originally posted by Alan Smithee
What is implied is that asserting it makes it so, which I do not think is the case.
now i know i’ve said this before, but i’d like to say it a bit more succinctly.
postulate 1: without the concept of truth, nothing can be said to be true.
postulate 2: the concept of truth is not absolute.
conclusion: there are no absolutes.
i must say, though, as a disclaimer, that a proof of the validity of this statement must be inherently non-logical, since it is a statement about logic. since no such proof exists, i’ll simply appeal to your intuition. and suggest that it can be neither proved nor disproved.
-d-squared
originally posted by * Ramanujan*
Sounds agnostic, so therefore absolutes might exist.
I read the appeal for faith more then intuition.
If the concept of truth is not absolute, truth might be, since truth is not a concept. If truth can exist independent of whether or not we know it then truth can exist without concepts of truth.
If truth is not an absolute then is it relative?
If truth is [completely] relative how can we have any knowledge?
Or if the relative is relative how can we have knowledge?
Damn, is this still going on…Death IS an absolute (prove it wrong)
or “some people are fucking ignorant”, try disproving that one!
T-keela wrote:
Bullshit. You made the assertion. You prove it true.
If you can show me an example of eternal life, I’m all ears. I take it you believe the universe is in a steady state.
The comment you made simply confirms the 2nd proposition, if that is in fact what you truly believe!
Is that your lame ass way of calling me ignorant? Is that what you consider to be a debate?
If you want to rant and insult people, take it to the Pit. And if you make an assertion here, prepare to prove it when it is challenged.
Your “the reason the sun will rise tomorrow is because it always has and you can’t show me that it hasn’t” crap won’t cut it.
I never called you anything, you made that observation. I believe that my initial proposition “that all humans will die eventually” has been tested billions of times and has yet to be disproven. I have provided a testable hypothesis. I have confirmed it w/out fail, it is up to you to prove me wrong now, even theoretically!
The logic behind using an absolute statement to disprove the OP question of whether absolutes exist or not…come on now, you know that won’t fly.
If I have misunderstood your position in this thread thus far, then I apologize. As far as whether some people are ignorant is true or not…hmmm
In order to have eternal life, the universe itself must be eternal.
In order for the universe to be eternal, it must be fixed
(not expanding)
The universe is expanding, therefore it will eventually die.
If the universe dies, so does humanity.
Are there any absolute truths?
Yes, there is at least one absolute truth! (that statement)
Ugh. Disgusting.
Clearly, the messages are disgusting, but which ones?
excellent retort!
However, even Wittgenstein allowed there to be truth. He just had a hard time defining it.
Vorlon wrote:
Well, to me it’s couching an insult in a convoluted phrase and then denying it’s an insult, or making a random assertion, and then demanding that others prove you’re wrong.
a random assertion…get a book!
Whether absolutes exist or not, specify your terms if you don’t like my idea of truth. I have read all of your messages in detail. I suggest you do the same. The claim “tautologies, all tautologies are true” and A=A gimme a break, your not just begging the question
…surely this is not the logic we are teaching these days. I thought it too obvious a question for it to last this long but I suppose a few proofs are in order.
You said: “Logic is a house of cards and mirrors. That’s why it describes the universe — an illusion — so well.”
The universe is an illusion…not true
Lib. :“But logic is incomplete; either that, or inconsistent.”
Yet, you use “logic” in your arguments.
Lib. :"Sure, a statement can be true while not being absolutely true. "
So, Is it true or ABSOLUTELY true?
Lib. : "That’s just a shortcut. What you’re certain of is that there is a consistent one-to-one relation maintained between your username and the name that appears in the left margin. Would you still be certain you are “erislover” if the software insisted — consistently — that you are “gagnard”?
I think that fish can be smelled across the universe.
Lib. :"A term can’t be a tautology since a term has no logical relation. "
Unlike the logical relation in saying A=A right?
Lib: “And incidentally, you’re talking about Temporal Logic, possibly the toughest of all the higher logics.”
Does this mean his proof is wrong?
Lib.: ““Axiom” and “tautology” are not mutually exclusive terms. Just as a man can be both a husband and a father, a statement can be both unproven and redundant.”
But a man is somebody’s son, and can be somebody’s father. While not all men are somebodies father, it is true that all men ARE somebody’s son.
Hell, that’s enough for today…
Peace
Stop staring at me. Eat your checkers.
I think in this, as in so many quesions, explication of context is important. The OP asks, **Is there anything that can be stated which is true under all conditions, for all time? **
Now, “under all conditions” is a phrase which lends itself to varied interpretations. Are we dealing with conceptual Universes that share enough elements with our own that we can rely upon some standard axioms of formal logics? If so, then I would (mostly) agree with Libertarian. In any context where we can reasonably assert some very fundamental axioms of formal logic, tautologies are true. That does not hold, obviously, if the range of the possible diverges radically more radically from our own Universe: for instance, a realm in which A U ~A does not delineate all possibilities.
The “mostly”, BTW, is really a note to that special class of tautologies called “definitions”. In logic, tautology is strictly a description of structure. In English, things might have the structure of a definition and yet be judged false (i.e. not corresponding to English usage.) this isn’t really a disagrement with Lib’s position so much as a clarification of context that I think needs to be made.
JThunder
The problem with your argument from semantics is that it involves what Russell would call a violation of type. What you demonstrate is that “There is no statement that is absolutely true” cannot be asserted from within its own epistemological framework. That does not imply that there is no statement that is absolutely true.
An analogous case would be the statement, “This system is consistent.” Proving that statement within the system necessarily leads to contradiction, but it does not follow that no system can be consistent.
erl
I think you are on the right track with the observation that answers which rely upon semantic analysis are necessarily dependent upon the underlying axioms of those semantic systems. Thus, they are insufficient to resolve questions of ontological absolutes. (At least, I think that is where your observations are leading. I might be putting words onto your screen.)
So what’s your answer S/M?
Are there or are there not absolutes?
It looks to me as if you are saying Maybe or Sometimes…a subjective absolute…hmmm
or are you dismissing the OP as not answerable?
you know, i’ve refined my answer already.
i originally said “there are no absolute truths”, because it is impossible to say that there are without making some rather forward assumptions. assumptions that include “certain things are absolute” (e.g. logic).
i realized the flaw in that and said “it is impossible to say whether or not there are absolute truths”. i think Spiritus did me a tremendous justice with his post, by illustrating that the word “absolute” is pretty damn difficult to define absolutely.
i stand by that statement. it’s not really an appeal to godel’s theorem. more like saying all we know is logic, which may or may not be absolute. regardless of whether it is, if we can use only logic to prove that there are things which are absolutely true (e.g. tautologies), and by the very tenets of logic, this is circular and not valid.
all that considered, it certainly seems that the concept of unknowability must then be absolute. but how the hell are we supposed to know that?
-d-squared
I’m saying, “it depends”. Specifically, it depends upon the breadth of the ontological range under consideration.
If we restrict it to conceptual Universes where some standard axioms of logic can be reasonably asserted, then the answer is “Tautologies are absolutely true”.
If we do not, then the answer is, “I don’t know, and I don’t have any means for finding out.”