally irrational.

That you're willing to articulate this at all puts you on your knees in worship of relativism...not to mention this desire to debate it.

You glean already that anything fundamental is nothing more than a death sentence and a rejection of life, of change, of movement, of the future. Not even rot is a fundamental expression, but a transformation and tribute to relativism.

"Relativism" is ultimately our tribute to the basic human recognition of ourselves and the world around us, and you are just now seeing it on the menu.

Try it, you might like it!

[Xander]

Sorry Xander, but you must have a brain the size of a shriveled pea if seriously think what I think you are implying. If you can't figure out all by yourself why your comment is so misplaced, then I feel sorry for you.
:rofl:
:mellow:
:huh:
You think?

[Snowflake]

Try it, you might like it!How dare you suggest such a thing, you amoral imbecile!! (j/k)

[Dom]

Whether something is useful or not depends completely on what your intentions are, what is useful for one person depends upon values that need not be shared.

Ahh so lets look at the relativism in your comment that you attacked Xander for pointing out?

Without relativism something either has value or doesn't. Either true or false. Your above comment implies you have noticed that things have differing amouts of usefulnes/value depending on the context they are being used in. This context will be viewed differently from one individuals perspective to another, thus the value of the 'something' changes from one person to the other.

The only way to destory relativism is if we all, thought in exactly the same manner, using exactly the same process of debuctive logic that you are so fond of, or in exactly the same rather jumbled oddness that I think in.

If everyone thought like me my subjective truth would become objective truth. If everyone thought like you then yours would. Basically your argument is that your way of interpreting the world is right and everyone else's (that differs) is wrong.

By subscribing to relativism I can 'allow' you to think in a different way to me, without trying to convert you to what you consider to be my fuzzy logic, and without having to subscribe to your ways. I can say ok, for Lee thats how it is, and leave it like that. You can't do this and thus get all offended and frustrated when we exhast you in your attempts to describe your profound superiority.

Relativism rocks.....

[Xander]

Ahh so lets look at the relativism in your comment that you attacked Xander for pointing out?
I was actually only pointing out that he said, basically, everything has a use.

Though your more thought out response is probably better formed.

[Lee]

I used to think you two were just acting, trolls playing a ridiculous game. At this point I cannot even be bothered to argue with either of you, it's like beating my head against a brick wall.

You just make no sense whatsoever, everything seems to just pass straight over your heads, and you actually revel in it!

I'll repeat one more time, relativism (or subjectivism if you prefer) is a self sealing ignorant philosophy. Nobody can argue against your philosophy because it has a built-in protection which prevents you from ever having to accept any counterargument, likewise, nobody can argue in favour of your philosophy without appealing to an objective standard which makes it true and the alternatives false, which is why it is self-refuting.

Until you accept some common (objective) standards by which to commicate meaningfully, I just can't be bothered with either of you, you can stew in your own ignorance and intellectually squalid hole for all I care.

[Xander]

I used to think you two were just acting, trolls playing a ridiculous game. At this point I cannot even be bothered to argue with either of you, it's like beating my head against a brick wall.

You just make no sense whatsoever, everything seems to just pass straight over your heads, and you actually revel in it!

I'll repeat one more time, relativism (or subjectivism if you prefer) is a self sealing ignorant philosophy. Nobody can argue against your philosophy because it has a built-in protection which prevents you from ever having to accept any counterargument, likewise, nobody can argue in favour of your philosophy without appealing to an objective standard which makes it true and the alternatives false, which is why it is self-refuting.

Until you accept some common (objective) standards by which to commicate meaningfully, I just can't be bothered with either of you, you can stew in your own ignorance and intellectually squalid hole for all I care.
:cheer: :banana:
:mellow: oh.
I mean :cry:

Your need for proof is your undoing my firend. Accept the unknown within your own world and you'll begin to see where people like me are.

I have always tried to never profess that I hold any more truth than yourself, only that I disagree with the amount of faith in which you put in this constructed reality you often assemble. Though you are talented enough to cover the main points I often feel the emptyness behind the facade and hence I persue. If my sights are off then I apologise but I am trapped within my own perceptions so forgive me if they are not up to the task.

Oh and as both I and my friend Moridin are positive feedback people you should realise that your lines of accusations and sharply worded rebuttals only serve to increase our stubborn resistance. Surely one of your insight into the logic of the world could see that you are partially responsible for how your message is recieved and as such have failed more often than not. This I say in the how it will give you directions to persue rather than as an accusation which needs to be rebutted.

[mr. treat]

yes, this thread really inspires the creative juices.

[Google Monster]

The way I see it is that only absolute truths can exist. If you believe that all truths are relative then that itself becomes an absolute truth and contradicts your belief.


Moridin:
The only way to destory relativism is if we all, thought in exactly the same manner, using exactly the same process of debuctive logic that you are so fond of, or in exactly the same rather jumbled oddness that I think in.
Billiard balls go different directions when the cue ball hits the first ball and humans have more complex paths then just the surface of the table. We learn things at different times and go through different experiences. However we still follow the same rules. Like how light will follow the straightest possible path, energy being the same as matter we must also follow the same principle. Whether the matter is human or a billiard ball.

[Xenophon]

I used to think you two were just acting, trolls playing a ridiculous game. At this point I cannot even be bothered to argue with either of you, it's like beating my head against a brick wall.

You just make no sense whatsoever, everything seems to just pass straight over your heads, and you actually revel in it!

I'll repeat one more time, relativism (or subjectivism if you prefer) is a self sealing ignorant philosophy. Nobody can argue against your philosophy because it has a built-in protection which prevents you from ever having to accept any counterargument, likewise, nobody can argue in favour of your philosophy without appealing to an objective standard which makes it true and the alternatives false, which is why it is self-refuting.

Until you accept some common (objective) standards by which to commicate meaningfully, I just can't be bothered with either of you, you can stew in your own ignorance and intellectually squalid hole for all I care.
I agree that most people who argue in favour of relativism do a poor job, and usually piss me off. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in relativism. I think that people who argue against relativism are setting up a straw man and attacking that instead of the real arguments of relativism.

I think that the key issue is this: You need to seperate subjective truth and objective truth. Logic is based on subjective truths (axioms), these are constructs, they are exactly what we define them to be. Communication is basically inter-subjectivity and is completely based on there being subjective truth. However the existance of inter-subjective truth is not the same as there being objective truth.

While inter-subjectivity is still based on constructed truths. Objective truth is observed truth, and as you have said, this idea has built in protection. Since all we have access to is our subjective representation of the objective world, we can never be sure that what we observe is the truth.

One last point that I made earlier, relativism does not mean that one subjective representation isn't better than any other subjective representation. It is just saying that no subjective representation (not subjective construction) is perfect.

[zhang_bob]

It is impossible to prove a philosophy is right, it would not be a philosophy if you could.

[songbird36]

I agree that most people who argue in favour of relativism do a poor job, and usually piss me off. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in relativism. I think that people who argue against relativism are setting up a straw man and attacking that instead of the real arguments of relativism.

I think that the key issue is this: You need to seperate subjective truth and objective truth. Logic is based on subjective truths (axioms), these are constructs, they are exactly what we define them to be. Communication is basically inter-subjectivity and is completely based on there being subjective truth. However the existance of inter-subjective truth is not the same as there being objective truth.

While inter-subjectivity is still based on constructed truths. Objective truth is observed truth, and as you have said, this idea has built in protection. Since all we have access to is our subjective representation of the objective world, we can never be sure that what we observe is the truth.

One last point that I made earlier, relativism does not mean that one subjective representation isn't better than any other subjective representation. It is just saying that no subjective representation (not subjective construction) is perfect.

You don't seem to know anything about Western philosophical thinking on these issues, and it's impossible to work out from your post what you're actually trying to say.

[Dom]

The way I see it is that only absolute truths can exist. If you believe that all truths are relative then that itself becomes an absolute truth and contradicts your belief.

Billiard balls go different directions when the cue ball hits the first ball and humans have more complex paths then just the surface of the table. We learn things at different times and go through different experiences. However we still follow the same rules. Like how light will follow the straightest possible path, energy being the same as matter we must also follow the same principle. Whether the matter is human or a billiard ball.

If you read my first post you'll notice that I never said there wasn't an objective truth.

And this punt arguement that the philosophy contradicts it self is boring, i've heard it, it's dull. Just because the lexus of a language suggests a contradtiction does not mean there isn't an interesting thought behind it.

You all want solid hard fast rules! You don't want philosophy or rather you want to turn philosophy into a science! Which it ain't.

Lee, yes I can see your frustration caused by relativism's built in defence, or trump card, but my dear, neither I nor Xander came up with it so go blame someone else. Your frustration is ugly and arrogant, and your opinion mean't nothing to me the moment you turned from discussion to personal attack. I'm sorry if I don't argue on the same page as you, I'm sorry if you find that tough. You want to play in your world, and I in mine! Sadly it seems I'm happy to leave it at that, yet you persist in insults and abuse in an attempt to drag me into yours.........

[Google Monster]

If you read my first post you'll notice that I never said there wasn't an objective truth.

And this punt arguement that the philosophy contradicts it self is boring, i've heard it, it's dull. Just because the lexus of a language suggests a contradtiction does not mean there isn't an interesting thought behind it.

You all want solid hard fast rules! You don't want philosophy or rather you want to turn philosophy into a science! Which it ain't.

Lee, yes I can see your frustration caused by relativism's built in defence, or trump card, but my dear, neither I nor Xander came up with it so go blame someone else. Your frustration is ugly and arrogant, and your opinion mean't nothing to me the moment you turned from discussion to personal attack. I'm sorry if I don't argue on the same page as you, I'm sorry if you find that tough. You want to play in your world, and I in mine! Sadly it seems I'm happy to leave it at that, yet you persist in insults and abuse in an attempt to drag me into yours.........

As for the contradiction being a punt argument and boring, well I didn't know it's been done before so I guess you can blame my ignorance. Of course the idea of relativism is interesting and I'm not claiming it's totally wrong. The thing about relativism I don't like is that it claims there are no absolute truths.

Personally I don't care too much about philosophy and don't know the whole deal about relativism but I do believe in absolutes so I will defend ideas against it. So yeah, I did try to involve science. If philosophy can borrow ideas from science then I can use my ideas from physics to argue against your philosophy.

[mgb]

I'll repeat one more time, relativism (or subjectivism if you prefer) is a self sealing ignorant philosophy. Nobody can argue against your philosophy because it has a built-in protection which prevents you from ever having to accept any counterargument, likewise, nobody can argue in favour of your philosophy without appealing to an objective standard which makes it true and the alternatives false, which is why it is self-refuting.

Until you accept some common (objective) standards by which to commicate meaningfully, I just can't be bothered with either of you, you can stew in your own ignorance and intellectually squalid hole for all I care.

The problem with objectivity is that it's never truly objective. The standards by which things are measured are never truly and exactly equal, they can't be because you have humans measuring them, or systems or objects constructed by humans. By it's very nature objectivity is inherently flawed beyond repair and can't truly exist since no person is truly objective.

The interesting part about subjectivity that you are missing, is that it's more about the discourse than the end results. It's not about true or false or a final answer being right or wrong, it's about discovering something within the argument, listening rather than telling.

[kuranes]

* Waits for someone to mention photons as particles vs. waves, supposedly depending on whether or not they are "observed", subjectively *

[Hustler]

The way I see it is that only absolute truths can exist. If you believe that all truths are relative then that itself becomes an absolute truth and contradicts your belief.

That's not really useful, is it? The existence of an absolute truth says nothing of its ability to be found,understood or even recognized as such.

[Snowflake]

* Waits for someone to mention photons as particles vs. waves, supposedly depending on whether or not they are "observed", subjectively *I haven't taken Quantum Mechanics yet, I'm taking that class this semester.

But I have no desire to point it out, because this thread is a POS.

[Google Monster]

That's not really useful, is it? The existence of an absolute truth says nothing of its ability to be found,understood or even recognized as such.

The existence of this absolute truth lies in the behavior of light. I did mention an example of this truth in the same post you quoted me on.

[INThoughtPolice]

Reality and the truth of its nature exist. Logic at least makes the attempt to understand reality and this understanding may be applied for practical uses. Relativism seems to recognize the inability of humanity to understand reality and the truth of its nature however, it denies humanity's ability to obtain a limited understanding of it, this notion is disproven every time an aircraft takes off or a building is constructed. We can understand reality to an extent but we are limited in our understanding because we are only human beings. People make mistakes and that is no excuse to render logic inadequate. This is the flaw of relativism.
Well said. Relativists refuse to recognize reality outside of their perceptions. In other words, they believe that reality only exists through their limited ability to percieve it with their senses. It's as if they don't realize that people die everyday but the world and everything just keeps right on going. They also don't regard their fallible senses as tools to help them obtain some limited understanding of reality, instead they use the limitations of their senses to disprove any objective reality. What do they know? Hah.

[INThoughtPolice]

Well said. Relativists refuse to recognize reality outside of their perceptions. In other words, they believe that reality only exists through their limited ability to percieve it with their senses. It's as if they don't realize that people die everyday but the world and everything just keeps right on going. They also don't regard their fallible senses as tools to help them obtain some limited understanding of reality, instead they use the limitations of their senses to disprove any objective reality. What do they know? Hah.
Yeah. Hey, here's a good joke: There's these three men and one of them is a relativist. The three men walk toward a bar and the two rationalists say to the relativist, "Duck!" The relativist says, "But there's no bar there. You only perceive it to be there." Then the relativist gets knocked the fu** out.:rofl:

[Google Monster]

lol.

[INThoughtPolice]

Yeah. Hey, here's a good joke: There's these three men and one of them is a relativist. The three men walk toward a bar and the two rationalists say to the relativist, "Duck!" The relativist says, "But there's no bar there. You only perceive it to be there." Then the relativist gets knocked the fu** out.:rofl:
Yeah, I perceive that to be pretty funny because the sense of humor is subjective and resultant of my socialization. In contrast, the true nature of reality is not subjective. There are certain things that humanity cannot influence unlike our thoughts and behaviors. I also believe that we may only obtain limited knowledge of it because we are limited in our capabilities. I believe the scientific method to be the most effective method of understanding reality. The accomplishments of others holding the same belief indicate this to be the case.




i gotta stop all this talking to myself.

[Hustler]

The existence of this absolute truth lies in the behavior of light. I did mention an example of this truth in the same post you quoted me on.

Oh, you mean this?


Like how light will follow the straightest possible path, energy being the same as matter we must also follow the same principle.

That's wrong. Straightest according to whom? This is going to be complicated, but let's see if I can illustrate a conterexample for you. Consider two observers watching a beam of light as it moves past a planet at a certain distance. Suppose one of those observers is moving in such a frame that the distance of the light as it passes the planet is shorter than the distance according to the other observer. Now, because the planet is massive and warps spacetime, and because the light must bend along this curve, the two observers will see the light be bent around the planet to a different degree. In other words, the light will appear to be moving in a slightly different arc according to each observer.

Another, simpler instance of light not always taking the straightest path is when diffraction occurs. In the case of slits in an otherwise opaque obstruction, the light does not simply move straight through the slits.

[Zephyrus055]

If I eat Moridin, then I will gain supernatural powers! You may not think that, but I do! I'm going to get the power!

[INThoughtPolice]

If I eat Moridin, then I will gain supernatural powers! You may not think that, but I do! I'm going to get the power!
Let me know what happens with that. Meanwhile I'm gonna go eat some rat poison because it gives people x-ray vision.

[Serotonin]

That's not really useful, is it? The existence of an absolute truth says nothing of its ability to be found,understood or even recognized as such.
Maybe not useful to you.
Knowing it's there has the potential to inure one powerfully against baser beliefs and susceptibility to destructive behaviours.

[Xenophon]

I'm confused. Does believing that it impossible for humans to know the perfect truth about anything beyond their personal conscious constructions make me a relativist?

[Hustler]

Knowing it's there has the potential to inure one powerfully against baser beliefs and susceptibility to destructive behaviours.

