>From a skim-reader of this throngly thread busy with sparse language
elsewhere:
Platt wrote:
No scientist I know of (or for that matter any human being with a modicum of
sense) will deny the absolute truth of the Holocaust. Or of deaths caused by
AIDS. Or the danger of standing on the tracks in front of an oncoming train.
Life is lived in a sea of absolutes, beginning with birth and ending with
death.
ELEPHANT:
Yes. Just wondered: Could you possibly read "absolute certainties" for
"absolute truths"? Your veiws on what might be at stake here would be
welcome.
JON WROTE:
Hi Platt
You and Elephant both pointed out the same thing. Is it an Absolute Truth
that there is no Absolute Truth? But remember this is not only a tenet of
postmodernism, it is also one of the basic tenets of Science itself. That's
why I've said in so many posts in the past that Science is the search for
something it says can't exist.
ELEPHANT:
Isn't that one of the 'paradoxes' MOQ is supposed to clear up? Science
isn't searching for Absolute truth: it's just searching for a higher quality
beleifs (truth as a variety of the good). It's a branch of technology -
just like motorcycle maintanence except bigger. Leave searching for
absolutes to the union of philosophers sages luminaries etc (the UPSLETC).
JON WROTE:
I think you can deny the "idea" of Absolute Truth and still value temporary,
high value intellectual Quality truths (such as the latest medical knowledge
for treating the sick), thus leaving the door open for new evidence that
might possibly alter or cause old definitions to be proven false. I don't
think it's fair to say someone who rejects the idea of Absolute Truth is
inherently dishonest, or doesn't value telling the truth.
ELEPHANT:
Sure. But honest or not it is a self-contradiction, and that sort of thing
is supposed to be important, right? It tells us something, like: this is
false. Find me a coherent way to say that there is no absolute truth and
I'll take the suggestion more seriously (philosophers keep looking and
somethink they've found it, but i just don't get it [it PUZZLES me]).
JON WROTE:
Perhaps it's just a problem with the limitations of language (or my own
intellectual limitations) that confuses me on this issue sometimes. For
example, I believe it's absolutely true that Quality exists, and that it's
synonymous with Morality as Pirsig says, yet at the same time I deny
Absolute
Truth. Inherent contradictions abound in that view, it seems. It all
confuses
me sometimes.
ELEPHANT:
Did you ever think of the approach to clearing this sort of confusion up
where you try to think carefully about what it is there isn't any absolute
truths about and what it is that there are supposed to be absolute truths
about? That solution works wonders for me: in my veiw you can deny absolute
truth about the particulars of the experienced world and still reserve
absolute truth for universal realities, such as that quality exists and is
synonymous with morality. Go on, try it (I'm not peddling hallucinogens
here).
JON WROTE:
But I think it's unfair to characterize (not that you are doing this) all
those who reject the idea of Absolute Truth as sneaky sophists who
manipulate
the nature of language for their own greedy gain or for the proliferation of
depravity.
ELEPHANT:
Dead right.
OH, and to Peter on the Popper joke: ha ha
Toodlepip.
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