Against the Absolute

I’m quite fond of arguing against the Platonist who holds notions of absolutes; whether those absolutes take the form of the essential character of God, or whether those absolutes take the form of logic, whose existence is natural and essential beyond and outside the normative character of the human.

What’s more, from the perspective of the atheist there’s a certain leap of faith that must be taken in order to even suggest that such a thing as absolute essence can exist. In this case the atheist will grant that, e.g. the Law of Non-Contradiction has some essential essence outside of the agreed upon contingent and/or temporal character of man. They may say that, even without mind, or for that matter without the sum total of existence itself the essence of these laws still hold. i.e. in the case of non-contradiction, nothing cannot both be nothing and not-nothing at the same time; thus this idea (thought experiment) becomes proof of some “transcendental” tautology. But then, of course, they’ve skewed the notion of tautology not simply to mean, “true for every possible interpretation”, but, “true for every possible circumstance”. This assumption being what it is, with a little Socratic questioning it always becomes apparent that no non-circular justification exists for this sort of thought, and thus the atheist is forced to admit a pre-supposition, or perhaps resort to a sort of “functional” argument”; which isn’t really proof of anything so much as it is a suggestion to grant something as true for the sake of some pragmatic functionality. That doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me.

My argument against absolutist thinking has always been to argue that truth is systematic, contingent, relative to a normative method of resolution. Further my insistence has been; there’s no reason to assume that outside human thought and cognition, that things necessarily are what we say they are. i.e. there’s no non-circular justification to suppose that Spruce trees are anything like Spruce trees outside of human cognition.

Now I’m not here to argue the things I’ve argued in the past as they can be found else where within my blog. What I’d rather like to do is highlight some interesting thoughts from Brandom’s “Making it Explicit”, that serve to bolster my previous thinking on the matter.

An interesting aspect which I’ve never bothered to argue is the whole idea that a person, or even a group of persons, can hold to certain beliefs that go completely against the laws of logic. They may be contradictory, question begging, etc.. Of course, this fly’s completely in the face of the idea that the Laws of Logic are in any way natural. If they were, then nature wouldn’t, indeed couldn’t, allow such an action to take place – one may be able to loosely see that this is analogous to suddenly, objects start falling to the sky. If we look at these, “coming to hold beliefs” from a naturalistic standpoint (and leave the rules and logic aside for a moment) we’ll see that:

(from “Making it Explicit” pg. 12)
“Such natural processes are no more true then false; they are simply processes, as an eddy in the water is a process. And if we are to speak of a right, it can only be the right of a thing to happen as they do happen. One phantasm contradicts another no more than one eddy on the water contradicts another. Contradiction, correct inference, correct judgment are all normative notions, not natural ones.”

So again, to place the Laws of Logic outside the human being as a sort of essence, is placing it in the realm of the natural. If this were true, however, it brings together two very distinct functions:
A.) The laws with which we actually draw inferences
B.) The laws of “correct” inference.
However, by bringing these two ideas together we could never, in fact, be wrong.

(from “Making it Explicit” pg. 12)
“What makes us so prone to embrace erroneous views is that we define the task of logic as the investigation of the laws of thought, whilst understanding by this expression something on the same footing as the laws of nature… So if we call them laws of thought, or, better, laws of judgment, we must not forget we are concerned here with laws which, like the principles of morals or the laws of the state, prescribe how we are to act, and do not, like the laws of nature, define the actual course of events.”

We haven’t yet sealed the deal here, but the idea is simple enough; that we should see the laws of logic, or correct inference, or leading to “right” conclusions in a normative sense. What is right, in terms of logic, is not the same as what is right with respect to causal compulsion. This distinction we should always bare in mind.

On Absolute Truth

Here is another Gem... (CLICK)

On Begging the Question

Matt was kind enough to point me to this little Gem of his... (CLICK)

Correspondence Theory and TAG

I'm going to beat this thing to death for sure.