That's just it. Just because it exists doesn't mean you'll ever know it's there. I thought I made that point already. Why are you making me repeat myself? Don't you know INTPs hate that shit?

[Serotonin]

That's just it. Just because it exists doesn't mean you'll ever know it's there. I thought I made that point already. Why are you making me repeat myself? Don't you know INTPs hate that shit?

I thought we were talking about usefulness.

[Hustler]

I thought we were talking about usefulness.

We are!

[Serotonin]

We are!

Ok, useful to me, not to you. Equines for arenas.

[Hustler]

Ok, useful to me, not to you. Equines for arenas.

No, not useful to you either. Even relatively speaking.

[Xander]

I'm confused. Does believing that it impossible for humans to know the perfect truth about anything beyond their personal conscious constructions make me a relativist?
That seems to have been all that convicted me.

[Xander]

If I eat Moridin, then I will gain supernatural powers! You may not think that, but I do! I'm going to get the power!
Finally he'll stop asking about any single female friends!

[Google Monster]

Oh, you mean this?



That's wrong. Straightest according to whom? This is going to be complicated, but let's see if I can illustrate a conterexample for you. Consider two observers watching a beam of light as it moves past a planet at a certain distance. Suppose one of those observers is moving in such a frame that the distance of the light as it passes the planet is shorter than the distance according to the other observer. Now, because the planet is massive and warps spacetime, and because the light must bend along this curve, the two observers will see the light be bent around the planet to a different degree. In other words, the light will appear to be moving in a slightly different arc according to each observer.

Another, simpler instance of light not always taking the straightest path is when diffraction occurs. In the case of slits in an otherwise opaque obstruction, the light does not simply move straight through the slits.

Yes I mean that,
The principle of light goes beyond the observers who look at a light beam. Sure you can use relativity when explaining the experiences of the same thing. However that doesn't change the fact that the light itself is moving in the straightest possible path, even if space is warped they can all agree that the light is going 299,792,458 m/s and with that they can collect the differences of the distance and the time it took the light to get from point A to point B and agree that one observer is accelerating this much faster then the other. Same with the arc, they can deduct that they are observing the same light about that much different angle then the other by comparing their arc measurements.

I didn't say that light always goes straight, I said it always takes the straightest possible path. Light acts like a wave and that is a known fact, so when going through the double slit experiment the light will do exactly what any wave would do through a double slit and cause an interference pattern. Even if one photon was used there is still the probability wave, which I do have an alternate theory about probability waves but I'll stick with the mainstream explanation.

[Dom]

* Waits for someone to mention photons as particles vs. waves, supposedly depending on whether or not they are "observed", subjectively *

Way hey!!!

Quantum mechaincs!!! the Relativism of Physics!

Kuranes does it again!

[Dom]

The existence of this absolute truth lies in the behavior of light. I did mention an example of this truth in the same post you quoted me on.


Lol,

In that case your absolute truth is dependent upon the scientific paradigm of your time. You would have said that the world being flat was an absolute truth, if you had live in th 15th century.

We are a long way from pegging down lights behaviour!!!! Quantum physics demonstrate how littel we really understand about the universe. I don't really understand quantum mechaincs, despite passing the modules at uni, infact there probably aren't that many people who really graps it fully.

[Dom]

Well said. Relativists refuse to recognize reality outside of their perceptions. In other words, they believe that reality only exists through their limited ability to percieve it with their senses. It's as if they don't realize that people die everyday but the world and everything just keeps right on going. They also don't regard their fallible senses as tools to help them obtain some limited understanding of reality, instead they use the limitations of their senses to disprove any objective reality. What do they know? Hah.

I never said I didn't recognise that there is a reality outside of my perceptions, i merely argue that I can not access it as I will always be percieving it through my perceptions. As does yourself. You therefore can not access it either. It is mere arogance to suggest that my perceptions are able to observe and fathom pure objective truth.

You wake up to find yourself in a room with one door and no windows. In it is a table and a rule, a calculator and a stopwatch and a weight. using this apparatus you calculate that the force of gravity you are experienceing is exactly what you'd expect on earth.

When you confidental open the door expecting sunlight and a warm wind, you're sucked out into space and die horrible as your 'room' was being acccelarated through space at the same rate as the earth gravitational pull (9.something mps2 I think)

Perception does not dicate what reality is, Logic will have killed you due to presuppitions.

[Dom]

Oh, you mean this?



That's wrong. Straightest according to whom? This is going to be complicated, but let's see if I can illustrate a conterexample for you. Consider two observers watching a beam of light as it moves past a planet at a certain distance. Suppose one of those observers is moving in such a frame that the distance of the light as it passes the planet is shorter than the distance according to the other observer. Now, because the planet is massive and warps spacetime, and because the light must bend along this curve, the two observers will see the light be bent around the planet to a different degree. In other words, the light will appear to be moving in a slightly different arc according to each observer.

Another, simpler instance of light not always taking the straightest path is when diffraction occurs. In the case of slits in an otherwise opaque obstruction, the light does not simply move straight through the slits.

Hustler is right, relativity and quantum theory blast this light idea to shit... it isn't reliable, light behaves differently depending on how we observe it, you can't get more relativist than that!

[Dom]

I'm confused. Does believing that it impossible for humans to know the perfect truth about anything beyond their personal conscious constructions make me a relativist?

Yes, but these goons also seem to think that means I think I can fly, walk through walls, and give supernatural powers to any who eat me!!!!

I mean get a grip guys!

[Dom]

Finally he'll stop asking about any single female friends!


I stopped ages ago :(

[Snowflake]

Damn moridin, you're a regular post whore

[Xander]

Oh crap, not quantum physics and wave particle duality. Noooooo!!!

To me the whole relativism is no path towards objective truth, which is I think where a disparity lies (though I am in all probability wrong). The philosophy points to the idea that nothing is truely knowable, within our present state, as we are trapped inside ourselves and must experience everything through a filter. Finding the filter and compensating for it or trying to remove it would produce another filter, whilst probably better than the first for fair examination it would still be imperfect and as such not of good enough quality to not introduce errors into the perceptions and hence the result. Also any information received by the human brain (the only place where any of this stuff means a jot) is compiled alongside all the other information stored there and is affected by them all. I'd therefore reckon that to get as close as possible to objectivity you'd need a blank brain and perfect senses, combined with a lack of any kind of preconception. However, such a being would be disregarded by others for their lack of knowledge, a common response to many INTPs when they're young (I believe). As such, if a person requires knowledge before they are considered of high enough caliber to formulate any useful theories then they are influenced by that previous knowledge and can only refine it, realistically.

Generally I find objective truth to be a god for some people and as with gods I see no relevance between objective truth and life. Any objective truth which I learn will become subjective as soon as I have learnt it and will remain so each time I pass it on. The mere idea of attempting to communicate objective truth is mind boggling.

"Why do hotdogs come in packages of ten where as hotdog buns come in packages of only eight?" ~ Bulletproof Monk

[Google Monster]

I never said I didn't recognise that there is a reality outside of my perceptions, i merely argue that I can not access it as I will always be percieving it through my perceptions. As does yourself. You therefore can not access it either. It is mere arogance to suggest that my perceptions are able to observe and fathom pure objective truth.

You wake up to find yourself in a room with one door and no windows. In it is a table and a rule, a calculator and a stopwatch and a weight. using this apparatus you calculate that the force of gravity you are experienceing is exactly what you'd expect on earth.

When you confidental open the door expecting sunlight and a warm wind, you're sucked out into space and die horrible as your 'room' was being acccelarated through space at the same rate as the earth gravitational pull (9.something mps2 I think)

Perception does not dicate what reality is, Logic will have killed you due to presuppitions.

If you use Occam's razor all you need to assume is that the room you are in is either accelertaing at 9.8m/s or has the gravitational pull of 9.8m/s but not enough information to determine which one.

[Google Monster]

Hustler is right, relativity and quantum theory blast this light idea to shit... it isn't reliable, light behaves differently depending on how we observe it, you can't get more relativist than that!

What I'm claiming is absolute is the photon that is traveling is going in a straight line even when going through a gravitational field. That we humans are going along the our best possible paths even if others see our actions as good or evil. The absolute is in the individual and not it's observers. Of course observations will always remain relative when comparing the same experience with two or more observers. However even if they all observe the same things differently they can come to an agreement on why they see things differently and that is the absolute I am trying to explain.
Like the light going from A to B example earlier. Even though they disagree about the distance and time the light has traveled from A to B they can agree on why they have such differences by comparing their results. Another similar example would be if Bob stole Joe's money and gave it to Jenny who was in need of it. Jenny thinks Bob is a saviour while Joe thinks he's an asshole. But they can all agree that Bob stole the money from Joe and gave it to Jenny even if their opinions about Bob may differ.

[Xander]

What I'm claiming is absolute is the photon that is traveling is going in a straight line even when going through a gravitational field. That we humans are going along the our best possible paths even if others see our actions as good or evil.
I don't see how you whent from light to people?

The absolute is in the individual and not it's observers.
Isn't this itself a subjective absolute then? Also isn't it subject to review in the light of new information? Is it not also influenced by so many things as to be only as stable as the mind it is contained within?

[Serotonin]

No, not useful to you either. Even relatively speaking.

Well, since it already has, it's only with much merriment that I ask you: How not so?

[Google Monster]

I don't see how you whent from light to people?

I went from light to people because I find the behavior of light and the behavior of people are pretty much the same. Energy and matter are the same thing but matter is a larger collection of energy so its path is a bit more complex then a single photon. However the the rules remain the same for humans and the photon. That both the human and the photon must always follow the straighest possible path. Of course humans can interpet that as making the best possible choices.



Isn't this itself a subjective absolute then? Also isn't it subject to review in the light of new information? Is it not also influenced by so many things as to be only as stable as the mind it is contained within?

The action itself is absolute. Everyone can agree that the light is traveling the same speed and their relative differences of time and space can also answer why everyone has different results. The reason why observations are relative and actions are absolute is simply because all observations occur in the past while all actions are of the present.

[Dom]

What I'm claiming is absolute is the photon that is traveling is going in a straight line even when going through a gravitational field. That we humans are going along the our best possible paths even if others see our actions as good or evil. The absolute is in the individual and not it's observers. Of course observations will always remain relative when comparing the same experience with two or more observers. However even if they all observe the same things differently they can come to an agreement on why they see things differently and that is the absolute I am trying to explain.
Like the light going from A to B example earlier. Even though they disagree about the distance and time the light has traveled from A to B they can agree on why they have such differences by comparing their results. Another similar example would be if Bob stole Joe's money and gave it to Jenny who was in need of it. Jenny thinks Bob is a saviour while Joe thinks he's an asshole. But they can all agree that Bob stole the money from Joe and gave it to Jenny even if their opinions about Bob may differ.


Then you do subscribe to a form of relativism as I do, there is common ground but it is still filtered through the perceptions of the mind. Absolute truth in one frame of reference (which is what I think you said in your first paragraph) is fine, it's just that each human mind creates it's own frame of reference and you end up with as many absolute truths as there are people. It's still subjective.

As for light and the disagreement about the speed it took, and whether it went in a straight line or not, you're wrong, unless you want ot reverse the scientific revolution and go back to proveing theories with debuctive logic rather than obsersvation (I.E back to Aristotelian Teleogolical Philosophy) then how people observe light is the onyl way to get a verifiable understanding of how it works, and thus we fail as it does behave differently from one reference point to another.

[Xander]

I went from light to people because I find the behavior of light and the behavior of people are pretty much the same. Energy and matter are the same thing but matter is a larger collection of energy so its path is a bit more complex then a single photon. However the the rules remain the same for humans and the photon. That both the human and the photon must always follow the straighest possible path. Of course humans can interpet that is making the best possible choices. Ouch! So no soul or any mystery to a human then? Just matter and energy in the same strain as say a tree? I guess your not a religious man then. I can see you point but still my honest reacion is ouch!

The action itself is absolute. Everyone can agree that the light is traveling the same speed and their relative differences of time and space can also answer why everyone has different results. The reason why observations are relative and actions are absolute is simply because all observations occur in the past while all actions are of the present. Is this not the splitting point of science and philosophy? To a philosopher, you only know of the action by your observation, therefore the action may be absolute but not to you. I do understand the whole problem with this kind of outlook but I fail to see the problem with not having any absolutes.

I won't be capable of arguing on the physics front having not studied it since GCSEs or something but I'm sure Moridin can hold that side up by himself. I am in essence trying to get at your own philosophy and see how you come to such decisions.

[Google Monster]

Then you do subscribe to a form of relativism as I do, there is common ground but it is still filtered through the perceptions of the mind. Absolute truth in one frame of reference (which is what I think you said in your first paragraph) is fine, it's just that each human mind creates it's own frame of reference and you end up with as many absolute truths as there are people. It's still subjective.
What I am trying to state is that when all the subjective truths are compared you can come up with a reason to why there are different results with the same experince.



As for light and the disagreement about the speed it took, and whether it went in a straight line or not, you're wrong, unless you want ot reverse the scientific revolution and go back to proveing theories with debuctive logic rather than obsersvation (I.E back to Aristotelian Teleogolical Philosophy) then how people observe light is the onyl way to get a verifiable understanding of how it works, and thus we fail as it does behave differently from one reference point to another.

There is no disagreement about the speed light takes, light always travels at the same speed and with that knowledge one can come up with the reason why this observer sees the light arc a little more then that observer because they observe the same experince at different angles. They can also come up with a reason to why the distance light traveled and the time it took to travel that distance because one observer was accelerting faster then the other observer.

[mgb]

What I am trying to state is that when all the subjective truths are compared you can come up with a reason to why there are different results with the same experince.


You can do that already, it's what makes relativism so easy to understand. And "subjective truths" is an oxymoron.

[Dom]

I went from light to people because I find the behavior of light and the behavior of people are pretty much the same. Energy and matter are the same thing but matter is a larger collection of energy so its path is a bit more complex then a single photon. However the the rules remain the same for humans and the photon. That both the human and the photon must always follow the straighest possible path. Of course humans can interpet that as making the best possible choices.

WOAH!!! Huge leap there,

Yes the particles in my body are subject to the same physical laws (whatever they may be ;) ) as the photon. But the levels of complexity, upon levels of complexity makes the two very different,

You descirbe light as following a direct straight path (and we'll accept that for the sake of this post, however I'm pretty sure it bends), but humans do not, we control our path, we choose where to go, we are not bound to follow the straightest/best path, we can choose to go round the houses. WE may be bound to choose the best/straightest path as your subjective perspective suggest to us, but not an absolute path. Hmmm I guess you'll argue the absolute is in following the path, not the is goes teh same way for each person. Where as I'd see absolutness, in this situation, to mean every person would behave the same way in the same circumstance, as in actually do the same things.... Which, of course, they do not do.

There are a bunch of people trying to climb the west face of Everest, basically the east face is an cake walk, and the west face kills. But up the west face they go.... Now you'd probably argue they are taking the straigtest path to what they want, but they certainly aren't taking the straightest/best path to the summit.

Humans are far too complex to compare directly with a photon, and thats before you even consider folding in spirituality, which I think is best left out of this thread!!! (Of course the existence of a moral God, whom created this universe, would bring in an absolute truth. His/Her/It's perspective would be the right absolute one!)

[Nemesis]

You can do that already, it's what makes relativism so easy to understand. And "subjective truths" is an oxymoron.
In terms of the collective maybe.

[Dom]

There is no disagreement about the speed light takes, light always travels at the same speed and with that knowledge one can come up with the reason why this observer sees the light arc a little more then that observer because they observe the same experince at different angles. They can also come up with a reason to why the distance light traveled and the time it took to travel that distance because one observer was accelerting faster then the other observer.

While staying with in special relativity this is correct, however furhter thinking gives an understanding that it could be different.

Light is subject to gravity therefore light would change speed while approaching or on a near approach to the event horizon of a black hole.

