Is there a Universal Good and Evil?

[MeDeFe]

This needs a bump, oh, and an answer from daddy1gringo, too.

[daddy1gringo]

This needs a bump, oh, and an answer from daddy1gringo, too.

Sorry, been busy, I'l get to it. Yes I know I've posted on a couple other threads, but those posts didn't take so much mental energy.

[MeDeFe]

I thought you might be missing it since it had been thrown off page 1.

[daddy1gringo]

ok, first of all the definitions

Logical Value (technical term)
Statements have a logical value, 'true' or 'false', according to fuzzy logic there can also be other values but I'm not going into that, mainly because I have next to no knowledge of that particular field. 'True' essentially means that the statement correctly describes facts or that it is logically correct or both. It depends a little on what kind of statement one is dealing with and how complex it is. 'False' means that the statement does not or is not.

Entity (technical term)
The word 'Entity' encompasses several words of everyday language. Entity can mean a thing that exists in reality, a fictional thing that does not have a material existence at all, a property that a thing can have or even a process.


When I say that a statement must not refer to any external factors in order to be absolute I mean exactly what I say, I cannot think of any good way of making it clearer. As soon as a statement refers to any entity that is outside of the statement it is no longer absolute according to the Chambers definition I used, because then its logical value depends on factors that are not "controlled" (for lack of a better word) by the statement.

This should also explain why I ignored your exclusions of statements to which there are exceptions or which contain, as you put it, relative words like 'tall' that beg the question "Compared to what?" The examples you gave were already not absolute but they relate to entities, with a "real existence" (your words again) even.

Ok, that’s my point. According to what you say here, the statement “Jack is tall” can’t be said to be true or false except in relation to what you call an outside entity which has not been named in the statement, for example the height of some other person or some particular average (all humans, or male humans, or Americans, etc.). So when I said that according to my definition, the “absolute” statement could NOT be like this, I was making it more specific than just “independent of people’s emotions.” It also had to be independent of such an outside entity. I referred to this as being “relative”. An absolute statement, as I have been defining it from the begining, is not relative.

Statements like “[all] car bodies are made of metal” (your example, the "all" is my addition) can at best be said to be universal since it refers to all car bodies, or at least implies that it refers to all car bodies since the statement does not specify to which specific (type(s) of) car bodies it does not refer.

Here also, the absence of the “all” was my point. “ALL car bodies are made of metal” has a shot at being an absolute statement. You used the word "universal"; fine. If I can show you a car body that is made mostly out of fiberglass, as I have heard the Corvettes and Firebirds were around 1970, then the statement is proven false. If you leave out the “ALL”, as I deliberately did, since car bodies are generally made of metal, you could still say the statement is true, AS “a general statement with exceptions.” If my child asks me "what are car bodies made of," I could answer "metal," and I would be telling the truth, generally, although there are exceptions. This is the other type of statement I was excluding from my definition of “absolute.”

So I ask again, since my definition of an “absolute statement” is NOT just “independent of people’s emotions”, but is further specified by these two exclusions, making it pretty close to, if not exactly, your definition of "absolute", do you still want to agree that according to my definitions, my original thesis is true? To wit: “Some absolute truth (not subjective, not relative, and without exception) must exist, because if you assert that no such truth exists, you put forth your assertion as just such an absolute truth, negating your own statement."

[daddy1gringo]

Bump.

It's been in the wilderness so long, just wanted to make sure you didn't miss it, MeDeFe.

[daddy1gringo]

Bump again

[daddy1gringo]

Are you old enough to remember the 70's when "the Bump" was the big dance craze?

[daddy1gringo]

This time I resisted the temptation to bump until it hit pg. 2

[daddy1gringo]

Since I need to bump this again, here’s 2 things I was going to discuss in my last real post, but left out.

Thanks for the explanation of "real existence" and "existence as a concept". I think it's clear from the definition of 'entity' I gave you that we will differ widely here as well. I probably would not say that 'XYZ' exists as a concept, instead I would say that a concept of 'XYZ' exists. Leaving open if 'XYZ' itself exists. An example would be ghosts (I already used this one), there are several concepts of ghosts and what they are, however, this does not mean that ghosts exist. The same applies to 'absolute truth', a concept of absolute truth can exist (in fact we're trying to establish a concept that both of us can work with at this point in this very discussion) but that does not mean that absolute truth itself exists.

