Relativism, absolute truth and alike.

Oscillation

Oscillation

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Relativism says "there is no absolute truth, all is relative", right? I've wondered about if there is a philosophical ideology that says that there is an absolute truth, but since we all are percievers we cannot fully see this truth, and therefor our perceptions are somewhat relative. In other words; "both relativism and absolutism are being true!"

Do you know any ideology that fits? Maybe we should come up with one.
 
Perhaps it's just good ol' "Idealism" I'm searching for, if you take Socrates's/Plato's (can't remember wich one of them) allergory of the cave and shadows of reality.
 
This makes the most sense to me based on what I have found for myself so far…but to each his own…you are the only one who can answer such a subjective experiential question.

We are a group of internationally known scientists, from a variety of scientific fields (biology, neuroscience, psychology, medicine, psychiatry), who participated in an international summit on post-materialist science, spirituality and society.

The summit was co-organized by Gary E. Schwartz, PhD and Mario Beauregard, PhD, the University of Arizona, and Lisa Miller, PhD, Columbia University.
This summit was held at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, Arizona, on February 7-9, 2014. Our purpose was to discuss the impact of the materialist ideology on science and the emergence of a post-materialist paradigm for science, spirituality, and society.

We have come to the following conclusions:

1. The modern scientific worldview is predominantly predicated on assumptions that are closely associated with classical physics. Materialism–the idea that matter is the only reality–is one of these assumptions. A related assumption is reductionism, the notion that complex things can be understood by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things such as tiny material particles.

2. During the 19th century, these assumptions narrowed, turned into dogmas, and coalesced into an ideological belief system that came to be known as "scientific materialism." This belief system implies that the mind is nothing but the physical activity of the brain, and that our thoughts cannot have any effect upon our brains and bodies, our actions, and the physical world.

3. The ideology of scientific materialism became dominant in academia during the 20th century. So dominant that a majority of scientists started to believe that it was based on established empirical evidence, and represented the only rational view of the world.

4. Scientific methods based upon materialistic philosophy have been highly successful in not only increasing our understanding of nature but also in bringing greater control and freedom through advances in technology.

5. However, the nearly absolute dominance of materialism in the academic world has seriously constricted the sciences and hampered the development of the scientific study of mind and spirituality. Faith in this ideology, as an exclusive explanatory framework for reality, has compelled scientists to neglect the subjective dimension of human experience. This has led to a severely distorted and impoverished understanding of ourselves and our place in nature.

6. Science is first and foremost a non-dogmatic, open-minded method of acquiring knowledge about nature through the observation, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena. Its methodology is not synonymous with materialism and should not be committed to any particular beliefs, dogmas, or ideologies.

7. At the end of the nineteenth century, physicists discovered empirical phenomena that could not be explained by classical physics. This led to the development, during the 1920s and early 1930s, of a revolutionary new branch of physics called quantum mechanics (QM). QM has questioned the material foundations of the world by showing that atoms and subatomic particles are not really solid objects–they do not exist with certainty at definite spatial locations and definite times. Most importantly, QM explicitly introduced the mind into its basic conceptual structure since it was found that particles being observed and the observer–the physicist and the method used for observation–are linked. According to one interpretation of QM, this phenomenon implies that the consciousness of the observer is vital to the existence of the physical events being observed, and that mental events can affect the physical world. The results of recent experiments support this interpretation. These results suggest that the physical world is no longer the primary or sole component of reality, and that it cannot be fully understood without making reference to the mind.

8. Psychological studies have shown that conscious mental activity can causally influence behavior, and that the explanatory and predictive value of agentic factors (e.g. beliefs, goals, desires and expectations) is very high. Moreover, research in psychoneuroimmunology indicates that our thoughts and emotions can markedly affect the activity of the physiological systems (e.g., immune, endocrine, cardiovascular) connected to the brain. In other respects, neuroimaging studies of emotional self-regulation, psychotherapy, and the placebo effect demonstrate that mental events significantly influence the activity of the brain.

9. Studies of the so-called "psi phenomena" indicate that we can sometimes receive meaningful information without the use of ordinary senses, and in ways that transcend the habitual space and time constraints. Furthermore, psi research demonstrates that we can mentally influence–at a distance–physical devices and living organisms (including other human beings). Psi research also shows that distant minds may behave in ways that are nonlocally correlated, i.e. the correlations between distant minds are hypothesized to be unmediated (they are not linked to any known energetic signal), unmitigated (they do not degrade with increasing distance), and immediate (they appear to be simultaneous). These events are so common that they cannot be viewed as anomalous nor as exceptions to natural laws, but as indications of the need for a broader explanatory framework that cannot be predicated exclusively on materialism.

