Hi Adriana,
Regarding what is an absolute truth:
Since we can not know all there is about any issue, we can not know the absolute limits of any system we are considering. Even if we "arbitrarily" (randomly without much consideration) confine our considerations to as small a consideration as we can, the problem there is that we artificially are restricting the system to be considered, when in reality the system is much more complex. We deceive ourselves into thinking our considerations are accurate. We create "circular logic" (small system of relationships "excluded" (outside) from a real world abstract environment). Therefore our percieved absolute truth, doesn't apply to reality. Any number of things we did not consider could result in a different outcome than the Absolute Truth would predict.
As with Magic. A person doing magic may cause an outcome to occur more frequently than random actions alone. For instance: a witch (let's say good witch in this case) starts "reciting" (repeating by speaking) an "incantation" (system of phrases spoken with the expectation of an outcome) to allow someone to find their soul mate. The absolute truth for someone that doesn't believe in magic is that it is "non-sense" (without reasonable relationship). But they are restricting their "system" of reference to just those things that "can not" be explained by science.
Magic by common definition is anything paranormal, things not explained by science. So what is "entangled particles" (two or more elements connected over a distance instantaneously) in terms of magic? Entangled Particles have all the elements of being magic except that it can be reproduced frequently, ... but not always. Sometimes the system acts differently than expected.
Reciting an incantation has the effect of focusing the mind of the witch, the person for whom the incantation is spoken is involved at some level, the "phermones" (hormones and other odors "excreted" (like sweat, saliva, body odors, ...) by the body) released by both can be sensed by the people around them, ... and things we yet do not detect with our senses are involved, but we don't know anything about those influences, because we don't know they exist.
Magic is a study of consequence; similar to science. But magic practitioners are less structured than scientists. Probability and statistics would be very useful tools for people who use magic. Maybe we would learn more about what we can not currently detect or understand.
The point is, that we can not amass all the complex interactions that we live within, within our minds. Therefore, at no point in time can we ever know any significant absolute truths.
To be pragmatic, we must "do the best we can with the information we can acquire and use, within the time limits we perceive".
We can spend all of our lives collecting information about every personally conceiveable relationship to decide whether we should feed our dog or not, but the dog will have long died if we don't act within a certain time frame. Consequences are perpetually entangled with our actions from moment to moment.
So I value deeply theoretical thinking, because that is all we have. Often the consequences of our thinking yields useful apparent results, ... but not always. Abstract thinking is also of great value, because the action yields useful apparent results, ... but not usually. Both theoretical and abstract thinking are part of the same system; we just artificially separate them in an attempt to better understand their relationships.
1+1=2 and 10+4=2
.
.
.
.
both are true in meridian time
1 o'clock plus 1 hour is 2 o'clock
10 o'clock plus 4 hours is 2 o'clock
because of our mental limitations we must restrict the system we are considering to provide a useful (to us) result. That is the usefulness of abstract thinking; we can map small sections of the abstract into theoretical relationships; then check for the consequences. If we can repeat the relationships and get consequences that occur more often than random results, we have something useful.
We depend upon abstract thinking for learning. To memorizing relationships is only one part of learning. Abstract thinking allows us to map learned relationships to perceived real world relationships. Without being able to abstractly think, you could not see a face in the clouds, or a hand waiting to be carved out of a block of wood. Or that entangled particles have any useful purpose (now used to secure data transfers). Or that the beauty of life itself only seems abstract because our minds are so small, we can only see a small piece at a time.
What we are missing is that our cognitive mind is much less complex than the Universe we attempt to consider. Although our mind is as connected as any other matter in the Universe, our cognitive mind is far more simple in nature. We think sequentially at a cognitive level; yet in nature millions of things occur in parallel; along with all thier interactions. So our cognitive mind is incapable of relating to reality in any complex manner.
We would need to be a part of every atom in the Universe to have absolute understanding. Yet even then, there are probably many things that exist that are not part of matter; and have no direct relationship to matter (other dimensions).
[b]So to have any absolute truth, there would have to be a method to connect our minds with every possible relationship in nature.[/b]
Therefore, I submit that the structure of our cognitive abilities, is far too simple for us to consider even a small portion of concurrent possible relationships and any significant absolute truth is beyond the physical structure of our brain.
We will PROBABLY evolve into computer-like beings. We won't be considered human anymore. We will also likely develop a collaborative relationship amongst all people of this type where we share a common memory. As such, we might evolve methods of understanding all that there is to know. .............But, even then there are likely things that will exist that colletively we won't percieve or consider.
If people did not exist, there would still be existence. So as long as something exists, there are absolute truths. But they are only useful to us if we exist. Though we may not ever know an absolute truth, doesn't mean they are not useful. We can approximate predictions to serve our desires. We can still get from one area to another, but we can not know where we actually are.
Can there be any significant absolute truth, as long as there is any unknown?