Then of course there is hawking radiation which escapes black holes, leaving some rather large implications for the speed of light being absolute and the ultimate speed, somehow hawking radiation gets out of a black hole.... Information escaping where light can't???

I think in the next 100 years our view of light will change again, quantum physics is already pushing at this, quantum pairing can simulate information being transfered at faster than light speeds.....

[Dom]

You can do that already, it's what makes relativism so easy to understand. And "subjective truths" is an oxymoron.

Why can there be only one truth....

As I sai dI can beleive one thing is true and behave exactly like it is,
You could believe the opposite.

From my perspective my opinion is true,
From your perspective your opinion is true,

We both behave as though our respective opinions are true, they are then subjectives truths.

A Muslim believes Christ was not God incarnate.
A Christian believes he was.

Both believe their respective understandings to be true, they are therefore subjective truths,

The absolute truth could be either or neither of these options, doesn't change the fact that these option are true to their respective believer.

Yes it's an oxoymoron but I still think it's ok in the context of this discussion to use it in this maner.

[TelecomClone]

Logically, something must exist if we are able to apprehend our own sensory and cognitive processes (I have thoughts/senses, therefore I must exist).Yes - and moreover, something must exist in an objective sense of the term 'exist'. That that thing exists would then be an objective truth, by which we've already precluded the thesis that all truth is subjective. The question as applied to axioms, then, is once again underscored as being one of whether or not the human intellect can identify objective truth such as this. Following, the postulate that we can not - ensconced by relativism - precludes itself by the very act of masquerading as a statement of objective truth.

Further, slashing and burning along the gradient from the ruined core of relativism above, the statement that there is 'no reason to believe' whether or not our perceptions are related to anything 'real' is an analytical statement. Analysis, like any, that one is of course made following one's own observations, using a process of reasoning; reason being the logical (or otherwise systemic) integration of perceptions with conceptions. But to make this statement is to say that one's own reasoning leads one to the conclusion that human reasoning is impotent to the task of identifying 'one way or the other' whether or not our perceptions correspond at all to objective reality. This is to say that human reason is impotent to the task of identifying reality. Which immediately asserts the question: how can a person use an impotent reasoning to ascertain the 'real' impotence of itself when that person also says that it is impotent to do so in the first place? If 'all human perception is of uncertain reality', then isn't that very statement itself, which is a statement of objective truth predicated upon the basic assumption that perception can be known to correspond to reality (that reason is valid), rendered an uncertainty as well? And if it's not to be treated as such, what then what could it be based upon and why is that specially exempt from being an uncertainty?

Whenever a person ponders the question as one does in this example, when one applies reason to the idea, one is already functioning on the premise that we can identify the real. It is, by definition, impossible to declare that premise false (or invalid) using argument that requires its truth. This is the very definition of an unsubstantiated doubt, which taken as an axiom expands to an unsubstantiated philosophical platform.




And directed at the general thread: holy shit @ some of you, philosophical relativism != Special/General Relativity. The latter is predicated upon formal order logic, which is something that philosophical relativism unanimously sneers at and simultaneously promulgates impotent. Using one to support the other is like using the virtues of date rape to support women's rights. Good lord.

[Xander]

TC-
If your actually looking for a person who is a pure relativist then I think you'll be disappointed. It seems that no one here is a pure anything in regard to philosophy. I'd go one step further and say that no one philosophy is all encompasing enough to be used in isolation but there again I always advocate balance.

[Google Monster]

WOAH!!! Huge leap there,

Yes the particles in my body are subject to the same physical laws (whatever they may be ;) ) as the photon. But the levels of complexity, upon levels of complexity makes the two very different,

You descirbe light as following a direct straight path (and we'll accept that for the sake of this post, however I'm pretty sure it bends), but humans do not, we control our path, we choose where to go, we are not bound to follow the straightest/best path, we can choose to go round the houses. WE may be bound to choose the best/straightest path as your subjective perspective suggest to us, but not an absolute path. Hmmm I guess you'll argue the absolute is in following the path, not the is goes teh same way for each person. Where as I'd see absolutness, in this situation, to mean every person would behave the same way in the same circumstance, as in actually do the same things.... Which, of course, they do not do.

There are a bunch of people trying to climb the west face of Everest, basically the east face is an cake walk, and the west face kills. But up the west face they go.... Now you'd probably argue they are taking the straigtest path to what they want, but they certainly aren't taking the straightest/best path to the summit.

Humans are far too complex to compare directly with a photon, and thats before you even consider folding in spirituality, which I think is best left out of this thread!!! (Of course the existence of a moral God, whom created this universe, would bring in an absolute truth. His/Her/It's perspective would be the right absolute one!)

Light does not bend, space warps and your right to say that humans are more complex then a single photon, I said that too.
Every action a person makes is the best possible action. Everyone choice one makes will be taken on the best possible choice and what determines that choice is your value system. If you value your own life over some stranger then you are more likely to not rush in and help someone in a burning car. The humans values are relative while the human actions are absolute. Meaning although we may have different values we will always make the best possible choice.

[Architectonic]

Could all those relativists please prove that there is no objective reality by not eating any food, (or breathing for that matter) for the rest of your life. Thanks. :ph34r:

[TelecomClone]

TC-
If your actually looking for a person who is a pure relativist then I think you'll be disappointed. It seems that no one here is a pure anything in regard to philosophy. I'd go one step further and say that no one philosophy is all encompasing enough to be used in isolation but there again I always advocate balance.Well, I tell you Xander, I'm not looking for anything but exploratory debate. The matter isn't one of "pure relativism," it is a matter of individuals who subscribe to axiomatic relativism being aware of what those axioms rationally necessitate. What several people are shrinking away from as a "pure" form is simply the underpinning of what they consider relativism-lite; the one has no philosophical foundation without the other. People can amputate the genesis of their outlook with "I'm fundamentally irrational, and I don't care," which is I guess enough to satisfy them, but I'd just assume seek knowledge; knowledge being a conceptual means of understanding generated by reason; reason being the polar opposite of the above. The reason for that opportunistic disconnect is that many people can't justify or otherwise substantiate their values to any significant degree, regardless of whether or not the values are actually rationally substantive (sometimes they are, sometimes they are not), simply because they've never bothered to appy a rational process to them - and so they are wont to assert that no values are justifiable to any degree, thereby rendering just about everything "nothing but an opinion" as far as they are concerned. This is relativism as fundamentally "pure" as any in requiring the same exact axioms, and it logically requires the same flawed premises that Lee has chipped away at earlier on in the thread. The problem - or discussion point at least - arises such that rational debate following disagreement is readily (and often) dodged by retreating to "neither of us is right or wrong," subsequently making judgement of a person's ideo-philosophical values impossible. It's an intellectual laziness that masquerades as enlightenment: employed as such, relativism is, quite literally, a functional excuse not to think 'too hard' about anything. Individuals (like Snowflake for instance) will bluntly announce their own anti-rationality, but then 'conclude' by shrugging at it. Paradoxically, they'll often support something like 'scientific reasoning' seemingly without realizing that 'scientific reasoning' is predicated upon a specific philosophy - one that is precluded by the anti-rationality that is being espoused. It's like saying "I hate pie, but I love blueberry pie."

The function of the thread is to explore that recurring issue, which like any debate is something that requires point and counterpoint. What I've been seeing, unfortunately, a) is a lot of useless indignation, b) a lot of off-topic pseudophilosophical goings-on about microfragments of scientific theory (conveniently amputated from the philosophy of science I might add), c) a lot of confusion as to what relativism is and why the existence of the subjective != relativism, d) argument that seeks to 'rationally' attack rationality itself, which precludes debate on this or any topic altogether (again as Lee pointed out), and then e) a lot of +1 post count absurdism that is better suited to Purgatory or some other nonsense bin.

[Google Monster]

While staying with in special relativity this is correct, however furhter thinking gives an understanding that it could be different.

Light is subject to gravity therefore light would change speed while approaching or on a near approach to the event horizon of a black hole.

Then of course there is hawking radiation which escapes black holes, leaving some rather large implications for the speed of light being absolute and the ultimate speed, somehow hawking radiation gets out of a black hole.... Information escaping where light can't???

I think in the next 100 years our view of light will change again, quantum physics is already pushing at this, quantum pairing can simulate information being transfered at faster than light speeds.....

Like I've just mentioned, light does not change speed rather the space warps. As the light gets closer and closer to the event horizon of a black hole space just warps more and more making the path of the light seem longer to the observer. I have my own theory about what leaves the black hole but I won't get into that here. It's kind of irrelevant to this subject anyways.

[Xander]

TC~
Right okay then well errm. :think:

In the lines of having a discussion of relativism vs non relativism are you saying that all of relativism should be thrown away? Ever heard of throwing the baby out with the bath water? To look at the "facts" of the world in the light that they are relevant to things around them highlights how things interconnect. Without and understanding of this you cannot truthfully say that you understand the object at which you are looking.

I do find people say that I engage in relativism. Possibly so but I throw away no philosophy which makes sense to me on any level. The reason why I pulled you up on the whole purist thing is that you seem to be targetting the most extremes of relativism and are expecting people to obey all of it's tennants and not pick and choose. Well I do pick and mix. Sorry but I do. I fail to see anything wrong with holding the idea of "there is no truth" as a good idea because it does aid my thinking and so is part of my philosophy. It is not empirically correct nor do I use it as such. It does however underpin what I consider essential to all intelligent men. Thinking. Re-evaluate everything. Regularly. I see relativism in a similar way and see no reason why it should be consigned to a scrap heap, unless you wish to consign logic to a similar pile because it has room for improvement?

[TelecomClone]

The reason why I pulled you up on the whole purist thing is that you seem to be targetting the most extremes of relativism and are expecting people to obey all of it's tennants and not pick and choose. Well I do pick and mix. Sorry but I do.The core of relativism is not an "extreme," it is the metaphysical and epistemological basis which defines relativism in the first place. A philosophy that does not share that base is simply not relativism.



I fail to see anything wrong with holding the idea of "there is no truth" as a good idea because it does aid my thinking and so is part of my philosophy.Why wouldn't you simply say 're-evaluate everything regularly', which is skepticism and has nothing to do with relativism in the first place, if that's what you mean? Why would you instead evoke something else entirely? Saying "there is no truth" is like saying "bacon cheese ham supernova," because it makes no sense. If the statement is true, then it is false. If it is false then it is meaningless. That's not at all conductive to thought, or anything else for that matter; quite the contrary, really, when it is tossed into the midst of discussion.

Tell me: Why in your estimation should a person re-evaluate ideas unless that person is concerned with the truth / use of them? And if a person is concerned with the truth / use of them, why would a person want to espouse something that not only precludes seeking truth but precludes knowing any sound means with which to evaluate ideas in the first place? Evaluation is analysis and analysis presupposes that a thing can be analyzed; in other words it presupposes that truth can be known and that there is a sound process for coming to know truth. If there is no truth then there is no analysis and you might as well just suck your thumb instead of thinking about something.

[Dom]

TC,

I don't see relativism, or whatever mixed up philosophy I subscribe to, as excusing me from having to think about why I believe what I believe.

The rational arguement, like science would have to be built up from the philosophical equivalent of 'first principals' It seems that we are working from different first principals. This would be my first observation in defence that everything is relative. If two pretty inteligent beings can not agree what the foundation principals of philosophy should be then they are pretty stuck.

For truth to be absolute, all of us must be able to see it and grasp it. As it is absoulte. If it is absolute but it is a given that all can not see it or grasp it then it makes no diffence whether it exists or not, it has no effect on the decisions people make, only the consequence.

What then ii ti that we are talking about, the truth of the consequence, or the 'truth' behind the decision.

Forgive me, I've run of into conceptual stuff that Lee would certainly throw a fit at.

As for your last post, they were very nicely dressed up version of exactly what has already been stated, that relativism becomes it's own absolute truth and thus defeats itself. And that relativism must preculde rationality. That there in no truth can not be true without defaeting it's self... why are you so unable to accept the lexus is imperfect and move on... this arguement does not deconstruct what relativism means.

Google Monster's idea's about people having to follow the best path, must be based on teh idea of all people being rational. even if they treat the information availble differently.

If you want to get into this properly, I.E agree points to discuss with counterpoints, then I'm happy to do so, but please remember I have little formal training in philosophy and can only go wher my rambling mind has taken me on it's own.

Oh and did you read the Boudrillard article? I'd be interested in what you thought!

I think we need to understand what you mean by relativism..... You seem to be suggesting that what we are supproting isn't relativism.

[Xenophon]

Further, slashing and burning along the gradient from the ruined core of relativism above


Could all those relativists please prove that there is no objective reality by not eating any food, (or breathing for that matter) for the rest of your life. Thanks. :ph34r:
I love all the really smug responses from the anti-relativists in this thread. You really trashed that scarecrow. But nobody has explained to me yet how we can have an understanding of something that is completely disconnected from our conscious makeup.

You seem to think that us relativists are all head in the cloud feelers, but I would submit that the entire scientific method is based on the idea of relativism. If we could know something with certainty, then there would be no need to verify anything experimentally, because we would already have a perfect understanding of it. However, science is based on the idea that we can't know anything beyond that which we verify experimentally. But then again, I guess you anti-relativists understand the nature of reality better than all the experimental physicists who realize their limited understanding and seek to increase it every day.

[TelecomClone]

But nobody has explained to me yet how we can have an understanding of something that is completely disconnected from our conscious makeup.What the hell are you talking about?



You seem to think that us relativists are all head in the cloud feelers, but I would submit that the entire scientific method is based on the idea of relativism.The scientific method is a function of the philosophy of science, which is strongly logical positivist. You're confusing contemporary scientific skepticism, which is largely a derivative of Popper's Falsification, with relativism. The two have little in common; relativism precludes the positivism part of logical positivism, and it makes a mockery of logical rigor in turn - a rigor without which scientific skepticism has no teeth with which to tear down old theory. Relativism is perhaps the most unscientific philosophy possible. Even religion has a stronger dialectic by which to assess ideas.



If we could know something with certainty, then there would be no need to verify anything experimentally, because we would already have a perfect understanding of it.That's just flat wrong. Non sequitur.

[Dom]

I love all the really smug responses from the anti-relativists in this thread. You really trashed that scarecrow. But nobody has explained to me yet how we can have an understanding of something that is completely disconnected from our conscious makeup.

You seem to think that us relativists are all head in the cloud feelers, but I would submit that the entire scientific method is based on the idea of relativism. If we could know something with certainty, then there would be no need to verify anything experimentally, because we would already have a perfect understanding of it. However, science is based on the idea that we can't know anything beyond that which we verify experimentally. But then again, I guess you anti-relativists understand the nature of reality better than all the experimental physicists who realize their limited understanding and seek to increase it every day.

This is my concern, alot of these arguments 'feel'/sound like some people want to go back to the good old days where theroy merely had to be reasonable from a point of view of logic. I.E the Platonic view of the universe (everything goes round the earth) which we know through observation to be false, Was perfectly acceptable because it was logically sound (within the paradigm of the day). Just like the 4 humours of the body where to give way to observation via disection. Things need to be verified and that is because our senses and our thought processes can lead us to miss the mark. If we rely upon them alone. So all science is driven by this, and is concerned always with the quality of the observations upon which a hypothisis is based. This stuffis measureable within the world of science, but when we extend the rules out to other area's of the universe, it isn't and so we get problems.

TC you sound like you think absolute truth is simple to see and find, all you have to do is rationaly think about it and there you are.... suddenly the sun is flying round the earth.

[Xenophon]

Ok, well I guess I'm just not a relativist then. If being a relativist means living in a little box that someone else has defined. I guess I was looking for a more interesting debate centered on ideas and not labels.

My only argument is that while objective reality may well exist, I only have access to it through my senses and the structure of my consciousness, and that does not allow me to have a perfect understanding of it. I will now leave this debate and look for one where I can defend my own ideas and not someone elses.

