Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[Greatest I am]

Then we can just as well abandon absolute reality. Even when it's there.

Yes, in terms of absolute (Objective) knowledge, that's about it.

But then what's the idea about?

It's an intellectual fantasy that cannot be verified or falsified, which makes it useless to those who seek certainty. And yet it is those who seek certainty who maintain the popularity of "objectivity" in philosophical circles. It would be better if we just forgot about the whole thing; it's a waste of time and effort.

Isn't the absolute truth what we're after?

It's what we'd like, if what we liked had any influence at all, which it doesn't.

Why can't we know the absolute truth?

You'd better ask that one of God. It isn't a question that a human can answer. We know that we have no access to absolute truth, but we don't know why.

Then I can ask again: How do we know we have no acces?

Because of the limits set by the speed of light.

We cannot see all the data as it is going away faster than the speed of light.

Regards
DL

[Raymond]

"We cannot see all the data as it is going away faster than the speed of light."

Do we need all data to know an absolute truth?

[Pattern-chaser]

How do we know we have no access?

Because human senses and perception are sufficiently limited and fault-prone that we simply do not know, and cannot tell, if what we think we 'see' is accurate or not. Perception works such that we tend to 'see' what we expect to see, not necessarily what is there to be seen. And so on. The upshot is that we have no direct access to 'that which actually is', so we cannot judge what that is, or might be.

[Raymond]

How do we know we have no access?

Because human senses and perception are sufficiently limited and fault-prone that we simply do not know, and cannot tell, if what we think we 'see' is accurate or not. Perception works such that we tend to 'see' what we expect to see, not necessarily what is there to be seen. And so on. The upshot is that we have no direct access to 'that which actually is', so we cannot judge what that is, or might be.

I agree that our senses are prone to illusion and fault. But being prone to fault and illusion does mean that they can give non-illusionary and true images also.

[Greatest I am]

"We cannot see all the data as it is going away faster than the speed of light."

Do we need all data to know an absolute truth?

By definition, yes.

Regards
DL

[heracleitos]

Even though both kinds of truth are expressed by logic sentences:

- empirical truth is probabilistically correspondentist,
- while foundationalist truth is deterministically coherentist.

So, they essentially mean different things.

Concerning foundationalist truth, it is always relative to its foundational construction rules (its "theory"). It is not absolute at all.

The situation is actually even worse than that.

Foundational rules (a "theory") expressed in first-order logic will generally fail to bind their non-logical symbols to a single, unique interpretation, i.e. universe or "model". Therefore, such theory usually describes more than one universe. It generally describes a multiverse.

For example, Arithmetic Theory (PA) described the natural numbers as its standard universe, but also happily describes an unlimited number of alternative nonstandard models of arithmetic (Lowenheim-Skolem), i.e. the arithmetical multiverse.

A logic sentence may be true in one arithmetical universe but not in another. When that happens, such logic sentence will be true (in one universe) but not provable from its theory. This is the fundamental reason for Godel's incompleteness theorem in arithmetic.

The multiverse structure of the world of natural numbers is therefore yet another reason why arithmetical truth is not absolute. Arithmetical truth, as an example for foundationalist truth, is instead very context-sensitive.

The empirical universe would satisfy the theory of everything, of which we obviously do not have a copy. The issues connected to empirical truth are most likely even worse than for arithmetical truth.

[Raymond]

"We cannot see all the data as it is going away faster than the speed of light."

Do we need all data to know an absolute truth?

By definition, yes.

Regards
DL

I think you take too much the law approach of absolute truth. I take a more liberal approach. Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin. Knowing things about it is secondary, but necessary to arrive at the absolute image.

[Raymond]

"The empirical universe would satisfy the theory of everything, of which we obviously do not have a copy"

Why would an empirical universe satisfy any theory at all? The particles just go their way on the space(time) manifold without giving a...eeehhh...hack about theories. They were once ejaculated into immaculate being at the holy erect, the pristine eternal source, after which they happily evolved along into the miraculous universe we observe, full of quaking, swimming, jumping squawking, crawling howling, flying, barking, crying, peeping, f***ing, drinking, singing, fluttering and even talking beings. Made by the gods who watch us.

[heracleitos]

Why would an empirical universe satisfy any theory at all?

According to the Wikipedia page on the subject, it is an important concept in the philosophy of science. It is more or less the unattainable, ultimate goal of science:

A theory of everything (TOE or TOE/ToE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory or master theory is a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe.

