After all, if there were no absolutes, then one could not be absolutely certain that there were none.
Or, like I’ve always said:
There’s an exception to every rule. Even this one.
I’ve found that when there are no absolutes, Stoli is a more than adequate substitute.
Yer pal,
Satan - Commissioner, The Teeming Minions
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**Crazy Boob wrote:
After all, if there were no absolutes, then one could not be absolutely certain that there were none.**
What type of absolutes are you talking about? Moral? Physical? Something else entirely?
For physical ones, you can’t create mass/energy out of nothing nor can mass/energy be destroyed. Going faster than c in a vacuum is pretty futile and you can’t get colder than zero degress K.
As for moral absolutes, can you give me an example? A moral that fits all situation across all systems of morality?
I am unequivocably against dogmatism! – Too much Coffee Man
You are constructing an explicit contradiction by allowing your statement to refer to itself. This sort of linguistic contradiction was first documented milennia ago by Epimenides the Cretan’s statement, “all Cretans are liars.”
You can read a good exposition on the subject of logical paradoxes in Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter.
Freyr-
It just a common generalization that nothing is univerally true, whether it be physical or abstract. A lot of people believe that nothing is true in all circumstnaces, but if that is true, then neither can that assumption be true. It’s a paradox.
A moral absolute? Hmm… I’ll take a shot at it…I’ll even give you two: It is always wrong to torture someone for no reason or kill someone for the fun of it.
Well, if you say that it is absolutely true that there are no absolutes, then, yes, that’s a contradiction.
However, one could simply say that the only absolute is that there are no other absolutes (or something of that nature).
Well, sorry to repeat myself, but that’s exactly the point of the little saying I made up many years ago, posted above:
There’s an exception to every rule, including this one.
Or to wrap it tightly around your brain, the old cliche “There’s an exception to every rule” is true, without exception, which means of course that the cliche itself, being a rule, has an exception: itself. So in being true it proves itself untrue.
No it isn’t.
So why is there only one monopolies commission?
Isn’t it contradictory to believe there are no absolutes?
Logically, yes.
Practically, no.
Sorry, but that’s a different statement than what I said. Saying that every rule has an exception is different from saying that all rules but one have exceptions.
Well, except that I didn’t say every rule has an exception; I said, as you did, that all rules but one–that one-have exceptions. It’s exception is that it itself is the only rule that has no exception.
It’s (don’t mean to state the obvious here) paradoxical in that it includes both your statement and mine, which are mutually exclusive.
I don’t mean to be a jerk or anything, but I think that is a really stupid philosophy. That is, assuming that something is absolute as a means of expressing that nothing else is absolute. It’s like an orator giving a speech about to audience about why oral communication does not exist…ok it’s probably not like that, but analogies are still fun to think of.
I know I’m just a nitpicker and this isn’t really an important topic, but I can’t let this go.
What you said was: There’s an exception to every rule, including this one.
This is obviously saying that every rule has an exception.
I said that: The only absolute is that there are no other absolutes.
The two are completely different statements. One claims that all rules have an exception, the other claims that not all rules have exceptions.
No, I believe that you are misinterpreting it; you restated the portion prior to the comma, but ignored the portion following the comma.
The portion prior to the comma (There’s an exception to every rule) means that there are no absolutes. The portion following the comma (including this one) means that the statement about “no absolutes” does have exceptions.
In other words: The vast majority of rules do have exceptions, but there are a small number of rules which do not have exceptions.
I challenge you all to show any internal contradiction in that statement.
I really think we’ve come to depend way too much on the smileys. How could you possibly interpret my above exercise in mobius “logic” as disagreeing with you, you crazy Boob?
And Keeve, my bumper sticker cannot be rephrased as “The vast majority of rules do have exceptions, but there are a small number of rules which do not have exceptions.” It cannot be rephrased at all; by trying to temper it to actual practicality you miss my point.
And Black Knight, this is absolutely true: “The two are completely different statements.” That’s why they call it a paradox.
Hello, math police?
I’d like to report a slew of self-referential statements over in SDMB Great Debates.
Yes, Russel’s Paradox; that’s right.
Thanks, officer. <Hangs up>
You guys are so busted.
knappy: Good call. I wish I’d noticed it myself.