It occurs to me now that Goobers transcendental argument for God (TAG) assumes that the nature of Truth follows the belief that it is a Correspondence with reality - which of course is a philosophy I dismiss. Now I often talk about correspondence, however not with reality, but within a paradigm of thought, a language game, a community.

If one makes the statement, then, that the laws of logic are absolute (as absolutism in this sense implies correspondence), it would have to then pre-suppose that the system we're using to mirror that reality is adequate to do so. In other words, prior to certainty, one must have a sense of 'a priori' certainty regarding the nature of the language and rules for logic that one’s using to reach that reality.

Goober (The Creationist and TAG’ist) was asked:
How do you know your senses or your extrasensory perception were[was] reliable prior to and at the time of your revelation?
(NOTE: Goober believes that without God, one cannot have certainty, however with God, one has certainty)

So I’d like to rephrase just what this question is getting at in by restating the above thoughts:
Again, If we say that we have reached [T]ruth, and for that matter certainty, when our perceptions (and how we reflect them in language using logic and reason) , have successfully mirrored those perceptions with reality; then the question above is trying to flesh out the following from Goober – How can one be certain that the pre-existing language game (system of logic and reason) was adequate to the task of mirroring reality? Part of Goober’s premise on the “proof that God exists” is the axiom that logic and reason are absolute, with no basis for this other then the statement, “Does absolute Truth exist?” Not only is this not a proof of anything (as has been already pointed put in previous posts), but it’s a mere pre-supposition in itself. In other words the first premise helps itself to assuming its own existence and begs the question – yet again, this is given as part of the premise; which is merely to call out something supposedly given.

Goober’s response was as follows (and is quite laughable):
"It’s a package deal :-D God reveals some things to us, such that we can know them for certain...”

It’s a package deal?!? Is he serious? Not only does one have to pre-suppose God in this argument (which is fine, don’t we all) but it pre-supposes the vary thing it uses as proof, BUT WAIT, it’s a PACKAGE DEAL.

Let me quote Rorty again: Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Pg. 318, 319:
“…The notion of knowledge as accurate representation lends itself naturally to the notion that certain sorts of representations, certain expressions, certain processes are “basic, “privileged”, and “foundational”. The criticisms of this notion which I have canvassed in the previous chapters are backed up with holistic arguments of the form: We will not be able to isolate basic elements except on the basis of a prior knowledge of the whole fabric within which these elements occur. Thus we will not be able to substitute the notion of “accurate representation” (element-by-element) for that of successful accomplishment of a practice. Our choice of elements will be dictated by our understanding of the practice, rather then the practice’s being “legitimated” by a “rational reconstruction” out of elements. This holist line of argument says that we shall never be able to avoid the “hermeneutic circle”…”

BUT WAIT:
Here Goober will respond, “A prior knowledge of the whole fabric within which these elements occur is a certainty granted by God; we don’t need this prior knowledge, God allows us to be certain of them.” (It’s a package deal, remember)

However this simply won’t do as the TAG argument goes from having premises which lead to a conclusion (God), to now beginning with and pre-supposing the conclusion as a means of validating the premise – and of course this horribly begs the question, it’s nonsense...

So the argument according to TAG becomes:
1.) God exists

(so what)

SIDE NOTE:
There’s another contradiction in the TAG line of reasoning which seems to arise out of the mixing and mingling of [T]ruth as correspondence with certainty as the result of a transcendental pre-supposition. In other words, by invoking a transcendental being as a means of certainty in one’s representations, it begs the further question as to how the transcendental being corresponds to reality beyond a mere subjective claim. This has the effect of blowing any evidence that we have adequate truths which correspond to reality completely out of the water along with the whole notion that we have certainty.

