Is absolutely everything relative?

[GliderGuider]

It seems to me that people generally have a deep, visceral need to feel that there is something absolute in their lives. One of the attractive qualities of a god-belief is that "God" is an absolute structure. If one is a non-theist then the absolute structure of the god-concept is not available, so other beliefs come in to serve the function. One obvious candidate is the belief in an absolute morality based on some kind of universal, objective criteria.

Even philosophies that go so far as to declare all reality including the self to be an illusion (like the concept of “Maya” in Indian religions), there is deemed to be some Absolute - often described as pure consciousness or love - that resides outside the frame of reference of the self or reality as a whole.

It’s as though we all have some kind of psychological hole that makes us feel very uncomfortable with the idea that everything is relative, mutable, subject to change and redefinition.

Is the ability to accept that there are no absolutes of any kind, anywhere, a sign of psychological maturity? Or is it a sign of immaturity, a failure of development, an self-absorbed inability to perceive the universal?

I don’t know the answer, but I’m currently at the point where I agree with the Indian philosophies – reality seems to be Maya, but there is nevertheless a pervasive sense of something essential about existence that “feels” absolute. I’m just not sure yet whether or not that sensation is simply more sensory trickery – just another manifestation of Maya, if you will.

[burnsei sensei]

1. Non-relative thinking is not necessarily absolute.

There is the process of comparison/contrast.
There is the process of creating hierarchies with respect to given qualities.
One can negate one idea or affirm another.
All of these mental processes indicate the use of non-absolute and non-relativist thinking.

[trotsky]

2. I think you are having a tough time with one aspect of all this.

Namely, the idea that raping children can be absolutely morally wrong in a human societal context, without necessarily declaring child rape to be a universal absolute wrong. Yes it's entirely possible that on the 4th planet of the Omicron Delta 9 system, sexual activity is required for proper brain growth in the young (i.e., pre-pubescent) members of the dominant intelligent species. Some strange remnant of the evolutionary process on that planet perhaps. Yup, that is within the realm of possibility. Does it have any bearing whatsoever with being able to declare an act here morally abhorrent and absolutely wrong? Nope.

In this way it's very similar to the theistic argument that one can't prove god DOESN'T exist. Well, no. And I can't prove unicorns don't exist either. Nor do I need to. I don't have to scour every cubic inch of the universe looking for unicorns, finding none, to say they don't exist. At some point the person claiming they do needs to present evidence. Similarly, the person here claiming that child rape isn't necessarily always wrong needs to provide some evidence stating why. Just one example from reality is all you need. You've refused the multiple times you've been asked.

A "psychological hole that makes us feel very uncomfortable with the idea that everything is relative, mutable, subject to change and redefinition"? No. Just an unwillingness to get bogged down in useless philosophical masturbation.

[GliderGuider]

4. Not really.

The comment about a generalized psychological need is an observation based on the fact that virtually every culture on earth has had some concept of the absolute or universal underlying it. To me that concept doesn't seem necessary in order to operate effectively in the real world, but the fact that it's so widespread means it probably has some function in human behaviour. If it does, what happens if we try to get rid of it by abolishing absolutes like God or "objective morality" or the sense of personal self from our lives?

[trotsky]

5. I think the answer to that question can be found...

by looking at the alternate question: have concepts like God or universal objective morality or the sense of personal self prevented dysfunction in human behavior? I think the clear answer to that is no.

[GliderGuider]

6. Well, I could probably make a case for the sense of self preventing dysfunction.

About the others, I suspect the dysfunctions they might prevent are more in the behaviour of individuals than in generalized "human behaviour". But it's hard to tell, because if the need for an absolute point of reference of some kind is innate to the human organism, it's pretty hard to conduct a controlled experiment.

[ironbark]

8. Concepts God/ objective morality “prevented dysfunction in human behaviour”? Yes.

Through their EVOLUTION.

Time was when the Gods condoned and advocated the rape of ‘the others’ wives, children, land, recourses, language, culture...and the “universal objective morality”/ “sense of personal self” was dependent on doing so or heroically dying sword in hand in the attempt.

“Dysfunction” then was the inability to do so.

One need go back at least as far as the Old Testament to see its remnant but prior to that it was “universal objective morality” (Contemporary NeoCon cosmology being the notable exception ;-)

The very notion of “dysfunction in human behaviour” has changed, evolved, inverted over time and the role of religion cannot be taken out of the historical equasion.

[laconicsax]

13. So, still no reason why child rape isn't always wrong?

Really, if you spent 1/10th the time working to come up with a reason why child rape isn't necessarily always wrong, you'd probably have acquitted yourself...that is if everything, as you say, is relative.

[humblebum]

3. sometimes maybe definitely. nt

[tama]

7. Indra's web n/t

[ironbark]

9. The Gem reflects

The Stages Of Spiritual Growth
By M. Scott Peck, M.D.
http://www.factnet.org/Stages_Of_Spiritual_Growth.html

STAGE IV:

Mystic, communal. Out of love and commitment to the whole, using their ability to transcend their backgrounds, culture and limitations with all others, reaching toward the notion of world community and the possibility of either transcending culture or -- depending on which way you want to use the words -- belonging to a planetary culture. They are religious, not looking for clear cut, proto type answers, but desiring to enter into the mystery of uncertainty, living in the unknown. The Christian mystic, as with all other mystics, Sufi and Zen alike, through contemplation, meditation, reflection and prayer, see the Christ, Gods indwelling Spirit or the Buddha nature, in all people, including all the Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Jews and so forth, recognizing the connectedness of all humanity with God, never separating oneself from others with doctrine and scripture, recognizing that all scripture acts as fallible pointers of inspiration, unable to capture the essence of truth outside of both human perception and the linguistic straight jacket of language and articulation, that is, the words of fallible men who experienced the nature of God, that of their inner true self, and attempted to record their experience in human words, words constrained by the era of time they were written in that became compromised the moment they were penned and are further removed from objectivity when interpreted by us, fallible men and women who read them.

[laconicsax]

10. Why do I get the sense that you have trouble sleeping?

Do you wake in the middle of the night, terrified that gravity might become a repulsive force or that the carbon in your body will suddenly turn to cesium?

[rug]

11. Depends.

[GliderGuider]

12. ;-)

[rrneck]

14. Relative to what?

I can't think of anything that is absolutely unchangeable, but my ability to consider those things less than absolute reach into the realm of speculative fiction. On the other hand, the vast bulk of my experience of living on earth makes a whole lot of things so predictable that they may as well be unchangeable.

Measured against my imagination anything is possible. Measured against physical reality, there are clear and immutable boundaries.

[ironbark]

15. My "clear and immutable boundaries" went out with Quantum and String

and haven't come home yet.

[rrneck]

16. I hear you.

But Newtonian physics still mean a lot when I hit my thumb with a hammer. :)

[ironbark]

17. Yea, but as I understand it, the pain of that inept carpentry

is only being felt in one of a plethora of Multiverses.

Sadly/usually the one in which I am holding the hammer.

;-)