Absolutism and Relativism

[afiala2]

This article will probably explain it better than I could: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity#Consequences

Pay particularly close attention to the “consequences” section. All of these have been verified experimentally as well as mathematically.

Well, as you’ll see, relativity only becomes noticeable at significant fractions of the speed of light. However, very small differences in the experience of time can be measured with extremely accurate clocks. It has been shown that a person travelling by airplane will experience a few nanoseconds of time less than a person who is at rest.

Regarding your quote, technically a person who is running is experiencing less time than a person who is walking, but the difference wouldn’t be noticeable.
Oreoracle;8244297:

Again, the relativity involved is miniscule. Unless someone builds a craft capable of moving near light speed as you said, no one is going to experience anything more than a second at most change. The difference is heightened by being off the ground in airplanes (and the speed involved), if you lived to be a hundred and flew in an airplane around the world continueously your whole life you wouldn’t even gain a second versuses staying on the ground (I think I have never conducted the experiment).

We have only moved at a rate that is a miniscule percentage of the speed of light, where significant time dilation would occur. Not only do we still need to build a ship capable of these speeds we would also need to make it where it accelerated at a rate that the g forces wouldn’t kill its passagers, and have a fuel source that runs extremely more efficient than a few thousand miles to the gallon (probably only atomic energy without the explosions or radiation). THEN you would have to navigate through space without running into anything moving close to or at 186,282 mi/sec (hard to ever fathom that). So we need a computer/auto pilot system that can think faster than the ship is moving or death on impact with a big enough meteor fragment floating in space that was off the radar. A human pilot run ship would be destroyed before anyone would have the chance to blink. So not impossible, nothing is impossible, but close to it.

You are having a disconnect with reality and time. We are all on earth, time passes the same or at least our measure of it, we are all using universal time, earth’s clock. (I will say more on this latter).

 

[StrawberryJam]

Oreoracle;8244297:

This article will probably explain it better than I could: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity#Consequences

Pay particularly close attention to the “consequences” section. All of these have been verified experimentally as well as mathematically.

Well, as you’ll see, relativity only becomes noticeable at significant fractions of the speed of light. However, very small differences in the experience of time can be measured with extremely accurate clocks. It has been shown that a person travelling by airplane will experience a few nanoseconds of time less than a person who is at rest.

Regarding your quote, technically a person who is running is experiencing less time than a person who is walking, but the difference wouldn’t be noticeable.

Again, the relativity involved is miniscule. Unless someone builds a craft capable of moving near light speed as you said, no one is going to experience anything more than a second at most change. The difference is heightened by being off the ground in airplanes (and the speed involved), if you lived to be a hundred and flew in an airplane around the world continueously your whole life you wouldn’t even gain a second versuses staying on the ground (I think I have never conducted the experiment).

We have only moved at a rate that is a miniscule percentage of the speed of light, where significant time dilation would occur. Not only do we still need to build a ship capable of these speeds we would also need to make it where it accelerated at a rate that the g forces wouldn’t kill its passagers, and have a fuel source that runs extremely more efficient than a few thousand miles to the gallon (probably only atomic energy without the explosions or radiation). THEN you would have to navigate through space without running into anything moving close to or at 186,282 mi/sec (hard to ever fathom that). So we need a computer/auto pilot system that can think faster than the ship is moving or death on impact with a big enough meteor fragment floating in space that was off the radar. A human pilot run ship would be destroyed before anyone would have the chance to blink. So not impossible, nothing is impossible, but close to it.

You are having a disconnect with reality and time. We are all on earth, time passes the same or at least our measure of it, we are all using universal time, earth’s clock. (I will say more on this latter).

Listening, makes sense so far.

 

[afiala2]

Basically, relativists are saying that “truth” only applies to certain fields, e.g., science and math, but not other fields, such as ethics, art, etc. I mean, you wouldn’t say that a painting is beautiful, and that your opinion is absolutely true, right? You would agree that different people simply see things differently when it comes to aesthetics, even if their knowledge and rationality are equal. The same applies to ethics. You can take two more or less equally knowledgeable and rational people from different societies and they would have different notions of what is moral. It’s not that one understands more of some knind of “objective morality”, becase their knowledge is equal. It just boils down to the fact that they have different preferences, and therefore different opinions on ethics.

