These are not universal truths...

[promethean75]

The number of language confusions, conflations, and misuses in this thread is just unbelievable.

It's quite believable, and it's a delightful spectacle to behold. One must learn not only to love the epistemological chaos, but also thrive in it.

I ask that you do not disturb anything and just let them roll with it.

[Zero_Sum]

No universal truths? Hold your breath and stop breathing, see how long you live without oxygen.

[Fixed Cross]

Ambiguo wins, having correctly estimated your intelligences.

[Fixed Cross]

"its a universal truth that there is a cat in the house on 75439 Elm Street"

[obsrvr524]

Ive renamed it into "valuator logic".

Sounds a little more interesting but seems like that would just be subjectivity or subjective logic.

Anyway, it would be great if anyone here was actually trying to get to the bottom of any question, but, as I showed in my post above, that is not why people are here, that, as you yourself seem to realize very well, is not why it is being asked.

It is being asked because it confuses these people, and it is meant to keep confusing these people.
And to be fair people here generally prefer being confused over being clear minded.

As you seem to be a theorist, is it your theory that this sort of disingenuous language banter continues because people enjoy creating the confusion (inspiring hopelessness) or because they enjoy being confused themselves (seeking hopelessness)?

And since you are probably going to respond with "both", how can you tell when it is which?

[Zero_Sum]

I challenge everybody in this thread that doesn't believe in universal truths to stop breathing.

If you successfully don't die I will concede that there are no universal truths.

Who will be our first volunteer? Upload a video of yourself with this project or didn't happen.

How about you Faust? Lead by example.

[Ecmandu]

I'm going to recap my posting history here in this post.

I state that universal truths are true for all POSSIBLE beings, and being true for all POSSIBLE beings, that makes universal truths TRANSCENDENT; they are universal and objective, they exist universally.

Does such a truth exist?

Yes. No being wants their consent violated. This is true by definition. Or as Fixed Cross put it; all bachelors are unmarried.

What's the exception? A being that's consent is violated unless their consent violated. The only way you can violate the consent of such a being, is to not violate their consent… which STILL means that non-consent violation is a law.

[Fixed Cross]

Ive renamed it into "valuator logic".

Sounds a little more interesting but seems like that would just be subjectivity or subjective logic.

No, it is a complex logical operation involving honesty as a subjective element.
Honesty is absent in all other logic. There are no proper grounds, no starting points.
Its a very difficult practice to master, only a handful of people have mastered it in the 8 years Ive worked with it, but you are welcome to try.
http://beforethelight.forumotion.com/t1 ... e-ontology

Anyway, it would be great if anyone here was actually trying to get to the bottom of any question, but, as I showed in my post above, that is not why people are here, that, as you yourself seem to realize very well, is not why it is being asked.

It is being asked because it confuses these people, and it is meant to keep confusing these people.
And to be fair people here generally prefer being confused over being clear minded.

As you seem to be a theorist, is it your theory that this sort of disingenuous language banter continues because people enjoy creating the confusion (inspiring hopelessness) or because they enjoy being confused themselves (seeking hopelessness)?

The point in general is distraction. Seeking validation in things which offer no resistance. Decadence, weakness, despair.
Some enjoy creating the confusion (Iambiguous) and these are slightly higher on the ladder than those who enjoy to indulge in the created confusion.

As I see it, Iambiguous is their "owner" in as far as he manages to seduce them to partake in his hollow antics.

And since you are probably going to respond with "both", how can you tell when it is which?

The ingenious liar is the creator of confusion, sought out by the less ingenious ones.

[Fixed Cross]

Per valuator logic, we see Iambiguous manages to value the lesser ones in terms of his own aims; they are horses pulling his cart, food on his plate.
The lesser ones have no power to set aims for themselves here, they are compulsively trying to make it seem to themselves like they are masters of the situation (which tolerates no master except the liar who produced it) by "winning the debate" or "showing their superior understanding" yet there is no conviction in it - they are just addicted to the pattern. If they were motivated by philosophical considerations they'd obviously not engage someone who is asking blatantly nonsensical questions, but might seek for meaningful questions to ask themselves.