10. Conscious mental activity can be experienced in clinical death during a cardiac arrest (this is what has been called a "near-death experience" [NDE]). Some near-death experiencers (NDErs) have reported veridical out-of-body perceptions (i.e. perceptions that can be proven to coincide with reality) that occurred during cardiac arrest. NDErs also report profound spiritual experiences during NDEs triggered by cardiac arrest. It is noteworthy that the electrical activity of the brain ceases within a few seconds following a cardiac arrest.

11. Controlled laboratory experiments have documented that skilled research mediums (people who claim that they can communicate with the minds of people who have physically died) can sometimes obtain highly accurate information about deceased individuals. This further supports the conclusion that mind can exist separate from the brain.

12. Some materialistically inclined scientists and philosophers refuse to acknowledge these phenomena because they are not consistent with their exclusive conception of the world. Rejection of post-materialist investigation of nature or refusal to publish strong science findings supporting a post-materialist framework are antithetical to the true spirit of scientific inquiry, which is that empirical data must always be adequately dealt with. Data which do not fit favored theories and beliefs cannot be dismissed a priori. Such dismissal is the realm of ideology, not science.

13. It is important to realize that psi phenomena, NDEs in cardiac arrest, and replicable evidence from credible research mediums, appear anomalous only when seen through the lens of materialism.

14. Moreover, materialist theories fail to elucidate how brain could generate the mind, and they are unable to account for the empirical evidence alluded to in this manifesto. This failure tells us that it is now time to free ourselves from the shackles and blinders of the old materialist ideology, to enlarge our concept of the natural world, and to embrace a post-materialist paradigm.

15. According to the post-materialist paradigm:

a) Mind represents an aspect of reality as primordial as the physical world. Mind is fundamental in the universe, i.e. it cannot be derived from matter and reduced to anything more basic.

b) There is a deep interconnectedness between mind and the physical world.

c) Mind (will/intention) can influence the state of the physical world, and operate in a nonlocal (or extended) fashion, i.e. it is not confined to specific points in space, such as brains and bodies, nor to specific points in time, such as the present. Since the mind may nonlocally influence the physical world, the intentions, emotions, and desires of an experimenter may not be completely isolated from experimental outcomes, even in controlled and blinded experimental designs.

d) Minds are apparently unbounded, and may unite in ways suggesting a unitary, One Mind that includes all individual, single minds.

e) NDEs in cardiac arrest suggest that the brain acts as a transceiver of mental activity, i.e. the mind can work through the brain, but is not produced by it. NDEs occurring in cardiac arrest, coupled with evidence from research mediums, further suggest the survival of consciousness, following bodily death, and the existence of other levels of reality that are non-physical.

f) Scientists should not be afraid to investigate spirituality and spiritual experiences since they represent a central aspect of human existence.

16. Post-materialist science does not reject the empirical observations and great value of scientific achievements realized up until now. It seeks to expand the human capacity to better understand the wonders of nature, and in the process rediscover the importance of mind and spirit as being part of the core fabric of the universe. Post-materialism is inclusive of matter, which is seen as a basic constituent of the universe.

17. The post-materialist paradigm has far-reaching implications. It fundamentally alters the vision we have of ourselves, giving us back our dignity and power, as humans and as scientists. This paradigm fosters positive values such as compassion, respect, and peace. By emphasizing a deep connection between ourselves and nature at large, the post-materialist paradigm also promotes environmental awareness and the preservation of our biosphere. In addition, it is not new, but only forgotten for four hundred years, that a lived transmaterial understanding may be the cornerstone of health and wellness, as it has been held and preserved in ancient mind-body-spirit practices, religious traditions, and contemplative approaches.

18. The shift from materialist science to post-materialist science may be of vital importance to the evolution of the human civilization. It may be even more pivotal than the transition from geocentrism to heliocentrism.

* The Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science was prepared by Mario Beauregard, PhD (University of Arizona), Gary E. Schwartz, PhD (University of Arizona), and Lisa Miller, PhD (Columbia University), in collaboration with Larry Dossey, MD, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, and Charles Tart, PhD.

