Theoretically, seems fine. But practically, our knowledge is always just varying levels of imperfect. So while the goal is to understand the absolute, I don’t believe I am going to get there by assuming I know the absolute. Which is why it’s such a pleasure to find people like Yayyywork. Besides change my view on reddit, I’ve never found a forum full of thoughtful people. But it would be sweet, but I suspect the market of people is too small
I tend to agree with Taleb (and others although i got it from Taleb) that negative knowledge is much more robust than positive knowledge. We know with much greater certainty what doesn’t work compared to what does – which translates to we have a better idea about what we should not do.
anyway, i think it is a better way of life to assume there is an absolute and to spend your life constantly questioning what it is and exploring it. this tends to lead to deep self discovery and with it a desire to foster, enrich and perpetuate life. one can’t help but find this desirable and in doing so you gain discernment, i.e. the ability to understand what does not foster enrich and perpetuate life.
now take the opposite view of life: assuming there is no absolute. to me this divorces man from his guiding compass: foster, enrich and perpetuate life. In this void, all manner of depravity, self degradation, and violence is allowed in and becomes acceptable by some rationalization, like “it’s all relative”.
I think that it would make things easier if there were moral absolutes. But it reminds of the Voltaire saying “If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent him.”
what’s valuable is the journey, which doesn’t require an actual answer to whether or not there are absolutes. this has been proven over the entirety of man’s existence.
Interesting points by all, very interesting to read!
Fascinating debate. On a finance forum no less. Yay - you should check out Mark Passio sometime. He was a big Satanist who eventually left the dark occult. I’ve seen him say in an interview that a central tenet of satanism is a belief in moral relativism, fwiw.
lol Charlie reviving old TF threads
hmmmmm
I have to search for his threads to find anything interesting to discuss.
of course you do, we understand Charlie, its ok
My philosophy professor actually took the absolute truth stance. he took it as far as saying that no crime is heinous for a justified execution. rofl right, im pretty sure we can easily think of a few special characters.
anyways we all know that there are many cultures and every culture has different rules. in addition, these rules often change throughout time. sentiment is fickle. so there is nothing absolute.
but in the end, in my opinion, i think the absolute truth is that nothing really matters.
look at the stars. do you think anything you do is really significant in that grand scale?
i think not. no matter how much good or bad you’ve done it is prolly deminimis.
having said that no one likes an ahole so if you want to be happy and liked you prolly want to be a good person.
also all this talk about what is right or wrong and judging the actions of others must be a pain in the ass. mad respect for judges right?
Nietzsche came up with a way to find meaning in a world where there was no god or absolute meaning, you know. May wanna check it out.
Ah this was prime TF, great discussion was very enjoyable!
Are we talking about the same satanists? Or are you talking about actual satan worshippers. The church of satan is basically a troll of christianity and while i am pretty sympathetic to many of their causes, i dont feel it particularly useful to be as antagonistic as they are.
Took a peak at this Mark Passio fella, seems a little off his rocker. He says a lot of generic statements to make people like Turd feel good about themselves though. “Universal Truths” “True Self”, good stuff.