[luke warm]

Winstonm, on May 16 2010, 03:17 PM, said:

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by the way, it's *still* absolutely true that something exists

We all thank you for that assertion*.

*The Appeal to Python Fallacy: Yes, it is. No, it isn't. Yes, it is.

who is this 'we' you speak of, kemo sabe? btw, it isn't an assertion, it's the truth... do you dispute it?

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and in bizzaro world, what do you call a statement that is not true

We call it.....a statement that is not true. What do you call it?

iow, a false statement... as i said, you made our case for us - of course everyone posting (except you) already knew that

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I would think so because it is true (but not absolutely true which is a meaningless phrase) that I'm a funny guy.  I amuse people.

you have been amusing in this thread, i'll give you that...

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No matter what you imply, no matter how hard you try to insult,  belittle, or embarrass, it does you no good because I long ago placed ego off limits to outside influences.  I don't care what you or anyone else thinks of me, either good or bad.

My mantra is: I'm O.K.  You, well, you can shoot for whomever.

i do believe you're the one trying to insult and belittle people, eh?

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This seems to me a reasonable place to leave it - mired in authentic frontier gibberish.

good to finally have agreement

[Winstonm]

I am not trying to be tricky with a definition, but clear. Is it pretty well agreed that absolute is defined by these two statemtents?

Wiktionary:

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absolute
"1.Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command."

Wikipedia:

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absolute
"The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence."

Can we agree on the following from the definitions: 1) Absolute must be free of any limitation or condition. 2) Absolute is a concept. So far, so good?

Then why isn't the following sound?

Absolute is a concept that must be free of any limitation or condition: as a concept, absolute can exist only as thought; minds are required for thought but minds have not always been in existence, and that limits absolute as to its possible length of existence, as well as showing a condition that applies to absolute that a mind is necessary in order to conceive of absolute. If there is a time limitation on, and condition required, then absolute cannot exist.

If no absolute can exist, then how can an absolute truth exist?

Just curious.

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on May 8 2010, 02:28 PM, said:

i was in a discussion on these forums concerning something similar... i stated that the laws of logic existed before man was around to name them (ie., the law of non-contradiction existed before man named it such)

I remember that. Genuine question because I know you believe your statement: how do you validate that an axiom - which is concept, which requires a biological brain to create - existed prior to the existence of a biological brain?

It is obvious you believe this to be the case so I am just asking. How can it be? You must have answered these questions for yourself. But what was the form of the axiom before it was thought and where did it reside? What mechanism moved it from where it existed in the universe into man's mind as thought?

Let me point out a contrary opinion about the reliability and infallability of axioms. I know you don't accept this, but axioms are only rules that provide a basis for a system of logic. There are thousands of systems of logic.

Banks have axioms. One of their axioms is: The money in any account belongs to the account holder.

No way to argue that. That is a true statement. No proof needed.

So tomorrow I can walk into any bank and say that I am the account holder for every account in the bank and I would like to withdraw all of my money now, and because the axiom is true, the bank would have to give me every dollar in every account - no verification, no proof.

When the cops arrive, the tellers can say, Hey, we were helpless. He held an axiom on us! We couldn't do nuthin'!

I know, yuk, yuk, yuk. Ain't I funny. I am, but that isn't the point. The point is that the bank's axiom is only the building block, the foundation, for a system of logic. The following blocks that build up the system require ID, account numbers, matching signatures, etc.

Axioms in and of themselves are meaningless. Their value lies only within a system of logic that uses those axioms as its foundation.

Why is it different for LNC and LEM? Why are they more true than: The money in any account belongs to the account holder? Why would the axioms called the Laws of Logic be more prone to predate man than the the axiom of the Law of Money in Accounts?

Or is it possible necessarily the case that the Law of Money in Accounts has also always existed?

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on May 18 2010, 08:07 PM, said:

I am not trying to be tricky with a definition, but clear.  Is it pretty well agreed that absolute is defined by these two statemtents?

Wiktionary:

Quote

absolute
"1.Loosed from any limitation or condition; uncontrolled; unrestricted; unconditional; as, absolute authority, monarchy, sovereignty, an absolute promise or command."

Wikipedia:

Quote

absolute
"The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence."