[Xander]

The core of relativism is not an "extreme," it is the metaphysical and epistemological basis which defines relativism in the first place. A philosophy that does not share that base is simply not relativism.
Now your arguing with the label. See INTP = Definer. Soo many conversations lost to this line of arguing....
Anyhow, read what people write and see what they call it. If the french can't spell coffee and say cafe I try not to hit them over the head for it but I can perfectly understand your frustration.

Why wouldn't you simply say 're-evaluate everything regularly', which is skepticism and has nothing to do with relativism in the first place, if that's what you mean?
Because the other one holds more impact and so is easier to remember and also tends to hit harder on those applying too much certainty. Bascially however, because I like it that way.

Why would you instead evoke something else entirely?
Same reason as if I meet Kai I'd probably say "wass up bitch" instead of "hi". I'm like that.
Saying "there is no truth" is like saying "bacon cheese ham supernova," because it makes no sense. You are confusing sense with rational sense now. It does make sense but not if interpreted literally. Same as your type does not fit if applied literally (MBTI that is).
If the statement is true, then it is false. If it is false then it is meaningless. It isn't. It is false. Falshoods aren't meaningless otherwise they wouldn't be false. Try letting your logic slip for a while and see where you get. Not sense or reason, just logic.
That's not at all conductive to thought, or anything else for that matter; quite the contrary, really, when it is tossed into the midst of discussion. Anything "tossed" into the middle of the discussion is usually disruptive. Also messages are partially you responsibility to interpret correctly. It is not the communicators sole responsibility to communicate in a way in which you cannot interpret incorrectly.

Tell me: Why in your estimation should a person re-evaluate ideas unless that person is concerned with the truth / use of them?
If they aren't then they are ignoring the possible relevance of any new ideas and hence become contained within their own limited viewpoint.
And if a person is concerned with the truth / use of them, why would a person want to espouse something that not only precludes seeking truth but precludes knowing any sound means with which to evaluate ideas in the first place? It only precludes seeking definates which encourages an intelligent mind to investigate other possibilities so that they can further understand the limitations of theories etc.
Evaluation is analysis and analysis presupposes that a thing can be analyzed; in other words it presupposes that truth can be known and that there is a sound process for coming to know truth. I'd have said it just presupposes that it can be analysed. Analysis does not always lead to truth. Mostly it leads to small or more basic components.
If there is no truth then there is no analysis and you might as well just suck your thumb instead of thinking about something. Defeatist!

[Dom]

Ok, well I guess I'm just not a relativist then. If being a relativist means living in a little box that someone else has defined. I guess I was looking for a more interesting debate centered on ideas and not labels.

My only argument is that while objective reality may well exist, I only have access to it through my senses and the structure of my consciousness, and that does not allow me to have a perfect understanding of it. I will now leave this debate and look for one where I can defend my own ideas and not someone elses.


actually ditto.......

I'm fed up with people trying to force me into debating on their terms.... which they never define.....

[Xander]

actually ditto.......

I'm fed up with people trying to force me into debating on their terms.... which they never define.....
There's terms ???
:horror:
HOLY CRAP!!!

[TelecomClone]

I don't see relativism, or whatever mixed up philosophy I subscribe to, as excusing me from having to think about why I believe what I believe.I'm glad to hear it, because relativism is used to that end an awful lot. Internal consistency becomes moot under relativism, and so there is no need - no method - of assessing the consistency of those ideas.




The rational arguement, like science would have to be built up from the philosophical equivalent of 'first principals' It seems that we are working from different first principals.Yes, quite probably. I'm glad you recognize this, because most people don't. Metaphysically, the relativist will post that nothing objectively exists. Epistemologically, the relativist will posit that nothing can be objectively known. I disagree with both of these ideas, for the reasons already stated.




This would be my first observation in defence that everything is relative. If two pretty inteligent beings can not agree what the foundation principals of philosophy should be then they are pretty stuck.Why are they stuck? Let us not see if we cannot come to an understanding. For starters, at the most basic level (metaphysics), let me ask you: Would you agree that because you're reading what I've written, sitting there having the thoughts that you are, means that something, not necessarily you or I, but something must be experiencing something in some manner? If so, would you agree that in order for something to have an experience, that something must first be? In other words, that something must exist?




For truth to be absolute, all of us must be able to see it and grasp it.Be careful here: there is a rather significant difference between absolute truth and objective truth. The objective regards the real irregardless of subjective interpretation, where as the absolute regards the omnipresent. As an agnostic, I do not deal with absolute truth at all; as a logical positivist, I do not think that we posses the perspective to logically ascertain the omnipresence of a thing (hence my agnosticism).




As for your last post, they were very nicely dressed up version of exactly what has already been stated, that relativism becomes it's own absolute truth and thus defeats itself.It wasn't dressed up at all, but yes that's what I said in my original post and it's what Lee went on to argue in the first few pages. Let's say Person A presents an argument intended to circumvent or solve the problem presented by that argument. If there is a logical flaw in Person A's solution, the argument fails: showing exactly how it fails involves demonstrate by way of logical series that it falls back down into the original problem instead of solving it or circumventing it. That's why you see it reiterated (as opposed to it being vigorous assertion, if that's what you thought).




why are you so unable to accept the lexus is imperfect and move on... this arguement does not deconstruct what relativism means.The argument is fundamentally relativism. If it does not work then what has been extrapolated from it does not stand unless supported by something else altogether - rationally, it's like kicking the foundation out from under a building. Philosophy isn't at all like religion in this sense: there is a rigor to it.




If you want to get into this properly, I.E agree points to discuss with counterpoints, then I'm happy to do so, but please remember I have little formal training in philosophy and can only go wher my rambling mind has taken me on it's own.Sure, Moridin. Don't worry about it, I couldn't care less about your credentials. Honest argument is all that interests me.




Oh and did you read the Boudrillard article? I'd be interested in what you thought!No - was it linked in this thread? I may have missed it amidst the off-topic science chatter.




I think we need to understand what you mean by relativism..... You seem to be suggesting that what we are supproting isn't relativism.What I'm taking issue with is the metaphysical (the state of what exists) and epistemological (the origin and nature of knowledge) core of relativism: the statement that all axioms are equally valid ('just opinion') because the truth of an axiom is purely function of perspective; the statement that objective truth can not be known.

[joft]

relativism as a methodology is the single most powerful approach to understanding reality. with it, any philosophy, paradigm, or tool, can be adopted and used to analyze any given idea or thing, all of the results recorded or noted, and then the process repeated with any other tools after that.

relativists are stupid when they purposefully avoid tools that they think will yield results they don't want. but you don't have to be a professed relativist to do that, everyone is selective about what they internalize and what is tacitly dismissed or forgotten

the purpose of relativism is to see things from as many sides as possible

[TelecomClone]

See INTP = Definer. Soo many conversations lost to this line of arguing....I don't know that it's just an INTP thing. We can't really discuss something without a definition of what is being discussed.




Anyhow, read what people write and see what they call it.I have. If you'll notice, it's why I haven't bothered to respond to a great many posts in this thread. A lot of people are going on about god knows what, but not what I raised in the OP.




Because the other one holds more impactWhy? It's hyperbole, but it seems to me that one would want to avoid infusing hyperbole into philosophy like that. Maybe if you were making a speech where an understanding of how you came to your conclusions was not important - but this kind of discussion is 'back room' stuff. It isn't the place for hyperbole, in my opinion.




You are confusing sense with rational sense now.I don't know any sense that is not rational. There is sense and nonsense, and reason is the means by which I come to know sense. Reason specifically, because it sharply goes even where intuitive sense trips over itself.




It does make sense but not if interpreted literally.This is why one should employ terms that can be interpreted literally!




Falshoods aren't meaningless otherwise they wouldn't be false.A falsehood is a statement of something that isn't true. Saying 'there is no fire in my hair' is not a self-contradicting statement. Saying that there is no truth is however itself a statement of truth. It's like saying there are no words: you're using words to proclaim the nonexistence of words, which precludes the proclamation because you've made it.




Try letting your logic slip for a while and see where you get. Not sense or reason, just logic.I did that for years. Nihilism is where I get, almost immediately. I was a rabid nihilist, because that's where my intuition goes - directly onto fundamental paradoxes.




Analysis does not always lead to truth.No, but it presupposes that truth exists and can thus be discerned from the false - which is the process. It is one of quantification, and the basis of human thought (or at least linguistic thought).




Defeatist!Heh. What I meant is, why would you distinguish between finger sucking and thinking if the two processes are indistinguishable?

[TelecomClone]

with it, any philosophy, paradigm, or tool, can be adopted and used to analyze any given idea or thing, all of the results recorded or noted, and then the process repeated with any other tools after that.

[...]

the purpose of relativism is to see things from as many sides as possibleYou don't need relativism to entertain perspective for the sake of argument. That perspective is relative is a given by definition of what perspective is, and experimenting therewith is a very different thing from relativism as a perspective. One is a function of another process and the other is fundamental, underlying (and undermining for that matter) processes.

[Dom]

Ok despite signing off I'll pick up here.


I'm glad to hear it, because relativism is used to that end an awful lot. Internal consistency becomes moot under relativism, and so there is no need - no method - of assessing the consistency of those ideas.

I do not promise internal consistency, be warned, merely a desire that drives me to try to validate or support my opinions and ideas. I need to know why I think what I do, I do not promise that I have applied the same principals consistently. It's a fault, but I only get concerned about the stuff in my head that's important to me. The other stuff I leave alone, but I do not tend to annouce opinion without feeling I have thought my way to it.


Yes, quite probably. I'm glad you recognize this, because most people don't. Metaphysically, the relativist will post that nothing objectively exists. Epistemologically, the relativist will posit that nothing can be objectively known. I disagree with both of these ideas, for the reasons already stated.

I'm probably not a relativist then, by the metaphysical qualification. I would however defend that nothing can be objectively known 100% for certain. Everything falls through our perceptions, preconceived ideas, understanding and education. This can never be perfect and so nothing can be objectively known. Take Newtonian physics, still taught as true in schools and colleges yet it is marginally inaccurate, as Einstein showed.



Why are they stuck? Let us not see if we cannot come to an understanding. For starters, at the most basic level (metaphysics), let me ask you: Would you agree that because you're reading what I've written, sitting there having the thoughts that you are, means that something, not necessarily you or I, but something must be experiencing something in some manner? If so, would you agree that in order for something to have an experience, that something must first be? In other words, that something must exist?

Ok, basic that is! of course we exist... within our perceptions. hmm let me try harder with that.

Yes something must exist, following your logic, but that something need not acutally even be me, (off into Matrix, God maybe dreaming ideas etc) At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if I'm real or not, I can't know the answer to this so I just get on as best I can. Yes something exists. Ok so we agree there, unless you want to talk about my matrix like idea (as I said it can't make any difference to how I live and so doesn't really matter) lets have another level or some more stuff.



Be careful here: there is a rather significant difference between absolute truth and objective truth. The objective regards the real irregardless of subjective interpretation, where as the absolute regards the omnipresent. As an agnostic, I do not deal with absolute truth at all; as a logical positivist, I do not think that we posses the perspective to logically ascertain the omnipresence of a thing (hence my agnosticism)..

Ok, no problems I mean Objective rather than absolute, by your defination. I still maintain that for something to be objectively true then all should be able to grasp it, as you put it: it is the same regardless of subjective interpretation. No, we don't posses the perspective to judge something as omnipresence, although that doesn't preculde it from existing.


It wasn't dressed up at all, but yes that's what I said in my original post and it's what Lee went on to argue in the first few pages. Let's say Person A presents an argument intended to circumvent or solve the problem presented by that argument. If there is a logical flaw in Person A's solution, the argument fails: showing exactly how it fails involves demonstrate by way of logical series that it falls back down into the original problem instead of solving it or circumventing it. That's why you see it reiterated (as opposed to it being vigorous assertion, if that's what you thought).

Well I find this the most annoying thing, I don't see the statement "There is no truth" as being an accurate or total summation of the philosophy I'm trying to defend. It is an imperfect facet of it, it is to provoke thought and nothing more. I do not hold it up as law, and thus ask you to find some other way to deconstruct the philosophy other than attacking this statement.

"There is no truth that can be verified through a human perspective" would be closer to a statement I'd hold up, but then I thought it up off the top of my head so would need alot more thought before I'd do that.


The argument is fundamentally relativism. If it does not work then what has been extrapolated from it does not stand unless supported by something else altogether - rationally, it's like kicking the foundation out from under a building. Philosophy isn't at all like religion in this sense: there is a rigor to it.

Hmmmm I think then we need to investigate what it is I'm actually defending, we will called it relativism until we work out what it really is, but I do not argue that there is no objective truth, I do not argue that nothing exists either. I do argue that no objective truth can be known, only a version of it through a perspective, and that the nature of exisitence is dependent, for each individual, upon that individuals perspective. As quick example your agnosticism results in your view of existence being very different from a fundamental bible belt born again Christian.


Sure, Moridin. Don't worry about it, I couldn't care less about your credentials. Honest argument is all that interests me.

Cool, and despite Lee having accused me (in the past) of deception, honest arguement is all I'm about. I also mentioned my lack of credentials as a defence for not knowing what proper definiations are.


No - was it linked in this thread? I may have missed it amidst the off-topic science chatter.

It is not off topic, though a bit crazy,

Baudrillard Simulation and Simulacra (http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html)


What I'm taking issue with is the metaphysical (the state of what exists) and epistemological (the origin and nature of knowledge) core of relativism: the statement that all axioms are equally valid ('just opinion') because the truth of an axiom is purely function of perspective; the statement that objective truth can not be known.

Well, in a way relativism as described above is accurate. All are valid. As no one is perfect, as you agreed by stateing that we lack the perspective to logically prove or disprove onimpresence. Therefore a belief that it does exist is surely as valid as one that does not? I'd suggest that perhaps your problem with it lies in the use equally valid, and if so I'd agree, somethings one can be more sure about than others. Such as jumping off a 200 foot tall building. however I still maintain that though an Idea, law or thesis could tend to certainty, it never actually reaches it.

There is always room for our observations to have missed stuff utterly. There could be an entire fabric of the universe we have yet to even see, let alone understand.

[Xander]

I don't know that it's just an INTP thing. We can't really discuss something without a definition of what is being discussed.
Don't see why not. It's what I do most of the time ;) Lee would love that tid bit!

I have. If you'll notice, it's why I haven't bothered to respond to a great many posts in this thread. A lot of people are going on about god knows what, but not what I raised in the OP.
And your not curious? It's the only reason I post here, to see what others think.

Why? It's hyperbole, but it seems to me that one would want to avoid infusing hyperbole into philosophy like that. Maybe if you were making a speech where an understanding of how you came to your conclusions was not important - but this kind of discussion is 'back room' stuff. It isn't the place for hyperbole, in my opinion.
hyperbole
Plural
hyperboles (http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=hyperboles&action=edit)


(uncountable) extreme exaggeration (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exaggeration) or overstatement; especially as a literary (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/literary) or rhetorical device.
(countable) an instance or example of this technique
(countable, obsolete) a hyperbola (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hyperbola)Thought I'd post the definition just incase anyone is as paranoid about definitions of these things as I.

Right TC, yes it is a hyperbole. So?
I can see plenty of application in this discussion for them but it would require greater knowledge of the intricasies of the subject than I currently hold. The hyperbole stated preciously is useful to me as it reminds me to question. Both you and Lee seem to not question certain things from my point of view (though I very much doubt this to be the case) and so I would say that relativism is something you could both do with integrating into your tool boxes but thats just me and I always try to balance these things.

I don't know any sense that is not rational. There is sense and nonsense, and reason is the means by which I come to know sense. Reason specifically, because it sharply goes even where intuitive sense trips over itself.
ESTP. They swear they make sense but somedays you'd swear they'd hit their head (mentioning no names dear ;) ).

This is why one should employ terms that can be interpreted literally!
How much would you pay them ? (just illustrating the flaw in that theory ;) )
No term is an island as much as no man is.