** For further information, please contact Dr Mario Beauregard, Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, USA. Email: mariobeauregard@email.arizona.edu

*** We considered two ways of referring to the emerging paradigm presented in this Manifesto: the hyphenated version (post-materialism) and the non-hyphenated version (postmaterialism). The hyphenated form was selected for the sake of clarity for both scientists and lay people.

**** The Summary Report of the International Summit on Post-Materialist Science, Spirituality and Society can be downloaded here: International Summit on Post-Materialist Science: Summary Report (PDF).

We invite you, scientists of the world, to read the Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science and sign it, if you wish to show your support.
Become a Signatory of the Manifesto

Manifesto Authors

Mario Beauregard, PhD, Neuroscience of Consciousness
Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, Dept of Psychology, University of Arizona, USA
Author of The Spiritual Brain and Brain Wars
Larry Dossey, MD, Internal Medicine
Independent Scholar and Executive Editor, Explore
Author of Recovering the Soul, USA
Lisa Jane Miller, PhD, Clinical Psychology
Editor, Oxford Handbook of Psychology & Spirituality, Editor-in-Chief, Spirituality in Clinical Practice
Professor & Director, Spirituality & Mind Body Institute, Columbia University, USA
Alexander Moreira-Almeida, MD, PhD, Psychiatry
Associate Professor, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora
Founder & Director, Research Center in Spirituality and Health, Brazil
Marilyn Schlitz, PhD, Social Anthropology
Founder & CEO, Worldview Enterprises
President Emeritus & Senior Fellow, Institute of Noetic Sciences, USA
Gary Schwartz, PhD, Psychology, Neurology, Psychiatry & Surgery
Professor, University of Arizona
Director, Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health, USA
Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, Biochemistry, Developmental Biology, Consciousness Studies
Fellow, Institute of Noetic Sciences, Fellow, Schumacher College
Author of A New Science of Life, UK
Charles T Tart, PhD, Transpersonal Psychology
Core Faculty Member, Sofia University
Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University of California, USA

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Hi Oscillation,

In non-dualist Hinduism, the Absolute is known as Brahman. We experience relative reality because of the maya, or power (illusion/diversity) that can be manifested from the Absolute. The Upanishads discuss Brahman or the Absolute in great detail. A great commentary on the Upanishads is done by Swami Nikhilananda, which you can order from Amazon.

http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/brahman.htm
 
Absolutes...
I habe searched a great part of my life for them.
The other day I watched a Ted Talks program that made a really good case for society needing lies to move forward. That without lies everything would grind to a halt and people would just give up.
As you can imagine, for someone who decided truth was the only important thing, that without it no proper decisions could be made...that anything built on anything but truth would eventually crumble... the realization that lies are as important as truth is pretty hard to swallow.

I am starting to come to the conclusion that the only real important thing is just to live your life and deal with what is directly around you. Control is an illusion . There is always someone waiting to stab you in the back to advance their own ideals.

I dont really blame humanity for this.
 
Eventhorizon said:
Absolutes...
I habe searched a great part of my life for them.
The other day I watched a Ted Talks program that made a really good case for society needing lies to move forward. That without lies everything would grind to a halt and people would just give up.
As you can imagine, for someone who decided truth was the only important thing, that without it no proper decisions could be made...that anything built on anything but truth would eventually crumble... the realization that lies are as important as truth is pretty hard to swallow.

I am starting to come to the conclusion that the only real important thing is just to live your life and deal with what is directly around you. Control is an illusion. Theirs always someone waiting to stab you in the back to advance their own ideals.

I dont really blame humanity for this.
Click to expand...

Take Aldous Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ for example…they had streamlined the system to be totally efficient…embryos are grown in test tubes per say, to become workers, or this or that type of person, including a whole class of people who did nothing but fuck each other and take drugs (aptly named “Soma” in the story).
But there was something missing from the equation…humanity and love.
One could probably say that quite a few relationships would fall apart if one or both of the people could read the other’s mind yes?
One could say that being infatuated is being in that perpetual bliss of ignorance…and being in love is absolute acceptance.
 
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I have now read you post, Skarekrow, and I find it interesting. I will look into this matter (non-matter? :w:)
 
Discordianism kinda sorta fits.

It fits very well actually, when you get past the fact that it takes nothing seriously, not even itself.
 
you may want to read Emmanual Kant's writings and philosophy. same things you are discussing here. plato's republic also discusses relativism and reality.
 