But this, asking meaningful questions, is what they are avoiding at all cost, and they are grateful to Iambiguous for presenting them with another distraction in which they can lose their energy without fear it might return to them in the form of some insight.

Why is man afraid of insight?
Thats a real question.

[Silhouette]

This thread is just another line of thought solved by Experientialism.

A quick recap of the fundaments in case you're still not acquainted:

untab

Experientialism distinguishes between Continuous Experience and discrete experiences - the former being "the Truth", which is that experience has no gaps of nothingness to separate things, and if there are gaps of somethingness to separate things, there are no gaps of nothingness to separate these gaps of somethingness from the things they separate etc.
As such, experience is fundamentally continuous.
However, to speak of experience in any useful way, one needs to abitrarily dissect it into discrete experiences according to what is deemed a useful way. This is the only way to achieve knowledge, however wisdom reminds us that knowledge is necessarily removed from the truth by virtue of it necessarily being in terms of discrete experiences instead of Continuous Experience. Thus utility is not truth, though "truth" is commonly used in lieu of utility in the "relative transitive" sense: that something is true to experience to a certain relative extent - as opposed to ever "being True" in an absolute intransitive (i.e. "True" not "true to") sense.

So as we can see, there is a fundamental explanation behind the first and last lines of the opening post:
"Free will is interesting only in that it informs our thinking about moral agency. It is metaphysics, and therefore not to be taken seriously. It's a useful assumption, but it is not a primary consideration in social justice."
and
"What in god's name does "universal truth" even mean?"

To address some other lines in the opening post (placed within inverted commas):
1) "Universal truth" is just Continuous Experience that doesn't mean anything, it just exists. It only means something when it is broken down into discrete experiences that acquire meaning insofar as they are reconnected with one another to approximate the absolute Truth of Continuous Experience to some relative degree. Meaning is a useful means back to the Truth.
2) "A claim is true or false" applies to discrete experience and how well we've broken down Continuous Experience into concepts that can be associated with one another in a way that's more or less true to their continuous origin.
3) "Epistemology is all about God" is just a less well defined way of saying you can only create knowledge via dissecting discrete experiences from Continuous Experience, which are more or less true about Continuous Experience. Continuous Experience is no God though, it's just how the concrete form of existence (in the abstract) presents itself as itself.
4) So with discrete experiences by definition being relative, the opening post's statement of "There are no necessary truths" is explained.

Experientialism makes philosophy's formerly "peculiar study of language" much clearer, right down to its logical fundaments - as tabbed out just above.

There's a later glib comment about the seemingly paradoxical "The truth is that there is no truth".
Experientialism solves this as well:
By differentiating Truth from utility, the seeming paradox resolves to something like "There is utility but it is not truth".
The corrected version retains the meaning of "no truth" in the seemingly paradoxical version, yet it eliminates its apparent internal contradiction by more accurately putting the statement in terms of utility instead of truth.

[Fixed Cross]

The trick Iambiguous uses to take over peoples system is asking truly stupid questions, making people feel superior and confident to engage, and then once they are engaged and uttering statements, very cleverly misinterpreting these statements. So the misled innocents get angry and indignant and are left with a combination of feeling superior and feeling frustrated. This cocktail is sufficient to keep peoples passions tied to him.

[Fixed Cross]

Experientialism distinguishes between Continuous Experience and discrete experiences - the former being "the Truth", which is that experience has no gaps of nothingness to separate things,

You mean that gaps in experience are not experienced.
This does not suffice to postulate continuous experience as a ground; rather it is a resulting appearance.

[Anomaly654]

A claim is true or false. Claims are the only things that are true or false. You could throw in "indeterminate" as a type of claim, or you could avoid this.

Does truth precede claims or did truth not arise until a humanlike creature thought the first claim?

If "reality" doesn't mean "the empirical world" to you, you're probably a philosopher. If it does, you can relax. You're gonna be okay.