A falsehood is a statement of something that isn't true. Saying 'there is no fire in my hair' is not a self-contradicting statement. Saying that there is no truth is however itself a statement of truth. It's like saying there are no words: you're using words to proclaim the nonexistence of words, which precludes the proclamation because you've made it.
You are applying the truth to the statement based on the assumption that it is built upon the same rules as other sentences and is obeying similar rules to those you are familiar with. Therefore it makes you think. It has use. There are other ways but anyone's subjective and often opinionated bs of one method vs another is entirely valid in side their head. I'm afraid that this has very little effect on the contents of anyone else's head.

I did that for years. Nihilism is where I get, almost immediately. I was a rabid nihilist, because that's where my intuition goes - directly onto fundamental paradoxes.
I've never been a rabid anything. I just am. I use cold and detatched methods and also warm and fuzzy methods. I see no reason to throw one out without context and once that specific context has passed I will not leave it behind unless I find it to never be of use (like most things I learnt in maths a level).
No, but it presupposes that truth exists and can thus be discerned from the false - which is the process. It is one of quantification, and the basis of human thought (or at least linguistic thought). That's deduction not analysis. Analysis is purely an attempt to find something not immediately apparent IMHO.

Heh. What I meant is, why would you distinguish between finger sucking and thinking if the two processes are indistinguishable?Can't you do both ;)
Are they the same? No. They may produce the same result (in the context of the origional situation) but we have more than one word for speaking and multiple ways of actually speaking.

[TelecomClone]

I would however defend that nothing can be objectively known 100% for certain.What about the very idea that nothing can be objectively known 100% for certain? Are you 100% certain about the truth of that? If so, how can you make the statement? If not, what degree of certainty is the maximum - and why isn't that effectively 100%?



Everything falls through our perceptions, preconceived ideas, understanding and education.Is our understanding faulty because it exists? In other words: it sounds like you are effectively positing that we should deem our means of understanding reality impotent because we have a means. How can we use an impotent means of conclusion to conclude that the means are impotent?



This can never be perfect and so nothing can be objectively known. Take Newtonian physics, still taught as true in schools and colleges yet it is marginally inaccurate, as Einstein showed.Whilst I shudder at yet another physics example because people in this thread have seemed eager to confuse physics for the philosophy that gives rise to physics, Newtonian physics are an example of a conception that is incomplete. Wherever a mind is not omnipotent, conceptualizations of the objective are always by definition incomplete in the same manner; this is not to undermine what is known, to state that nothing can be known, or state that truth is relative - but it is rather to state that what is known is a portion of what exists to be known. I don't know that theory is taught as "true." It shouldn't be: theory either works or it does not work. What's true or false is the data concerned - that which the theory relates in its array.



Yes something must exist, following your logic, but that something need not acutally even be meThat's fine - you agree that something must exist. That's all I wanted to establish there. Second: Would you agree that in order for something to exist, which we've established is the case, that something must not be nothing; in other words, that existence is something being. The thing that exists is what it is. Agree?



I still maintain that for something to be objectively true then all should be able to grasp itTo use an analogy that I use often to describe this concept: a blind person might not grasp the concept of depth, and therefore not believe or understand that there is a cliff in front of him. A seeing person sees the cliff, understands depth, and knows of the cliff's existence. Should the blind man walk off of that cliff, however, he'll fall to his death regardless of his grasp of the truth of its existence. Similarly, a person's acceptance of or grasp of truth has nothing to do with its objective validity. But this point will soon be addressed following the metaphysical step-by-step that we've initiated above.



"There is no truth that can be verified through a human perspective" would be closer to a statement I'd hold up, but then I thought it up off the top of my head so would need alot more thought before I'd do that.We start to get into this above, as well. I would immediately challenge that statement because - as above - the statement is to deem the human perspective impotent to the task of knowing truth (reality), and it is to do so through that perspective. It is to make a statement of truth about objective reality, about the true nature of human perspective, at the same time that it says it can do no such thing.



Well, in a way relativism as described above is accurate. All are valid. As no one is perfect, as you agreed by stateing that we lack the perspective to logically prove or disprove onimpresence. Therefore a belief that it does exist is surely as valid as one that does not?It breaks down like this: A person either knows an objective truth or he does not. An objective truth is objective, regardless of that person's personal flaws or shortcomings, by definition. People can either know objective truth or they can not.



There is always room for our observations to have missed stuff utterly. There could be an entire fabric of the universe we have yet to even see, let alone understand.I agree. I do not see this as supporting your argument, however, and such stands quite readily without relativism. It's a skeptic principle.

[TelecomClone]

Right TC, yes it is a hyperbole. So?So hyperbole is inaccurate. Hyperbole is evocative exaggeration. That makes hyperbolic philosophy inaccurate by the same degree, and philosophy really needn't be inaccurate. Philosophy is probably the most (logistically) important human system, and it in my opinion deserves all of the conceptual attention as any important system. Greater precision in thought, more powerful thought, richer thought, is more thought than its low resolution counterpart.



(though I very much doubt this to be the case)And that doubt is founded, because it is not the case.



How much would you pay them ? (just illustrating the flaw in that theory ;) )I don't see the flaw. Elaborate?



I'm afraid that this has very little effect on the contents of anyone else's head.And you call me a defeatist?



Analysis is purely an attempt to find something not immediately apparent IMHO.And how do we do that? Most analysis is either comparative or rooted in methodology that is predicated upon comparison. And comparison is boolean in theory - we're talking about truth and falsehood, without which there is no comparison; without comparison there is no distinguishing, and no analysis.

[floid]

a) You say that "all axioms are equally valid." But as such, two axioms that directly contradict one another can both be valid. This is a violation of the Law of Identity, according to which, logical contradictions can not exist. For instance, the metaphysical postulate that objective reality exists, and the metaphysical postulate that objective reality does not exist can not both be true according to the Law of Identity because the one physically precludes the other. If you discard the Law of Identity in order to make this acceptable, you are saying that logic itself is invalid and, if you do that, how is it that you are able to come to your conclusion? If you aren't using logic, what method of analysis are you using and how is it valid?

All axioms are equally valid initially until differentiated by human thought.
In the absence of human thought they become equally valid again.
Why is a "method of analysis" required to perceive what is obvious from direct experience?




b) The statement that there is no objective truth is a statement that you are making following your own observations, using a process of reasoning that integrates those perceptions with conceptions. But to make this statement is to say that your own reasoning leads you to the conclusion that human reasoning is impotent to the task of identifying objective reality. How can you use an impotent reasoning to ascertain the objective impotence of itself when you say that it is impotent to do so in the first place? If "all such truth is baseless," then isn't that very statement itself, which is a statement of truth, baseless as well? And if it's not baseless, what are you basing it upon and why is that exempt from being a baseless truth if everything else isn't?

There is no subjective or objective truth outside the thrashing about of a human mind.
What is, is completely independent of a subject/object dichotomy.
All else is just an artificial ad-hoc judgement made by a creature that mistakenly derives most of it's identity from the synaptic activity of it's brain.





c) An objective truth is one that is not predicated upon simple perspective. An objective truth is one that is true no matter how any individual person wants to regard it. Now, the idea that there isn't objective truth, and the idea there is objective truth, are two ideas that contradict and preclude one another:

An "objective truth" is always predicated upon simple perspective except in theory.
The "objective truth" of gravity is different for the man who jumps from the 10th floor of the building than it is for the man who reads about it in the newspaper the next day, except, of course, in theory.
What you see is largely dependent on where you stand and, to date, "objective reality" has not been an accesible vantage point outside the highly speculative and extremely limited contructs of human thought.

[Dom]

EDIT: Floid rocks!!


What about the very idea that nothing can be objectively known 100% for certain? Are you 100% certain about the truth of that? If so, how can you make the statement? If not, what degree of certainty is the maximum - and why isn't that effectively 100%?


Hmm am I 100% certain that nothing can be objectively known 100%? Well from an objective point of view, of course I'm not. From my subjective point of view thisis one of the things, I like to think of as 'tending to certainy' (in a similar way that dy and dx tend to 0 in differentation)


Is our understanding faulty because it exists? In other words: it sounds like you are effectively positing that we should deem our means of understanding reality impotent because we have a means. How can we use an impotent means of conclusion to conclude that the means are impotent?

Sorry you've made an assumption to move me towards where you want me, I never said it's fault becasue it exists, I said it isn't perfect. I think you're arguing the same thing as the first paragraph again. I'm saying we can only ever 'tend to certainty' because our perceptions of realtiy (whatever that is) are no perfect. If they were we wouldn't be having this conversation.


Whilst I shudder at yet another physics example because people in this thread have seemed eager to confuse physics for the philosophy that gives rise to physics, Newtonian physics are an example of a conception that is incomplete. Wherever a mind is not omnipotent, conceptualizations of the objective are always by definition incomplete in the same manner; this is not to undermine what is known, to state that nothing can be known, or state that truth is relative - but it is rather to state that what is known is a portion of what exists to be known. I don't know that theory is taught as "true." It shouldn't be: theory either works or it does not work. What's true or false is the data concerned - that which the theory relates in its array.

Ahhh but netwon physics works close enough, you can build a car, plot a course for a ship, do lots with it, yet it is 'incomplete' as you call it. I think we are falling between words, we now know it was incomplete, to Newton is was complete as it was to his contemporaries. It was relative, to him it was true to many it's as good as, to Enistein, it was wrong or 'incomplete' as you'd prefer to put it.



That's fine - you agree that something must exist. That's all I wanted to establish there. Second: Would you agree that in order for something to exist, which we've established is the case, that something must not be nothing; in other words, that existence is something being. The thing that exists is what it is. Agree?

Absolutely, I have no problem with our something being our something.


To use an analogy that I use often to describe this concept: a blind person might not grasp the concept of depth, and therefore not believe or understand that there is a cliff in front of him. A seeing person sees the cliff, understands depth, and knows of the cliff's existence. Should the blind man walk off of that cliff, however, he'll fall to his death regardless of his grasp of the truth of its existence. Similarly, a person's acceptance of or grasp of truth has nothing to do with its objective validity. But this point will soon be addressed following the metaphysical step-by-step that we've initiated above.


No, the blind man has other senses that can tell him of the depth and the danger. He becomes aware of the cliff's existence, before his death. he can grasp this truth as well. Hence why in law if you watcha blind man wlak over the edge you ae not held responsible, where as if you did attempt to warn him and he goes over you are. I'd say your exaple does do what you think it does, the blind guy is still able to grasp the truth of the situation even without falling off, if he uses the other senses he has at his disposal. I'm curious to see where you are doing with the step by step above....


We start to get into this above, as well. I would immediately challenge that statement because - as above - the statement is to deem the human perspective impotent to the task of knowing truth (reality), and it is to do so through that perspective. It is to make a statement of truth about objective reality, about the true nature of human perspective, at the same time that it says it can do no such thing.



It breaks down like this: A person either knows an objective truth or he does not. An objective truth is objective, regardless of that person's personal flaws or shortcomings, by definition. People can either know objective truth or they can not.

Hmmm I sense we're falling away with definations and semantics again. Yes a person either know the truth or does not. This is irrelevant though, as he has no way of knowing whether what he thinks to be true is the objective truth or not. Hi ssubjective take, his perception of reality will over lay whatever he has observed and effect what he believes to be true.


I agree. I do not see this as supporting your argument, however, and such stands quite readily without relativism. It's a skeptic principle.

As I said, we're calling what I adhere to as relativism until we work out what it is? if this is skeptic principle than fine, I'm not skeptical of science however, merely aware that there could be huge paradigm changing things we're unaware of, hence why no truth that we believe to know now can be held as 100% certain as the potential for us to have missed something alone (regardless of the myraid fileters that are perceptions place on our observation).

[joft]

EDIT: Floid rocks!!
wtf, my sig :rant: actually i'm sure he had it first and i just never noticed it because he never posts

[panda]

To verify: yes, floid used it first. That's OK, though; it's a good quote.

[songbird36]

I don't know that it's just an INTP thing. We can't really discuss something without a definition of what is being discussed.


Perhaps that's because you failed to distinguish in your initial post between "truth" and "reality" (something can be a logical or linguistic truth without being empirically real), and while you explained the relativist position you didn't fully outline the reasons why a relativist believes there is no objective truth (the way in which relativists believe that the senses process data, etc). This may have caused confusion, but agree there are a large number of posts on this thread that contribute nothing to the debate, and seem to amount to people who know little about the topic enjoying the sound of their own voice.

[Xander]

So hyperbole is inaccurate. Hyperbole is evocative exaggeration. That makes hyperbolic philosophy inaccurate by the same degree, and philosophy really needn't be inaccurate. Philosophy is probably the most (logistically) important human system, and it in my opinion deserves all of the conceptual attention as any important system. Greater precision in thought, more powerful thought, richer thought, is more thought than its low resolution counterpart.
Philosophy is mearly an approach to thinking. accuracy is irrelevant.

I don't see the flaw. Elaborate?
To employ you must pay. See I can warp your precision if I chose to and hence no statement is 100%.

And you call me a defeatist?
Certainty of faliure is to be expected in this regard. giving up trying would be accepting defeat!
I still try to talk to Lee :ph34r:

And how do we do that? Most analysis is either comparative or rooted in methodology that is predicated upon comparison. And comparison is boolean in theory - we're talking about truth and falsehood, without which there is no comparison; without comparison there is no distinguishing, and no analysis.
Exactly. Without comparisson there is nothing to deliniate stuff. Therefore everything is interconnected, basically. So how is it wrong to have a statement that contradicts itself? Either can be true in certain situations and to try to cover them all would require a text so long as to be unusable. Hence I like the contradictions. It is in the application that I lock it down. therefore my philosophy is uncertain but not necessarily my results.

[Nemesis]

And directed at the general thread: holy shit @ some of you, philosophical relativism != Special/General Relativity. The latter is predicated upon formal order logic, which is something that philosophical relativism unanimously sneers at and simultaneously promulgates impotent. Using one to support the other is like using the virtues of date rape to support women's rights. Good lord.
If the physical world in which we exist is all relative, wouldn't it follow that the patterns of the beings that live in it are also relativistic?

[Google Monster]

Our observations are relative. I have nothing against that. The part I'm disagreeing with is that relativism states that there are no absolute truths. My thoughts against that is that all humans must obey the absolute law of following the best possible path like eveything else. Whether its the apple falling from a tree, a comet passing by earth or the person who goes to work. I believe in determinism and no free-will so I guess that is why I don't support the no absolute belief. Using the staement of everyone having to grasp the idea to become an absolute truth isn't a strong arguement. Is a human raised among dogs still human even if s/he thinks s/he is a dog? You don't need to grasp the idea of an abolute truth in order for it to be absolute. You are living with the absolute truth whether you acknowledge it or not.

[Hustler]

However that doesn't change the fact that the light itself is moving in the straightest possible path, even if space is warped they can all agree that the light is going 299,792,458 m/s and with that they can collect the differences of the distance and the time it took the light to get from point A to point B and agree that one observer is accelerating this much faster then the other.

No, it doesn't. If I watch light get "bent" by the influence of massive objects, then I am seeing it not take the straightest possible path. And, I am right. It isn't. It is taking a path which allows for a straighter path. Read about gravitational lensing or something and see if you really want to stick to your guns about light always taking the straightest path.

By the way, do you think light still takes the straightest possible path and moves at the same speed when it travels into the event horizon of a black hole?


Light acts like a wave and that is a known fact, so when going through the double slit experiment the light will do exactly what any wave would do through a double slit and cause an interference pattern. Even if one photon was used there is still the probability wave, which I do have an alternate theory about probability waves but I'll stick with the mainstream explanation.

So, let me get this straight. Light moves in the straightest possible path but, oh wait, it's also a wave, so what you meant is that...it doesn't move in the straightest possible path? No offense but, given your confusion over this matter, I think I'll stick with the "mainstream" explanations of Dirac, Pauli, Heisenberg, etc. when it comes to matters of quantum mechanics. By the way, these "mainstream" explanations also happen to be at odds with your notion of light always taking the straightest possible path. Just as I said to TelecomClone, please don't look to the real world for examples to refute relativism.

