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TheTypist 06-17-2004 09:15 AM

Absolute Truth
 
A few people seem to have gotten absolute truth mixed in with the aesthetics one. Perhaps this will help.

You know, there is such thing as an absolute truth. Just because people all have different opinions and some are too lazy to look for it, absolute truth does exist.

...

... ...

... ... ...

IronMonk 06-17-2004 10:31 AM

heres a paradox for you.

the only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth.

enjoy.

Jam930 06-17-2004 12:58 PM

Actually I agree that there is an absolute truth.

... + ... = ... ...

The symbols are created by us... it just basically means that ... and ... is ... ...

Which is absolute truth.

IronMonk 06-17-2004 02:51 PM

what about people who have not yet learned about those symbols. also in some pictographical languages = means something compleatly differant.

absolut truths are hard to argue with. because all you have to do is dissagree with a person to prove them wrong.

thus i posted what i did earlier. its the only one tha tcan hold up to debate.

DracIV 06-17-2004 08:45 PM

IronMonk, that's wrong. By communicating in an agreed-upon language, the other person is WRONG. = does not mean something else. We have already defined it. We all agreed upon meanings for each symbol already and if you disagree with something that is a fact when using the symbols we agreed upon because you are using different symbols, you are wrong.

talisman 06-17-2004 10:04 PM

There is no absolute truth, only consensus and majority opinion.

Everything you and I and everyone knows is only what is in our heads. It is only what we have sensed and how our genetic make-up has engineered us to react to what we have sensed. This is an issue that has been tackled many many times by many different philosophers, though you are probably most familiar with its treatment in The Matrix. Truth derives from reality, and reality is totally the experience of an individual.

Moving on, it is clear that nothing in the observable universe is absolutely one way or the other. If you know the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle and general relativity, then you can understand that.

Let's go back to the old argument that 2+2=4, because I like it so much....

Now, to clarify, we mean here the concept of 2 and the concept of 4. As in, changing the symbols isn't a valid counterargument. I don't mean to use it anyway.

Suppose you found a person that didn't believe that 2+2=4. Before any of you say there isn't such a person anywhere, I will be that person :-). Now, to disprove this person (or me) you show the person two rocks. That person agrees that there are two rocks. Next you show the person another two rocks, and the person again agrees that there are two. Now you show the person four rocks. The person agrees that there are four. Then you take two rocks and toss them on the ground, and, to demonstrate the concept of addition, toss another two next to it.

Now when you ask the other person how many rocks there are, the person says five, and refuses to believe otherwise, protesting adamantly that they actually do see five rocks. What are you going to do? What if the person, who earlier could identify four rocks as four rocks, suddenly starts seeing five when addition is performed? Are they faking it? Could you tell?

Obviously, you couldn't tell. You would never be able to prove it one way or the other. You would still think that you were right, that four rocks are on the ground, and this person would still think they were right. But which one is actually right? What if everytime two rocks were thrown next to two rocks five rocks actually appeared and this was the only guy that could see it?

If nothing can be accepted in exactly the same way by exactly everybody, then nothing can be absolutely true. Even this theory can't be absolutely true because not everyone believes it.

All we can do is argue about things to get more people on to our side that others, as we are doing now.

Jam930 06-17-2004 10:31 PM

People that have never met eachother or influenced eachother on opposite sides of the world have come up with the conclusion that .. and .. is .. ..

Like it or not.

That is the absolute truth. Aliens FAR from here will have the same answer. Opinions, thoughts and ideas are irrelevant to the absolute truth.

The_Q 06-18-2004 12:46 AM

It's impossible to prove that something can't be done because "anything is possible" no matter how corny it sounds. It's impossible to prove that there's no abosolute truth because it would be an absolute truth that there are none. So there are. Excuse me, I need to take some Tylenol from thinking that one through.

Q

alvask8er 06-18-2004 01:04 AM

Is everythign included in anything? I cant think right now...also, can there be differnt truths? For one who is colorblind, they may see an object as one color, and it is that color to them, but to a normal person, its a different color. Now this is differnt from the who 2x+2x= 4x yadda yadda yadda....because that is how they see the world and they cant change it. For someone to get two apples and two oranges and put them together, there would be four fruit total. No one that i konw of makes extra fruit somewhere, and if you divided the fruit into piecees, you would still have the whole fruit just in pieces.

What the hell does that have to do with the topic? (Below)

Moogy 06-18-2004 01:10 AM


KIND OF MAKES YOU THINK

Jam930 06-18-2004 01:27 AM

Oh my god.

Moogy 06-18-2004 01:33 AM

8CAT TRIUMPHS OVER ALL

sniper_wolf 06-18-2004 08:06 AM

...completely off topic. Where did that come from?

IAMTHEEVILBEAN 06-18-2004 08:15 AM

Your mom.

talisman 06-18-2004 09:23 AM

Like I said Jam, unless every observer in the Universe agrees that one thing is defined one way, and every observer agrees that every observer agrees, then is something absolute. And since I can, just to prove my point, claim to disbelieve anything that you say everyone believes in, nothing is absolute.

And while I couldn't prove myself right, neither could anyone else prove me wrong, and we'd be at a stalemate forever.