Can we agree on the following from the definitions: 1) Absolute must be free of any limitation or condition. 2) Absolute is a concept. So far, so good?

i am closer to this quote by way of definition, "What is absolutely true is always correct, everywhere, all the time, under any condition. An entity's ability to discern these things is irrelevant to that state of truth." - Steven Robiner

we seem to be running into the same problems as earlier when you wanted to equate truth with that which is only conceptual, not real... i do not accept this, and neither does anyone else who has posted here... to hasten understanding, is it your position that the statement 'something exists' does not denote an absolute truth? it is very hard to discuss (and impossible to debate) one who says, in effect, "what you're speaking of does not exist in reality so cannot be debated"

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Then why isn't the following sound?

Absolute is a concept that must be free of any limitation or condition: as a concept, absolute can exist only as thought; minds are required for thought but minds have not always been in existence, and that limits absolute as to its possible length of existence, as well as showing a condition that applies to absolute that a mind is necessary in order to conceive of absolute.  If there is a time limitation on, and condition required, then absolute cannot exist.

If no absolute can exist, then how can an absolute truth exist?

Just curious.

because only you accept that absolutes can exist, if at all, only as concepts

Winstonm, on May 18 2010, 09:10 PM, said:

luke warm, on May 8 2010, 02:28 PM, said:

i was in a discussion on these forums concerning something similar... i stated that the laws of logic existed before man was around to name them (ie., the law of non-contradiction existed before man named it such)

I remember that. Genuine question because I know you believe your statement: how do you validate that an axiom - which is concept, which requires a biological brain to create - existed prior to the existence of a biological brain?

imagine the earth before it was inhabited, use the proverbial primordial soup... now the principle of contradiction states that this primordial soup can't have both existed and not existed in the same way at the same time... are you saying that because there was nobody around to name it 'the principle of contradiction' that soup *could* exist and not exist in the same way at the same time? g. priest aside, a thing cannot not be that thing, at the same time and in the same way

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Banks have axioms.  One of their axioms is: The money in any account belongs to the account holder.

So tomorrow I can walk into any bank and say that I am the account holder for every account in the bank and I would like to withdraw all of my money now, and because the axiom is true, the bank would have to give me every dollar in every account - no verification, no proof.~~~

Why is it different for LNC and LEM?  Why are they more true than: The money in any account belongs to the account holder?  Why would the axioms called the Laws of Logic be more prone to predate man than the the axiom of the Law of Money in Accounts?

Or is it possible necessarily the case that the Law of Money in Accounts has also always existed?

winston, we are on the verge of traversing ground already covered... nobody, and many tried, could convince you that your errors were in fact errors then, and i'm sure nobody can now... suffice to say, your idea of axiom is simply wrong

[mike777]

Absolute truth?

What is that outside of a religious context?


I feel a tiny bit more comfortable with "universal" fact

I can even live with "self-evident" truth.

[helene_t]

Hi Winston,

I once got seriously annoyed by a polemic (in my view sophistic) text that argued that gravity did not exist before Newton. I thought they were somehow playing a word-game with the implicit definition of "gravity" and "exist", but couldn't quite nail it down.

Suppose we have archaeologic and historic evidence for the assertion that apples actually tended to fall to the ground even before Newton. We would apply the law of gravity to explain that. People back then would not. But gravity exists in retrospect, when we today make sense of history we will apply contemporary thinking and we are not worried about that the gravity was not thought of in the same way. We are discussing the history of falling apples, not the history of people's musings about falling apples.

So gravity always existed. Did the law of gravity exist as well? I always found it tricky to discuss existence of abstract concepts. The existence of an apple I can understand. But what does is mean for the law of gravity to exist? Does "to exist", in this context, mean "to be conceptualized", or does it mean "to apply"?

You could take this further and say that an apple is an abstract concept that didn't "exist" (wasn't conceptualized) before, well, someone could conceptualize it. What really existed was the atoms of which the apple is built. Wait, atoms are abstractions too, what really exists is superstrings or wave functions or something like that. Help! Nothing exists!

Back to truth. Any particular truth (say, that a particular apple feel to the ground) was true in the narrow sense that the apple actually fell to the ground. Obviously it wasn't thought of as embraced by some metaphysical concept of "truth". Heck, before visual animals reached a certain level of sophistication, even the fact that a simple apple fell to the ground wasn't perceived.

So did truth "exist"? I guess it depends on what you mean by "exist". And whether you mean particular truths, as opposed to "truth" as a metaphysical concept.

