Nothing is Absolute
Some people say that "nothing is absolute except the relative". Others say that "nothing is absolute including the relative". Do you believe either of these two are correct? If not, what would you say is correct?
Neither are correct and both are correct. To resolve this paradox, I think these statements can be approached in terms of fact, values, and morals.
There are absolutes in terms of universal constants and in terms of measurements of time and mass, for example. And of course there are objective, undeniable scientific truths, such as: the earth revolves around the sun. There are also absolute truths within the context of deductive mathematics, that, based on its axioms, may deliver different but valid results. In one such system of mathematics, for example, two plus two must absolutely equal four.
As to questions of values, we enter a twilight zone in which subjectivity and objectivity mesh. Money is useful to most but not all people. There is to most people an objective quantative difference between kindergarten drawings and the drawings of the Old Masters, and also the worst kindergarten and Old Master paintings and the best.
As to morals, we enter further yet into the morass of subjectivity. Personally, I link ethics to the search for and an understanding of truth, but this is by no means a consensus view. However, generally, I believe that morals is a relative expression of each person's conscious and unconscious presuppositions concerning life and his or her own existence.
Your example of money is subjective, meaning its worth is different to each person and its average value on an Exchange, which represents an average of lots of people's values, fluctuates.
But the fluctuation of money, stocks, and commodities is not merely subjective. The spread is like may flies around a dead rabbit, but the dead rabit, i.e. the intrinsic value, is objectively present albeit individually subjectively apprehended. Those that defy this become victims to bubbles and scams or lucky-- real life lessons in epistomology.
Ethics (morality) is the study of how people actually behave (social science) or, how they should behave (philosophy & theology). Here again, as with values, I know of no universal, objective ethics.
Except for our mutual physicality-- surely you would agree that our bodies are objectively real. "Do I not bleed" is the objective basis of most law.
Show me where the intrinsic value resides in money?
Money isn't at all arbitrary. It is absolute but in a fragment of time.
I heard on NPR radio that in Zimbabwe, which is experiencing 11,000% percent inflation, a loaf of bread now costs $22,000. Notwithstanding the social fiction of fiat currency, the bread is still something humans want. Because humans want it, its value still exists because it can be exchanged even for hyper-inflated money.
The same is true in the stock market. A company, let's call it Cat Herding, Inc., is capitalized at 1,000,000 shares. On FNN, you see that each share is worth $10. What is it's value? I would argue that the value is absolutely what the free market auction gives it in that instant of time, i.e. $10,000,000. That we think it is worth $20 dollars or $5 dollars is irrelevant. That $10 reflects or whims and hunches of the ignorant and the insane and also the considered judgment of professional short and long sellers and optioneers, and also databases, computer systems, and neural networks that talk to each other to say nothing of exogenous events such as politics and weather. It could be that Cat Herding is watered stock-- overinflated and hyped-- but even that reflects the prevailing knowledge of the marketplace at that moment in time.
This is true with the market as a whole. There is no shadowy "them" that controls market values, such as the price of gas, as the market is bigger than any billionare, oil oligarchy, or federal reserve system. It is the naked South Seas fisherman who trades two shells for a fish and it is the Deutche Bank wire-transferring a hundred million to the Bank of Hong Kong. The voice of the market is the voice of God, all knowing and all powerful-- the most powerful entityin existence. (I dare say more people pay homage to this God than any other.) The market is both rational-- in that it deals with the metaphysics of what is real-- real people creating real things-- and it is irrational and psychological-- akin to the irrational panic of the wilderbeast on the savannah of Africa reacting to cat growls or perhaps nothing at all.
Again, the values are in the head, not in the art works.
I think your arguments voids the definition of value. Thus, the imputed value of the Mona Lisa, for example, is not even the value of the wood and paints. It is merely the shared belief that the painting is priceless. The question is: is that shared belief enough to create a reality of value?
However, an "objective basis for ... law" does NOT exist.
My quote from "The Merchant of Venice" ("If you prick me, doo I not bleed") wasn't meant to demosntrate that humans are real, but that we share a common physicality, which provides an objective basis for law. There are other objective bases for law, such as humanity's instinct to form families and communities, respond to weather, accumulate possessions, and think about death. But I think our own biology is the key factor.
Ordinary man and woman embrace and recoil the same no matter where they live. That history is made up of cannibals and fascists doesn't negate this idea of the universality of biologically-derived moral values. Of course, there are layers of culture, but underneath, the same mix of nobility and criminaity emerges no matter where you look. Thus, when the facts came to light, humanity was appalled at the genocides inflicted on three separate continents—German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s, and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s.
Well, what of those who were not appalled? I think the answer lies in an example-- our response as to why we should not torture, present adminsitration policy notwithstanding. We do not torture for ethical reasons-- it violates the categorical imperative of inflicting needless pain-- and for utlitierian reasons-- that for some people it doesn't provide the results the torturer wants. That some people have constitutions impervious to pain or may welcome pain doesn't undermine the proposition that such conduct is unethical. Rather, it recognizes the diversity of humanity that allows people to be wired as they are. It is a recognition of their individuality as well as their humanity that requires that we consider torture unacceptable. In other words, and perhaps paradoxically, the ordinary man and women will reject torture because of their recognition that there are extraordinary men and women who do not reject torture.