[Hustler]

Well, since it already has, it's only with much merriment that I ask you: How not so?

I'm afraid I can't give you an absolute answer about that. If you want my skeptical answer, I don't know. And, if you want my relativist answer, I don't care.

[Serotonin]

I'm afraid I can't give you an absolute answer about that. If you want my skeptical answer, I don't know. And, if you want my relativist answer, I don't care.

lol

[INThoughtPolice]

I never said I didn't recognise that there is a reality outside of my perceptions, i merely argue that I can not access it as I will always be percieving it through my perceptions. As does yourself. You therefore can not access it either. It is mere arogance to suggest that my perceptions are able to observe and fathom pure objective truth.

You wake up to find yourself in a room with one door and no windows. In it is a table and a rule, a calculator and a stopwatch and a weight. using this apparatus you calculate that the force of gravity you are experienceing is exactly what you'd expect on earth.

When you confidental open the door expecting sunlight and a warm wind, you're sucked out into space and die horrible as your 'room' was being acccelarated through space at the same rate as the earth gravitational pull (9.something mps2 I think)

Perception does not dicate what reality is, Logic will have killed you due to presuppitions.

Your claim that you cannot understand reality was made through perception which, according to relativist philosophy, nullifies it.

[meshou]

Your claim that you cannot understand reality was made through perception which, according to relativist philosophy, nullifies it.I think you're confusing realitivisim with solipcisim. Relitivists do believe in a reality,even if they can't 100% know it. Solipcists don't.

[Google Monster]

No, it doesn't. If I watch light get "bent" by the influence of massive objects, then I am seeing it not take the straightest possible path. And, I am right. It isn't. It is taking a path which allows for a straighter path. Read about gravitational lensing or something and see if you really want to stick to your guns about light always taking the straightest path.

By the way, do you think light still takes the straightest possible path and moves at the same speed when it travels into the event horizon of a black hole?

Sure you may percieve light to bend because of your observations. However whether or not light bends isn't my point. My point is light follows the straightest possible path and gravity doesn't affect the photon directly because it's massless but curves the space-time so that the best possible path will be along the curved space-time.

As for the light going into a black hole, The gravitational pull of a black hole is equal to the speed of light so light must travel in the curved space-time that is curving as fast as it can travel. Which is why there is no escape. Like running at a constant speed on a treadmill that is set to the same speed.



So, let me get this straight. Light moves in the straightest possible path but, oh wait, it's also a wave, so what you meant is that...it doesn't move in the straightest possible path? No offense but, given your confusion over this matter, I think I'll stick with the "mainstream" explanations of Dirac, Pauli, Heisenberg, etc. when it comes to matters of quantum mechanics. By the way, these "mainstream" explanations also happen to be at odds with your notion of light always taking the straightest possible path. Just as I said to TelecomClone, please don't look to the real world for examples to refute relativism.

Wave particle duality says that photons can be viewed as particles or waves. Whether or not we use the particle or waves as an example the wave will still flow in the same direction as a particle also. A wave can travel the best possible path also. When waves collide in the double slit experiment the best possible path for the waves is not through each other due to the interaction of the other wave but cause and interference pattern due to the interaction of the other wave. I am with the mainstream theories when referring to light waves. The theory I was referring to was about probability waves when explaining electrons and single photons through the double slit experiment. However that has nothing to do with this discussion because it has the same results as the current theories but just an alternate explanation.

[lbloom]

@Google Monster: Care to explain "resistance of the other wave"?

[Google Monster]

Interaction perhaps. Sometimes I suck with my choice of words.

[Hustler]

Sure you may percieve light to bend because of your observations. However whether or not light bends isn't my point. My point is light follows the straightest possible path and gravity doesn't affect the photon directly because it's massless but curves the space-time so that the best possible path will be along the curved space-time.

No, you are still not quite getting it. Suppose you have three points of a triangle, A, B and C. Suppose that A is an emitting source and that C is where I am observing. Because these points form a triangle, we know that there is a line segment between A and C which is, incidentally, the "straightest path" between A and C. Suppose now that B is a very massive object. Suppose that the geometry of this triangle is such that the segment AC is nearly the distance of AB + BC, meaning that we have a very long, shallow triangle. Now, because B is so massive, a photon which is emitted by A on a trajectory which would not intercept C if B were not there is actually "lensed" so that it redirects and ends up at C. But, the "straightest path" from A to C is AC, and the photon did not travel along that path. Light did not take the "straightest path."


As for the light going into a black hole, The gravitational pull of a black hole is equal to the speed of light so light must travel in the curved space-time that is curving as fast as it can travel. Which is why there is no escape. Like running at a constant speed on a treadmill that is set to the same speed.

So, is that a yes or a no? Is light still traveling at the same speed and along the straightest possible path? Be careful, this is a trick question. No matter how you answer it, your absolutist stance about light is going to be rendered void.


Wave particle duality says that photons can be viewed as particles or waves. Whether or not we use the particle or waves as an example the wave will still flow in the same direction as a particle also. A wave can travel the best possible path also. When waves collide in the double slit experiment the best possible path for the waves is not through each other due to the interaction of the other wave but cause and interference pattern due to the interaction of the other wave. I am with the mainstream theories when referring to light waves. The theory I was referring to was about probability waves when explaining electrons and single photons through the double slit experiment. However that has nothing to do with this discussion because it has the same results as the current theories but just an alternate explanation.

You do realize you have changed from "straightest possible path" to "best possible path." Which is it? And how do you figure you can just dismiss the single photon moving through a slitted barrier (it doesn't have to be a double slit, you know) as being irrelevant? It's still light and it's still not moving in the "straightest possible path" or even the "best possible path," because the path isn't even defined. It's a bunch of paths. They can't all be the best or straightest, can they? The geometry of this phenomenon, regardless of light acting as a wave or particle, does not conform to "straightest possible path" by any stretch of the definitions of "straightest," "possible," or "path."

[Google Monster]

No, you are still not quite getting it. Suppose you have three points of a triangle, A, B and C. Suppose that A is an emitting source and that C is where I am observing. Because these points form a triangle, we know that there is a line segment between A and C which is, incidentally, the "straightest path" between A and C. Suppose now that B is a very massive object. Suppose that the geometry of this triangle is such that the segment AC is nearly the distance of AB + BC, meaning that we have a very long, shallow triangle. Now, because B is so massive, a photon which is emitted by A on a trajectory which would not intercept C if B were not there is actually "lensed" so that it redirects and ends up at C. But, the "straightest path" from A to C is AC, and the photon did not travel along that path. Light did not take the "straightest path."

You keep saying straightest path even when I keep saying straightest possible path. Your example doesn't do anything but provide an obstacle for the light's path. The light doesn't just decide to go from A to C, it goes the straightest possible path and when the massive B is brought into the story it will follow along the curved space-time rather then towards C if B wasn't present. I'll use another example for your example to perhaps explain what I'm trying to say a bit better. Instead of light I'll use a ball with constant acceleration. This is a thought experiment so don't get too caught up on the constant accelerating ball at 10fps. On a flat surface you send a ball from A to C and the ball will go straight to C. Now dig a hole on the surface at point B so you get a spherical indent on the surface to represent the curvature of space. Now you send the ball in to the direction of C and the best possible path the ball will take is along the indent of point B rather then straight to C. And if the ball was moving fast enough it would curve along and then leave the indent and continue moving along the straightest possible path.



So, is that a yes or a no? Is light still traveling at the same speed and along the straightest possible path? Be careful, this is a trick question. No matter how you answer it, your absolutist stance about light is going to be rendered void.

Yes it will continue to move along the straightest possible path. As I said light will continue traveling at the same speed but space-time will also curve just as fast. So you get the threadmill effect of a runner and the threadmill both constantly going the same speed.



You do realize you have changed from "straightest possible path" to "best possible path." Which is it? And how do you figure you can just dismiss the single photon moving through a slitted barrier (it doesn't have to be a double slit, you know) as being irrelevant? It's still light and it's still not moving in the "straightest possible path" or even the "best possible path," because the path isn't even defined. It's a bunch of paths. They can't all be the best or straightest, can they? The geometry of this phenomenon, regardless of light acting as a wave or particle, does not conform to "straightest possible path" by any stretch of the definitions of "straightest," "possible," or "path."

The straightest possible path applies to light through vacuum. But when waves or more then one object is involved then it can be interpreted as the best possible path because two or more objects or waves can interact with each other and change directions but the concept remains the same. I've never read up on single slit experiments and that is why I never referred to them. Although by quickly looking it up there is some diffraction even through a single slit. The explanation I think would be is that the minor diffraction is due to the waves interacting with the edges of the slit. Every object or wave will always follow the best possible path and you can have a bunch of best possible paths if these objects or waves interact with each other. Like two opposing humans who fight for their country, they both feel they are doing what is best for their country. A lot of what I'm saying is like relativity with the difference of all matter and energy always following the best possible path.

[Xander]

Question.

How do you compact space? Is this just a physicists way of explaining how light can move faster?

I've tried looking this up and the four dimensional thing seems a little flawed as isn't time something that only humans see? A way for us to measure something that doesn't exist so we can organise and do things like measure speed?

How far are we derailing this thread?

Back to TelecomClone's origional questioning, I still hold to the idea that if you reject something because it doesn't make sense then you have to ask yourself why others would follow/ use it. They can't all be intellectually lazy or thick.

[Dom]

Our observations are relative. I have nothing against that. The part I'm disagreeing with is that relativism states that there are no absolute truths. My thoughts against that is that all humans must obey the absolute law of following the best possible path like eveything else. Whether its the apple falling from a tree, a comet passing by earth or the person who goes to work. I believe in determinism and no free-will so I guess that is why I don't support the no absolute belief. Using the staement of everyone having to grasp the idea to become an absolute truth isn't a strong arguement. Is a human raised among dogs still human even if s/he thinks s/he is a dog? You don't need to grasp the idea of an abolute truth in order for it to be absolute. You are living with the absolute truth whether you acknowledge it or not.

If he thinks he's a dog then the truth to him is that he is a dog, oh and thanks for lettings us know about the determinsim thing, that helps a lot. I couldn't disagree more abotu it, but if you did hold that view then yes youd need absolute truth to exist to be able to support it.

[Dom]

I think you're confusing realitivisim with solipcisim. Relitivists do believe in a reality,even if they can't 100% know it. Solipcists don't.


Hurrah!! thank you meshou.... ohh this is fun i'm finding out what the proper words are for what I beleive, So I'm not a Solipcist!! but I am possibly a relativist!! cool

[Dom]

Sure you may percieve light to bend because of your observations. However whether or not light bends isn't my point. My point is light follows the straightest possible path and gravity doesn't affect the photon directly because it's massless but curves the space-time so that the best possible path will be along the curved space-time.


Er photon's do have mass.

[lbloom]

:banghead:

[Dom]

Question.

How do you compact space? Is this just a physicists way of explaining how light can move faster?

I've tried looking this up and the four dimensional thing seems a little flawed as isn't time something that only humans see? A way for us to measure something that doesn't exist so we can organise and do things like measure speed?

How far are we derailing this thread?

Back to TelecomClone's origional questioning, I still hold to the idea that if you reject something because it doesn't make sense then you have to ask yourself why others would follow/ use it. They can't all be intellectually lazy or thick.

Time does exist, it is merely our units of it which are fictious. We did not create the concept of time, merely a way to measure it.

No you don't compact, sapce, it's a mind trick used to help to conceptualise the relativistics effects of large gravitational fields. Effectively like isobars on a weather map. instead of measureing pressure, they measure time space distortion caused by gravitational fields observed from a stationary frame of reference. I don't think the fabric of space is really compacted, merely that it's easier to think of it as though it is, I think light is actualy bent, slowed down etc. A photo does have mass and therefore it should be able to be slowed down.... Light really is very interesting stuff huh?

And yes we have derailed horribly!! TelecomClone please reply to my last long reply to you! I want to get back on topic...

[Hustler]

I'll use another example for your example to perhaps explain what I'm trying to say a bit better. Instead of light I'll use a ball with constant acceleration. This is a thought experiment so don't get too caught up on the constant accelerating ball at 10fps. On a flat surface you send a ball from A to C and the ball will go straight to C. Now dig a hole on the surface at point B so you get a spherical indent on the surface to represent the curvature of space. Now you send the ball in to the direction of C and the best possible path the ball will take is along the indent of point B rather then straight to C. And if the ball was moving fast enough it would curve along and then leave the indent and continue moving along the straightest possible path.

This is a common misunderstanding of the curvature of spacetime borne of analogizing it to stretching 2-D surfaces orthogonally to their plane. Light moving around massive bodies doesn't work like balls rolling through bowls. It's not the same, and the "straightest possible path" needn't be taken.




Yes it will continue to move along the straightest possible path. As I said light will continue traveling at the same speed but space-time will also curve just as fast. So you get the threadmill effect of a runner and the threadmill both constantly going the same speed.

In theory, the stretching of spacetime increases as you move inward from the event horizon, so you actually have a treadmill which starts out moving as fast as the person running on it but which is accelerating. Whatever the case, there is no real answer to these questions. The goings-on within an event horizon are meaningless to speculate about, because, with trivial or irrelevant exceptions, no information will cross that threshold.


The straightest possible path applies to light through vacuum.

Vacuums don't exist. Your argument is starting to fall apart when you first restrict it to a vacuum and then realize that vacuums are as abstract as lines or points. Not only is there a measured particle density in deep space, but the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle implies that there is a non-zero chance of a particle being at any position in space at any point in time.


Every object or wave will always follow the best possible path and you can have a bunch of best possible paths if these objects or waves interact with each other. Like two opposing humans who fight for their country, they both feel they are doing what is best for their country. A lot of what I'm saying is like relativity with the difference of all matter and energy always following the best possible path.

It sounds like you are on the brink of forming some sort of tautology. "Matter and energy always follow the best path, therefore the path they take is the best path." That's just not right, and diffraction patterns through slits (not just one or two, but n slits) should make this obvious. The photons aren't taking the best path. They're not even taking a definite path. They're just moving according to some probability distribution. And they certainly aren't confined to taking the "straightest possible path." And matter taking the "straightest possible path?" This is completely at odds with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In theory, the straightest possible path for a particle should be determinable (if it's not, then your whole argument is meaningless), but if you release a particle onto this path, it will diverge from it. Why? I don't know, but it will.

I think you're trying to apply intuition derived from macroscopic mechanical "truths" to all of reality, and it just doesn't work that way. Sure, a ball on a hill will take the "path of least resistance" or "straightest possible path" to the bottom of the hill, but that isn't what a proton will do in a potential well.

If you want to continue this discussion, you are going to have to quit switching between "straightest possible path" and "best possible path" and give a precise definition for what you're talking about, because you're moving in the direction of tautological gibberish.

[Melody]

sounds like he speaks of 'action principle'

but im not far enuff into QM or GR to see if it is applied beyond classical mechanics

-- some wikipedia search yielded http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_integral_formulation which claims to be a generalization

bah. i wish i knew more about this stuff atm. ah well, ill get there soon enuff

[Xenophon]

I am by no means an expert, but I do know a little about the principle of least action. From a classical mechanics point of view, an object in a potential field will move in a way to minimize a value called the lagrangian, which is the kinetic energy of a particle minus the potenial energy. This is a really powerful technique in dynamics, because if you can find equations for the kinetic energy and the potential energy of a system, you can just take the derivative, and you end up with the equations of motion for the system.

It gets a little more complicated when you are doing this with Quantum Mechanics, but I believe that the principle still holds. The difference is that in quantum mechanics we are dealing with an inherently stochastic model. A photon in motion can only be described as a wave, and therefore all we can possibly determine is the probability that the photon will go somewhere. I believe that the field however does follow the principle of least action, and those probablilities can be determined by minimizing the Lagrangian functional.