DracIV 06-18-2004 10:09 AM

The thing about an absolute truth that all the people arguing against it ignore is the fact that these observers with different answers are *wrong*. Back to the 2 + 2 = 4: mathematics has defined rules. According to the rules of math, 2 + 2 = 4. If you think differently, you are wrong. The rules for math are defined by rigid laws you cannot change. 2 + 2 = 4 is an absolute fact. It cannot be changed because the rules (absolute facts) form a system that is absolute. If that person sees 5 rocks when you toss them down, that person is wrong. It does not mean there may be 5, it means the input and/or output of that person is wrong. Something is only an absolute fact if the opposers are wrong, period. If I have an absolute truth/fact, I can win any argument about its truth, and you cannot stalemate it. You can still refuse to believe it, but you are wrong. The universe is governed by absolute laws/truth/facts and you can't disprove one of those laws by not believing it. If the law is truly correct, you are wrong. The only way to prove it is not correct is to bring a factual counter-example. Your own opinion is not a factual counter-example.

talisman 06-18-2004 11:09 AM

I think we need to agree on a definition for absolute truth here.

I propose one:

absolute truth is something held in common by all observers in the universe, and held in common in such a way that every observer agrees about this thing in absolutely and totally the same way. All observers agree about this thing because it is absolute and because it is impossible for someone to argue that the thing is not true, or that it does not exist.

Now, by my definition, it is therefore impossible for anything to be absolutely true, including the idea that nothing can be absolutely true, because someone can always disagree about the truth or existence of anything. And by anything I mean anything and everything.

As an example, suppose I were to say that the Universe was created about five minutes ago in such a cunning way as to give the exact appearance of it having begun fifteen billion years ago. Everyone would have the same memories and everything and so on.

Now, there would be no way for me to prove this right. But, on the other hand, there would be no way for you to prove this wrong, either. You would be forced into acknowledging the possibility, that , yes, the Universe was created five minutes ago in such a clever way as to make itself appear to have been created 15 billioin years ago.

This is the way it is with any idea, theory, or observation. As long as someone disagrees, then it cannot be necessarily true or false.

If you can't understand that, or won't even make an attempt to accept its validity, then there is no more point in my continuing to argue.

The only way to find a hole in my argument would be change my definition of absolute truth. Yet if you do, I won't look at your arguments as a rebuttal of mine but as different and parallel.

DracIV 06-18-2004 12:27 PM

Well, you're definition is wrong. An absolute truth is something that no matter the view held by any observer, it is always the same and unchangeable. If you disagree with the truth of an absolute truth, it is still the same. If you think the sun does not give off any visible light, it still does. An absolute truth does not need your consent to be true. Natural laws are absolute truths. Math is full of absolute truths. Physics, astronomy, and any sciences dealing with the factual workings of the universe are full of absolute truths. I know the universe was not created 10 minutes ago, because I have many absolute truths that punch holes in that argument. Nothing is absolute if it requires the consent of an observer to exist. Your definition is a nonexistant item that never can or will exist because a real absolute truth doesn't need observers. When there is no intelligent left in the universe, absolute truths will still be absolute truths and whatever you are talking about will never have existed.

talisman 06-18-2004 12:40 PM

You say that an absolute truth doesn't need observers.

I say that nothing exists until it is observed.

And you don't know that the universe wasn't created five minutes ago. You can't, if it was created in such a way as to appear not to have been created five minutes ago. You really don't have any absolute truths to punch into that argument.

Nothing is true until you believe it is true. If you don't believe it is true, then it isn't true, though it may be true to someone else. But if that thing were absolutely true, why wouldn't you believe that it is true?

And, does an electron behave as a wave or a particle? Is the cat both alive and dead, or neither alive nor dead? Where's the absolute truth there? Nothing exists until it is observed. How observations are perceived determines whether or not they are considered true or false.

DracIV 06-18-2004 01:09 PM

Your definition of absolute truth is a Universal Belief. There is a major difference.

Your thing about the world being five minutes old is unproveable and so should be considered stupid because it uses cheap tricks to dodge logic, but it is very unreasonable and most likely untrue. First of all, you must have a sentient creator being- where the hell did it come from? And having something exist beforehand means the universe already existed. Even if this problem of existing before it did was not there, you have an observer. *We* cannot determine whether the universe was created five minutes ago or not, but *it* observered it and so can identify an absolute truth. However, the universe did exist before the rest of it existed, so either it is older than 5 minutes or you have an impossible situation. Put simply, the universe could not have been created ago because logic kicks the shit out of that idea.

The reason absolute truths cannot be used in that argument is because you could easily deny it and claim some stupid reason for why that *seems* so, but isn't. Absolute truths govern the workings of the universe whether we see them or not. The real question is whether the observers can identify them or not. With the quantum physics, there is an absolute truth even if you cannot identify it. If the cat is alive, it is alive period. If it is dead, it's dead. However, you need to go much deeper into the actual science to also know why it can be both alive and dead while still obeying the absolute laws [truths that govern the universe].

With an absolute truth, it is *absolute*. If you consider it false, it is still true. Just because you consider it one thing or perceive it another doesn't mean it changes, it just means you are wrong.

Absolute: Complete and unconditional; final. // Not limited by restrictions or exceptions

Here are two parts of the definition of absolute. I put an emphasis on restrictions for a reason. If all observers must agree on it, that is a restriction. That means observers do not matter and can not matter to the validity of an absolute truth. No matter what you think, it is always true and you are wrong if you do not believe it. That is what an absolute truth is.


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