Neither are correct and both are correct. To resolve this paradox, I think these statements can be approached in terms of fact, values, and morals.
There are absolutes in terms of universal constants and in terms of measurements of time and mass, for example. And of course there are objective, undeniable scientific truths, such as: the earth revolves around the sun. There are also absolute truths within the context of deductive mathematics, that, based on its axioms, may deliver different but valid results. In one such system of mathematics, for example, two plus two must absolutely equal four.
As to questions of values, we enter a twilight zone in which subjectivity and objectivity mesh. Money is useful to most but not all people. There is to most people an objective quantative difference between kindergarten drawings and the drawings of the Old Masters, and also the worst kindergarten and Old Master paintings and the best.
As to morals, we enter further yet into the morass of subjectivity. Personally, I link ethics to the search for and an understanding of truth, but this is by no means a consensus view. However, generally, I believe that morals is a relative expression of each person's conscious and unconscious presuppositions concerning life and his or her own existence.
Your example of money is subjective, meaning its worth is different to each person and its average value on an Exchange, which represents an average of lots of people's values, fluctuates.
But the fluctuation of money, stocks, and commodities is not merely subjective. The spread is like may flies around a dead rabbit, but the dead rabit, i.e. the intrinsic value, is objectively present albeit individually subjectively apprehended. Those that defy this become victims to bubbles and scams or lucky-- real life lessons in epistomology.
Ethics (morality) is the study of how people actually behave (social science) or, how they should behave (philosophy & theology). Here again, as with values, I know of no universal, objective ethics.
Except for our mutual physicality-- surely you would agree that our bodies are objectively real. "Do I not bleed" is the objective basis of most law.
Show me where the intrinsic value resides in money?
Money isn't at all arbitrary. It is absolute but in a fragment of time.
I heard on NPR radio that in Zimbabwe, which is experiencing 11,000% percent inflation, a loaf of bread now costs $22,000. Notwithstanding the social fiction of fiat currency, the bread is still something humans want. Because humans want it, its value still exists because it can be exchanged even for hyper-inflated money.
The same is true in the stock market. A company, let's call it Cat Herding, Inc., is capitalized at 1,000,000 shares. On FNN, you see that each share is worth $10. What is it's value? I would argue that the value is absolutely what the free market auction gives it in that instant of time, i.e. $10,000,000. That we think it is worth $20 dollars or $5 dollars is irrelevant. That $10 reflects or whims and hunches of the ignorant and the insane and also the considered judgment of professional short and long sellers and optioneers, and also databases, computer systems, and neural networks that talk to each other to say nothing of exogenous events such as politics and weather. It could be that Cat Herding is watered stock-- overinflated and hyped-- but even that reflects the prevailing knowledge of the marketplace at that moment in time.
This is true with the market as a whole. There is no shadowy "them" that controls market values, such as the price of gas, as the market is bigger than any billionare, oil oligarchy, or federal reserve system. It is the naked South Seas fisherman who trades two shells for a fish and it is the Deutche Bank wire-transferring a hundred million to the Bank of Hong Kong. The voice of the market is the voice of God, all knowing and all powerful-- the most powerful entityin existence. (I dare say more people pay homage to this God than any other.) The market is both rational-- in that it deals with the metaphysics of what is real-- real people creating real things-- and it is irrational and psychological-- akin to the irrational panic of the wilderbeast on the savannah of Africa reacting to cat growls or perhaps nothing at all.
Again, the values are in the head, not in the art works.
I think your arguments voids the definition of value. Thus, the imputed value of the Mona Lisa, for example, is not even the value of the wood and paints. It is merely the shared belief that the painting is priceless. The question is: is that shared belief enough to create a reality of value?
However, an "objective basis for ... law" does NOT exist.
My quote from "The Merchant of Venice" ("If you prick me, doo I not bleed") wasn't meant to demosntrate that humans are real, but that we share a common physicality, which provides an objective basis for law. There are other objective bases for law, such as humanity's instinct to form families and communities, respond to weather, accumulate possessions, and think about death. But I think our own biology is the key factor.
Ordinary man and woman embrace and recoil the same no matter where they live. That history is made up of cannibals and fascists doesn't negate this idea of the universality of biologically-derived moral values. Of course, there are layers of culture, but underneath, the same mix of nobility and criminaity emerges no matter where you look. Thus, when the facts came to light, humanity was appalled at the genocides inflicted on three separate continents—German Europe in the 1940s, Cambodian Asia in the 1970s, and Rwandan Africa in the 1990s.
Well, what of those who were not appalled? I think the answer lies in an example-- our response as to why we should not torture, present adminsitration policy notwithstanding. We do not torture for ethical reasons-- it violates the categorical imperative of inflicting needless pain-- and for utlitierian reasons-- that for some people it doesn't provide the results the torturer wants. That some people have constitutions impervious to pain or may welcome pain doesn't undermine the proposition that such conduct is unethical. Rather, it recognizes the diversity of humanity that allows people to be wired as they are. It is a recognition of their individuality as well as their humanity that requires that we consider torture unacceptable. In other words, and perhaps paradoxically, the ordinary man and women will reject torture because of their recognition that there are extraordinary men and women who do not reject torture.
Labels: philosophy
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