Are there any absolutes?
 

Is there anything which is an absolute - no matter the observer.

For instance, we known that time is relative to the observer.

Is evil an absolute?
Is good?

What is the same for everyone?

I think this is an interesting topic as it helps us understand what is just our perception and what is everyones perception.

So far I cannot think of an absolute.

Well, of course the problem with this question is that you can't answer no, because that would then be an absolute, right? But let me ask you a question -- what do you mean by 'absolute' in the question? Because there might be a really easy answer to that question if things like absolute zero or the speed of light counted.

Only the sith deal in absolutes.

Absolutes are for the realm of theory. In reality I can't think of any absolutes in the real world. As far as philosophy, absolute is a matter of perspective.

Yes, I absolutely cannot watch Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole or Dr. Phil and his show.

existence and experience

absolutely not. If you believe in absolutes, you are the most vulnerable.

I would think the opposite. If you believe in absolutes, its everyone else who appears the most vulnerable. If you believe in absolutes I think you're the most grounded, the most sure. And I think, the most logical.

Is this sarcasm? :hmm:

I don't believe there to be anything absolute, anything can be disputed or challenged, even in the realm of science.. not even the most accurate or precise measurements--after all correctness is contingent on the tool being used and the user. At that, if the "absolute" is expected, then the tool itself should be measured

Time is relative to the observer. The nature of time's relationship with an observer is absolute.

I am sorry but I don't understand what you mean.

Are you talking about relative absolutes?
That seesms like an oxymoron.

The observer may perceive (relative) an event as taking place for one hour, but the actual (absolute) time was 45 minutes.

That I believe is the point of being relative.
The 'actual' time does not exist. There is no 'actual' 45 minutes except for the 45 minutes you, the observer, experience.

In my life, there are only three absolutes ....

1) death
2) taxes
3) every Greek song will eventually speed up.

It is irrelevant to the existence of the "absolute" whether we believe in it or not.

I believe there is an "absolute" because if there wasn't there would be no order and there is observable order.



....of course...that could be a hallucination of mine....if I really do exist at all.... :crazy:

I am absolutely here...the rest of you I can't speak for :D

Does that mean I'm your hallucination? :hmm:

As far as I'm concerned, the only absolutes are the physical, i.e. gravity sucks and time only moves in one direction.

There is Truth in the world. Either something does or does not happen, regardless of how anyone or thing perceived it. E.g. if a tree falls... well, I have no idea if it makes a sound or whether that's related to anyone being around to hear it... BUT, the point is that IT FELL.

Of course, that's pretty simplistic... but even with more complex situations, any kind of hypothesis testing is meant to find out the Truth (at least in the physical world), with as little bias from flawed tools/humans as possible. Science has its limits... it can only approximate the Truth that it seeks, but as long as its methodology is on track, then it can only continue approaching the Truth.

I see it a bit like an asymptote constantly approaches the axes of a graph... always getting closer, but never touching. The asymptote cannot exist without bounds to constrain it... hence the absolute. Science cannot do what it does without a reality, an absolute, to constrain it... even if it never reaches it fully.

(Where the hell is Pigglet, I am finally getting around to his question!!)

Yeah....isn't that what I said? ....only you said it with much more panache! I guess it's what I wish I'd said.... :thumbsup:

Hey thanks! Yeah, I guess I didn't read the other posts carefully enough.

Actually though, I don't quite agree that the existence of order leads to a belief in an absolute. At least, it doesn't for me. You can have chaos and still have absolutes, too. Although, perhaps you mean that the laws of physics can only operate in an ordered manner, and therefore there are absolutes because even chaos is ordered by natural laws? I could jive with that.

Uh....yeah....that's what I meant...yeah.... :cool:


(actually that IS what I meant (I think)...but again...you said it much better...! :icare: )

... are you sure???
:hmm:

:)

P.S. Welcome, Felicity!! You are absolutely welcome here. :D

Note: I don't have any "Training" in philosophy, but I have always thought of Pain as being proof (in my mind) of the existence of absolutes. Anything that you can do to inflict pain on others is “Evil”. Knowingly inflicting pain on another is an act of evil. Yes, you can condition your mind to accept, and to a certain extent, enjoy pain, however this is only after external stimulus has shifted the natural defense mechanisms of the body. If you slap a newborn baby on the bottom, they don’t laugh, they cry.

I think that there are principles of behavior or morality that are absolute -- but that there is no single good way to apply any of those principles, and many gray areas. For example, suppose you believe that is it is absolutely wrong to kill, and are in a situation where you could kill a man before he killed three other people? Priests face this dilemma when someone confesses a hideous crime, one for which they've not been caught and which they may repeat.

Life is full of situations in which sticking to certain principles would seem to do more harm than compromising them -- usually, much less dire situations than the hypotheticals I gave above. The great responsibility of human beings is to apply good will and whatever wisdom we can develop to apply perfect principles in an imperfect world, as best we can. To compromise when it seems best, and to be unyielding when that is required.