Based on the amount of diagreement in the world pertaining to what is right and wrong, do you find it surprising that our conception of morality is dependent on our perspectives?

You have to understand that different cultures and societies can nurture the understanding of ethics (or anything for that matter) more than others depending on government and religion or lack there of and other factors, so the constant inclination to make everything equal (knowledge, rationale) isn’t a baseline when dealing with different cultures on various subjects. If it was they would have reached the same conclusions on the matter.

Ethics aren’t a preference. How much you want to adhere to ethics is the preference. I prefer to fly like a bird, but I can’t because I am a person and being able to fly like an eagle isn’t reality. People can prefer morals don’t apply to them, but they are human just like everyone else.

I understand perspectives play a role in everything. Where I don’t think you understand me is I am saying you appear to be saying that a perspective equals reality. There are many perspectives of reality, but only one reality, one truth about existence. It is true or false.

When people differ we have to see where and why and then compare. There could be good to be derived from both or perceived bad from both. Without truth how do we know which is better if they are different AND conflicting (different isn’t always in opposition, but in ethics most of the time it is). I don’t see the parrellels of ethics and art as you do. I would even say some art could become morally offensive or unethical (not the same parrellel, more of a perpendicular). Ethics aren’t aesthetic, it is moral philosophy.

 

[afiala2]

Well, infinity isn’t a precisely defined “value”. For example, two infinite values can be of different sizes, and both would be expressed by the same symbol. For example, there are an infinite number of integers, and an infinite number of odd numbers, but you wouldn’t say that both of those infinite values are equal.

I hope I’ve answered most of your questions. I’m running late for something.

I didn’t say anything about odd integers or odd numbers, I was implying the symbols (it was actually the word infinity not the symbol) where the same when I put an equal sign in between them. Simply put infinity represents the concept of a quantity or number that doesn’t end. So no matter the value placed on viewpoints whether smallest or biggest, nothing or no value (zero) or bigger than the biggest value you can possibly think of (infinity), there is a value and a corresponding scale or lack there of to determine the perference (like an absolutist uses truth or reality as the scale). Without a ‘scale’ to determine the best choice on the subject, it appears this perference is nothing more than person whim or whatever you feel like. This would be a lack of morals and moral philosophy. So you would actually say ethics don’t exist the way an atheist says God doesn’t exist. When in doubt, deny. Deny truth, deny God, deny ethics; what is next? That seems to be a parrellel to me. But from my point of view it is really all the same subject so it doesn’t surprise me. God, Truth, and ethics are very intiamately joined in Catholic theology.

You haven’t explained the scale used to refute the fact that relativism would view all viewpoints on the subject of ethics as equal or at least would have no logical grounds to rank them, since they are not using truth.

 

[StrawberryJam]

I didn’t say anything about odd integers or odd numbers, I was implying the symbols (it was actually the word infinity not the symbol) where the same when I put an equal sign in between them. Simply put infinity represents the concept of a quantity or number that doesn’t end. So no matter the value placed on viewpoints whether smallest or biggest, nothing or no value (zero) or bigger than the biggest value you can possibly think of (infinity), there is a value and a corresponding scale or lack there of to determine the perference (like an absolutist uses truth or reality as the scale). Without a ‘scale’ to determine the best choice on the subject, it appears this perference is nothing more than person whim or whatever you feel like. This would be a lack of morals and moral philosophy. So you would actually say ethics don’t exist the way an atheist says God doesn’t exist. When in doubt, deny. Deny truth, deny God, deny ethics; what is next? That seems to be a parrellel to me. But from my point of view it is really all the same subject so it doesn’t surprise me. God, Truth, and ethics are very intiamately joined in Catholic theology.

You haven’t explained the scale used to refute the fact that relativism would view all viewpoints on the subject of ethics as equal or at least would have no logical grounds to rank them, since they are not using truth.

You believe in an absolute truth. You can say many things and yet, it is really one thing you say.
One defining thing that you can never question.

 

[Oreoracle]

Again, the relativity involved is miniscule.

Minuscule or not, you do admit that the perception of time (and consequently mass and length) is relative rather than absolute, right?

You are having a disconnect with reality and time. We are all on earth, time passes the same or at least our measure of it, we are all using universal time, earth’s clock. (I will say more on this latter).

No, we are not using a universal time. “Close” isn’t good enough from an absolute perspective. Either time is relative or it is absolute, and you seem to admit above that it is relative.

