Responses 006 (2010-2011)

Just past the halfway mark in the new list, you'll see the egregious Question 6: " 'There are no absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false'. Discuss this claim. " It makes you wonder if Alchin and gang, setting these questions, were out to entrap the most easily gulled students.

Let's consider the possibilities.

If the claim is absolutely true, then you would have to say that some things can be partially true. For things to be partially true (i.e. true to a limited extent) then there must be some things that are completely true (so that the extent can be limited). This would require you to draw an absolute distinction between truth and falsehood. In fact, by asserting that the claim is true, you are making a statement of absolute truth.

If the claim is not absolutely true, then there must be, in some cases, absolute distinctions between what is true and what is false. Which means, of course, that you can define absolute distinctions, and it can't be true that there are none.

If the claim is indistinct — that is, we cannot evaluate it to be absolutely true or not absolutely true — then there exists at least one thing (this claim) for which the claim is true (i.e. that there are no absolute distinctions between true and not true, or false). Since in the case of this claim, it can be shown that it must be true, the claim is false. This is a paradox, which means the statement is linguistically inexact or something like that. It must therefore be a bad statement, and this is a bad question.

I wouldn't advise anyone to answer this question without ammunition related to ambiguity and paradox, especially as it pertains to ways of knowing such as language and logical reasoning, and as it pertains to disciplines such as mathematics, history and art.

Relativism

Relativism can be summarised in many ways, some of which are pithy, some of which are earthy, some of which are rather salty. The most important point about relativism is that it is the bastard child of the idea that there is no absolute reference point in the universe. That might be true of an infinite universe with no centre; it is not true of our human universe, which has no choice but to be anthropocentric.

That said, things like moral relativism can be compared to robot artificial intelligence when applied to shape/colour combinations and asked to make qualitative judgements about them. For example, consider a large blue sphere and a small red cube: which of them is closer to the ideal of a medium-sized blue cube? Or a medium-sized green cylinder?

This is the problem; given any complex single human concept such as morality, you can apply various schemata to decompose it into dimensions. Then you will find that it is hard to say which dimensions are more important, because if you've done it right, they should be orthogonal — that is, not related to each other at all.

For example, the classical idea of what ought to be learnt comprises three dimensions: what is truth, what is goodness, and what is beauty. Neil Postman and Howard Gardner between them pointed out that teaching mathematics, history and art would thus suffice for a full basic curriculum; in theory, the argument went, mathematics is all about defining truth and falsehood, a grasp of history would teach the difference between good and evil, and art (or music) would teach the difference between beauty and the lack of it.

That's obviously far too simplistic. You'd end up asking if art could be seen as false or evil, or if mathematics could be seen as beautiful, or if history could be false. These seem like legitimate questions, and the difficulty of answering them drives people into relativism (or insanity, which is about the same thing). The fact is that we believe in absolutes. A relativist must believe that there is a relationship of some sort between the things he connects by relativism; this relationship either exists or it does not, and if he claims that it is of unknown quality of existence, then he makes his own argument dubious.

In my last few months of research, looking at so-called Eastern and Western paradigms, I've found only two differences worth noting. Firstly, the original languages of thought expression were different; this made both sides believe that the other side had something fundamentally different. Secondly, the historical and cultural backgrounds were different, and each side made the most of it to claim exceptionalism or reverse exceptionalism.

That's all nonsense. As the Preacher said, there is nothing new under the sun. The same kinds of thoughts have been expressed in every civilisation, in every faith, and in every language. It is only the problem of information demodulation or decryption that has made it seem not so. The only different thoughts are thoughts linked to material objects or phenomena that have not been observed before by someone else.

A person who has watched the intense event of childbirth is not exactly the same as another one who has done so, but he is very much different from one who has not seen such a thing at all. A green ball may not be a blue ball, but it is definitely more of a kind than a red cube would be with either.