Well I didn't want to say anything, but you might not be real :D

And if we need pain to feel pleasure, is it still evil? Does one act, an evil man make? Or is it just the act that is evil? Is it arrogant to think you have any idea why pain is here? Does everything I say have to end in a question? ;)

Pain is pain. Blue is blue. Pretty much every perception is what it is, absolutely.

How do you know blue is blue? It's blue cause you see it being blue? What if you see diffently to someone else? Maybe you've been told it's blue, but actually it's red, and it's all a life-long joke on you?

There are absolutes, the only one I can think of at the moment is existence. I exist. You exist. Well, maybe you don't, but you can't deny your own existence. It is the absolute. There are others, but you can't really know them unless you exist.

I plan to make a thread based on my own thoughts on this, but it's not ready yet.

Me is here....uppitty woman! :)

Now I see your asymptoticalitude...I would tend to agree. I would say that I believe there is an absolute reality, which is beyond my perception. All of my measurements and comparisons and so forth approximate this absolute reality, but never measure up. Ergo, yon asymptote, I believe. However, I can't prove this absolute reality exists, nor can I prove it does not. It is, however, as convenient as any other theory and I tend to think it makes the most sense. If I'm wrong, and absolute reality doesn't exist, what have I lost. It seems to me that if the opposite is true, and it doesn't exist, then none of this "life" crap means anything, and I might as well go ahead and end it. Skip all that getting old crap and broken hearts and watching people suffer and so forth.

I think that the presence of order might strongly imply an absolute reality. Chaos is ordered...I don't know enough chaos theory to say if we have any observations of randomness that extend so far up and so far down in our measurement scales that they can't be averaged out...but it seems that we contain randomness within some bounds, no?

The question I would return to then, is are there absolutes in morality? It seems like most of the discussion in here has centered around physics, with the exception of rodney's mention. I know this has been discussed before, such as linky link link . I tend to believe that there are certain moral principles that tend to be absolute, in the sense that they appear over and over again, due to the fact that in most situations these principles are the most likely to maximize individual freedom within the constraints of social stability, so to speak. Does an absolute moral code exist, in the same sense that an absolute reality exists (if you believe such does exist)? I tend to think of morals as an expression of the order of said reality, so I would argue that they do exist within our perceived relationships of the workings of reality.

I experience blue therefore there is a thing, blue, that can be experienced, absolutely.

the notion of absolutes is an illusion: it rests on one of the grammatical features of a sentence like this one: the words at once refer to themselves (as parts of an utterance) and to a more transcendent sphere simply because they formalize the world as they purport to describe it---because written words operate through generalized meanings---because of the nature of grammatical relations--the proposition "i think x...." is both particular and transcendent.

example: in descartes's proof in the "meditations on first philosophy" and "discourse on method" the argument goes like this: i can doubt that there is a world, doubt everything, but cannot doubt that i am doubting.
cogito blah blah, and i see that this is clear and distinct.
i have within me a notion of perfection
i know that i am an imperfect being
so the notion of perfection must have come from somewhere else.
therefore god.

that perfection can be arrived at by inverting the meaning of imperfection does nto cross his mind.
same kind of problem with the notion of absolutes.

hmmm...I've always tended to think that our perceptions are illusions which hang on an absolute. I don't mean in the sense of playing word games to arrive at a solution on paper, but simply by virtue of the fact that despite what nature you ascribe to your/our existence and your perception of it, something is going on. That something, I've always thought, was absolute reality.

absolutes exist in mathematics.

I don't think that absolutes exist naturally. It's only when we as people define a system that an absolute can exist. Most belief systems are based around the idea of right and wrong but in order for such a system to work something must be defined as being wrong.

But in the act itself of "defining" anything (and every thought defines perception)...you demonstrate the "reality" (as others have said: the "approximation") of the existence of an absolute by imagining a point of reference. Even if the point of reference is a relationship between two perceptions--the cognition of each perception itself references a commonality that is universal.

That makes sense to me in my little mind...although--as I read it over--I'm not sure it will to others. It sure is tough explaining these types of things when I got a "D" in Algebra and a "D-" in Geometry in high school...

mathematics is a particular type of conceptual space.
its features arez not models for the rest of the world.
and mathematically systems are not self-enclosed/self-enclosing---godel's theorem---so they do not operate as a model for complete logical systems in any event.

I think that is what I was trying to express. It's not until we try and define something that an absolute can exsist. For instance everything is stuff. Then we decide what is stuff and what is not. The very act of making that decision creates an artifical absolute.

I'm happy it made sense! Only I don't agree that the absolute--at it's most basic level is "artificial." It is absolutely so that act--the dawn of awareness--exists--it is "real."

I think this is an interesting point - I'd argue though that the real world shares this property of not being self-enclosed/ing. I'd like to think that Godel's theorem can be applied to the universe in the same way it can be applied to mathematics.

At the same time, it either elevates (or delevates(?)) mathematics to the same level as the universe as percieved. I err on the side that believes that perception is underrated, and that a lot of how we describe the universe, its constituents and relationships is incomplete, because our perception is incomplete. Plato's cave springs to mind.

The upshot of all this is that while there may well be some absolutes, we are incapable of seeing, and extremely unlikely to ever find them - if we ever do - we'll have achieved something incredible in the process.