Physicist Harald Fritzsch used the term in his 1977 lectures in Varenna. Physicist John Ellis claims to have introduced the acronym "TOE" into the technical literature in an article in Nature in 1986.

.

The belief in its existence is also an important concept in religion, such as in Islam:

Muslims believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfooz) all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written.

In Islam, the physical universe is then deemed to be an interpretation of the Preserved Tablet.

Hence, the belief in a Theory of Everything is certainly not uncommon.

[Raymond]

Why would an empirical universe satisfy any theory at all?

According to the Wikipedia page on the subject, it is an important concept in the philosophy of science. It is more or less the unattainable, ultimate goal of science:

A theory of everything (TOE or TOE/ToE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory or master theory is a hypothetical, singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links together all physical aspects of the universe.

Physicist Harald Fritzsch used the term in his 1977 lectures in Varenna. Physicist John Ellis claims to have introduced the acronym "TOE" into the technical literature in an article in Nature in 1986.

.

The belief in its existence is also an important concept in religion, such as in Islam:

Muslims believe that the divine destiny is when God wrote down in the Preserved Tablet (al-lawh al-mahfooz) all that has happened and will happen, which will come to pass as written.

In Islam, the physical universe is then deemed to be an interpretation of the Preserved Tablet.

Hence, the belief in a Theory of Everything is certainly not uncommon.

If the ToE is the theory about the fundamental workings of the universe then yes, there is such a theory. I even think I have one myself. The gods had to invent and create the basic stuff of the universe and the laws that describe its behavior. Like Feynman expected, on the basic level it's all quite simple. So the empirical world, or at least a part of it, should satisfy such a theory.

But there are philosophical TOE's too. It were these I addressed. Why should the empirical world sattisfy such a theory?

[heracleitos]

If the ToE is the theory about the fundamental workings of the universe then yes, there is such a theory. I even think I have one myself. ... Why should the empirical world sattisfy such a theory?

By the term to satisfy, I actually meant something quite strict, similar to the definition for boolean satisfiability:

In logic and computer science, the Boolean satisfiability problem (sometimes called propositional satisfiability problem and abbreviated SATISFIABILITY, SAT or B-SAT) is the problem of determining if there exists an interpretation that satisfies a given Boolean formula.

In other words, it asks whether the variables of a given Boolean formula can be consistently replaced by the values TRUE or FALSE in such a way that the formula evaluates to TRUE. If this is the case, the formula is called satisfiable.

On the other hand, if no such assignment exists, the function expressed by the formula is FALSE for all possible variable assignments and the formula is unsatisfiable.

An arbitrary state of the physical universe is then treated as an interpretation, consisting of a long series, i.e. an array, of true or false variables.

For example, you can add the variable, it rained on 12 March 2022 in Wichita, to the array of variables describing a purported state of the universe.

The TOE itself is a predicate (=boolean) formula to which you can feed that array of values as an argument, and which does evaluate to true or false.

A legitimate TOE should always evaluate to true for any arbitrary state of the universe that ever really occurred, or will ever really occur.

Conversely, a legitimate TOE should evaluate to false for a state that did not or will never occur in the entire history of the universe.

In that sense, any arbitrary past, present, or future real state of the universe will always satisfy the TOE.

This is pretty much the canonical Islamic view on the Preserved Tablet, which is the source code for a predicate formula. This predicate formula is being satisfied by the entire history of the physical universe, from beginning till end (alpha to omega).

The Preserved Tablet is, however, still not an absolute truth, because it is assumed to still fail to bind its non-logical symbols to a single, unique interpretation. It is this failure that allows for free will, and that permits the resulting multiverse structure of heaven, earth, and hell.

In religion, it is access to the Preserved Tablet that makes the Almighty to be All-Knowing. If your own TOE predicate formula cannot do the above, it will simply fail to render you All-Knowing.

[Pattern-chaser]

How do we know we have no access?

Because human senses and perception are sufficiently limited and fault-prone that we simply do not know, and cannot tell, if what we think we 'see' is accurate or not. Perception works such that we tend to 'see' what we expect to see, not necessarily what is there to be seen. And so on. The upshot is that we have no direct access to 'that which actually is', so we cannot judge what that is, or might be.

I agree that our senses are prone to illusion and fault. But being prone to fault and illusion does mean that they can give non-illusionary and true images also.

