Regarding Absolutes--A Very Brief Excursion

What Are Absolutes?

Absolutes are fundamental truths that are, in essence, the postulates of—the intangible foundations of—all reality and existence.  Upon the foundation of absolutes is constructed everything we know and could possibly understand.  Absolutes animate the metaphysical concepts of reason and meaning, as well as their media of apprehension and exchange: thought and communication; and absolutes also invigorate the physical/natural concepts of time, space, energy and matter—all of which metaphysical and physical concepts, in turn, enable our movement in and sense, consideration, exploration and exploitation of the very same concepts in the forms of science, literature, law, religion, economics, government, transportation, art, music, mathematics, and even history. Without absolutes, we simply could not function/live; nothing would be certain, and without certainty, there would be no framework enabling us to be.

How Do We Know that Absolutes Exist?


In short, we know absolutes exist because we exist—because we are able to experience this reality.  Reality as we see it simply isn’t possible without the existence of absolutes.  Stepping back a bit, it is perhaps more understandable to say that we can acknowledge the existence of absolutes because we can observe their offspring: the metaphysical and physical concepts of reason, meaning, thought, communication, time, space, energy and matter.

Consider reason, for instance.  Reason exists only to the extent that premises can be used to produce conclusions on which we rely for some purpose.  If a particular premise is unreliable, the conclusion that relies on that premise will also be unreliable, and reason will not come into being.  If, for example, 3 + 1 is equal to 4 only sometimes, or only in the past, or only once ever, then we could never know a reliable answer for the problem of 4 – 1.  The answer would always depend on something that is uncertain.  And, if a conclusion is unreliable, then it offers no purpose, except, perhaps, for the recognition that it is unreliable.  In a world where the sum of 3 + 1 changes, if a single tire on a 4-tire car suffers a blow out, the car owner would never know how many replacement tires to purchase, because 4 tires – 1 tire could be any number of tires.   

On the contrary, if a premise is certain, then conclusions based on that premise are also certain. The certainty of the conclusion allows us to rely on that conclusion in making decisions, acting or gaining understandings.  Certainly (pun intended), without reliable conclusions, reason would afford us nothing.  Conclusions would be baseless—merely thoughts that do nothing to provide any basis for any other thought.  If the certainty of premises evaporated for a day such that no reasoning were possible, could anything get done?  Would anything make sense?  Certainly not.  Without reason, thinking would become pointless.  Decisions and actions, useless.  Life could not be lived.  Thus, reason relies upon—in fact, is completely dependent upon—the existence of absolutes.  Absolutes support the premises that support the conclusions by which we live.  Reliable conclusions and reason can exist, therefore, only because absolutes exist.  We can function/live only because absolutes exist.  Because there is reason, therefore, there must be absolutes.


It's the same with meaning—the sibling of reason.  Meaning is essential to our existence.  Without meaning, life is pointless, and death is inevitable.  If, for example, there is no reason to eat, I will most likely stop eating, and if I stop eating, I cannot survive long.  If there is no reason to work or to exit my bed in the morning, then I would merely exist in my bed—and likely not for long.  Meaning keeps me alive and motivates me to act. Meaning has, as its source, absolutes. The truths that life is good and that I need food to stay alive are the truths that prompt me to eat. The truths that I have to work to produce food or make money to buy food are the truths that prompt me act each day.  The examples of meaning’s enabling and motivating life functions are endless.  The conclusion (derived from reason, derived from absolutes) of these considerations is that absolutes give meaning to life and sustain life.  Because there is meaning, therefore, there must be absolutes.

Enabling the exchange of reason and meaning is communication.  Effective communication relies on absolutes.  The very idea that we can transmit and receive information, in fact, relies on absolutes.  Without absolutes, there would be no communication, because there would be no rules by which a person could ever convey information to another person.  People facing one another, for instance, might make sounds, but the sounds would be the end in themselves.  They could carry no message.  No message would, in fact, be intended or expected.  Even the most elementary form of communication—pointing—would convey nothing.  Without communication, a person couldn’t learn what to eat and what not to eat, what activities or creatures are dangerous, what works and what doesn’t work—except to the extent that the person learned through non-lethal (i.e., you can’t swim in the lava or steal meat from the lion) personal experiences.  Life would be very self-centered and one dimensional.  Thus, communication is possible only because absolutes make it so.  Because there is communication, therefore, there must be absolutes.

Consider, too, the physical/natural concepts of time, space, energy and matter.  If, at any given point in time, the tenets of the function of any of these concepts changes in even the slightest respect, our existence could be radically transformed, if not utterly extinguished.  If, for example, space were to be eliminated, all matter would be suddenly and violently brought together into a single clump; none of us would be distinguishable from the ground on which we walk or the water that we drink or the oxygen and nitrogen that we breathe.  What if matter became space?  What if all energy was released from all elements?  Again, we’d cease to exist.  Absolutes establish and maintain the boundaries of operation and nature of each of these physical concepts.  We refer to these boundaries as physical laws.  We rely on these laws each day for every tangible aspect of our existence.  With very little thought, we sit at a computer, typing away at keys, oblivious to the fact that our fingers, the keyboard, the computer screen, the chair, and everything else that we can ever see is comprised of tiny particles of matter that fly around other tiny particles of matter (in a manner comparable to the manner in which the moon orbits the earth or in which the earth orbits the sun) at such great speed that the orbiting particles might appear to be a cloud and that between each particle is a vast amount of space and that each particle is precisely positioned in a particular point in time and that each particle is moving and reacting to all other particles in space and time with and/or as a result of energy that we have yet to understand.  The existence of the physical concepts of time, space, energy and matter, not to mention the precision of the interplay of such physical concepts, screams and screams that absolutes exist.  Because of the existence and interplay of time, space, energy and matter, therefore, there must be absolutes.

In sum, we know that absolutes exist because we can observe the consistent functioning of their offspring: reason, meaning, and communication, as well as time, space, matter and energy.  In fact, our very existence relies on the certainty of the consistent function of these concepts—i.e., absolutes.  Absolutes enable the symphony of our reality.

Arguments In Favor of the Non-Existence of Absolutes

Suggestions that absolutes do not exist are preposterous.  Consider the following proposition:

“Absolutes do not exist.”

The proposition consists of a single statement that can be true only if absolutes, in fact, exist.  The proposition assumes, for example, the absolutes of (a) existence, (b) non-existence, (c) the nature of absolutes, (d) meaning, and (e) communication.  Moreover, the statement is, in and of itself, an absolute statement.  Thus, logically, the statement is inherently contradictory and, therefore, irrational.

On the contrary, consider the following proposition:

“Absolutes exist.”

Here, the proposition consists of a single statement that is fully consistent with the very idea expressed by the proposition.  In fact, it could even be said that the statement depends on the idea so expressed.  The statement is, therefore, inherently consistent and rational.

Some may yet insist that reasonable persons consider a proposition that is a bit more amorphic:

                        “Absolutes may exist.”

As with the proposition “Absolutes do not exist,” however, this proposition also suffers from irrationality.  The proposition permits the possibility that “Absolutes do not exist” and, therefore, the proposition suffers from all of the irrationality inherent in the very expression of such a possibility.

Therefore, reason allows only the conclusion that absolutes do exist.


Mark Absher

 
 

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