I guess since I'm playing devil's advocate and doubtless already in over my head...reality doesn't mean empirical to me, but I'm not a philosopher. I define reality as all there is and existence as the empirical world. Reality would be potentially bigger and the source of existence.

There are no "necessary truths." "Necessary" has, for some, taken the place of "objective."


What in god's name does "universal truth" even mean?

I beg to differ. In another thread I noted a compatibilist pattern to empirical existence...ever-changing matter can only change under the supervision of, and according to the 'rules' imposed by the suppositionally immutable non-contact forces. If this pattern holds true (as I believe it does) it demonstrates the function of the absolute as not only a function of but necessary to the material sphere. Seems to me that without the supervision of the absolute, matter, which has little o no organizing principle of itself, would descend into chaos or simply disperse into nothing that could be recognized as existence. From this pattern--because I'm a theist--I posit that the normative/moral/ethical domain exists in some greater reality than our existence and operates under the same sort of rule: absolute managing the mutable. Why is this wrong?

[Fixed Cross]

If "reality" doesn't mean "the empirical world" to you, you're probably a philosopher. If it does, you can relax. You're gonna be okay.

I guess since I'm playing devil's advocate and doubtless already in over my head...reality doesn't mean empirical to me, but I'm not a philosopher. I define reality as all there is and existence as the empirical world. Reality would be potentially bigger and the source of existence.

Does this mean that portions of reality do not exist?

There are no "necessary truths." "Necessary" has, for some, taken the place of "objective."


What in god's name does "universal truth" even mean?

I beg to differ. In another thread I noted a compatibilist pattern to empirical existence...ever-changing matter can only change under the supervision of, and according to the 'rules' imposed by the suppositionally immutable non-contact forces. If this pattern holds true (as I believe it does) it demonstrates the function of the absolute as not only a function of but necessary to the material sphere. Seems to me that without the supervision of the absolute, matter, which has little o no organizing principle of itself, would descend into chaos or simply disperse into nothing that could be recognized as existence. From this pattern--because I'm a theist--I posit that the normative/moral/ethical domain exists in some greater reality than our existence and operates under the same sort of rule: absolute managing the mutable. Why is this wrong?

Matter certainly has organizing principle in itself - it is an organizing principle. That is to say, there is no way of looking at matter without also looking at organization process.
Matter includes several types of forces, which together constitute a continuous "organization".

Screen Shot 2019-11-21 at 7.33.02 PM.png (96.84 KiB) Viewed 1390 times

[Silhouette]

You mean that gaps in experience are not experienced.
This does not suffice to postulate continuous experience as a ground; rather it is a resulting appearance.

This is correct. Yet what else is there to go by?
It is appearance, reportedly in the same type of way (if not with exactly the same content) for everyone, and so anything beyond that is what results from such an appearance - including and not limited to conceptions of gaps in experience that are not experienced. They all unavoidably boil down to that same origin in experience with no apparent gaps.

To turn this round and say that appearance results from something else has no directly evident grounds. Only Continuous Experience is a directly evident ground from which to derive anything else that results from it. Anything else is indirect and therefore not fundamental.

[Anomaly654]

Does this mean that portions of reality do not exist?

Maybe, if all you're willing to accept as existence is things in time and space.

Matter certainly has organizing principle in itself - it is an organizing principle. That is to say, there is no way of looking at matter without also looking at organization process.
Matter includes several types of forces, which together constitute a continuous "organization".

[/quote][/quote]
I assume you're claiming the non-contact forces are material or derive from energy itself? Can't rule out the possibility. How is this proven? My understanding is there is no scientific consensus on this. Doesn't matter occupy space and time? Where do non-contact forces exist in time and space aside from their tokens; i.e., planets and galaxies are token clumps of matter in formations dictated by forces that can only be tracked by their effects on the clumps.

Imagine the sudden disappearance of the no contact forces...would matter 'keep on keepin on' on its own?