1. Once again, with regard to, to use your terminology, the existence of a thing or the mere existence of the concept of that thing, what you are saying here to dismiss it is, I think, exactly the point I was trying to make. Because, as you said, saying “the concept of xyz exists” leaves open the question of whether xyz itself exists, it is important to distinguish which one we are talking about with regard to the statement “There are no absolute truths.” We know that the concept of an absolute truth exists, because you and I are discussing what qualities it does and does not have, as in my example of a well described fictional character. But if only the concept exists, that does not satisfy the logic of my original thesis: that its existence negates the assertion that no such thing exists. It is all made more complicated because a statement is an abstract thing, rather than concrete, but what I am saying is that the statement “there is no absolute truth”, being a specific statement, and not a general idea of what that statement would be like, does fulfill that logic, and negate the assertion.

2. The example of ghosts is perhaps not such a good one since there are many people who believe that they do exist and that they can prove it, so postulating their non-existence is problematic. I also believe they do not exist, but not in the same way that I suppose you do. Although I would agree with you that many, if not most “ghost” experiences are hoaxes or the products of hysterical imaginations, I believe some are actual experiences with the supernatural, though they are not what they purport to be. They are not the left-over spirits of deceased people, but demonic apparitions purporting to be so in order to deceive those willing to believe it into seeking their answers about spiritual things somewhere, anywhere, other than God and his word. I do not claim to be able to prove that to you. It is based on certain other beliefs that we do not share. Just wanted to set the record straight.

[MeDeFe]

I had no internet access for a few days, but I'm working on a reply, no worries mate.

[daddy1gringo]

Just wanted to make sure you noticed that my 9/24 post, about existence and ghosts, was not the main post. There's one from 9/22, before all the bumps, that deals with the primary issues.

[MeDeFe]

I noticed

[daddy1gringo]

I have shown that it is possible to refer to things that are imaginary. I will argue that absolute truth is such a thing. You, who argue that it does exist will have to prove it, ...

Looking back on the course of the debate, I think I'd better move the issue in my supplemental post about existence of the concept of something vs. existence of the thing itself to a primary issue. It seems that in this post from 26 August, 7:21, Page 11, you are trying to say that even in the situation I’m describing, where someone says “There is no absolute truth” it is only the concept of an absolute truth that exists and not the thing itself. It’s not that I assert that absolute truth itself exists, but that the speaker is actually using a real statement, and s/he is treating it as an absolute truth: neither nether subjective, nor relative, and without exceptions, such that s/he can say that s/he is right and I wrong.

Also, I don't think we actually differ substantively on the underlying concept, just that we express it in different ways. When I say that X exists as a concept but has no real existence, I think that means the same thing as when you say that the concept of X exists, but X itself does not. I have been using your terminology for the sake of clarity.

This clarification may not be necessary but I felt like bumping the thread from pg 3

[MeDeFe]

ok, first of all, sorry for taking so long, though in my defense I can say that I only came back from my holiday trip the 24th August, was pretty busy during the weekend with the chess club and giving blood and stuff, then I started working the 27th, had a fever on Friday which luckily had disappeared by Saturday again. But here we go.



I reread your three recent posts and it seems that we’re still not clear on the terminology. Where to start… This post will be a patchwork of things I wrote over the last week and things I’m writing just now, I hope it will not be too jumbled and at least have some semblance of coherence. The terms 'entity' and 'logical value' are not something I made up. Not every dictionary will list the philosophical definitions I gave, but you should be able to find them, fairly easily if you want to.
Anyway:

Note that there's a difference between "relative" as you have been using it, meaning that two things are compared and one can be said to be e.g. taller or heavier or prettier or whatever than the other, and "relate to" and "in relation to" as I have been using related words (pun intended, linguistic joke) when I say that a sentence relates to external entities, meaning that the sentence contains one or more words that refer to things that are not themselves contained within the sentence, the way “tree” refers to, well, trees, for example.

According to what you say here, the statement "Jack is tall" can’t be said to be true or false except in relation to what you call an outside entity which has not been named in the statement, for example the height of some other person or some particular average (all humans, or male humans, or Americans, etc.). So when I said that according to my definition, the "absolute" statement could NOT be like this, I was making it more specific than just “independent of people's emotions." It also had to be independent of such an outside entity. I referred to this as being "relative". An absolute statement, as I have been defining it from the beginning, is not relative.