Isn't an ideology in opposition to relativism? As soon as you systematically define your ideals and beliefs in accordance to what you believe to the truth, you lost relativity. The only way to fully achieve relativity at all times in an absolute manner, is to believe nothing and know nothing with any certainty. Such a path leads to constant confusion, unsettling uncertainty and then madness. Perhaps when you have traveled through that final door you will have reached a moment of enlightenment where all truths exist and don't exist.

My own relativity is in seeing the meaning of things as relevant only to the systems that define them. People give things value and meaning and things can make sense within their own system. This is objective truth about their subjectivity. The moment I include my meaning into theirs I have disrupted the system and caused an objectivity to be subjected to my own interpretations and I then fail to see the true system.

Do not worry if you cannot understand me, as it simply means that you may still have a measure of sanity, but then sanity is nothing but the false perception that what you see and know is actually real and we already know that you only see your own interpretation of reality and thus you are just insane anyways. In the end, your concrete view of reality is a blessing as you get to feel confident and clear in your supposed sanity.

I am certain that psychology has accurately defined us all as psychotic. This is not likely a pleasant thought for most, but for me I feel a lot less alone...assuming you are here at all.


IF there was a true existence it would have no personal meaning, no meaning to life, and such because that would be subjective and subjective is relative to the individual. Physical reality can be absolute in truth, but not what makes it real to us.
 
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Grayman said:
Isn't an ideology in opposition to relativism? As soon as you systematically define your ideals and beliefs in accordance to what you believe to the truth, you lost relativity. The only way to fully achieve relativity at all times in an absolute manner, is to believe nothing and know nothing with any certainty. Such a path leads to constant confusion, unsettling uncertainty and then madness. Perhaps when you have traveled through that final door you will have reached a moment of enlightenment where all truths exist and don't exist.

My own relativity is in seeing the meaning of things as relevant only to the systems that define them. People give things value and meaning and things can make sense within their own system. This is objective truth about their subjectivity. The moment I include my meaning into theirs I have disrupted the system and caused an objectivity to be subjected to my own interpretations and I then fail to see the true system.

Do not worry if you cannot understand me, as it simply means that you may still have a measure of sanity, but then sanity is nothing but the false perception that what you see and know is actually real and we already know that you only see your own interpretation of reality and thus you are just insane anyways. In the end, your concrete view of reality is a blessing as you get to feel confident and clear in your supposed sanity.

I am certain that psychology has accurately defined us all as psychotic. This is not likely a pleasant thought for most, but for me I feel a lot less alone...assuming you are here at all.


IF there was a true existence it would have no personal meaning, no meaning to life, and such because that would be subjective and subjective is relative to the individual. Physical reality can be absolute in truth, but not what makes it real to us.
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Interesting. How do you come by these thoughts?
 
First off, there are several types of "relativism" as I understand it. So discussing about it we need to know what kind of relativism we're talking about...
 
Skarekraw, I just realised that even materalism probably aren't that materialistic, since the concept of energy is an abstract quantity, eg. it doesn't take place in the physical world. But I'm not sure whether materialism defines to be the philosophy of "that is real that take up space" or not.
 
Oscillation said:
Skarekraw, I just realised that even materalism probably aren't that materialistic, since the concept of energy is an abstract quantity, eg. it doesn't take place in the physical world. But I'm not sure whether materialism defines to be the philosophy of "that is real that take up space" or not.
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Materialism - Definitions & Doctrines
Materialism can refer either to the simple preoccupation with the material world, as opposed to intellectual or spiritual concepts, or to the theory that physical matter is all there is. This theory is far more than a simple focus on material possessions. It states that everything in the universe is matter, without any true spiritual or intellectual existence.
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But the thing is, we now know that isn’t true with the discovery of Quantum Physics…we know that matter isn’t just matter but instead seems to to have smaller and smaller bits occupied by mostly empty space…we operate on many dimensions….everything you see is your mind’s own VR it has created from the register of waves and other disturbances in space/time….there is no sound…there are waves traveling to your brain where it gives you the sensation of sound…the same with our vision…we see but a tiny sliver on the wavelengths of light available…the photons bounce off something, changing it’s wavelength slightly, then it hits receptor cells in the back of your eye (which is projected upside-down might I add…your brain corrects this), and then some magical something takes places in our brains giving us our sight.
The slight changes in wavelength after the photons hit something and bounce off are interpreted in our brains as color….but there is no real color…there are only wavelengths of light…you created that color.
 
Materialism would say - You have no actual free will. Your brain is nothing but an organic computer that gives you the impression of consciousness and choice but this is actually predetermined just as it would be in a complex program.
 
