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Linusthe2nd
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Call back later when you are in a better mood.I just read post 54,
and I’ve seldom seen so much confusion in such a small space.
There’s no point in even replying to it. :bighanky:
Linus2nd
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Linus2nd
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Linusthe2nd
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empther
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Not when a person says I said something I didn’t say.
See my original post 49
and compare to the beginning of post 54
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polytropos
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I don’t mean to cause a trivial debate, empther. What is important is that Aquinas held that the strongest arguments for God’s existence did not depend on the claim that the universe had to have a beginning. He believed the universe had a beginning, but that belief is not necessary for proving the existence of God.
Asserting it in an argument for the Unmoved Mover weakens the argument. You often opine the faith of the theoretical teenager who might be wandering the forums, so take your own advice on this one. There’s no need to put forth a weaker version of the cosmological argument; that won’t help anyone’s faith.
Asserting it in an argument for the Unmoved Mover weakens the argument. You often opine the faith of the theoretical teenager who might be wandering the forums, so take your own advice on this one. There’s no need to put forth a weaker version of the cosmological argument; that won’t help anyone’s faith.
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polytropos
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I really don’t regard there as being any distinction between “absolute” and “relative” truth. I regard “relative truth” as a contradiction. If it is not “absolute” truth, then it is not truth at all.
There is a distinction in philosophy of mind that is, I think, more appropriate (because I feel like the term “relative truth” is a way of peddling something that is not actually true as true). The distinction is between intrinsic and derived intentionality (or directedness). Words, sentences, and symbols have derived intentionality because they do not have meaning in themselves - they are, ontologically, streaks of ink on paper, sound waves, etc. They only have derived intentionality insofar that they are understood to be pointed towards something with intrinsic intentionality (ie. if you show a non-English speaker a sentence in English, it will likely be meaningless to them, even though it might be meaningful to an English speaker).
So that is the problem I see with the idea of “relative truth.” Relative truth is like derived intentionality. A spoken or written sentence may not materially have intrinsic intentionality or absolute truth, but it only has derived intentionality or relative truth insofar that it refers to something that is true.
As far as the symbols go, I don’t find your response adequate. If you translate a sentence from English to French and it expresses the same meaning, then the meaning is independent from the symbols. This in itself shows that appealing to the relativity of symbols does not show that truth cannot be absolute; if the statement can be expressed using different symbols, then we can conclude that the truth of the statement has nothing to do with what was stated.
So you ask how I can claim that the truth expressed by 1+1=2 and &@&|&& is absolute? The first reason is that, as I said previously, “relative truth” is incoherent and contradictory; if it is not absolute, then it is not truth. Furthermore, though, the truths are necessary as long as the symbols have the meanings we’ve assigned to them. So even though the symbols are contingent, they will not “change” unless you change the symbols. Since we’ve demonstrated also that the underlying truth is necessarily distinct from the symbols used, this would show that they are not “relatively true” (whatever that means).
Indeed, as I mentioned, propositional content is not necessarily represented symbolically (whether the symbol is a vocal sound, ink on paper, or whatever). When I say something like, “The cat is in the other room,” you can think of what I meant without any recourse to language. So appeals to the relativity of symbols are really quite irrelevant, since propositions stand and fall without symbolic representation.
I would agree, with qualification. When I make a statement like, “the painting is on the wall,” or, “the cat is in the other room,” a “timestamp” is implied. Since they are colloquial, I don’t make such a statement meaning that the painting will always be on the wall or that the cat will always be in the other room (I am also, presumably, referring to a specific room, even though I’ve just typed “other” - and if I said this to someone in person, they might understand to which room I am referring, furthering the distinction between symbolic representation and propositional content). I mean that the cat was in the other room at, say, 8:50 PM EST on 8/15/2013. And that actually is a non-changing truth. Even when the cat leaves the room, it will continue to be true.
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TomFromMD
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I don’t think this logic pattern works. For instance, all events that will happen, will happen a finite time in the future. Therefore the universe must end.
Or all points in space are a finite distance away from you. Therefore there is a limit to distance.
Or all integers are a finite distance on a number line from zero. Therefore there must be a limit to integers.
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polytropos
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A bit more on this… I take it that you would hold it as a “relative truth” that “it is impossible in practice to distinguish between statements of Absolute Truth and statements of mere relative truth”? But the word “impossible” denotes that you are making a pretty strong claim. To call it a relative truth would basically mean that your statement is not necessarily correct… ie. that it is possible sometimes to distinguish between absolute and relative truth (which would trivialize the position).
Presumably the phrase “in practice” is meant to act as a qualifier that prevents the inevitable contradiction that necessarily arises when someone committed relativism tries to appeal to logic. But I don’t think it saves your argument, since the ubiquity of relative truth would still need to be an absolute truth in order for your argument to be more than trivial (ie. in order for your argument to say more than “it is possible sometimes to distinguish between absolute and relative truth”).