Yes, a statement like "Jack is tall" as you say, is not an absolute statement, it refers to a outside entities, however, this entity is not, as you seem to think, just the unspecified tallness, the first external entity is "Jack", the second entity that short sentence refers to is the definition of "tall" which itself will refer to a lot of other entities necessary to define what qualifies as "tall".
Remember how 'entity' is defined? I'll add a few examples to the earlier definition. "Entity can mean a thing that exists in reality [as something tangible (matter) or measurable (electromagnetic fields, etc.)], a fictional thing that does not have a material existence at all [Gandalf, unicorns, etc.], a property that a thing can have [like being red] or even a process [like buying things in a store, growing up]."
For this same reason I disregarded your example about cars before, car bodies are external entities to the sentence, so is metal. Exceptions or not doesn’t matter. Even a sentence like "Stars are balls of gas", which is objective, contains no comparative words (you would say "relative") and is universally true (unless I've missed some weird kind of star), is not an absolute statement since it refers to entities outside of the sentence.
Apart from the emotions of whoever utters the statement you are only excluding two special cases, the logical value of your statements still depends on external entities, and that is really my only problem with your definition.
In order for a statement to be absolute it must not refer to any entity outside of itself. Because as soon as it does the logical value of the sentence depends on this entity. If the logical value (true or false) of the statement depends on external entities the statement cannot be said to be absolute.
I maintain my position that "absolute" is more than just what you say: "not subjective, not relative [maybe make that "comparative", to make it clearer that we are not talking about the same thing even though we use similar words], and without exception".

According to my definition the statement "there is no absolute truth" (or "there is absolute truth", too, for that matter) is not absolute at all, unless you are willing to say that all of "absolute truth" is confined to this sentence, because as soon as there is any "absolute truth" external to this sentence it will no longer be absolute.

[Norse]

...........was pretty busy during the weekend with the chess club and giving blood and stuff..........

Not to mention saving drowning puppies, feeding starving africans and looking after disabled orphans with cancer.

[daddy1gringo]

I reread your three recent posts and it seems that we’re still not clear on the terminology. Where to start… This post will be a patchwork of things I wrote over the last week and things I’m writing just now, I hope it will not be too jumbled and at least have some semblance of coherence. The terms 'entity' and 'logical value' are not something I made up. Not every dictionary will list the philosophical definitions I gave, but you should be able to find them, fairly easily if you want to.
Anyway:

Note that there's a difference between "relative" as you have been using it, meaning that two things are compared and one can be said to be e.g. taller or heavier or prettier or whatever than the other, and "relate to" and "in relation to" as I have been using related words (pun intended, linguistic joke) when I say that a sentence relates to external entities, meaning that the sentence contains one or more words that refer to things that are not themselves contained within the sentence, the way “tree” refers to, well, trees, for example.

According to what you say here, the statement "Jack is tall" can’t be said to be true or false except in relation to what you call an outside entity which has not been named in the statement, for example the height of some other person or some particular average (all humans, or male humans, or Americans, etc.). So when I said that according to my definition, the "absolute" statement could NOT be like this, I was making it more specific than just “independent of people's emotions." It also had to be independent of such an outside entity. I referred to this as being "relative". An absolute statement, as I have been defining it from the beginning, is not relative.

Yes, a statement like "Jack is tall" as you say, is not an absolute statement, it refers to a outside entities, however, this entity is not, as you seem to think, just the unspecified tallness, the first external entity is "Jack", the second entity that short sentence refers to is the definition of "tall" which itself will refer to a lot of other entities necessary to define what qualifies as "tall".
Remember how 'entity' is defined? I'll add a few examples to the earlier definition. "Entity can mean a thing that exists in reality [as something tangible (matter) or measurable (electromagnetic fields, etc.)], a fictional thing that does not have a material existence at all [Gandalf, unicorns, etc.], a property that a thing can have [like being red] or even a process [like buying things in a store, growing up]."
For this same reason I disregarded your example about cars before, car bodies are external entities to the sentence, so is metal. Exceptions or not doesn’t matter. Even a sentence like "Stars are balls of gas", which is objective, contains no comparative words (you would say "relative") and is universally true (unless I've missed some weird kind of star), is not an absolute statement since it refers to entities outside of the sentence.
Apart from the emotions of whoever utters the statement you are only excluding two special cases, the logical value of your statements still depends on external entities, and that is really my only problem with your definition.
In order for a statement to be absolute it must not refer to any entity outside of itself. Because as soon as it does the logical value of the sentence depends on this entity. If the logical value (true or false) of the statement depends on external entities the statement cannot be said to be absolute.
I maintain my position that "absolute" is more than just what you say: "not subjective, not relative [maybe make that "comparative", to make it clearer that we are not talking about the same thing even though we use similar words], and without exception".

