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#1 (permalink) |
Crazy
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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. |
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#2 (permalink) |
Mad Philosopher
Location: Washington, DC
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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.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht." "The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm." -- Friedrich Nietzsche |
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#4 (permalink) |
Alien Anthropologist
Location: Between Boredom and Nirvana
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Yes, I absolutely cannot watch Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole or Dr. Phil and his show.
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"I need compassion, understanding and chocolate." - NJB Last edited by hunnychile; 01-13-2006 at 08:15 AM.. |
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#7 (permalink) | |
"I'm sorry. What was the question?"
Location: Paradise Regained
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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.
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I have faith in a few things - divinity and grace But even when I'm on my knees I know the devil preys |
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#8 (permalink) | ||
lascivious
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#9 (permalink) |
Psycho
Location: so cal
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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
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The hardest thing is to be honest with yourself, especially if that means completely redefining the world you've come to know. Don't look too hard, I'm right in front of you. |
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#10 (permalink) |
Addict
Location: Grey Britain
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Time is relative to the observer. The nature of time's relationship with an observer is absolute.
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"No one was behaving from very Buddhist motives. Then, thought Pigsy, he was hardly a Buddha, nor was he a monkey. Presently, he was a pig spirit changed into a little girl pretending to be a little boy to be offered to a water monster. It was all very simple to a pig spirit." |
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#11 (permalink) | |
Crazy
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Are you talking about relative absolutes? That seesms like an oxymoron. |
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#12 (permalink) | |
Crazy
Location: Reality
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#13 (permalink) | |
Crazy
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The 'actual' time does not exist. There is no 'actual' 45 minutes except for the 45 minutes you, the observer, experience. |
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#15 (permalink) |
Upright
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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.... ![]() |
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#19 (permalink) |
Location: Iceland
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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!!)
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And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran |
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#20 (permalink) | |
Upright
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#21 (permalink) | |
Location: Iceland
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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.
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And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran |
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#22 (permalink) | |
Upright
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![]() (actually that IS what I meant (I think)...but again...you said it much better...! ![]() |
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#23 (permalink) | |
Location: Iceland
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![]() ![]() P.S. Welcome, Felicity!! You are absolutely welcome here. ![]()
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And think not you can direct the course of Love; for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. --Khalil Gibran Last edited by abaya; 02-01-2006 at 05:45 PM.. |
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#24 (permalink) |
Tilted
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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.
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Jack1.0 ---------------------------------------------- I've learned to embrace my inner Geek. I haven't found anything else I'm good at. |
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#25 (permalink) |
Observant Ruminant
Location: Rich Wannabe Hippie Town
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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. |
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#27 (permalink) | |
Banned
Location: The Cosmos
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#29 (permalink) |
Crazy
Location: Hamilton, NZ
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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.
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"Oh, irony! Oh, no, no, we don't get that here. See, uh, people ski topless here while smoking dope, so irony's not really a high priority. We haven't had any irony here since about, uh, '83 when I was the only practitioner of it, and I stopped because I was tired of being stared at." Omnia mutantu, nos et mutamur in illis. All things change, and we change with them. - Neil Gaiman, Marvel 1602 |
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#30 (permalink) | |
pigglet pigglet
Location: Locash
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![]() 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.
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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style |
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#31 (permalink) | |
Addict
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#32 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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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.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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#33 (permalink) | |
pigglet pigglet
Location: Locash
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You don't love me, you just love my piggy style |
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#34 (permalink) |
Tilted Cat Head
Administrator
Location: Manhattan, NY
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absolutes exist in mathematics.
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I don't care if you are black, white, purple, green, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, hippie, cop, bum, admin, user, English, Irish, French, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, indian, cowboy, tall, short, fat, skinny, emo, punk, mod, rocker, straight, gay, lesbian, jock, nerd, geek, Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Independent, driver, pedestrian, or bicyclist, either you're an asshole or you're not. |
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#35 (permalink) |
Tilted
Location: Colorado
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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.
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"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -George Bernard Shaw |
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#36 (permalink) | |
Upright
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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... |
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#37 (permalink) |
Super Moderator
Location: essex ma
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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.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite |
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#38 (permalink) | |
Tilted
Location: Colorado
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"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." -George Bernard Shaw |
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#39 (permalink) | |
Upright
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#40 (permalink) | |
Registered User
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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. |
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absolutes |
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