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Linux
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Are yo saying that integers are actual beingsThe original argument also failed to distinguish - so the counterargument succeeds. In other words the same argument you use to dismiss infinite past time would dismiss infinite negative integers, by the same logic that any two actual integers are seperated by a finite interval. There doesn’t have to be an ‘actual’ integer ‘minus infinity’ just as there does not have to be an ‘actual’ moment ‘minus infinity’.
It is, in other words, wrong. Or at least incomplete.
You can of course try to complete it - for example if you want to argue that there cannot be an infinite past interval as it would take an infinite amount of time to traverse that interval - akin to taking an infinite amount of time to ‘count’ from minus infinity to zero - then:
a) we have an infinite amount of time to do so. Any interval is exactly as long as it is.
b) you are assuming without proof that something has to traverse that interval. This is like saying that there cannot be infinite integers because it would take an infinite amount of time to count them.
No - if there is no distinct starting place then it makes no sense to talk about how much later in time from it we are.
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rossum
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My statement was a relative truth.
Since it is impossible to determine whether or not any given statement is actually an Absolute Truth, or merely falsely claimed to be so, then you have nothing to say if you insist on using only Absolute Truths.
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rossum
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Relative to those conditions, then no.
It is relative. It assumes a two-valued logic, as opposed to a three valued logic, true, false, unknown. There are other logics that could be used as well.
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rossum
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I turn that round the other way. I reject the notion of Absolute Truth as impractical and just work with relative truth. I reject all forms of reification, and Absolute Truth is just another reified concept to go with all the others.
We both get round the problem of the lack of a distinguisher by collapsing the two concepts into one. We differ in which of the two we eliminate.
Buddhism emphasis change over stasis, so I reject the Absolute version. Abrahamic religions tend to emphasise stasis over change, so they tend to be more focused on the Absolute rather than the relative.
To me, that “implied” gives the game away. You are stepping outside the actual statement and adding in an assumption. That means the statement is not completely self-contained and so cannot be Absolute. Of course, you can continue to add explicit qualifiers to the original statement to make it both clumsy and more self-contained. However, you can never show that you have included every necessary rider, addition or assumption. Absent that proof, you can only have a relative statement or an unproven claim to an Absolute statement.
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rossum
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Correct.
I did not use an unqualified “impossible”, I said “impossible in practice”. The fact that I have not so far seen a distinguisher does not mean that there can never ever be such a distinguisher; the argument from black swans applies here. However, given that no such distinguisher currently exists it is not practical to sit doing nothing waiting for one to appear. In the meantime I shall continue, using the tools currently available. Those tools do not allow me to distinguish between Absolute and relative truth.
We disagree. It is currently not possible to distinguish. We both have to work within that situation. We pick different ways of working, but the same situation applies to both of us.
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empther
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Where does Aquinas say that? He doesn’t.
Several times, now, people have said " belief in ] God’s existence did not depend on the claime that the universe had to have a beginning".
What I haven’t heard is somebody explaining how the universe can have begun from nothing without God.
Anybody?
( Now we’ll hear from the atheists about “chance”, and “accident”, and “quantum effect”, all of which are easily refuted by noting these things can only work on something already existent. )
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bzkoss236
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Then doesn’t that then become an absolute? Given those conditions, then there is absolutely no way for me to know the fullness of the world? Wouldn’t that be considered an absolute?
Then in what way could that statement be false? How could something not either exist or not exist?
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inocente
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Interestingly the thread shows this principle in action. After 70 posts there’s not even agreement on what the word “truth” means, let alone whether an infinitely old world is less of a paradox than one with a beginning.
What we can say for certain is that Jesus would have answered those questions if they had anything to do with salvation.
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Linusthe2nd
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I think you must have misunderstood something. I have no idea what you are miffed about.
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Linusthe2nd
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In reasonable times there would be no problem, but we live in unreasonable times. In an age of faith philosophy was a great aid to Theology. But in more traditional times philosophy/theology were not subjects studied by anyone other than clerics and they were studied thoroughly. Today these subjects are open to everyone and are not systematic. And worse, any dilettante can pick up a cheap paper back claiming to tell you all about this or that field of knowledge, or even worse, a ten minute segment on U-Tube makes these folks think they are specialists.Interestingly the thread shows this principle in action. After 70 posts there’s not even agreement on what the word “truth” means, let alone whether an infinitely old world is less of a paradox than one with a beginning.
What we can say for certain is that Jesus would have answered those questions if they had anything to do with salvation.
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polytropos
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The problem is that the word “truth” (whether you capitalize it or not) has always referred (to be general) to reification, which is why the term “relative truth” directly contradicts itself. So it seems more like a way of riding the tailwinds of being able to make truth claims (like “There is no Absolute Truth”) while keeping truth relative and comfortable.