[iambiguous]

Iam - the U. S. Constitution is not an "objective truth". Thre are no examples of objective truth. I dunno how many times I have to say it before you have the remotest idea of my position. There is therefore nothing to bring out to your world of conflicting goods. There is no definition to place in a context.

Nearly everyone you'll meet (depending upon where you go) will agree that the Constitution "exists". But not in the Archives. That's an iteration of the Constitution. But for present purposes, we can agree that it exists. That piece of paper is not a trurth of any kind. It's a piece of paper. This may sound quite arcane but it's the only way to avoid metaphysics. Believe it or not.

Imagine taking this argument to men and women engaged in a fierce discussion and debate about the meaning of the words written in the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution.

How [to them] would this not cue Will Durant's speculation about "epistemologists"?

Truth as it is understood here technically by certain philosophers or truth as it is related to actual human interactions that revolve around the manufacture, sale and use of firearms.

You and I would both accept that the statement "The U. S. Constitution exists" is true (given my qualifications about existence, which we are setting aside.)

So, we agree that this statement is true. That's all there is. A claim to truth that we (and a shitload of other people) agree is true. There is no question of universal truth here. And the Constitution itself is not a truth of any kind.

Okay, but would you or I or others agree with the statement "the second amendment supports the position of gun ownership in America" more or less than the statement, "the second amendment supports the position of those who want guns to be taken away from private citizens in America."

My interest always revolves around the extent to which any particular philosopher's "wisdom" reconfigures dramatically when we shift from what is true -- objectively? universally? -- in the either/or world and what is true -- objectively? universally? -- in the world of conflicting value judgments.

The Second Amendment is not true. It's not false. "People shall bear arms" is not the same as "People do bear arms."

Okay, perhaps, technically. But what actual flesh and blood human beings will do here is to connect the dots between words such as this and the lives that they live. The fact is that in American lots and lots and lots of people bear lots and lots and lots of arms. It is both in fact true "out in the world" and accurate to state that it is in fact true.

Is that where the controversy lies here?

We just think about this differently. Insofar as where the emphasis lies embedded "in reality".

[Karpel Tunnel]

Does truth precede claims or did truth not arise until a humanlike creature thought the first claim?

Claims or statements or assertions can be true. There were real things before claims were made, but truths are a conceptual part of reality ABOUT other parts of reality. As are falsehoods. So, yeah, there were no truths before sentience. But there were real things, I would guess. Real processes. Real patterns. Truths would be assessments made by minds about what is real, what is really going on and so on.

Were there falsehoods before sentient creatures had thoughts or made assertions?
Was there nonsense?

It's a category error.

The Sun certainly seems to be older than humans. But the sun wasn't true before we existed. The bulk of the evidence says it was real.
And the moon wasn't false, for that matter.
And meteor showers were not nonsense.

Unless the meteor shower was a very inefficient message from an alien race tht was not making sense in its communication.

[iambiguous]

No universal truths? Hold your breath and stop breathing, see how long you live without oxygen.

That of course is a biological truth built into the evolution of life on earth. There is also the biological truth embedded in fact that if you choke someone and they stop breathing, they will die. Now, technically, whether one or another serious philosopher makes that more complicated than another serious philosophers says it has to be can quickly become bogged down in epistemological conjecture that goes all the way back to, say, a definitive understanding of existence itself. In a universe where the human species is afforded the option of freely choosing one point of view rather than another.

But suppose the presumed autonomous discussion shifts to whether, in any one particular context, it is either objectively or universally true that choking someone to death is moral or immoral?

[Fixed Cross]

Does this mean that portions of reality do not exist?

Maybe, if all you're willing to accept as existence is things in time and space.

I dont.

Matter certainly has organizing principle in itself - it is an organizing principle. That is to say, there is no way of looking at matter without also looking at organization process.
Matter includes several types of forces, which together constitute a continuous "organization".

