This is similar to the postings of the shooter in Arizona, at least in a cryptic/random sense. Will this be a thread that will hold great mass later? The truth is, I are confused. Go Rockets?
Was going to post this comment somewhere else, but it seems to me when its said to be "open minded", at the other end of "open minded" is something gay, crazy, lazy, and gay. Try to un-perceptualize being being prison bars until death. No amount of philosophical framework and reasoning will get you out of that. You have to make an alternate mental reality to get out of that. Even creating another acceptable illusion is acknowledgment of the previous fact.
yeah...clearly someone who believes there's something out there beyond what can be seen isn't ready for this conversation! :grin:
If there are no absolute truths, then your statement is absolutely true -- which means that it is self-contradictory. If there are absolute truths, then your statement is false. So, your statement is false, and there are absolute truths. :grin:
This thread reminded me of a joke I heard the other day: An old man asked God why he created earth. God answered, "I like the stories"
The muffin man is seated at the table in the laboratory of the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen. Reaching for an oversized chrome spoon, he gathers an intimate quantity of dried muffin remnants, and brushing his scapular aside, proceeds to dump these inside of his shirt... He turns to us and speaks: "Some people like cupcakes better. I for one care less for them!" Arrogantly twisting the sterile canvas snoot of a fully charged icing anointment utensil, he poots forths a quarter-ounce green rosette (oh ah... lets try that again...!) he poots forth a quarter-ounce green rosette near the summit of a dense but radiant muffin of his own design. Later he says: "Some people... some people like cupcakes exclusively, while myself, I say there is naught, nor ought there be, nothing so exalted on the face of gods grey earth as that prince of foods... the muffin!"
A wise man knows what he doesn't know. <object width="640" height="390"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_RpSv3HjpEw&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_RpSv3HjpEw&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&version=3" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="640" height="390"></embed></object>
On the Italian country side a man and his daughter were riding in there wagon after having sold all their harvest at the market. Suddenly, 2 robbers started to charge at them. Thinking quickly, the daughter grabbed their money and stuck it up her vag. The robbers end up stealing the wagon. As the wagon traveled off into the horizon the father started crying. Confused, the woman took out the money and said, "Why are you crying Papa? we have the money still!". The man responds, "yeah but if your mother was here we would still have the wagon"
"No absolute truths" is such a silly concept. Of course there are absolute truths. Mathematics is a good example. 2+2=4 whether they label their numbers differently on another planet or not. The quantity hasn't changed, only the label. Additionally, the universe was either created by a deity or it wasn't. Either of those options is possible, but one is the truth, and it is absolute even if we don't know it. Your belief or lack therefore has little to do with whether said deity exists or doesn't exist. He/she/it absolutely does or absolutely doesn't. If you are trying to break down to some deep philosophical level where you argue about how other creatures in other worlds or realities or suffering from mental diseases etc. perceive or label things, well then we aren't talking about absolute truths anymore, we are talking about perceived and experienced "truths." And of course those are not absolute because they are the truths we create. A schizophrenic claims to hear voices. For her this experience is happening. It is absolutely true in her mind that she hears them. Yet, you as the psychiatrist know that she is in fact only creating these voices. They are a function of a disorder. They are not real. It is absolutely true for you that she is simply suffering from a symptom of her condition. Does this disprove absolute truths because something is true and not true for two different people at the same time? Of course not. At some level, there is a truth. We may all experience truths differently, but they do exist. We may not be able to define them or recognize them, etc. but that has no impact on their existence.
Art is just as quantifiable as anything else. If it's created physically, it can be measured physically. In fact, music is MORE measured than random sound. If you're talking about the effect of listening to and creating music as human beings, that's more about humanity than music itself, and I'm pretty sure that's D&D material. And also, yes, it's self-contradictory to say there are no absolute truths.
*since I can't rep ima_dk2... Evelyn, a modified dog Viewed the quivering fringe of a special doily Draped across the piano, with some surprise In the darkened room Where the chairs dismayed And the horrible curtains Muffled the rain She could hardly believe her eyes A curious breeze A garlic breath Which sounded like a snore Somewhere near the Steinway (or even from within) Had caused the doily fringe to waft & tremble in the gloom Evelyn, a dog, having undergone Further modification Pondered the significance of short-person behavior In pedal-depressed panchromatic resonance And other highly ambient domains . . . Arf she said