A statement like “There is no Absolute Truth” or “We cannot know Absolute Truth right now” cannot fail to be contradictory. It is impossible to be coherent - if it is true, then it is in some cases false. If it succeeds, then it fails. Adding the qualifiers “in practice” and “right now” is like saying, “We cannot know absolute truth except in the cases in which we do” - ie. it’s extremely trivial.
I eliminate the one which inevitably leads to contradictions.
Not really. If I say, “The cat is in the room right now,” and the cat is the room right now, at the time of the statement being made, then the statement is true. If the cat leaves the room 10 minutes later, and I make the statement again, then the statement is false. But if I say instead, “The cat was in the room 10 minutes ago,” then the statement is true. I don’t think that can be coherently denied, so if we are going to agree to disagree, then this is where it happens.
The term “true” that I am using is most like your “absolute truth,” since as I’ve noted, it is impossible to coherently use the term “relative truth.”
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polytropos
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Since this post (I believe) has gone unaddressed…
Aquinas argues that all instances of motion (or change) are associated with a per se causal series, necessitating the existence of an Unmoved Mover (who must have no potency, or else He would be able to move as well). But as you’ll note, this does not rely on anything popping into being, just on the occurrence of change.
Generally speaking, also, per se causal series are simultaneous (ie. when I push the boxes, each box is pushing the other boxes at the same time that I am pushing them), unlike per accidens causal series in which there can be quite a bit of time between each event. (However, any per accidens causal series is composed of per se causal series.)
So the usual atheist objection is that at the beginning of the universe, the principle of causality may not have applied (or the universe could extend infinitely in time - which Thomas at least for the sake of argument and on a philosophical basis did not rule out). Obviously this objection is a red herring, since the argument from motion does not refer to the beginning of the universe.
The atheist may still object that causality may nevertheless be violated and we just haven’t observed it. The short argument I’d make is that this violates one of the most fundamental ontological commitments (“out of nothing, nothing comes”) and is inconceivable. Other objections will gesture toward quantum mechanics or radioactive decay, although these specific objections fail on the basis that indeterministic does not mean uncaused. More could be said on this point, but this is getting long for a tangent…
It depends on what you mean by personal. St. Thomas held that it could be shown that the Unmoved Mover had intelligence and will analogical to our own.
The way you’ve phrased this (referring to things “popping” into existence) would seem to indicate that you think the argument for the Unmoved Mover relies on the claim that things ever did pop into existence. While Aquinas held on faith that the universe had a beginning and was created by God, that is not what the argument for the Unmoved Mover addresses. To be kind of brief, Aquinas distinguishes between per accidens causal series (in which each cause has, in the relevant sense, its own causal power, like when a father begets a son who begets another son) and per se causal series (in which all “secondary” causes only have derivative causal power). An example of a per se causal series is a line of boxes on the floor which I am pushing. The boxes don’t have any causal power to push the others (whereas the son, in the per accidens series, does have his own causal power to impart). Since all “secondary” causes in the per se series only have causal power derivatively, it must be derived from some first cause (and if that first cause had a cause, then its causal power would be derivative as well).
Aquinas argues that all instances of motion (or change) are associated with a per se causal series, necessitating the existence of an Unmoved Mover (who must have no potency, or else He would be able to move as well). But as you’ll note, this does not rely on anything popping into being, just on the occurrence of change.
Generally speaking, also, per se causal series are simultaneous (ie. when I push the boxes, each box is pushing the other boxes at the same time that I am pushing them), unlike per accidens causal series in which there can be quite a bit of time between each event. (However, any per accidens causal series is composed of per se causal series.)
So the usual atheist objection is that at the beginning of the universe, the principle of causality may not have applied (or the universe could extend infinitely in time - which Thomas at least for the sake of argument and on a philosophical basis did not rule out). Obviously this objection is a red herring, since the argument from motion does not refer to the beginning of the universe.
The atheist may still object that causality may nevertheless be violated and we just haven’t observed it. The short argument I’d make is that this violates one of the most fundamental ontological commitments (“out of nothing, nothing comes”) and is inconceivable. Other objections will gesture toward quantum mechanics or radioactive decay, although these specific objections fail on the basis that indeterministic does not mean uncaused. More could be said on this point, but this is getting long for a tangent…
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inocente
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Yes, it’s surprising how many people become experts after watching one show on the Discovery channel.
But your “reasonable times” coincided with most folk not getting an education, often not even being taught to read, which persisted until relatively recently, particularly for girls. Knowledge is power, and there’s been an explosion of power through cheap books, then radio, then internet.
And let’s face it, the higher the level of education, the more flaws can be found in the unmoved mover argument.
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