You haven’t explained the scale used to refute the fact that relativism would view all viewpoints on the subject of ethics as equal or at least would have no logical grounds to rank them, since they are not using truth.

One of the things you misunderstand about relativism is that it is a meta-ethical statement. It comments on the nature of morality, not on the ethics of which morality is composed. It doesn’t say, “It’s ethical to do such-and-such”, it says “Morality is not absolute in nature, i.e., it doesn’t have a truth value.”

You’re thinking of normative ethics, not meta-ethics.

 

[afiala2]

Logical fallacy.
Either or is not going to cut it. And you know that.

I like the Beatles too. I like All you need is Love and Eight Days a Week.

2 + 2 = 4
I hope we can all agree.

Now it is either true the answer to 2 + 2 is 4 or it is true the answer to 2 + 2 is 5.
Either 4 is the correct answer or 5 is. Using beginning math skills we all know that 4 is true and 5 isn’t. It is absolutely true that the answer is 4 and not 5 or anything else, you might say.
An either-or statement is logical when you know the answer or know one is true because there are only 2 choices like a true/false question or statement is technically always saying either this is true or it is false, which is it. But you also have to realize it is possible the answer to an either-or statement is both are false (like saying 2 + 2 is either 5 or 6), however that doesn’t mean EVERY either-or statement is wrong or not logical or not based in correct reasoning. The logical constant with either-or statements is that at most one can be true, although it is true sometimes both answers are false (but not in a true/false question). You actually need a basis in truth to even make a statement like something is a fallacy anyway. You can’t discredit something you know nothing about. If 4 is correct than the original either-or statement is valid and true, it is this or that it isn’t both. If you don’t know the answer to 2 + 2, you have no way of determining whether or not saying the answer is either 5 or 6 is true or not, or no way to state it is a fallacy without the knowledge of the true answer. A statement is a statement depending on its surrounding claims or basis in truth and logic is how one determines how true or false it is. But when you know something based on its connection to the truth or reality, than you can determine it to be true or false. Knowledge presumes truth, if that is an incorrect presumption than all knowledge is fallacy, because nothing can be creditably considered real if it isn’t true. And if you are arguing against truth, then you have no logical grounds to stand on when you are telling someone, who is arguing for truth, they are incorrect. This is because, how do you arrive at correct reasoning without the truth? Or in other words, it is illogical to argue against truth’s existence, because you can’t use knowledge to back your claims only superstitions or seemingly illogical distorted viewpoints using “special” circumstances. This isn’t a “special” reality; it is just reality and our interaction with it as we discover it on a deeper level using truth.

Truth helps you understand things deeper; greater knowledge is only attained with its relationship to a correct absolutely true answer to a true or false question. Discovering truth is the hard part, sometimes. So to say something is either true or false is the basis of logic not a logical fallacy. Either we exist or we don’t, either we are different from animals or we aren’t, either truth exists or it doesn’t. So, I think therefore I am or I don’t think therefore I am not. Our ability to reason is how we can understand the truth. The truth doesn’t apply to us if we can’t comprehend it through reasoning. Humans can reason sufficiently in my opinion. If you know that 2 + 2 = 4, then you know the concept of truth exists and is arrived at in a logical manner. That truth-logic connection is what I am talking about. If you deviate from the truth your **relativity to logic **would suffer. Or the further from the truth the more illogical you become (like the time-velocity relationship). Your rationale and knowledge is distorted with false ideas/logic that you think are true, despite lack of logical proof, and this leads to illogical beliefs/behaviors. Whether you like it or not the way you THINK affects your actions. Your actions are a principal of ethics, what is acceptable behavior.

It is black and white, not gray. If you have 1 rock in your collecting box and then add 1 more, you either have 2 or you don’t (or fill in any number here). So either things exist or they don’t. Either you exist or you don’t. How can we logically know we are here without asking this question philosophically? Either you are a person or you are an animal, although some scientific classifications say we are both. But to say humans and whales are the same is forcing group classifications, in my opinion. And while similarities exist between chimps and humans, that little variance that science currently claims is quite a difference. If you are arguing you are a chimp then you belong in the zoo or in a tree in the forest, not discussing moral philosophy.