According to my definition the statement "there is no absolute truth" (or "there is absolute truth", too, for that matter) is not absolute at all, unless you are willing to say that all of "absolute truth" is confined to this sentence, because as soon as there is any "absolute truth" external to this sentence it will no longer be absolute.

Ok, then I would have to concede that my original line of reasoning doesn’t work, given that strict definition of “absolute”. On the other hand, it seems to me that defining it this way begs the question by making it impossible for any such thing ever to exist. Every statement has to refer to something. To repeat my example, in geometry, it is impossible to define, or make any other meaningful statement about point A without a point B to which to relate it, and actually, one also needs at least a point C in order to give a standard to which to compare its direction and distance from point B.

Edit: Btw, as far as I know I never had any problems w/ your definitions of “entity” or “logical value” once you gave them.

So I have conceded that my original (let’s call it a) statement, does not work with this definition of absolute, and unless I misunderstand you, you have conceded that it does work if we were to define “absolute” only as “independent of one’s feelings” which we both agree would be better termed “objective”. That’s progress. Now let’s see if we can really come to a meaningful consensus by heading back to the original purpose and context of the statement.

The thread is called “Is there a universal Good and Evil?” If we can’t even say that anything is universally true, we have no hope of answering that question, or perhaps better said, a “no” is a foregone conclusion. As a stepping stone to answering the thread question, I propose that a degree of truth, let us call it “universal”, unless you know of a more appropriate term, consisting of the stated 3, qualities, (without exception, and neither subjective nor comparative) makes my statement work.

To further take the discussion to the real world, I restate the example of conversations I have had on the subject of God, where my interlocutor tried to derail me with, “There is no absolute truth”, meaning that all truth is subjective and I can never say that anything is true to the extent that if s/he doesn’t agree, then s/he is wrong. I contend that this statement is invalid because in saying it, s/he is doing the very thing that s/he is saying one (I) can’t do. S/he is saying that this statement is true, and if I don’t agree with it than I am wrong, contradicting him/herself. ( I love the way they usually follow this with “See, if there’s a car accident and 2 different people see it…” as if I don’t understand the concept of subjectivity or that many things are subjective, just because I don’t agree that all things are.)

*sends lob to back right corner and backs up to baseline, awaiting return shot*

[MeDeFe]

Well, but that is the definition of "absolute", noone said it would be easy to think of an example for an absolute statement.



Universal however is a different matter.
In order to be universally true I would say it's enough for a statement not to have any exceptions. Look at "Giraffes are taller than mice", there's a comparative word but it's safe to say that it's universally true for all giraffes and all mice. Or "I think grizzly bears would make horrible pets", which is subjective but also true. Neither statement is absolute according to the definition I'm going by however (nor by your definition either). "Universal" simply means that it refers to all of one kind of entities (e.g. giraffes and mice).

To comment on your example from real life, I wouldn't argue that all truth is subjective, giraffes are taller than mice no matter what a person might think about it, merely that truth is relative the way I have been arguing so far, truth or falsity of a statement depends on the external entities the statement relates to.




The remaining problem I saw with our mutual understanding of "entity" was that you didn't name "Jack" as an external entity in the post you made on 22 Aug 2007 07:40, which he is, so I wasn't entirely sure whether things were crystal clear or still slightly murky.

[heavycola]

surely the word 'no' would have done?

[Minister Masket]

surely the word 'no' would have done?

I was just thinking that!

[daddy1gringo]

Well, but that is the definition of "absolute", noone said it would be easy to think of an example for an absolute statement.