[Winstonm]

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i am closer to this quote by way of definition, "What is absolutely true is always correct, everywhere, all the time, under any condition. An entity's ability to discern these things is irrelevant to that state of truth." - Steven Robiner

That's fine. I appreciate seeing the definition.

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we seem to be running into the same problems as earlier when you wanted to equate truth with that which is only conceptual, not real... i do not accept this, and neither does anyone else who has posted here... to hasten understanding, is it your position that the statement 'something exists' does not denote an absolute truth? it is very hard to discuss (and impossible to debate) one who says, in effect, "what you're speaking of does not exist in reality so cannot be debated"

This is certainly accurate. Discussion of this sort is extremely dependent upon understanding of definitions - and everyone using the same ones. I again appreciate the straightforwardness of your statement that you do not accept that truth is only conceptual.

That solves a lot of the debate - you don't; I do Nothing much to talk about.

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Then why isn't the following sound?

Absolute is a concept that must be free of any limitation or condition: as a concept, absolute can exist only as thought; minds are required for thought but minds have not always been in existence, and that limits absolute as to its possible length of existence, as well as showing a condition that applies to absolute that a mind is necessary in order to conceive of absolute.  If there is a time limitation on, and condition required, then absolute cannot exist.

If no absolute can exist, then how can an absolute truth exist?

Just curious.


because only you accept that absolutes can exist, if at all, only as concepts

I agree that would have to be the flaw - but that really is a disagreement with the premise, isn't it? I was getting awfully confused before as the above argument seems well-reasoned and sound as long as the proposed definition was used.

I am not asking if you agree with the argument, but would it be considered sound if the premise was accepted that truth is concptual? (I am not trying to be tricky but simply find an answer. Thanks.)

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I remember that. Genuine question because I know you believe your statement: how do you validate that an axiom - which is concept, which requires a biological brain to create - existed prior to the existence of a biological brain?


imagine the earth before it was inhabited, use the proverbial primordial soup... now the principle of contradiction states that this primordial soup can't have both existed and not existed in the same way at the same time... are you saying that because there was nobody around to name it 'the principle of contradiction' that soup *could* exist and not exist in the same way at the same time? g. priest aside, a thing cannot not be that thing, at the same time and in the same way

I understand your point.

But what I am saying is that the LNC does not apply to the actual "existence" of the primordial soup because logic (and their axioms) cannot prove or disprove existence. What I am saying is that the soup existed regardless of LNC.

To illustrate my point, let's use something a little more concrete than primodial soup, OK? The moon.

We do not need the LNC to tell us if the moon exists or does not exist. The LNC gives us a concept of a method of resolvement by thought alone - by pure reasoning. It explains dichotomy, but does not create and cannot by itself prove what is correct, only that something or another is correct.

[Winstonm]

helene_t, on May 20 2010, 03:19 AM, said:

Hi Winston,

I once got seriously annoyed by a polemic (in my view sophistic) text that argued that gravity did not exist before Newton. I thought they were somehow playing a word-game with the implicit definition of "gravity" and "exist", but couldn't quite nail it down.

Suppose we have archaeologic and historic evidence for the assertion that apples actually tended to fall to the ground even before Newton. We would apply the law of gravity to explain that. People back then would not. But gravity exists in retrospect, when we today make sense of history we will apply contemporary thinking and we are not worried about that the gravity was not thought of in the same way. We are discussing the history of falling apples, not the history of people's musings about falling apples.

So gravity always existed. Did the law of gravity exist as well? I always found it tricky to discuss existence of abstract concepts. The existence of an apple I can understand. But what does is mean for the law of gravity to exist? Does "to exist", in this context, mean "to be conceptualized", or does it mean "to apply"?

You could take this further and say that an apple is an abstract concept that didn't "exist" (wasn't conceptualized) before, well, someone could conceptualize it. What really existed was the atoms of which the apple is built. Wait, atoms are abstractions too, what really exists is superstrings or wave functions or something like that. Help! Nothing exists!

Back to truth. Any particular truth (say, that a particular apple feel to the ground) was true in the narrow sense that the apple actually fell to the ground. Obviously it wasn't thought of as embraced by some metaphysical concept of "truth". Heck, before visual animals reached a certain level of sophistication, even the fact that a simple apple fell to the ground wasn't perceived.

So did truth "exist"? I guess it depends on what you mean by "exist". And whether you mean particular truths, as opposed to "truth" as a metaphysical concept.