I am saying relativism to me seems like it is either saying 4 and 5 are both correct answers and/or both answers are incorrect. No matter the way you look at both statements the thought process doesn’t appear to be logical, because it isn’t saying the answer is 4 and only 4, nothing else is as good as 4 in this case it is the absolute truth that 2 + 2 = 4. The answer is 4, so 4 and 5 aren’t both correct and to say 4 is incorrect would be wrong as well.

 

[afiala2]

You believe in an absolute truth. You can say many things and yet, it is really one thing you say.
One defining thing that you can never question.

I can question it, but I have come to the realization that no matter what I say, do, or think it won’t change reality from the sense of universal laws that apply to everyone. Truth is reality. I can’t change the truth, I don’t have that kind of power, I am just a man. I don’t want to change it, I don’t know everything about it yet, but what I do know I love. Once I feel like I know it all, then I will make the decision whether or not I am satisfied with reality. I am guessing, just guessing, changing reality is the last thing I would ever want to do even if I had the power to actually do it.

The Truth is Love.

…all you need is love, love…love is all you need. (I mean it on a lot deeper level then the beatles were singing about, modern society doesn’t even know what the word means anymore).

True Freedom comes from the Truth, or THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Minuscule or not, you do admit that the perception of time (and consequently mass and length) is relative rather than absolute, right?

No, we are not using a universal time. “Close” isn’t good enough from an absolute perspective. Either time is relative or it is absolute, and you seem to admit above that it is relative.

If you are looking for a real world example of where time dilation does matter look no further than a GPS system (or a phone, many of which have GPS receivers). Relativistic calculations come into play when they are calculating one’s location. For reasons totally unrelated to this thread I’ve spent a good portion of my day trying to write a program to convert earth time to geocentric coordinate time (which is basically earth time minutes the effects of time dilation from the earth’s gravity well). It’s turning out to be more challenging than thought.

Now it is either true the answer to 2 + 2 is 4 or it is true the answer to 2 + 2 is 5…

Sounds like you are describing an Exclusive OR operation (XOR). When they can both be true its just an OR operation.

Or in other words, it is illogical to argue against truth’s existence, because you can’t use knowledge to back your claims only superstitions or seemingly illogical distorted viewpoints using “special” circumstances.

That depends on how you are using the word “truth.” Some people use it as a referent abstraction for a proposition or information that is found to be descriptive of reality. In such a case the proposition is really the “thing” that has existence. If you argue against the existence of reality then you end up having not much of a foundation on which to extend out to anything else. But I’ve not encountered very many people that argue for solipsism. So that’s not a big concern. Some people use “truth” as the name for some non-nondescript “thing” that exists external to any propositions, information, or statements at all. One could argue against that without arguing against the existence of propositions and statements that are descriptive of reality. I’ve seen both meanings used in these forums and it’s not always immediately clear which meaning some one is using.

 

[David_Castlen]

**I may be out of my league here but here goes:

I think the problem that exist in this conversation is ambiguity. Let me do my best to give an illustration of the different views (different in my understanding) of the term relative.

It is an absolute truth that the relation (relative) between 1 and 2 absolutely equals the relative (or relation) between 5 and 10. The relative view of 5 to 10 is absolute and is the relative truth of 1 to 2. This relationships are absolute.

I think what seems to be surfacing “in favor” of relativism, in this conversation, is the concept that one may be in a position to “see” something differently than another resulting in what someone may term truth for one and another truth for someone else. Observing these two (different) empirical conclusion can result in accepting the idea that there can be more than one truth. However, the thing observed is (in today’s vernacular) what it is. It can not be what it is not. It can not be something else. It is an absolute. And time assuming it is a measurement of movement relative between two objects (for example the moon to the earth) is an absolute; albeit, some may see it differently the fact is it moves and moves only a certain distance and that movement from one point to the next is the measurement of a particular time. It is absolute. Even if one is moving during his observation and another is not moving, resulting in two different calculations. This problem will have to be solved for the two people measuring before the truth can be satisfied.**

 

[afiala2]

That depends on how you are using the word “truth.” Some people use it as a referent abstraction for a proposition or information that is found to be descriptive of reality. In such a case the proposition is really the “thing” that has existence. If you argue against the existence of reality then you end up having not much of a foundation on which to extend out to anything else. But I’ve not encountered very many people that argue for solipsism. So that’s not a big concern. Some people use “truth” as the name for some non-nondescript “thing” that exists external to any propositions, information, or statements at all. One could argue against that without arguing against the existence of propositions and statements that are descriptive of reality. I’ve seen both meanings used in these forums and it’s not always immediately clear which meaning some one is using.

