What are the absolutes

[hades]

Ok, so give it to me straight

what are the absolute truths, and how do you know they are true

[Blair]

It's already been given to you as straight as it gets.

[hades]

Id like them listed with purely logical arguments supporting them, ones that do not appeal to empiricism and sense-data

[Blair]

Id like them listed with purely logical arguments supporting them

Pfft, you are likely to be waiting forever then. You have been presented with pure logic, it's your own flawed logic system that is getting in the way of understanding what has been said to you.

[hades]

if you don't know them and can't support them logically, don't bother replying thanks :D

[LooF]

Absolute truth is everything


are you in college?

[hades]

Absolute truth is everything


are you in college?

can you be any more vague?


not in college

[Nick]

Hades, if you honestly want to discern for yourself the Truth, try approaching it in a different way. I get the impression that you are taking the knowledge given to you and trying pick it apart. Doing this will only lead you to ask endless questions that will only lead to more questions. Instead of trying to tear apart the knowledge, try putting it together. Once you have done this take a step back and look at it. If it looks good, then you can make it your knowledge.

[hades]

oh oh, i detect insecurity and perhaps..uncertainty



>_<

[sevens]

In my most humblest of opinions:

I do concur,

That, in order to understand the full scope of what the enlightened experience is all about! You must attack at will:

In particular order,

Cause & Effect -> All is Illusion -> A = A -> Emptiness -> Ego Death ->

and, anD, aND, AND!

love.

7

[Nick]

oh oh, i detect insecurity and perhaps..uncertainty



>_<

Your detection is wrong.

[hades]

oh oh, i detect insecurity and perhaps..uncertainty



>_<

Your detection is wrong.

prove me wrong

[sschaula]

what are the absolute truths, and how do you know they are true

Something that is an absolute truth is something which could never be shown to be false. There are some truths which can be debated, like if you told someone how you really felt. It can be debated because no one knows what you're actually feeling or thinking, and it could be argued that even you don't know those things...your subconscious could be influencing you to believe your own lies about your feelings. So in a sense, telling someone your honest feelings about something is true, but not absolutely true.

A good example of an absolute truth is existence. Things exist. The world exists, in some true form. There's no way to refute that sensibly. Someone could say, "Yeah well nothing exists", but it wouldn't hold any ground since that person is obviously saying that. Something has to exist in order to make the observation that nothing exists.

There are other absolute truths as well, such as the emptiness of all things (which is where people come up with the idea that nothing exists...a misinterpretation). This can be figured out just by contemplating the nature of one thing, like a tennis ball (the tennis ball is an example my philosophy professor in college used). If you think about the shape, it isn't always exactly the same. Each ball is different, yet somehow they're all tennis balls. The deeper you contemplate the idea, the deeper you'll understand that there isn't a tennis ball, or that it's a very loose term.

I should stop trying to describe that thought process though, since I'm not great at it. I think one of the resident geniuses would be better.

And to answer the second part of your question: you know something is absolutely true when you reason that it'd be impossible to disprove it. Yes your mind is powerful enough to do that. A lot of people hide the truth from themselves for some reason, thinking that logic can't prove anything...when in fact it's the only way to prove anything.

Keep thinking, hades.

[sschaula]

I just found this posted in another thread. It has more insight into the idea of emptiness...

http://members.optushome.com.au/davidqu ... adanta.htm

[hades]

what are the absolute truths, and how do you know they are true

Something that is an absolute truth is something which could never be shown to be false.

Bullshit. Somethings aren't falsifiable, this doesn't make them true at all.

Maybe if it can't be proven false then it is false or irrelevant.

[sschaula]

You are right, like "unicorns exist". You can't prove it false unless you searched the entire realm of existence looking for a unicorn. Unicorns may exist!

But do you really believe in unicorns?

[sschaula]

Also, you CAN say that any true statement could be false. You are allowed to say that...but sometimes it doesn't mean anything (like my example about a person denying the existence of things).

It's logically impossible to deny existence since existence must be there for you to deny it. The argument cancels itself out.