I assume you're claiming the non-contact forces are material or derive from energy itself? Can't rule out the possibility. How is this proven? My understanding is there is no scientific consensus on this. Doesn't matter occupy space and time? Where do non-contact forces exist in time and space aside from their tokens; i.e., planets and galaxies are token clumps of matter in formations dictated by forces that can only be tracked by their effects on the clumps.

Imagine the sudden disappearance of the no contact forces...would matter 'keep on keepin on' on its own?

As I see it, matter is only recognized by these forces, so it is incorrect to presume there is matter independent of these forces.

[Fixed Cross]

Right now all you're doing is reifying experience.

You mean that gaps in experience are not experienced.
This does not suffice to postulate continuous experience as a ground; rather it is a resulting appearance.

This is correct. Yet what else is there to go by?

Im saying there is no criterium for posting continuous experience as more fundamental than discrete experience, as your notion of the former is derived from the latter.
We've had this discussion in 2013 or 2014 on Humanarchy, of course, but Tom Secker (the owner) took it offline, I think prompted by his Marxist handlers.

It is appearance, reportedly in the same type of way (if not with exactly the same content) for everyone, and so anything beyond that is what results from such an appearance - including and not limited to conceptions of gaps in experience that are not experienced. They all unavoidably boil down to that same origin in experience with no apparent gaps.

This is a non sequitur, as you're using the term "gap" both as positive and as negative.

To turn this round and say that appearance results from something else has no directly evident grounds. Only Continuous Experience is a directly evident ground from which to derive anything else that results from it.

No."Experience" is irreducible (except to its singular quality which is valuing) but the argument for its continuousness is, as I see it, merely syntactic, which does not amount to a foundational idea in my book.

But we can agree to disagree here, at least you're actually invested in your idea, and it isn't hollow semantics.

[Fixed Cross]

Anomaly - I rather think what we see as "matter" is a configuration of forces. That there is no "substance" apart from these forces, which I see all as "valuing" (selecting, attracting, repulsing).

[iambiguous]

Per valuator logic, we see Iambiguous manages to value the lesser ones in terms of his own aims; they are horses pulling his cart, food on his plate.

Ah, so now the "intellectual contraption" of choice is "valuator logic".

Might he be so bold as to bring this new one down out of the scholastic clouds.

Scholastic clouds? To witless:

The lesser ones have no power to set aims for themselves here, they are compulsively trying to make it seem to themselves like they are masters of the situation (which tolerates no master except the liar who produced it) by "winning the debate" or "showing their superior understanding" yet there is no conviction in it - they are just addicted to the pattern. If they were motivated by philosophical considerations they'd obviously not engage someone who is asking blatantly nonsensical questions, but might seek for meaningful questions to ask themselves.

Okay, so now...

I dare him to bring "valuator logic" down out of the "serious philosopher" clouds. First he can define it. Then he can define "universal truth".

Then he can note how his definitions are applicable to a discussion of human interactions revolving around the manufacture, sale and use of guns.

Or in regard to any other context in which a discussion of universal truth might be expected.

Let's see how he wiggles out of it this time.

Finally...

[though not necessarily in that order]

[Fixed Cross]

Straw man much?

[iambiguous]

The trick Iambiguous uses to take over peoples system is asking truly stupid questions, making people feel superior and confident to engage, and then once they are engaged and uttering statements, very cleverly misinterpreting these statements. So the misled innocents get angry and indignant and are left with a combination of feeling superior and feeling frustrated. This cocktail is sufficient to keep peoples passions tied to him.

The point being of course to make me the issue.

Again, he is rather famous here for posting this sort of "it's-so-deep-it's-meaningless" intellectual, uh, drivel?

You know, if I do say so myself.

Anyway, all I can do is to challenge him to bring his accusation out into the world of human interactions where a discussion of "universal truth" pertains to an actual context. Of his choosing.

Giving him yet another opportunity to demonstrate more substantively the manner in which I ask stupid question. And no doubt provide stupid answers.

Well, unless I manage to turn it all around and convince you that it is instead him that his own accusations are more applicable to.

Let's see if he'll take that chance.