ctfuzzy,
What do you mean "open minded"? Why you no count *%$#&.




Just proving I can be as closed minded as the next if you want!

Just kidding man! I learned along time ago that one must stand for what they believe but respect the beliefs of others. Can you imagine what the world would be like if we all believed the same?

 

I believe you'd call that world HEAVEN

oops...Sorry I just had to through that in...

 

fuzzzy,

Sometimes you outsmart yourself. I was not the lone vote.
I felt the choices in the poll were skewed. Besides everybody knows that even if we got rid of every last firearm people would still get shot. Huh?

 

I think I might call that hell!

I can't imagine living in a city with a million other Waxys!

Waxy

 

Good point and yet... two points, Heaven and Hell.... Hey another trueism...

 

What is a straight line?

The Theory of Relativity posits that space-time fabric is deflected by objects with enough mass. What we call a straight line may in fact be a curved line around a supermassive object that we may or may not see. Furthermore, it is impossible to 'see' that the line is not straight because the nature of 'space' is distorted. We percieve the line as straight but it is not.

Additionally, a new and perfectly straight line would be impossible to create because there is 'nothing' (i.e. space and time do not exist) in what we would describe as the shortest route between the two points.

Wrap your head around that bad boy.

Stephen Hawking discussed this in one of his books I read.



Is this still an absolute truth or is it relative?

Whistler

 

The shortest distance between two points is to fold space/time until the points come into coincidence which makes the distance zero.

 

But then there is no longer a line.


Whistler

 

Heck, there isn't even two points any more!

That's not fair, Sinjin. You gotta play by the same laws of physics everyone else does . . even if you are from the Left coast!

 

Someone watched "event horizon" too many times

 

Sounds like yada yada yada to me. First of all if there was a supermassive object that you may or may not see, it's mass would suck you in. And no matter what your understanding of the physics of some theoretical forces on said straight line, what ever control it is under is truth, whether you understand it or not. All that any of you guys are really saying is that you have to understand it for it to be truth. Not true. Actual truth is not affected at all by your ability to understand or explain it.

 

Well POO. See what I get for respecting you Sinjin?!?!?!

*That'll teach me*

 

I maintain that all truth is relative. Any situation you can think of can be framed in an infinite number of ways. The truth of a situation depends on how it is framed.

Take for example, driving down the freeway doing the speed limit. How fast are you going? 55 mph. That is true. But it is also true that you going several thousand miles per hour whipping around on the face of the earth. It is equally true that you are moving much faster than that as you orbit the sun. It is equally true that you are moving much faster than that as our solar system is moving through the galaxy. It is also true that you are traveling at hundreds of thousands of miles per hour as our galaxy whips through the universe. To a passenger in your car, you personally are not moving.

What is the absolute truth in this situation?

It would seem to depend on which level of analysis you wish to look. Car, Road, Earth, Solar System, Galaxy, or Universe.

Or you could say that the absolute truth is the totality of all these things. This is what you seem to argue willowbilly3. I tend to agree with you.

To expand this further, the absolute truth is the totality of all things being understood from every possible level of analysis. If the totality of everything is the absolute truth, can there exist an independent falsehood? (I am not thinking much bigger than a story that you might tell to get out of something. However, in a way, it is a truth unto itself. It truly is your effort to get out of something. Whether it is an accurate retelling of actual events is another story. The truth of a lie rests within its existence.)

I realize that I seem to contradict myself in this post. Initially I maintain that all truth is relative but then go on to say that absolute truth is the totality of everything.

Let me explain, the absolute truth is out there. It is the totality of everything. However, my conceptualization of this concept is relative to my personal experiences. There is not a universal conceptualization of absolute truth. There can never be so therefore the concept of absolute truth is relative.



I have too much free time.

Whistler

 

Yeah, but you use it really well as far as I'm concerned.

Waxy

 

It gives me goose bumps, Waxy.