This discussion has its intellectual roots in René Descartes' search for certainty, that resulted eventually in 'cogito, ergo sum'. René's discoveries were perhaps most valuable in reverse, concerning what we can't be certain of, which is more or less everything. Remember, we're talking about philosophical certainty here, not the everyday confidence we have in those things we normally hold to be 'certain', even though they're not (philosophically-speaking).

This topic focusses on absolute truth, but I think it's fair to say that absolute truth requires something approaching absolute knowledge too. So we are not drifting too far from the core subject here.

We cannot consider our senses without also taking into account our human process of perception, an unconscious process that takes place before we can become consciously aware of what was – or appears to have been – sensed/perceived. So, in response to your words, it isn't just our senses that can be mistaken in some way, but also the perceptual process itself. This compounds the possibilities of being mistaken or misled.

We can add to this the philosophical possibility that what reaches us via our senses and perception is not information about an actual reality, but a created one, or that there is some other mechanism that could mean that the 'reality' that our senses and perception reveal to us is not what it appears to be.

Words like "absolute", "eternal", "universal" and "objective" are precise and all-encompassing, allowing for no other interpretation. Using these words could perhaps be compared with saying "is" instead of "might be". They are, for want of a better word, absolute. So, when we use these words, we are communicating certainty, not probability, or even possibility. And it is this unjustified certainty that is often challenged in philosophical discussion.

[Pattern-chaser]

Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin.

How? What knowledge do you possess that allows you to reach this conclusion? And, from other comments you have made, I feel inclined to ask whether this information comes from a scientific or religious source? I have no problem with either, but the two tend to require different ways of consideration.

[Raymond]

Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin.

How? What knowledge do you possess that allows you to reach this conclusion? And, from other comments you have made, I feel inclined to ask whether this information comes from a scientific or religious source? I have no problem with either, but the two tend to require different ways of consideration.

"And, from other comments you have made, I feel inclined to ask whether this information comes from a scientific or religious source?"

That's a good question. The cosmology and view on the fundamental nature of physical reality have no doubt a scientific source. Scientists might claim to be Popperians, but in reality they are as conservative as hell. They stick to the icon and standard (as the Standard Model testifies to and the means to defend it). They say you have to try to falsify and go deeper but if you do, like I do, they try to cut you off defending the standard as if it were an absolute truth (there you go!). But it's very clear that there are only two basic preons. In accordance with my theology. It's clear to me also that there must be a series of big bangs, also inspired by my god story. I think in the world of physics there can be an absolute truth. So can there be in theology, astrology, tesseract theories, dreamtime stories of the aboriginals, etc. It's only good if all cultures hold their stories for absolute true. They can get stronger in mutual competition. Sad fact is that science claims to have the only true story around. It might not reach that reality, as the idea of an absolute truth testifies to, but that's only false modesty.

[Pattern-chaser]

Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin.

How? What knowledge do you possess that allows you to reach this conclusion? And, from other comments you have made, I feel inclined to ask whether this information comes from a scientific or religious source? I have no problem with either, but the two tend to require different ways of consideration.

That's a good question. The cosmology and view on the fundamental nature of physical reality have no doubt a scientific source. Scientists might claim to be Popperians, but in reality they are as conservative as hell. They stick to the icon and standard (as the Standard Model testifies to and the means to defend it). They say you have to try to falsify and go deeper but if you do, like I do, they try to cut you off defending the standard as if it were an absolute truth (there you go!).

Doesn't this support my view that the search for absolute, universal, objective, certainty is a distraction and a waste of time?

But it's very clear that there are only two basic preons. In accordance with my theology. It's clear to me also that there must be a series of big bangs, also inspired by my god story. I think in the world of physics there can be an absolute truth. So can there be in theology, astrology, tesseract theories, dreamtime stories of the aboriginals, etc. It's only good if all cultures hold their stories for absolute true. They can get stronger in mutual competition. Sad fact is that science claims to have the only true story around. It might not reach that reality, as the idea of an absolute truth testifies to, but that's only false modesty.

OK, I accept that your spiritual beliefs are what they are, and that you accept and believe them. That I can respect. But you seem to be mixing religion and science indiscriminately, and that makes it difficult for anyone to comment, I think. For science, and the philosophical thinking that sits closest to science, can be approached in a strictly formal manner. And religion is not amenable to that approach.

I welcome your scientific, and your religious, views, but when you mix them together, they can become unapproachable. D'you see?