[Google Monster]

If he thinks he's a dog then the truth to him is that he is a dog, oh and thanks for lettings us know about the determinsim thing, that helps a lot. I couldn't disagree more abotu it, but if you did hold that view then yes youd need absolute truth to exist to be able to support it.

If you think you have the ability to just snap your fingers and kill everyone in the entire earth doesn't mean that you actually do. I didn't just blindly accept determinsim, I've thought over it and had plenty of time to decide. I believed in free-will a couple years ago until I started thinking about how the universe works. My current view of how the universe works conflicts with free-will therefore it wasn't needed.

"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypoth?se" - Pierre-Simon Laplace
(I have no need of that hypothesis.)


Er photon's do have mass.
No they dont.

[Google Monster]

I think you're trying to apply intuition derived from macroscopic mechanical "truths" to all of reality, and it just doesn't work that way. Sure, a ball on a hill will take the "path of least resistance" or "straightest possible path" to the bottom of the hill, but that isn't what a proton will do in a potential well.

If you want to continue this discussion, you are going to have to quit switching between "straightest possible path" and "best possible path" and give a precise definition for what you're talking about, because you're moving in the direction of tautological gibberish.

This is a common misunderstanding of the curvature of spacetime borne of analogizing it to stretching 2-D surfaces orthogonally to their plane. Light moving around massive bodies doesn't work like balls rolling through bowls. It's not the same, and the "straightest possible path" needn't be taken.

I used that example to explain why light follows the curvature in space. Of course the ball doesn't act the same as light but light will follow the straightest possible path and that is along the warped space which is what the example was meant to be about. An object on the other hand will be pulled by the massive body and the object will be pulling back and end up either pulled into the massive body or orbit it.



In theory, the stretching of spacetime increases as you move inward from the event horizon, so you actually have a treadmill which starts out moving as fast as the person running on it but which is accelerating. Whatever the case, there is no real answer to these questions. The goings-on within an event horizon are meaningless to speculate about, because, with trivial or irrelevant exceptions, no information will cross that threshold.

Once you choose that any currently unknown subjects are meaningless to speculate about then there is no chance of every making a new discovery. That is what science is all about, questioning and speculating about the unknown.



Vacuums don't exist. Your argument is starting to fall apart when you first restrict it to a vacuum and then realize that vacuums are as abstract as lines or points. Not only is there a measured particle density in deep space, but the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle implies that there is a non-zero chance of a particle being at any position in space at any point in time.

Sure pure vacuums don't exist, There will always be some light, particle or gravitational field in every region of space. The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458m/s. Does that statement fall apart because of the word vacuum is used in it?



It sounds like you are on the brink of forming some sort of tautology. "Matter and energy always follow the best path, therefore the path they take is the best path." That's just not right, and diffraction patterns through slits (not just one or two, but n slits) should make this obvious. The photons aren't taking the best path. They're not even taking a definite path. They're just moving according to some probability distribution. And they certainly aren't confined to taking the "straightest possible path." And matter taking the "straightest possible path?" This is completely at odds with the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. In theory, the straightest possible path for a particle should be determinable (if it's not, then your whole argument is meaningless), but if you release a particle onto this path, it will diverge from it. Why? I don't know, but it will.

The reasoning behind my statement of all matter and energy always following the best possible path is supported by the Uncertainty Principle. Like I mentioned in my previous post I had plenty of time to think about it. When I came close to my conclusions about quantum gravity the nature of the Uncertainty Principle became clear to me. Gravity and Electromagnetism are two different manifestations of the same force. But's lets not get into the whole thing now, I'll just state the reason why I believe the Uncertainty Principle in my theory supports determinism and why a particle will diverge from it's path. Uncertainty Principle states that the more you know about the velocity of an object, the less you know about it's position. My thoery revealed that the more you use one force, the less you use the other. So when explaning huge objects you are using gravity more then you are using electromagnetism so gravity does most of the work to the point that the uncertainty is so small that it can be ignored. In the quantum mechanics you are using electromagnetism more then you are using gravity because that is currently the only way to observe the quantum world. The smaller things have less predictable outcomes because of the two forces conflicting with each other. Unless you intentionally use a lot of the electromagnetic force.

[Hustler]

This discussion isn't going anywhere, Google. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

PS -- You're wrong. Dead wrong.

[Google Monster]

This discussion isn't going anywhere, Google. We'll just have to agree to disagree.
I agree.


PS -- You're wrong. Dead wrong.
I disagree.

[Melody]

could try http://www.physicsforums.com and see what they say


----------------

I am by no means an expert, but I do know a little about the principle of least action. From a classical mechanics point of view, an object in a potential field will move in a way to minimize a value called the lagrangian, which is the kinetic energy of a particle minus the potenial energy. This is a really powerful technique in dynamics, because if you can find equations for the kinetic energy and the potential energy of a system, you can just take the derivative, and you end up with the equations of motion for the system.

It gets a little more complicated when you are doing this with Quantum Mechanics, but I believe that the principle still holds. The difference is that in quantum mechanics we are dealing with an inherently stochastic model. A photon in motion can only be described as a wave, and therefore all we can possibly determine is the probability that the photon will go somewhere. I believe that the field however does follow the principle of least action, and those probablilities can be determined by minimizing the Lagrangian functional.roger

[Nindy]

Before I'm going to post my view on Relativism here, you should know that I don't think linear, nor do I think in boxes. Therefore it's possible you'll consider my argument one based on nothing (with content), while for me, it has more content than any 'logical' statements. But then again, all I say could be as wrong as it is right.

For me, all is relative. Relative to what you ask? To its interconnections is my personal belief. An objective truth can exist from my point of view, whilst it does not matter, for it (from my, possibly flawed, point of view) cannot be known to humans. We all have our filters, and once we think we come close to an objective truth or even believe we have reached one we once again uncover an error in which our filing-system has fooled itself. Analysation, evaluation; we all use those systems in order to come as close to objective truth as possible. Yet we all remain human, imperfect, and thus unable to fully grasp it.
I can never reach a 100% certainty regarding my own beliefs as that would suggest me using other standards on myself than on my environment, which I would consider arrogant. I remain open to the possibility that I'm wrong as I'm only human, which is all what relativism is about from my point of view.

There is no objective truth that can be known to the human mind with its filters and limitations, and as I've used my flawed mind to come to this conclusion, I could very well be wrong. But my belief is that subjective truths can maintain something of objective truth, never entirely, for we remain flawed and somehow, although frustrating when one cannot reach the (100%) objective truth, that's really great because we will never stop learning and existential questions will never have to stop being asked or contemplated.

As for hyperboles; I take interest in everything that goes in circles, bends or swirls. Why? Because in my mind, linear systems don't make sense. Just as my thinking in circles doesn't make sense to others at all and is labeled as fuzzy and cloudy at times. I'm still searching for the (psychological?) reason why they don't make sense to me there, and am excited at the prospect of learning what something so natural to my personality actually is and implies.
'I always lie' is one of my favorite-ever sentences. Not because of the mindboggling circle that sucks you in (well, a little), but because of the core of the circle. Circles always have a core in which (in my thinking) the objective truth must lie somewhere. Maybe that's why it fascinates me.

OT: I believe in free will with the options of choice limited by interconnections.

[TelecomClone]

Hmm am I 100% certain that nothing can be objectively known 100%? Well from an objective point of view, of course I'm not. From my subjective point of view thisis one of the things, I like to think of as 'tending to certainy' (in a similar way that dy and dx tend to 0 in differentation)In mathematical philosophy, the value 100% is meaningful. Depending upon the context it is a value that can be real - can be attained. Of what use, then, is saying that a person can not be fully certain of something if full certainty is impossible? It seems to me that 'full certainty' equates to 'the maximum certainty possible by the human effort', in which case 100% certainty must exist if any certainty exists at all.




Sorry you've made an assumption to move me towards where you want meSorry, I don't do that. You are already where I 'want' you, if by 'want' you mean in line with the errors that I see in the topic. But 'want' is a bad term - as is the suggestion - because I don't recally care whether or not your position ultimately has errors. If it does it does, if it doesn't it doesn't: I'm not arguing to "win."




I'm saying we can only ever 'tend to certainty' because our perceptions of realtiy (whatever that is) are no perfect. If they were we wouldn't be having this conversation.Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements.




Ahhh but netwon physics works close enough, you can build a car, plot a course for a ship, do lots with it, yet it is 'incomplete' as you call it. I think we are falling between words, we now know it was incomplete, to Newton is was complete as it was to his contemporaries. It was relative, to him it was true to many it's as good as, to Enistein, it was wrong or 'incomplete' as you'd prefer to put it.Incomplete in the same sense that Euclidean geometry is incomplete; yes, it works, but only to an extent - because it is incomplete. Because there is more to reality that is not factored into the theory, such that an expanded or new theory needs to be created when the more is discovered. The facts haven't changed, only our theoretical understanding of the relationships of those facts.




Absolutely, I have no problem with our something being our something.Ok. Then we have agreed upon the Law of Identity: A is A and, as follows, A cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same manner and in the same space that it is A. Now, that said, is it the case that you agree an objective reality exists - regardless of any ability we may or may not have to know it - or do we need to establish that before going to the next point?




No, the blind man has other senses that can tell him of the depth and the danger. He becomes aware of the cliff's existence, before his death.That's not necessarily true at all. If the man is running in a straight line, the first indication that he'll have of the cliff is his falling right off of it. The point is that he hasn't understood the concept at all, but the concept is nevertheless true; meaning that his understanding of the concept is not a factor in the objective truth or falsehood of that concept.



Hence why in law if you watcha blind man wlak over the edge you ae not held responsibleFirst of all, that depends upon the country that you're in. Second of all, laws like that tend to be based upon emotional whim, not epistemological debate about what does and does not constitute truth. The example does not support.



I'm curious to see where you are doing with the step by step above....You shall see, should you choose to continue. If taken to completion, it will soundly debunk your statement about certainty in several ways, as well as it lends itself to the overall problem. In any event, I apologize for the delay in reply.

[TelecomClone]

Philosophy is mearly an approach to thinking. accuracy is irrelevant.That's like saying 'language is merely an approach to talking, accuracy is irrelevant.' It's just not true; philosophy is an intellectual discipline, like handwriting. Poor philosophy lends itself to poor thought; poor thought lends itself to poor conceptualization; poor conceptualization lends itself to poor understanding.



To employ you must pay. See I can warp your precision if I chose to and hence no statement is 100%.I could have been more specific and said "used." The fact that some statements can be misinterpreted does not somehow mean that accuracy has no effect, and discarding it all together with a shrug is all the same. It's not.



So how is it wrong to have a statement that contradicts itself?Logical contradictions do not exist in any real sense. To use one of Rand's statements: wherever you find a logical contradiction, check your premises - you will discover that one of them is wrong. This can be true in regards to rational analysis or in regards to a portion of the axiomatic operative structure of logic itself.

[Dom]

In mathematical philosophy, the value 100% is meaningful. Depending upon the context it is a value that can be real - can be attained. Of what use, then, is saying that a person can not be fully certain of something if full certainty is impossible? It seems to me that 'full certainty' equates to 'the maximum certainty possible by the human effort', in which case 100% certainty must exist if any certainty exists at all.

Firstly I have no concept of mathematical philosophy, we are discussing a general philosophy that expands of all reality, numbers are a mere part of it, and again you have centered upon detail and ignored the suggestion behind my choice of statment. Also the above paragraph implictly accepts relativism.

You choose to suggest that we can know 100% of what it is humanly possible to know on any given subject. I have never suggested we can't. I have suggested that what is 100% humanly possible to know on any given subject is not/may not be 100% of the objective reality concerning given subject. You have just agreed; by placing a cavet on 100% understanding by making our understanding subject to human frailty.


Sorry, I don't do that. You are already where I 'want' you, if by 'want' you mean in line with the errors that I see in the topic. But 'want' is a bad term - as is the suggestion - because I don't recally care whether or not your position ultimately has errors. If it does it does, if it doesn't it doesn't: I'm not arguing to "win."

You are arguing to show your position to be more clearly thought out, logical and in your opinion philosophically sound, while simulataniously trying to expose weakness/errors in mine. How is this not arguing to win? lol ;) it's ok I want to hear what you have to say...


Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements.

Ok good use of language 'incomplete'. I'm afraid I'm going to have split with you on this one as incomplete is very different from what I was trying to suggest. No in my mind I do not think we need omniscience at all. You've scalled things up. My argument is that everything we know about any given topic is filtered through our senses and more importantly the fliters and behavoiours taught to us in our thinking before they become theories, laws, idea's and usefull thought that can be acted upon. Whether trying to understand everything or merely one thing we fail to be objective in our observations. We can not be sure of any part, I'm not suggesting we must first understand or see all. I have two examples based on your numbers,

Please asssume that there is some realtionship between these numbers.

{2,3,4,x,x,x,x} You'd say we don't know everything because we can't see the last four entries. I'd say we don't know everything because we can't see the last 4 numbers and we have no way to know with certainty what the relationship is between the frist 3. In fact the last four number may not exist at all. You then postulated that the realtionship between them is +1. Again I'd agree. Would you say you were certain that the relationship is +1? I'd suggest it maybe +1 from what I know. by the time we get to the 6th item we know that the relationship is not +1. I say there is uncertainty even in what we understand about the order of the first 5 numbers, we do not know that the 6th is 6 and the moment we do know it isn't we realise our certain answer is incorrect. We could work out a realtionship that worked for the frist 40,000 items in a range, and still not be 100% sure we had it all right until we get to the end of the range.

Applying this to what was said in the first paragraph and there you go. We can't see the end of the range because we are not omiscient thus we can never be certain we have our idea's right. The only way we can come close is by lowering the target from genuine objective understanding to a subjective one, hence your human caveat.


Incomplete in the same sense that Euclidean geometry is incomplete; yes, it works, but only to an extent - because it is incomplete. Because there is more to reality that is not factored into the theory, such that an expanded or new theory needs to be created when the more is discovered. The facts haven't changed, only our theoretical understanding of the relationships of those facts.

Exactly, only our theoretical understanding of the relationships between those facts! Perfect. Everything that is important lies not in what are the facts, but in our understanding of them, it is this which governs how we behave. It is this which can never be perfect and hence there can be no total certainty.


Ok. Then we have agreed upon the Law of Identity: A is A and, as follows, A cannot be non-A at the same time and in the same manner and in the same space that it is A. Now, that said, is it the case that you agree an objective reality exists - regardless of any ability we may or may not have to know it - or do we need to establish that before going to the next point?

Ok for the sake of this debate I'll conceed to this 'Law' of Identity, personally I fear it hasn't answered quantum theory on the state of undefinded or on the principal that merely observing a system can effect it. All I had agreed was that there was something, I did not agree it was always the same in the same place and time. This I do not know, I can not know and can not measure, this must remain uncertain.

I knew this was coming about 3 posts ago, I'm abit annoyed now, when we frist started discussing this if you had read my posts, you'd have noticed I never said I didn't think there wasn't an objective reality. I never denied that one may exist. I only ever took umbridge with claims that we can be certain that we understand it or part of it. I'm a little annoyed because if you didn't recall that from our previous posts then you're possibly only reading my posts to find what you want to see rather than what i'm trying to say. I'm sure that isn't the impression you wanted to give so we move on.


That's not necessarily true at all. If the man is running in a straight line, the first indication that he'll have of the cliff is his falling right off of it. The point is that he hasn't understood the concept at all, but the concept is nevertheless true; meaning that his understanding of the concept is not a factor in the objective truth or falsehood of that concept.

As I said, it is in ones behviour that one expresses what they think to be true. The blind man had no concept of a cliff, and so dies. You're right he didn't understand it at all and plumets to his messy end. However he behaved in his own understanding of objective truth: that there are no cliffs in the world. He did so with right confidence, as his logical mind could not percieve one as it had not had the sensory input required to do so. In his world there where no cliffs, and so there weren't. Until he met one. It's like being certain the next number in the sequence is 6 when it isn't, until you see and observe evidence that it isn't 6 in your mind it is and you behave as though this were true. If you were the blind man, you'd run off the cliff too.


