01-18-2006, 10:16 AM | #721 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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"everything" is a general concept and construct in the english language... when you say something like "everything is relative", what it applies to is implied by the context in which you use it... it goes without saying (or should ) that it does not apply to something with a pre-defined ruleset like mathmatics humans define the whole universe of what we call "addition", so we can claim absolutes... we can not define or even perceive the entirety of what we call "reality", so we can not claim absolutes about it
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 10:27 AM | #722 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 10:33 AM | #723 | |
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 11:32 AM | #724 |
Elf Lord
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You're only talking about human error, brownjenkins. It's like the scripture that says, "We look in the mirror darkly," and then adds that in heaven we shall see clearly. This doesn't mean that science does not present absolutes, or that faith or other means do not. It merely means that we human beings make mistakes, and so our judgment about things is often flawed in various ways.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
01-18-2006, 11:39 AM | #725 | |
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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01-18-2006, 12:53 PM | #726 | |
Elf Lord
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Start a revolution dude! Arbitrarily re-define 1 +1 to = 3. Then apply your standard to the universe and see if it holds. Should work given your argument that 1+1=2 is a merely human construct and can be altered at will. (I think we'd use base 9 if Frodo's post-Mt Doom digits were the standard!) Relativists of the World, Unite. Throw off the shackles of reality and make 1 +1 = 3 ! It does have a certain cachet, BJ. . . . . . . . of inanity, that is.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
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01-18-2006, 01:24 PM | #727 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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our judgement about things is always flawed to some degree (unless we define all the parameters, as in mathematics)... a scientific example: i assume you know about visible light being a very small portion of what we define as "light"... modern observation has allowed us to extend the spectrum very far on both sides of what we call the visible spectrum (roygbiv) to gamma, x-rays, ultraviolet, etc. to someone in the 16th century "light" was red to violet... it was the "absolute" definition of it... we learned much later that this very visible part was actually a very small part of the entire force we call "light" and it is not beyond comprehension that "light" actually extends even further than what we currently understand, we just can not perceive any more... this is not an error on our part, but a limitation in our ability to percieve the world around us completely... we don't see "everything" and, due to our limitations, what we casually call absolutes are only absolute as far as we know
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 01:41 PM | #728 | |
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i'd say that human existance is much more complex... most point of views fall within the grey areas... opinions differ and the "validity" of a given opinion is decided by the results of that opinion upon society as a whole... not upon some arbitrary "absolute" i had the discussion with RĂ*an a good while back when she claimed that something like "thou shalt not kill" is an absolute... i mentioned that we actually qualify that statement all the time, be it in war or to execute criminals... she mentioned that it really meant "thou shalt not murder" or, in other words, kill without good reason well then what's "good reason"? it seems like an awfully relative term to me... if we invade a country that has attacked us we must kill, but it is to defend ourselves... but what if some inhabitants fight back and kill us, some just rural civilians who have no real concept of the big picture behind the conflict, are they not also defending themselves? and what if the original attack upon us was motivated by fear (rational or not) that they were in danger of being attacked by us if they did not strike first? the point, "good reason" is very relative, so even a seemingly obvious "absolute" like "thou shalt not kill" breaks down in practice... this does not mean it is completely invalid... it's actually very good advice most of the time, as long as it is understood that it is a relative, not absolute, concept
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 03:24 PM | #729 | |
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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01-18-2006, 03:31 PM | #730 | ||
Friendly Neigborhood Sith Lord
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the symbols are irrelevant it doesn't matter what symbols you use, you could write it out: one plus one equals two you can use roman numerals
I + I =II, the symbols are irrelevant I assume whoever brought up this expression was making the point that the principle of one number added to another number is always the same result i.e an absolute, whether that example happens to be 1+1=2 or 10+10=20 is the utmost of irrelevancy (is that a word?) edit: this debate was funny for the first two pages but now ya'll have been repeating the same thing for half a page and its not as much fun to read anymore.
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Last edited by rohirrim TR : 01-18-2006 at 03:33 PM. |
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01-18-2006, 04:22 PM | #731 | |
Elf Lord
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Truth is self-existent. It is absolute. So glad you agree. I suspect we still disagree that "it" is a Person?
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
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01-18-2006, 04:54 PM | #732 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 04:57 PM | #733 |
Elf Lord
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I know the sensation, BJ, I know.
But some people are simply constructed so as to have spent-uranium casings around their brains. We can only pray that the neutrinos enlighten them in the deep, dark recesses of their constructs.
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
01-18-2006, 05:08 PM | #734 | ||||
Elf Lord
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If I am in the bank, I'm not at home. My judgment about this fact is not flawed. If I am drinking Hot Chocolate, I am not drinking Minute Maid (though there may be some chemical similarities, these drinks are not chemically identical). So yes, these things are only absolute as far as I know. For all I know, I might be in the Matrix, and "tasty wheat might really taste like oatmeal or porridge." However, I am not necessarily in the Matrix. It might be an absolute that Minute Maid is not the same as Hot Chocolate.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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01-18-2006, 05:12 PM | #735 | |
Quasi Evil
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
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01-18-2006, 05:14 PM | #736 |
An enigma in a conundrum
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Absolut Vodka is the only absolute I subscribe to.
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
01-18-2006, 05:16 PM | #737 | |
An enigma in a conundrum
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have you checked out the mathmatical decimals of Pi lately?
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Vizzini: "HE DIDN'T FALL?! INCONCEIVABLE!!" Inigo: "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." |
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01-18-2006, 05:28 PM | #738 |
Quasi Evil
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Well if hes in there somehwere we are gonna need a super computer the size of texas to find him.
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"People's political beliefs don't stem from the factual information they've acquired. Far more the facts people choose to believe are the product of their political beliefs." "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." |
01-18-2006, 06:11 PM | #739 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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but concepts like "good" and "evil" are another story... you can not touch "evil" like you can your tongue... the word in and of itself is defined by the person who uses it... there is no universal (i.e. absolute) definition of "evil"... sure, there are situations that most will agree on... but, like my "thou shalt not kill" example above, there are many grey areas... and even cases where people on opposite sides of a conflict will both define themselves as "good" while calling the other side "evil" to put it simply... no human will debate whether or not you have a tongue, thus, you can say it is absolute... but people debate good and evil all the time... and the very fact that it can be debated rationally, shows that it is not absolute
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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01-18-2006, 06:25 PM | #740 | |
Elf Lord
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Inked "Aslan is not a tame lion." CSL/LWW "The new school [acts] as if it required...courage to say a blasphemy. There is only one thing that requires real courage to say, and that is a truism." GK Chesterton "And there is always the danger of allowing people to suppose that our modern times are so wholly unlike any other times that the fundamental facts about man's nature have wholly changed with changing circumstances." Dorothy L. Sayers, 1 Sept. 1941 |
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