On the Invalidity of Absolute Truth

Yes, I'm debating with Sye again, bashing my head against the wall and wondering why. So here is a response to the invalidity of absolute truth that I thought was worth saving for the blog:

Refer to my original statement on absolute truth here:
SEE SYSTEMIC TRUTH HERE

[Sye],
Let me break this down in another way to show the flaw in your question, “Does Absolute Truth exist”, and further demonstrate for you how truth is systemic. I’d like to do this be looking at meanings and sentence structure. (I’ll take this slow)

First, let’s consider sentence structure:
Every sentence contains (or implies) two parts; a subject and a predicate. The predicate, or course, is what is said about the subject

EXAMPLE 1:
Consider this sentence,
“Do Hard Rocks exist?”
At first glance this seems like a reasonable question, and it is to a certain degree, however it can be easily simplified. As it stands, however, we have the subject, “Hard Rocks” and the predicate, “Exist”. The question then, is whether or not the predicate “exist” can be applied to the subject “Hard Rocks”.

But let’s simplify the question and rather ask:
“Are Rocks Hard?”
Let me take a step back though and explain why I’m simplifying the question. In the previous sentence, “Hard Rocks” was my subject, however we’d all agree before hand that “hardness” exists, and we’d all agree before hand that “rocks” exist, furthermore, proof (correspondingly) can be offered as to the reality of each. As a result, the question isn’t whether or not “Hard Rocks” exist, (or better put, whether or not “exist” is a valid predicate to “Hard Rocks”), rather the real question is whether or not the predicate “Hard” is valid when applied to the subject “Rocks”. Of course the obvious answer to the question (which we’d all give), is yes, the predicate “Hard” certainly does apply to subject “Rocks”. The key again being, that we understand before hand and can prove by itself the reality of both subject and predicate.

FACTORING:
Now, let me take this even slower; what I’ve done here in reducing the question is what they refer to in mathematics as “Factoring”. In other words in the sentence, “Do Hard Rocks exist?” we’re actually calling into question this statement: “Do (Hard+exist)+(Rocks+exist)=exist Yes?” So, all I’ve done with the question “Are Rocks Hard?” is factor out the “exist” to come up with, “Are Rocks Hard? Yes.” as we all agree in the application of the predicate hard to the subject rock, and furthermore that they both exist on their own. .

EXAMPLE 2:Lets look at another question,
“Do Windy Rocks exist?”
Once again we can factor out exist from this question and simply say, “Are Rocks Windy?” and ask whether or not the predicate “Windy” applies to “Rocks”. Of course I don’t need to answer that question as we’d all correspondingly agree that rocks are in fact not windy.

EXAMPLE 3:
Now, lets look at your question,
“Does Absolute Truth exist?”
I take it by now that you see your underlying flaw in logic, but if not, let’s proceed.

Asking the question in this way assumes that we can factor “exist” from both “Absolute” and “Truth” as if we all agreed to the reality and existence of both. But there are two huge problems here which lie in the questions, “What is absolute?” and “What is Truth?” and furthermore do either of them exist on their own in such a way that to ask the question, “Does Absolute Truth exist?” make sense?

So in order to predicate Truth with Absolute by asking the question, “Is Truth Absolute?”, we need to agree and establish before hand that both are A.) Valid as a subject and predicate – by - B.) Establishing that both have a reality by themselves.

SEE SYSTEMIC TRUTH HERE
I’ve already established in my original premise what truth is, so I won’t belabor the point except to say that, it’s only propositions that are true. In other words, things in and of themselves are not true as they do not by themselves carry the property truth; it’s only what we say about objects which are either true or false. In yet another way, truth exists in the instance we find that a proven predicate applies to a given/proven subject. Void of propositions then, there is no truth – at any rate you can see my original premise on Systemic Truth.

Let’s now look at Absolute then:
In order to establish the validity of your question/proposition, we must establish (outside of rhetorical space) the validity and existence of the word Absolute. Again, lets start by being simple. Absolute is of course a word we use (albeit rhetorically) in everyday speech; one might ask, “You wanna go to lunch?” and I may respond, “Absolutely!” and of course we can all see how this response is a rhetorical one, as, I may not even be able to go, I may not go, and maybe I will go. We can create an analog to this statement with the proclamation, “I’ve been here forever!”, again, this is a rhetorical statement.