Hi Helene,

Thanks for the comments.

Sure, real objects are also concepts in the mind. That is how language works. An apple is not only a concept of an apple but also an object in the universe. But when we are dealing with objects in the universe, we apply different standards to explain how they work rather than reason how they are "true". We do not say an apple is true. We explain how apples come to be. It is never proven that this is the only way for an apple to become - it is only one rational explanation that has not been falsified. It can be thought of as knowledge, but never as true.

We don't need logic to tell us the apple either exists or does not exist. We do not need logic to tell us that it cannot both be an apple and not an apple at the same time. We don't need logic to describe empirical data - we need logic to determine what is true or false about concepts.

Gravity existed before mankind named it gravity and before there was a "law". But there is empitical data that supports the conclusion - ancient light being bent as it traveled through space and time. Einstein hypothesized about this very event - observation proved Einstein to have made a rational explanation as to how the universe works. But he did not "prove" his explantion - the data supported his explanation - thus making the explanation rational.

Existence has to be defined to have a conversation about existence - as you point out, does thought exist or is it only concept?

I try to be consistent, at least. Exists=resolves to an object in the universe, a posteriori. All else=concept= a priori.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on May 19 2010, 08:56 PM, said:

Absolute truth?

What is that outside of a religious context?


I feel a tiny bit more comfortable with "universal" fact

I can   even live with "self-evident" truth.

Mike,

I have no problem with these descriptions. Of them all, I think self-evident truth is the best using common language understanding of the word truth.

For other purposes, I am of the opinion that "truth" requires a more precise definition.

[Winstonm]

Perhaps someone can tell me if the following is accurate?

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Equations and concepts are never explained. They are described. Equations are dynamically “descriptive”. An equation can conceptually describe the itinerary of a moving object in a curve. Equations can NEVER explain the reasons WHY the object went in that path. Only a Theory (explanation) can do this.

Math dynamically describes with quantifications. Only Theories explain why nature behaves the way it does.

[blackshoe]

It does not seem so to me.

[gwnn]

did Pi exist before humans began to do maths? or started baking? how about e before euler and ecstasy? how about a number that I just made up and I'm not telling anyone and will forget in 5 seconds?

[mike777]

Guys I think I discussed this issue long before.

Facts can be universal.....mind-independent: it would have obtained even if human beings had never existed.

Universality and mind-independence, then, are two important notions of "objectivity".

In addition we can discuss other notions. We can ask whether in addition to being mind-dependent a given fact is BELieF-dependent-does it depend on someone's believing it. OR we can even ask is a given fact...Society-dependent-could it only have obtained in the context of a group of human beings organized in a particular way?

[luke warm]

mike777, on May 21 2010, 07:33 PM, said:

In addition we can discuss other notions. We can ask whether in addition to being mind-dependent a given fact is BELieF-dependent-does it depend on someone's believing it. OR we can even ask is a given fact...Society-dependent-could it only have obtained in the context of a group of human beings organized in a particular way?

yes - but it would not then be universal

[Winstonm]

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Truth is the agreement of a premise or judgment with reality.

How do you define reality?

On a seperate note, how can a premise be true and consistent with reality if the condition set in the premise is that "it is possible"? Consistency with reality can only be maintained by consistency with the axioms that it either is or is not and cannot be both at the same time. "It is possible" is not consistent with those axioms.

It then follows that to maintain consistency with reality by following the axioms the premise must be worded that something either is possible or it is not possible, but the object of the premise is irrelevant as the axiomatic structure has been followed. According to the definition above, we could say it is true that it is either possible or not possible that invisible flying pink monkeys live in Central Park, but it cannot be true to say that it is possible that invisible flying pink monkeys live in Central Park, nor can it be true to say that invisible flying pink monkeys do liive in Central Park. So reality must be assumed to match the premise and therefore the premise is assumed to be true or else the statement is untrue. Therefore, if we do not know a fact to be true or false, there is no way to prove that fact true or false? So truth is assumed? It is never proven?

Well, that ought to speed up the criminal justice system.

[Winstonm]

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"What is absolutely true is always correct, everywhere, all the time, under any condition. An entity's ability to discern these things is irrelevant to that state of truth." - Steven Robiner

If absolute truth existed for all time and did not rely on any entity's ability to discern its properties then where and how did it occupy space in the universe, i.e., in what form did it exist and what form does it now hold?