Willamena said:
Backtracking a bit, you had said:
PureX said:
The "truth" is what is. But we don't know all of what is because we're not able to perceive all that exists. And we don't even know how much of existence we're missing. So we can't know the truth.
All we are denied here is the truth about the whole, not the truth itself.
Yes, but this is what defines the difference between relative truth, and absolute truth. I agree that we can know something to be true in an incomplete and relative way. But I don't see how we can logically claim to know such a truth to be absolute.
Willamena said:
Yes, our idea of reality is incomplete, but it is only inaccurate in terms of the whole; and we agreed that the whole isn't necessary to express truth. It doesn't have to be truth about the whole to be truth.
No, but by definition, an absolute truth can't be relative. The terms "absolute" and "relative" are essentially antonyms to each other. The state defined as "absolute" is defined essentially by it's not being conditioned by or dependent upon (relative to) forces or criteria external to itself. While the term "relative" in this debate means specifically 'conditioned by' or 'dependent upon' some external force or criteria.
Willamena said:
... a statement about the truth of a thing is either a statement of truth or it isn't. The object's relativity to us or to other things is irrelevant, because it introduces a third element to the scenario: an independent perspective. Is it a separate scenario that doesn't impact the objective truth.
Well, this is the crux of our disagreement, right here. You are refusing to recognize the difference between relative (conditional) truth and absolute (unconditional) truth.
I can't make you recognize these concepts. All I can say is that they do exist, and this is why we're misunderstanding each other.
Willamena said:
Imagination is the tool that takes our perceptions and constructs them into a conscious mind; it "projects" them in an understandable form, an image (hence the name, imagination). It only deceives us as far as we expect that what is projected actually reflects something "really out there" --we accept that most of the time it is accurate, however limited it may be. If we accept that there are "things" out there (that reality exists) then we can talk truth about them regardless that our idea of them is incomplete.
But by this method of reason you are saying that it was true that the world was flat when by our perceptions, it appeared flat, and so we imagined it to be flat and spoke of it as flat to each other.
Yet the world was not flat regardless of how we perceived it, or of how truly flat we imagined it to be. Our imagination did not make the untrue, true. All it did in this instance was help us to fool ourselves into believing in an untruth.
Willamena said:
Now (and this is for Danisty's as well as the sake of my own explanation) we have the option to view that projected image in two ways: with ourselves as an observer of the picture (as a 'self' looking at the projected image), or putting ourselves into the picture as one of the things of reality in relation to other all things in the bigger picture. The latter is the objective perspective; it imaginatively "removes" the person looking by looking at him/her as one of the things being looked at. In this imaginative picture, we are either looking or being looked at --observer or observed --regardless that we are the ones who perceive. We cannot be both objective and subjective at the same time, but we can (and do) switch quickly between them.
Pretending that we are not the "observer" when we clearly are, seems like an act of deliberate dishonesty, to me. What value could possibly come from such a practice, except to create an illusion of wisdom based on a fantasy? I could understand using our imagination to place ourselves
as observers into situations that we can't actually experience. Doing this would increase the likelihood of error but could still be useful to us as a way of stretching our intellects beyond our immediate experiences. But I don't see how pretending that we don't exist as observers or participants at all can be of any use to us.
Willamena said:
It is the latter that allows us to speak truth about things, because our language accurately reflects these perspectives --it has been built that way. We can say, "I suck!" with 'me' as observer, and it's an opinion; or we can say, "I took the straw and sucked my slushy with it," which removes the 'me' observer and leaves us only with things of reality that are talked about.
But this example isn't removing an observer, it's only changing what's being observed, and why. In the "I suck" example, the observer is observing him/her self, and making an unexplained value judgment. In the "I sucked my slushy" example, the observer is simply relating a past experience, without making any value judgments.
But I don't see what any of this has to do with absolute or relative truth, though.