Universal however is a different matter.
In order to be universally true I would say it's enough for a statement not to have any exceptions. Look at "Giraffes are taller than mice", there's a comparative word but it's safe to say that it's universally true for all giraffes and all mice. Or "I think grizzly bears would make horrible pets", which is subjective but also true. Neither statement is absolute according to the definition I'm going by however (nor by your definition either). "Universal" simply means that it refers to all of one kind of entities (e.g. giraffes and mice).

OK, that’s an interesting thought concerning the concept of “universal” but I thought I made it clear that I just kind of tentatively chose “universal” as a possible name for what I was talking about, which we had laboriously hashed out, ie, not comparative, not subjective, and without exception. What I am trying to see is if you can, or even want to, contradict the idea that my original proposition (that it must exist because the negation is self-contradictory) applies to such a statement, whatever you want to call it. I am dealing with a statement with these 3 restrictions because I believe that is what must exist in order to get anywhere in a discussion such as the original one for this thread.

To comment on your example from real life, I wouldn't argue that all truth is subjective, giraffes are taller than mice no matter what a person might think about it, merely that truth is relative the way I have been arguing so far, truth or falsity of a statement depends on the external entities the statement relates to.

Once again, what I was looking for is not if you would say all truth is subjective, but to further clarify what I’m aiming at with my original proposition, since the terms “absolute” and “universal” don’t seem to work, and "objective" is just one of the three parts.

The remaining problem I saw with our mutual understanding of "entity" was that you didn't name "Jack" as an external entity in the post you made on 22 Aug 2007 07:40, which he is, so I wasn't entirely sure whether things were crystal clear or still slightly murky.

Right, if even “Jack” is considered an external entity to the statement “Jack is tall” then that strict definition of “absolute” is useless for my purposes.

[MeDeFe]

We need to coin a new word.

Maybe a thread asking for ideas is in order?

Or let's call it "nocomsux" (NO COMparative words, not SUbjective, no eXceptions). Yeah, I know it's a crap word but I've been up all night and will be going to bed as soon as I know noone is taking a shower anymore, at least the rest of the family will be off to Amsterdam so it'll be nice and quiet here while I'm sleeping. /rant end

So, is there nocomsux truth? I'd say yes, I'm pretty sure I even gave an example earlier, "Stars consist of gas" or something like that. It's true, applies to all stars (at least that I can think of), doesn't compare any two things and it's not subjective.


I don't think the statement "There is no nocomsux truth" is inherently contradictory, though. As with ghosts, unicorns and the biggest prime number there can be a concept of "nocomsux truth", but this does not mean that "nocomsux truth" itself exists. Proof for or against has to come from elsewhere. "There is no true statement that does not contain a comparative word, is not subjective or has an exception" doesn't sound nearly as sexy as "There is no absolute truth", but I see no contradiction in the statement.

[MeDeFe]

Bump!


daddy1gringo, where are you?

[daddy1gringo]

Bump!


daddy1gringo, where are you?

sorry, been busy. Barely keeping up w/ my turns on my games. I'll get there.

[daddy1gringo]

just bumping so I'll be able to find it. Just "copy-and-paste"-ed your last post so I can work offline.

[vtmarik]

We need to coin a new word.

Maybe a thread asking for ideas is in order?

Or let's call it "nocomsux" (NO COMparative words, not SUbjective, no eXceptions). Yeah, I know it's a crap word but I've been up all night and will be going to bed as soon as I know noone is taking a shower anymore, at least the rest of the family will be off to Amsterdam so it'll be nice and quiet here while I'm sleeping. /rant end

So, is there nocomsux truth? I'd say yes, I'm pretty sure I even gave an example earlier, "Stars consist of gas" or something like that. It's true, applies to all stars (at least that I can think of), doesn't compare any two things and it's not subjective.


I don't think the statement "There is no nocomsux truth" is inherently contradictory, though. As with ghosts, unicorns and the biggest prime number there can be a concept of "nocomsux truth", but this does not mean that "nocomsux truth" itself exists. Proof for or against has to come from elsewhere. "There is no true statement that does not contain a comparative word, is not subjective or has an exception" doesn't sound nearly as sexy as "There is no absolute truth", but I see no contradiction in the statement.

You're talking about fact, not truth.

Fact is a statement that is provable by observation and/or evidence.

Truth is a belief structure made up of opinion and experience.