If it doesn't make sense to you just say so, and I'll actually write something good which will include quotes from other philosophers.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Somethings aren't falsifiable, this doesn't make them true at all.

There's a difference between something which isn't currently falsifiable (life on Venus, unicorns) and something which is never to be falsified in all universes under all conditions in all times, because of a more fundamental constrain in how our ability for any kind of knowledge works.

[Nick]

oh oh, i detect insecurity and perhaps..uncertainty



>_<

Your detection is wrong.

prove me wrong

Tell me why you detected insecurity and uncertainty, and I will tell you why you are wrong.

[hades]

oh oh, i detect insecurity and perhaps..uncertainty



>_<

Your detection is wrong.

prove me wrong

Tell me why you detected insecurity and uncertainty, and I will tell you why you are wrong.

oh this is great

you are asking me to give you reasons to support your baseless "detection"

How about this, everyone was simply dodging or running circles around the question, no one provided these "absolutes" or logical proofs to support them...mmmmkay?

[Nick]

I made no detection.

[David Quinn]

Diebert wrote:

Hades: Somethings aren't falsifiable, this doesn't make them true at all.

Diebert: There's a difference between something which isn't currently falsifiable (life on Venus, unicorns) and something which is never to be falsified in all universes under all conditions in all times, because of a more fundamental constrain in how our ability for any kind of knowledge works.

I'm not sure I understand that last bit there.

There is also a difference between those empirical theories which cannot be falsified because it is intrinsically impossible to gather the required evidence and those logical truths which are intrinsically impossible to falsify, either through empirical or logical means.

An example of the former would be, "Three-headed, purple unicorns used to live in the universe that existed before the big bang". It is impossible for us to go back before the last big bang and verify whether this statement is true or not, and so, for all intents and purposes, it is intrinsically unfalsifiable.

But the statement is also intrinsically impossible to affirm as well. It can neither be affirmed nor falsified, neither proved nor disproved. Because of this, it cannot have the status of an absolute truth. Rather, it is likely to remain for all eternity as unresolved speculation.

-

[David Quinn]

In fact, it will remain for all eternity as unresolved speculation because even if we were able to construct a time machine and travel back to the previous universe and even if we did see three-headed, purple unicorns there, we still wouldn't be able to dismiss the possibilty that they were hallucinations of some kind.

This means that it is intrinsically impossible for science and empirical observation to falsify anything at all.

To grasp this truth is to go against the entire belief-system of the modern intellectual establishment, which asserts that while science cannot prove anything with any certainty, it is capable of disproving things. Karl Popper was one of the first intellectuals to promote this view and it has since become accepted gospel within the community at large, even though it is fiction.

There is an interesting discussion in Genius News about this issue: The Impotence of Science

-

[Diebert van Rhijn]

An example of the former would be, "Three-headed, purple unicorns used to live in the universe that existed before the big bang". It is impossible for us to go back before the last big bang and verify whether this statement is true or not, and so, for all intents and purposes, it is intrinsically unfalsifiable.

It's falsifiable because it could be proven that this (currently speculative) universe cannot exist. If the existence of such universe could be proven, then the door is open to prove or disprove at least in theory more attributes of such construct, like life processes. Why are you so sure this kind of research is impossible in the future?

The absolute that there's one Totality would logically mean that even the suggested separate universes would still have causes outside themselves, and these might be investigated somehow, leading to a bit of knowledge about the possibilities of these other universes.

It can neither be affirmed nor falsified, neither proved nor disproved. Because of this, it cannot have the status of an absolute truth. Rather, it is likely to remain for all eternity as unresolved speculation.

Likely for all eternity? You mean you're not absolutely certain it will remain unresolved? This contradicts the first sentence (it can neither be affirmed nor falsified). If you'd be absolutely certain however, you'd have given its uncertainty a status of absolute truth, based on what?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This means that it is intrinsically impossible for science and empirical observation to falsify anything at all.

Which is what I thought I was saying in my original post: there's a difference between falsifying in the emperical or mathematical realm, and in the realm of the absolute.