dictionary.reference.com/browse/truth
-in truth, in reality; in fact; actually: In truth, moral decay hastened the decline of the Roman Empire

I am not arguing solipsism, just saying either you exist or you don’t, as in obviously we exist. It is not just in our minds. People can argue that, but I argue your body is here, it exists. Until you have evidence otherwise, we can’t assume our minds are in the matrix (the movie), this is called imagination which is real, but only in our minds and the stories we tell that is why those stories are in the fiction section of the library. The “thing” is reality. The ground you stand on and the fingers on your hand. It is true to say it exists. It is true there is mathematical logic to just about everything. It is true that we appear to live in a VERY ordered world/universe. We wouldn’t refer to things as laws in math and science if they weren’t assumed to exist and be consistent. Logical consistency, truth, reality……

 

[afiala2]

Sounds like you are describing an Exclusive OR operation (XOR). When they can both be true its just an OR operation.

You’re over thinking it. The truth is simple. It is one or the other, but not both nor neither. The answer to 2 + 2 is either 4 or 5. Things are always potentially true, that is why you ask the question, to decide what is correct, or more correct if faced with a choice to make. They can’t both be true because there is only ONE answer to 2 + 2. When there is one correct answer it is either/or when faced with choices. Either it is ok to kill innocent people or it is not, logically can’t be both nor neither.

The either/or statement is not assuming multiple “true” answers, that is the point. That is what logic is, it doesn’t assume multiple “true” answers or multiple realities. There is only one reality based in logic and truth. If your philosophy moves away from truth and logic, you can argue it stops being philosophy.

LOVE OF WISDOM. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom

The goal should be optimum results or optimum understanding of reality, shouldn’t it be? If things are different then that means one is more optimum than the other. So even when faced with two choices that aren’t totally correct, one would be more correct or more optimum than the other if they differ, that is why it is a choice. But Ethics is how we know that the “easy” way isn’t always the best in the long run. Or ethics are essential to wisdom; they assist in looking at the whole picture. I am arguing that if you are trying to remove the truth from your philosophy (ethics is moral philosophy), then it stops being philosophy, because philosophy is the love of wisdom. How can you comprehend what is true and right if you argue truth doesn’t exist? But no matter the subject whether its meta-ethics, morality, or invent a name for something here _____, if you remove truth, it stops being logical. Remove the truth and it stops being philosophy. Remove the truth and it isn’t real(ity). It is just a story, someone came up with in their mind similar to a fictional story in the guise of being true (like the DaVinci Code).

But in reality, you can check the facts and see this pseudo-knowledge is nothing more than an attempt to confuse people or promote an agenda, instead of HONEST searching for truth. In this case relativism isn’t even trying to hide the fact it isn’t searching for the truth, it is denying it even exists. If it has to take the truth out of the equation to make sense, then it doesn’t make sense or isn’t logical. That is like saying 2 + 2 =5. Or what relativism states no matter the subject, 2 + 2= both 4 & 5 , and/or 6, and/or whatever your imagination tells you makes it “correct?”. It doesn’t matter, the truth doesn’t exist, is the argument. This pseudo-knowledge didn’t exist until someone thought of it and wrote it down or typed it out on paper. BUT it possesses a real potential danger because now it will distort peoples perceptions of reality who think it is the truth (even though that is not how they themselves would refer to it as because they think the truth doesn’t exist) which will affect how they think and how they act. This represents a real danger to everyone especially to women and children which is the only reason I am writing this. This thinking can be the undoing of civilization. By definition something that opposes truth is pseudo. Look all around us, everyone is trying to change what everything means, all this will lead to is mass confusion and suffering.

People like Hilter will come out of this line of thinking, this isn’t rocket science. If you think you can do whatever you want (or it doesn’t matter what people think, say, do) all that is stopping you from doing something extremely harmful to many people is obtaining the power to do so. In my opinion, an unethical person with power is a ticking bomb. Why do you want anyone to be unethical? Why don’t you think correct moral philosophy is important? Anyone?

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Here are two speakers:

Absolutist: There absolutely are absolutes.

Relativists: There absolutely are no absolutes.

Which one is logical, and which one is illogical?