Is truth relative or absolute?

Post Reply New Topic

And we have a relative "truth"

Really, people seem to confuse belief with truth, as they usually think their beliefs are truth, nevertheless are beliefs, leejosepho's post is an illustration of it.

Moral truth? I doubt it's absolute, I mean, killing along with exceptions doesn't look to have universal agreement, and it differs from each region or jurisdiction, we have death penalty and abortion as examples.

all truth is absolute, it is our interpretation that is relative.

This - - ^

I said absolute and subjective, meaning that morality classifies an action as Good/Right or Evil/Wrong - one or the other, with nothing in between - "Killing someone is evil" or "Stealing bread is wrong".

The subjective part is where the exceptions come in - "Killing someone is evil unless I have to kill someone who is trying to kill me" or "Stealing bread is wrong unless I have to choose between stealing bread or starving to death".

Also, some governments that legislate morality will stone an adulteress to death, while other governments will set aside special commercial districts where prostitution is allowed (or even encouraged). This also makes morality subjective, because what is a capital crime in one place, is just "business as usual" in another, depending on each country's subjective interpretation of what constitutes moral behavior.

But is the government giving a different law based on different morals, or are they refusing to make law when it is only a question of morality? Prostitution red light districts seem to be the result of a government saying "we refuse to make a moral decision for others" rather than, we think prostitution is a good and moral business pursuit. Which would mean some governments don't have different morals but just choose not to impose them on people.

A few random thoughts on this subject:

A particular color has light of a certain frequency, but what that color is named depends on a particular individual's culture and language. Even if nobody sees the light, it still has that frequency. BUT if someone is moving relative to the light compared to another observer, their observed frequencies will differ.

Fuzzy logic is to truth what fractal dimensions are to shapes. It seems in real life, things aren't usually 100% true or 100% false, just as most shapes aren't really three-dimensional. It is more accurate sometimes to describe a condition as being 67% true / 33% false (for example), or a particular object as having 2.4 dimensions instead of 3. I know some people insist if something isn't 100% true, that automatically makes it 100% false, but to me, that is rigid thinking that is not in touch with the way things really are.

Someone can honestly report what they believe to be the "truth" and yet be wrong. For example, on April 21, 1918 Roy Brown shot at a red Fokker Triplane, banked away, and then saw the red triplane crash. He was credited with the kill, but what he didn't see what that after he had shot at it and turned away, the pilot of the triplane resumed his pursuit of Brown's squadron mate until Australian machine gunners on the ground killed him. Thus died the Red Baron. It is almost certain from the timing of Brown's attack compared to the medical evidence of the wound that killed the Red Baron that Brown could not have killed him. Assuming that is the case, Brown could stand before God and swear he shot down the red triplane, and he would not be lying, but he would be mistaken.

As for the screwdriver being used as a can opener, then it IS a can opener. Something is what it does. Alan Watts demonstrated this with a stool during a lecture. He turned it upside down and demonstrated it was also a wastebasket, then he turned it upright again and used it as a drum. What you call something doesn't matter, and sometimes if you're stuck on a particular label it can limit you from seeing other possibilities.

But when somebody says something is Loud or Big, they are implying that they think it is Big or Loud in which case it is an absolute truth in so far as, they think it is big or loud. You don't give a builder the specification of "Big" and ask him to build it. Well you might if you were stupid... but he wouldn't do it because he knows the measurement "Big" is relative to the person saying it. am I making any sense? I am thinking not so much but maybe somebody could come up with something valid from that.

How can there be a forest for the tree to fall in with no animal life?

I consider time and place to be the solution to that. Ie. even if fundamental laws of physics decayed in one direction or another for some reason you'd still be able to say that certain events happened prior, some after, some during, and yes - for truth in terms of forecasting we may never have that kind of knowledge or even capacity to be right 100% of the time but, universal truth isn't relative to our cognitive functioning unless it pertains to matters between us, even then all events between humans have a place and time, they're 1:1 events, and may even have very intricate emotions, understandings and misunderstandings, but what you have in any given instant is what you have in that instant. Hence - absolute truth is messy and highly complex but, its still absolute IMO.

Some statements are partial simply because it is not possible or practical to gather all the relevant facts. In that case one must make do with what one has.

ruveyn