Absolutism versus Relativism

Let’s put an end to this question once and for all.

The question is: is truth absolute or relative?

I was inspired to ask this question and start this thread by recent claim made by James S. Saint that truth is established by lack of alternative.

The concept of lack of alternative presupposes impossibility and impossibility is an absolute. The implication is that the boundaries of perception, and of motion in general, are objective, set by the universe, rather than subjective, set by the subject. The subject, it is said, merely identifies, correctly or incorrectly, the universal boundaries – the “no”, the “false”, the “bad” and the “ugly”.

This implies that there is such a thing as Truth – single, absolute, permanent, immutable truth – that is discovered through Reason.

It implies that subjects do not need to adapt themselves continually, without a break, but only until they find that one place in the universe where they can let themselves go and live without suffering unpleasant consequences.

That would be absolutism. Or more precisely, absolute objectivism; what Biguous simply calls “objectivism”.

Now, when I speak of relativism, it must be noted, I do not refer to what is normally referred to by the word relativism. Relativism, as commonly used, and as promoted by Biguous, is in actuality a form of absolutism – absolute subjectivism.

If absolute objectivism is the belief that there is only one truth and multiple falsities – non-truths, proto-truths and half-truths – then absolute subjectivism is the belief that there is no truth but only plurality of opinions each one of which is equal to every other opinion.

The former assumes absolute truth. The latter assumes absolute lack of it.

Relativism can be better described by words such as traditionalism and naturalism since it does not rely on God, Reason or Democracy but on tradition and nature which are relative rather than absolute (there is no Tradition and no Nature.)

Relativism is also known as perspectivism, the idea that truth is a matter of perspective but that perspectives are not equal.

The relevant question is: do absolutes exist?

There is no absolute vantage point, no God’s-eye view, no position of omniscience, from which we can observe the entirety of the universe.

Our view is only ever partial and never complete.

How can we claim that absolutes exist then?

In the absence of absolutes, both James and Biguous are wrong.

One possible translation: “Let’s think about this only as I do.”

That is an invalid question.

Truth is the map or ontology, not the reality. There is but one reality, although it might be expressed via various Truths. The very topic of absolutism vs relativism is an example of that concern - can reality be accurately expressed in absolute terms? Can reality be represented in relative terms? Which is the “Truth”? Which ontology is true to reality? Perhaps both?

As it turns out, Relativity leads to contradiction (as has been proven by Science - a spinning wheel). Absolutism can be logically consistent through and through, although not by Newton’s laws. RM:AO explains the absolute perspective without any opportunity for inconsistency or contradiction. RM:AO also explains why the Relativity perspective works to the degree that it does. The point being that if there is merely one ontology that remains perfectly logical and void of contradiction while also being entirely comprehensive of the workings of the universe (RM:AO being one), then the universe is necessarily absolute, one reality being expressed by one ontology or Truth (although others are welcome).

That one last statement alone foretells the necessary answer to the question. How can there be an absolute truth concerning an only relative reality?

God has nothing to do with the topic.

True that Relativism is also Perspectivism. But “The Truth” is a choice of ontology - which do you want to use. Your choice of ontology, relative or absolute, is not entirely free in that consistency must be maintained for the ontology to be true to reality. Perspectivism has been proven to not track reality in certain cases and thus cannot be a complete Truth model.

You ask a question of whether there are absolutes, then assert your personal answer as absolute fact in the negative. Aren’t you proving that your answer is necessarily wrong? If your answer was right, then it could not be absolutely true, which would make it not “The Truth”, but merely a possibly useful perspective, even though not always accurate.

You mean “Wrong in my personal perspective”?
Or did you mean that “They are absolutely wrong”?

If we are wrong only in your personal perspective, why would anyone care?

If truth is the map, and not the territory, does that not mean that truth is not absolutely objective?

Note that both one truth (objectivism) and zero truth (subjectivism) are absolutes.

Truth is neither map nor territory. Truth is map-territory relation.

Absolute truth reduces this relation to territory with the goal to not map further territory.

Absolute lack of truth reduces this relation to map with the goal to map no territory.

Both seek 1:1 correspondence, no matter how imaginary, and both achieve it by eliminating the distinction between map and territory.

It’s not an absolute fact. It is only stated as such. You can say it is a relative absolute. A relative absolute is absolute only in relation to data. Suppose a sequence of events represented by a sequence of numbers such as [1 2 3 4 5 6]. We can observe a law which applies to every two adjacent numbers where the next number is previous number incremented by one. This law is absolute in the sense that there is not a single exception to it in our data. That’s a relative absolute: relative to our perspective. Though we may be 100% certain that the next number in the sequence will be 7, the universe may disagree and give us something else.

I am not aware of any position of omniscience. In fact, it’s an unimaginable position. But does the fact that it is unimaginable means that it is impossible? Can logic prove that it is impossible? Absolutely, not relatively, so? I don’t think so.

Yes, I mean wrong in my personal perspective. Can you blame me for being honest? I am not God. My perspective is not complete. It is partial.