Of course we all use phrases like, “Forever”, “Infinity”, and “Absolute”, and in our everyday speech these are no doubt rhetorical statements. In mathematics (for example) we have the theoretical notion of “Infinity”, however the reality of such a case could never be proven, likewise with the notion of “Forever” (unless one can prove otherwise). So it’s obvious then, that we need to substantiate the validity of the notion “Absolute” prior to being able to apply it as a valid predicate to a given subject; and this is why the statement/proposition/question, “Does absolute truth exist?” doesn’t make sense.

In light of this we know that (in the same way we can surmise about infinity) for something to be absolute if must fulfill the following criteria which I’ve already established in my original question, (which is):

Lets first recall that for something to be absolute it must :
1.) Exist Independently
2.) Exist not in relation to other things
3.) Exist not relative to other things
4.) Be true for every possible circumstance

The Question:
A.) State a truth/law that you consider absolute.
B.) Demonstrate for us how that truth/law satisfies 1 – 4 above.
C.) Show how that truth/law is not “Systemic”

Further more then, in order to ask in honest fashion the question, “Does absolute truth exist?” we must first establish the validity of “Absolute” by demonstrating it as asked above, otherwise what’s being stated is merely a rhetorical question that, where-as it may exist as a seemingly logical question, does not have existence in reality. In other words, (as it’s rhetorical) its existence is only conceptual (theoretical) until it’s shown that absolute has existence outside of that.

With that, Sye, I believe you have a proof to give; and whereas it may be tempting to merely defer to the question, “Is what you say absolutely true?” I believe I’ve clearly shown that the BURDON OF PROOF is clearly in your court.

So lets have it….

A Response to Bill on Religion and Absolutism

PREFACE: This doesn't make sense [necessarily] in the context of what exists here. I'm posting it simply as a response to another discussion I'm having. Furthermore, it's not meant to be a complete idea, it's not self contained and argued for, it's contentious and makes some assumptions. It's writen as a response to a Friend I've been having a discussion with, and he doesn't like his thoughts out in the open.

Ok look, once again I’m not saying that rocks are not rocks, or that bikes are not bikes, or that water is not wet, or that 4 apples are not 4 apples; all I’m saying is that, relative to us, the truth as we know it in those matters is not absolute, it’s systemic.

It’s Systemic because, in order for something to be true as we know true requires a “system of proof”; to prove, it needs a “means of decision”, a “method of resolution”, a way of coming to a conclusion that something is true. This method must exist before the truth in order to prove that it’s true.

At this point I feel that you’re making the fundamental flaw of mistaking the finger for the moon. That is you’re placing your notion of truth as being an object of existence outside the mind. But truth and existence don’t exist outside mind, they’re nothing more then words which point to certain aspects of finite human experience.

In this way if I say something like, “millions of years ago when T-rex roamed the earth there were hard rocks on the surface of the planet just as there are today.” All I’m saying is that, had humans existed in the capacity they do today, with the same thoughts ideas and language, they/we, would experience rocks which we’d call hard. So in this way truth is systemic.

However, outside the human mind there is no truth, there is no existence; to say that there is is to make a Systemic statement of truth relative to you being there. What rocks are outside human perception is not something we can ever know; after-all, we cannot know things as they are in themselves, we can only know things insofar as we have the sensibility and/or perceptibility to do so. To assume that things are exactly as we perceive them void of mind is nothing more then a belief, not a truth, because we can’t prove it.

Things may exist, and things may be true in some way or another outside of mind (human mind) but it can hardly be assumed that they do in such a way as we perceive it. In this way things are not simply what they are, they are what they seem to be… to us, as we exist and perceive things.