Oscillation said:
Relativism says "there is no absolute truth, all is relative", right? I've wondered about if there is a philosophical ideology that says that there is an absolute truth, but since we all are percievers we cannot fully see this truth, and therefor our perceptions are somewhat relative. In other words; "both relativism and absolutism are being true!"

Do you know any ideology that fits? Maybe we should come up with one.
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The philosophical ideology that opposes relativism is objectivism. The idea that things have an objective truth beyond our sensory perception. It is the most standardly accepted view in philosophy probably, and is one of the fundamental assumptions in scientific inquiry.

When you say that there is an absolute truth, but we cannot see the absolute truth because of our status is a personal favorite discussion topic of mine :).
Ok, so when talking about reality and the status of its existence, you are talking about the ontology of reality, or its state of being. Is the status of reality mind dependent or mind independent? If we grant mind independence (objectivity), then we can start questioning what we know of reality. In so doing, we switch our question to epistemology, or the theory of knowing in philosophy. This is what you are asking when you say "seeing this truth". Now there is some very interesting modern philosophical discussion on this topic. You might enjoy reading this article about epistemological skepticism:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epistemology/#LIM

The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy is an excellent resource, and is far more reliable than google searches. It's always recommended in my philosophy classes. The point you are questioning relates to an epistemological closure principle, or the idea that, under a certain approach/situation, you are limited in what you are capable of knowing. In this article, it applies to the brain-in-a-vat example, but it applies to many more things. For example, one Professor McGinn applied the closure principle to theory of mind in claiming that being a mind, we cannot understand the nature of the mind necessarily. I disagreed with his argument for many reasons, but he at least demonstrates an alternative application of the principle.
Other applications of closure principles can be grounded in approaches to inquiry. A nice simple example is to consider a kinematic vs a probabilistic analysis of a pool table. A probabilistic analysis can only tell us where a pool ball is likely to go while an accurate kinematic analysis can tell is where the pool ball WILL go. The probabilistic approach is limited in what it can tell us by what the approach is necessarily.

We can extend this then to measures of reality like you are saying. Some examples of reality that we necessarily couldn't understand would be some sort of substance dualist or soul. By definition, these are things that are immaterial. Suppose that such things exist. Because are sensory perception is grounded in the physical, such things would be beyond our sensory perception, and beyond our ability to understand necessarily. In this sense, some parts of reality can very much escape us depending one the approach we use to discover it.
 
Oscillation said:
First off, there are several types of "relativism" as I understand it. So discussing about it we need to know what kind of relativism we're talking about...
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Em, no we can talk about relativism in general if you want...The types of relativism you are referencing are only applications of the idea. The idea can and does stand on its own :)
 
Oscillation said:
Skarekraw, I just realised that even materalism probably aren't that materialistic, since the concept of energy is an abstract quantity, eg. it doesn't take place in the physical world. But I'm not sure whether materialism defines to be the philosophy of "that is real that take up space" or not.
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Materialism is a very broad category of ideas. This is really just the idea that all of reality is grounded in the physical. Beyond that, you can be a reductive/non-reductive materialist, eliminative materialist, and some even say naturalistic dualists are "close enough" to materialism. The idea of energy is still a physical quality and quantity. Just because there is no physical thing to point to and say "energy" with things like potential energy does not make one non-materialist. Only non-eliminativist. For example, most people are inclined to say that a chair exists, but if I give you 10 different kinds of chairs, things get confusing. Each of these chairs are different things necessarily, but we still say they are all the same thing "chair". Many claim (and I agree) that the concept chair is not equivalent to any set of atoms or molecules, but rather is grounded in or arises from the atoms/molecules. In this sense, materialism is easily preserved. The same is true for energy. The idea that potential energy is a fact of the material that is there, even if it is not specifically that material.
 
Skarekrow said:
Materialism would say - You have no actual free will. Your brain is nothing but an organic computer that gives you the impression of consciousness and choice but this is actually predetermined just as it would be in a complex program.
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Materialism makes no such claim. Only if one is a hard determinist, and that is not entailed by a materialistic view. Compatibilist, or general non-determinist theories are completely compatible with materialist views because those theories deal with causation, not....hmmm...I suppose I can call it physical construction? Not sure what word to use there.

A lot of people these days are inclined to a determinist view, this idea of direct one result causation, but there is strong reason to think of the universe as probabilistic. Such as the Copenhagen interpretation in quantum physics. Further, assuming determinism does not rule out free will. Compatibilists have some very interesting things to say...
 
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