Why do you think that personal perspectives are worthless? They have no worth on their own, that is true, but that does not mean they are worthless. They have worth to organisms, to some and not all. And this is why you should care: because it might be of benefit to you. Of course, if your own perspective is far above or far beneath mine, you would find no worth in it. More generally, if my perspective is harmful to you, you would reject it. Even more generally, you may reject it for any reason. But I think that you should not reject it simply because it’s personal. Because every perspective is personal. To reject it simply because it is personal is to be delusional about the nature of your perspective.

“Objective” merely means that it is without persuasion or bias. It has nothing to do with being relative or absolute.

Objective - the Sun shines (regardless of anyone seeing it).
Subjective - apples taste good (to some people).

Absolute - zero Kelvin or zero energy: “absolute vacuum”.
Relative - hotter or colder, heavier or lighter.

Absolutely objective refers to a map of reality that has 1:1 correspondence with reality.

The problem with such a map is that it is identical with reality which is a contradiction because map is not identical with reality.

No matter how perfectly detailed, the map never becomes the terrain.
… except in politics
… and Hollywood

A map that perfectly, which is to say absolutely, mirrors the terrain is indistinguishable from the terrain.

In order for the map to remain distinct from the terrain, there must be a degree of imperfection.

Are you arguing otherwise?

Not yet, but…

Perhaps think of it the other way around. Rather than try to get words (the “map”) to fit reality, instead get reality to fit the words (liberal politics). And let’s say that such was accomplished, that reality finally became exactly representative of the words: “a ball” in words actually, perfectly represented a physical ball.

Of course your theory would then mean that if you said, "The ball is speeding toward your face", you would expect an actual encounter - a ball in the face. You could just sit around and describe a football game and expect the players to have the injuries.

And you expect such to happen merely because you described the game so perfectly?

You are welcome to promote your own viewpoint here. What was it? Ah yes, democratic manufacturing of truth which consists in mixing everyone’s opinions into one Popular Opinion. Instead of relying on the individual authority of God or Reason, you are relying on the collective authority of People.

I do not understand your point.

My point is that you cannot describe reality perfectly. You can describe reality with a high level of perfection, what some may call “perfection” for the sake of convenience or because they want to distinguish it from lower levels of perfection, but you cannot describe it absolutely perfectly. If this were possible, this would mean there is no difference between the description and the described, which is a logical contradiction.

The red seems to be a presumptuous leap.

Regardless of how perfectly a description matches reality, it is still merely a description. Even with infinite resolution, the photo never comes to life. It is not an emulation, but merely a representation.

Description must be different from the described. Thus, it cannot absolutely mirror it. Otherwise, there would be no difference between the two.

Two identical spheres must have certain differences, such as for example location in space, in order to be two spheres and not one sphere.

Absolute similarity means no difference. Thus, two things that are absolutely similar are not two things because in order to speak of two things there must be a difference between them.

Absolute difference means no similarity. Thus, two things that are absolutely different are not absolutely different because the claim that they are absolutely different implies that they have a similarity, namely, that of absolute difference.

It appears to me that absolutes are self-defeating.

It is often said that the claim that “truth is there is no truth” is self-defeating. This is true if we take the statement literally as “(X kind of) truth is that there is no (X kind of) truth”. It is often interpreted as “absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth”. But the statement must not be taken literally. One must understand that there is a terminological overlap in that one and the same word is used for two different concepts. The statement is properly interpreted as “relative truth is that there are no absolute truths” which makes it clear that there are no contradictions. The only counter-argument that remains is that of relevance, namely, that relative truths are of no relevance to anyone but the person they are relative to. Which is wrong because there is no such a thing as absolute difference.

A perfect map is NOT a duplicate of the terrain. A perfect map has a perfect (to an absolute/infinite degree) representation of the terrain. It wouldn’t be a perfect map if it was merely a duplicate of the terrain.

Representation is not a copy of the terrain because terrain is by definition always more than what is being represented. But fundamentally, representation is nothing but a copy of what is being copied.

A photo of a tree is not meant to be a copy of a tree because then it wouldn’t be a photo but a tree.

But – and this is a big but – a photo of a tree is meant to be a copy of the visual aspect of the tree.

The fact that there is a difference between the two – that photo is a photo and that tree is a tree – is what enables the copy to be apparently equal to what is being copied.

Apparent equality – and equality is absolute similarity – is created by ignoring the difference between objects. If there really was no difference between objects, then that would mean they are not multiple objects.

There can be no similarity without difference.

My point remains: absolutes are logically paradoxical.

Not “more than”, but “different than”.

The word “apple”, no matter how well improved to perfection, will always be a word that represents a fruit. The word will never be a fruit, else lose its status of being a perfect word for apple.

Your point supports my position, namely, that there are no absolutes.

In reality, no matter how well improved to perfection a map is, it will always be merely a map that represents reality. The map will never become absolute, meaning, it will never have 1:1 correspondence with reality, otherwise it will become what it represents, thus lose its status of being a representation of reality.