Now, the problem arises when (for example) people apply notions of absolute truth in every day life, as in religion. Some people believe that the bible is absolutely true, and further more represents examples of absolute morality. Truth, once again, has existence only propositionally as in, “this car is red.” You cannot say, “car is true.” Because of course objects don’t carry the property truth. That a car is red (or has color) is nothing more then a method of differentiating things in the world relative to our perception of it and based on it’s usefulness. That is, we don’t tend to make differentiations where it’s not useful to do so. For example, it’s been said that Eskimos have double digit names for the color white, where we (in the south) have just one (so are they seeing something we’re not?) . What we ultimately call something, (in this case the red car) is completely arbitrary linguistically; we could have called it anything, but we agreed and have been socially programmed to call things by certain names and identify certain aspects of human experience in certain ways.

So then, back to religion; let me start with an example I’ve used before. Let’s suppose I say to a certain individual who knows nothing about religion, Christianity, god (say someone in Siberia), “The devil has control of my life.” He wouldn’t know what the fck I was talking about. However, if I said that to a fellow christian here in states, they’d have a pretty good idea what I was trying to say. That is, I don’t have control over my impulses as they relate to my “sinful” nature; where of course sinful nature has been identified with certain biological impulses and debaucherous behavior as identified in the bible.

Now at this point we’re all fine and good, we’re just talking, we’re communicating and as Christians we understand each other. The problem arises with the anomaly in that sentence, which of course is the devil. Christians, with they’re notions of absolute, would like to think that the devil actually represents some physical and/or objective thing that exists in some other worldly transcendental realm, and not just a figure of speech (it exists absolutely outside the mind). Likewise with God and what the whole of the bible says about morality; that all these things are absolute and if you don’t communicate in such ways (and have belief backed by those words), then you’re wrong, you’re going to hell, and you’re a bad person.

But once again, all we’re talking about is words here, words that simply represent human experience. What difference does it make what words I use? The difference is, even though certain fundies believe in the absolute nature of they’re beliefs, they’re using those beliefs in a pragmatic [practical] way, to serve an end; in many cases this end is a socio political one. That is, religion is useful at creating a society which is a homogenous whole, but as we go on, people get fcked up along the way and start to mistake the practical ways with which they speak to be an absolute truth of the way of things. But his isn’t so at all, clinging to old forms of thought (where-as it’s useful to retain the strength of old) is futile in the long run and leads to war and persecution.

Think about it in this way, religion (as language and ways of speaking about the world relative to spirituality) has never changed. Science changes everyday; what we once thought was true 100 years ago we no longer think is true today. This isn’t because our experience of the world has necessarily changed, it’s because old forms of thought are no longer useful in dealing with the new problem we’re continually faced with… That’s evolution. When science changes, no body bats an eye, nobody cries, no body frets, we shrug our shoulders and say, look at this new stuff we know, and move on. But when one tries to change the absolute notions of religion, people pull they’re guns out. The reason people question it so much today, is that it’s simply no longer adequate in it’s current form to deal with the problems people face today relative to the new ways in which see and speak about the world. What we need are new myths and new religions and/or a transformation of old myths and religion. Furthermore we need an understanding of what underlies these things, which is not absolutism; in this way, our religions can evolve, (metamorphose) along with our culture and avoid any dogmatic hangups and mistaking fingers for moons.

The other issue is that science and religion deal fundamentally with 2 difference aspects of the human condition, (they’re not necessarily compatible) yet they continually argue against each other for absolute superiority. Part of this is due to the fact that at one time there was no difference between religious truth and scientific truth; however as science started measuring the world and changing, (evolving), talking about truth in different ways, religion stayed the same and now exists in dogma. Spirituality is lost among many people because science has pulled us all away from it to the obvious fault of our dogmatic religious culture of absolute idealism.

But again, there is no absolute truth, no ultimate right or wrong; what is good, and what is not good, need anyone tell us these things? The issue is that people ultimately seek that truth from these absolute sources and get lost in the lingo, they mistake the finger for the moon and then the slaughter begins. As apposed to simply coming up with new forms of thought and speech to meat the current needs.