First of all, that depends upon the country that you're in. Second of all, laws like that tend to be based upon emotional whim, not epistemological debate about what does and does not constitute truth. The example does not support.

Ok we can leave it as you don't like it. but no, the law here in this country is not on emotional whim, but on what is fair, and what doesn't deminish the blind mans responsibility for himself.


You shall see, should you choose to continue. If taken to completion, it will soundly debunk your statement about certainty in several ways, as well as it lends itself to the overall problem. In any event, I apologize for the delay in reply.

No problem with the delay in reply... I look forward to your response...

[Dom]

I know this is you and Xander so pelase forgive me intrustion:


I could have been more specific and said "used." The fact that some statements can be misinterpreted does not somehow mean that accuracy has no effect, and discarding it all together with a shrug is all the same. It's not.

What is more important, the intended message in any given statement or the potentially misinterpreted understanding the recipient has. The recioient will behave like the misinterpreted understanding is accurate. The intention does not effect the system at all.


Logical contradictions do not exist in any real sense. To use one of Rand's statements: wherever you find a logical contradiction, check your premises - you will discover that one of them is wrong. This can be true in regards to rational analysis or in regards to a portion of the axiomatic operative structure of logic itself.

But Rand's statement in it's self is workign within a frame work of understanding, it assume you can check your premise, it assumes you can learn what is wrong with it and correct it. But you can see item 6 till you get there!

[TelecomClone]

Firstly I have no concept of mathematical philosophy, we are discussing a general philosophy that expands of all reality, numbers are a mere part of it, and again you have centered upon detail and ignored the suggestion behind my choice of statment.You don't need to have a concept of mathematical philosophy because the only the point in mentioning it was the significance of "100%". It means "full," and the fullness of a thing is defined by its limits. If certainty has limits, those limits invariably constitute 100% certainty; else you would be arguing that certainty does not exist at all and, as such, there is no point in even using the term.



Also the above paragraph implictly accepts relativism.No, it doesn't.



You choose to suggest that we can know 100% of what it is humanly possible to know on any given subject. I have never suggested we can't. I have suggested that what is 100% humanly possible to know on any given subject is not/may not be 100% of the objective reality concerning given subject.You were clearly talking about certainty, for you used this word over and over again. The statement '100% of objective reality' is to regard 100% of reality; to know 100% of reality is to know everything; to know everything is omniscience. That has nothing to do with being certain of an aspect of objective reality, id est, being certain that something discrete - something quantifiable - is true or false. When a person says that one cannot be 100% certain of anything, one is by definition regarding quanta.

The statement has no meaning unless you mean to say that there is no certainty at all, which would of course be consistent with philosophical relativism (and then self-nullifying, as a statement of certainty).



You are arguing to show your position to be more clearly thought out, logical and in your opinion philosophically sound, while simulataniously trying to expose weakness/errors in mine.False. I am arguing to understand the issue. The dialectic that you mention is the most effective means of doing this, which has nothing to do with "winning" or "showing."



My argument is that everything we know about any given topic is filtered throughFiltered through? As if our basic senses actively block data? As if the forms of data that they receive are somehow untrustworthy simply because they do not receive all forms of data that exist? This is to malign our senses because we have them; it is to call our means of understanding reality flawed because we have a means, and it is to do so by way of the very same. That's sophistry on the first, and contradiction on the second.



{2,3,4,x,x,x,x} You'd say we don't know everything because we can't see the last four entries. I'd say we don't know everything because we can't see the last 4 numbers and we have no way to know with certainty what the relationship is between the frist 3.We can see the relationship between the first three quite clearly, when quantified as {2,3,4}. That relationship is real, no matter if the three elements in question have an entirely different relationship in the larger context. Beyond this, however, none of the above effects our ability to know that 2, 3, and 4 exist. Even not knowing the other elements, or the relationship of the primary three to the other elements, that 2, 3, and 4 exist is true. There is no reason to prevent us from being certain of that.




You then postulated that the realtionship between them is +1. Again I'd agree. Would you say you were certain that the relationship is +1?The relationship is certainly +1 where the dataset consists of the first three alone. And when that's all we can see, that's the dataset. What you've got to understand is that whilst quantification is certainly not objective, what is being quantified is.




I'm not suggesting we must first understand or see all.You are, in fact. Review your argument carefully - this is exactly what it presupposes in accordance with the manner that you've presented it here. Look at the next quote and you'll see that's exactly what you've done, whether you intended to do it or not:
We can't see the end of the range because we are not omiscient thus we can never be certain we have our idea's right.




Everything that is important lies not in what are the facts, but in our understanding of them, it is this which governs how we behave. It is this which can never be perfect and hence there can be no total certainty.Understanding the relationship between the facts is based upon first knowing the facts, being certain of the facts so that knowledge can come to exist and understanding of that knowledge can follow. Philosophical relativism attacks knowing the facts, which precludes understanding them at all - tentatively or otherwise. This is why it is incompatible with the scientific method.




Ok for the sake of this debate I'll conceed to this 'Law' of IdentityYou shouldn't have to 'concede' to anything. We've gone through it step by step, and you've thus far agreed; what you've agreed to, point by point, is the literal and specific definition of the law of identity. Do you wish to go back and change your answers? If so, which answers and why? There will be no point in going through the issue if you're just going to contradict yourself midpoint.




I'm a little annoyed because if you didn't recall that from our previous posts then you're possibly only reading my posts to find what you want to see rather than what i'm trying to say.Curb your annoyance, Moridin. I'm being methodical with the point-by-point metaphysics because your position is full of inconsistencies and contradictions. As the quote directly above this one illustrates, I've found that if I don't verify your position several times explicitly you'll just contradict it later; in fact that's entirely the reason to go through it piece by piece instead of presenting it at once in the first place.




You're right he didn't understand it at all and plumets to his messy end. However he behaved in his own understanding of objective truth: that there are no cliffs in the world. He did so with right confidence, as his logical mind could not percieve one as it had not had the sensory input required to do so. In his world there where no cliffs, and so there weren't. Until he met one. It's like being certain the next number in the sequence is 6 when it isn't, until you see and observe evidence that it isn't 6 in your mind it is and you behave as though this were true. If you were the blind man, you'd run off the cliff too.Of course I'd run off of the cliff. The point, which you seem to have missed once again, is that the fact that the cliff exists is an objective truth. Objective meaning not subjective. Not subjective meaning true regardless of what's going on in the blind man's mind. And since the cliff exists regardless of what's going on in his mind, the objectivity of the statement "a cliff exists there" does not depend upon his understanding of that statement. Your point on that issue is therefore refuted.

[Xander]

Just a quick idea thrown in.

The two philosophies presented here appear to me to be the same with only semantic issues.

A- True certainty is unachievable.
B- Certainty is a term used to describe a state where we can be confident within the parameters set by the limits of information and human capability.

A- We live in a subjective world dominated and trapped by our perceptions.
B- We live in an objective world viewed through our senses but with the capability to remove their bias and see things for what they are.

No doubt this could use some of TC's eloquence but is it a fair summation?

[TelecomClone]

No doubt this could use some of TC's eloquence but is it a fair summation?It would not seem so:
I think that objective reality exists.
I think that human quantification is subjective, but what is being quantified is the objective.
I think that knowledge of the objective, even though known through arbitrary quanta, is nevertheless knowledge of the objective.
I think that, by way of dialectic and physical experiment, objective reality can indeed be known with an ever growing resolution, piece by piece.
I think that we can be '100% certain' of knowledge in the wake of the above, although understanding of that knowledge is theoretical and tentative.

There seems to be some agreement on the first point, but not on any of the others.

[Xander]

It would not seem so:
Well this accused relativised would disagree

I think that objective reality exists.
I agree though I believe it exits in a disconnected state from human experience and so this is why I follow the thoughts of those who say things such as "there is no truth". I follow this as more of a statement of our existance rather than existance as a whole.

I think that human quantification is subjective, but what is being quantified is the objective.
I agree, though I leave plenty of room for my perceptions to be altered or proved wrong by new information.

I think that knowledge of the objective, even though known through arbitrary quanta, is nevertheless knowledge of the objective.
I agree that almost all perspectives are facets of the actuality to one degree or another but I draw the line at claiming absolute knowledge of anything.

I think that, by way of dialectic and physical experiment, objective reality can indeed be known with an ever growing resolution, piece by piece.
This I agree with but I think us further away from the actual detailed truth than many established thinkers seem to.

I think that we can be '100% certain' of knowledge in the wake of the above, although understanding of that knowledge is theoretical and tentative.
It is this theoretical and tentative that moves me to use the label uncertain rather than certain but as I said I think this is just a difference in use of words rather than what they actualy mean to us (us being those present here not the universal us).

There seems to be some agreement on the first point, but not on any of the others.
I beleive that no one theory to existance or thought (philosophy) can ever be complete and right so I prefer to attempt to blend those which I experience into a composite philosophy which I believe to be of more use to me than any singular component of the composite.

Hopefully this is a small lillypad which we can share in the pond of disagreement.

[TelecomClone]

I agree though I believe it exits in a disconnected state from human experience and so this is why I follow the thoughts of those who say things such as "there is no truth".
I agree, though I leave plenty of room for my perceptions to be altered or proved wrong by new information.Hrm. But you aren't agreeing with it, because you said above that you think objective reality is disconnected from human experience; we can't experience anything but reality because that is the only thing that exists - it's just that we experience it subjectively. My statement is almost diametrically opposed.



I agree that almost all perspectives are facets of the actuality to one degree or another but I draw the line at claiming absolute knowledge of anything.But again this parts rather drastically from my position, does it not? You say perspectives are facets of objective reality to one degree or another, as if they are otherwise rooted in a disconnect (which is what you said above).



It is this theoretical and tentative that moves me to use the label uncertain rather than certain but as I said I think this is just a difference in use of words rather than what they actualy mean to us (us being those present here not the universal us).Let's try to clarify the meaning? To use the example that I presented to Moridin: Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements. That's what I mean by it.



I beleive that no one theory to existance or thought (philosophy) can ever be complete and rightOkay. So is it your position that something has to be complete in order to be correct about what it does include?

[Nemesis]

Likewise.
As much of a douchebag as I think TelecomClone is, you really aren't making him look like a fool, only yourself. Just a word to the wise.

[Xander]

Hrm. But you aren't agreeing with it, because you said above that you think objective reality is disconnected from human experience; we can't experience anything but reality because that is the only thing that exists - it's just that we experience it subjectively. My statement is almost diametrically opposed.
You seem to be "hung up" on what I'd say was a minor detail. We can experience relaity, objective reality but to me it is the cnetre of a diamond. Each perspective you take looks at the centre of the diamons and yet will always fail to encompass it completely like we may view a ball in entirety (except for the other side but let's stay roughly 2d at this point and yes I know that this doesn't work well in psecific but stay with me). You said something similar yourself about the whole omniscience being necessary to know all of reality. IF you do not view all of the connections to one particular piece of information then can you truely say you understand it?

Now this crosses with adequacy in that you can know enough to be certain within parameters but for absolute knowledge and understanding of one thing requires the kind of attributes that omnisience gives.

Whilst these missing pieces of information may well not alter the perception of the object but they could well radically alter the understanding of it.

Now we could well get into an argument of the exact definitions of the words knowledge and understanding but I think we can remain clear of that one.


You say perspectives are facets of objective reality to one degree or another, as if they are otherwise rooted in a disconnect (which is what you said above).
Part of my reasoning for stating things like "to one degree or another" is more rooted in my desire to remain in the middle than a particular philisophical point of view (though this could be considered philisophical too I suppose). As for the disconnection, I have been through this with another theorist who at the moment is holding back. Suffice to say that all experiences are filtered through our own internal faculties and therefore are in part altered by this process (the whole thing about observing altering the subject itself). therefore in part we will always be seperated from reality by only being able to observe and interact with it and never really BE it. therefore you are cut off in part from objective reality by being trapped behind your own perceptions etc.

I do not see how you or any other can release themselves from their perceptive filters and experience reality directly.

My now silent 'opponent' Lee pointed out at one point that these perceptive 'errors can be compensated for by communication with others and comparing the observations and by experience through experimentation. However all of these things at some point will be filtered through one or many peoples perceptions. Though this can increase the reliability of results by deduction it will also simultaneously include additional errors that aren't in the origional experience (a compound of all the filters errors) and whilst deducting you will be removing part of that which is reality. Both of these things I personally see as a high probability rather than a definate and therefore is something that would be possible to overcome but not, as I see it, for many years.


Let's try to clarify the meaning? To use the example that I presented to Moridin: Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements. That's what I mean by it.
The whole thing about it not making the end result intrisically uncertain it does introduce the possibility that any and all things which we rely on our understanding of may be radically altered (the understanding that is) with the introduction of the new evidence/ information. Now this is where I see the split. You appear to call this a certainty but with the catch of within what is known and understood at this point in time where as Moridin seems to be phrasing it more like the fact is uncertain because there is a part of it which has not been definitively deliniated. Hence I see this as just a difference in communication of how certain things are rather than any basic difference in outlook.


Okay. So is it your position that something has to be complete in order to be correct about what it does include?
As I view philosophy as an approach to life then I do search for additional pieces of wisdom all the time. I do this so I have wise words to think on when I am faced with a challenge. To the end of having wise words to consider in all situations I search for as many pieces of wisdom which make sense to me as possible and in searching I have found that all philosophies are useful but only in part. The totality of philosophies seem to diverge from the purity of their forming thoughts and are of less general use to me. I therefore discard most of them and retain the origional concepts which produced the later ideas.

But back to your question in specific. If you do not complete a jigsaw then you cannot truely be certain about how many pieces are missing. You can predict from a certian point dependsing on your ability to predict (oh and there's no box with the number of pieces handily written on it, before I get second guessed). I apply similar ideals to other theories. You cannot be absolutely certain about what should and should not be contained within a 'thing' until you truely understand and know it and it's circumstances/ applications. If you get to a point where you may be fairly certain about yuor knowledge/ understanding then accordingly you can be fairly certain about what is and what is not part of the 'thing'. However how can one ever be truely sure when there is the possibilities, no matter how small, that what is seen is an illusion or similar? No it isn't useful to say that nothing is knowable and give up there but it is wise to realise that the more you know then the more you need to know to be certain.

"A wise man looses a piece of certainty everyday."

[Dom]

Let's try to clarify the meaning? To use the example that I presented to Moridin: Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements. That's what I mean by it.



emphasis is mine..

But it does make it uncertain. Full stop. And in my use of this example I never said I was uncertain that 2,3,4 were 2,3,4 but that I was uncertain that the relationship between them is actually +1... given the rest of the order we see the realtionship is not +1......

[mgb]

emphasis is mine..

But it does make it uncertain. Full stop. And in my use of this example I never said I was uncertain that 2,3,4 were 2,3,4 but that I was uncertain that the relationship between them is actually +1... given the rest of the order we see the realtionship is not +1......

You know, we aren't receiving these posts in telegraph form. You can probably just start a new paragraph and we'll get the idea.

[songbird36]

Let's try to clarify the meaning? To use the example that I presented to Moridin: Our perceptions of reality are incomplete in that we do not perceive all of reality simultaneously (eg omniscience). That does not make what we do know about reality intrinsically uncertain, it just makes it likely to be incomplete. If I give you a set of numbers {2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 84, 23.422}, and you can only see the first three elements, that you can't see the entire set does not mean that the first three elements that you see need be 'uncertain'. What would be uncertain is theory which is based on those first three elements that speaks about the order of the rest of the set - which, as the set illustrates, would be eventually exposed as only true for the first five elements. That's what I mean by it.


That makes sense. The fact that we may be incapable of fully perceiving an objective reality does not mean that reality doesn't exist independently of us. There must always be an object upon which senses operate, and we must assume that the object does (or may) have qualities we are not capable of perceiving, or that we perceive in some skewed way.