I struggle to see the sense in defining anything as relative. You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. To say the world is relative seems arbitrary. Relative to what? I also have the issue that I don't see the sense in defining anything as absolute, since a word means nothing in isolation. It requires context to provide any meaning. That context can be seen as its relation to other words. Defining something is like providing a set of boundaries for that thing. Those boundaries can be seen as a definition of its relation to everything else, its context. Without anything else, so in isolation, this would make the definition of that thing meaningless. — Matt Thomas
When the world knows beauty as beauty, ugliness arises
When it knows good as good, evil arises
Thus being and non-being produce each other
Difficult and easy bring about each other
Long and short reveal each other
High and low support each other
Music and voice harmonize each other
Front and back follow each other
Therefore the sages:
Manage the work of detached actions
Conduct the teaching of no words
They work with myriad things but do not control
They create but do not possess
They act but do not presume
They succeed but do not dwell on success
It is because they do not dwell on success
That it never goes away — Tao Te Ching - Verse 2 - Derek Lin translation
I struggle to see the sense in defining anything as relative. You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. — Matt Thomas
You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. — Matt Thomas
Arbitrary, unnecessary and meaningless - which may be why nobody said that. A planet may have greater mass, less atmosphere, a cooler core, less gravity or whatever, compared to others of its category; only characteristics of an object are relative; not objects themselves.To say the world is relative seems arbitrary. — Matt Thomas
I also have the issue that I don't see the sense in defining anything as absolute, since a word means nothing in isolation. — Matt Thomas
Relative: x = y * 3
(The value of x is relative to the value of y) — Leontiskos
You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. — Matt Thomas
So, I would describe the two examples you gave as equally absolute and relative, and equally neither. — Matt Thomas
To know what the number 1 means in example (1) requires additional knowledge of maths. — Matt Thomas
Well clearly you can still use words to say a whole bunch of nothing. — Matt Thomas
If I had no knowledge of maths, I couldn't tell you anything more about example (1) than you have told me there. — Matt Thomas
If I didn't understand the words then I wouldn't know what they mean — Leontiskos
there was a key word in what I said:But you do have knowledge of math, so why pretend otherwise? — Leontiskos
If — Matt Thomas
That is a hilarious bastardisation of what I said. — Matt Thomas
A planet may have greater mass, less atmosphere, a cooler core, less gravity or whatever, compared to others of its category; only characteristics of an object are relative; not objects themselves. — Vera Mont
There is a sense in which the world is relstive to human experience; we only know things as they are experienced and understood by us. — Janus
Our understanding doesn't affect the world; some aspects of the world affect our understanding. What we know has no relationship to the world; it's relative to what we knew last year, or to what Centaurans know, or to what God knows. — Vera Mont
The world certainly presents itself as being largely independent of human control, so that was not the point. — Janus
The point was that what we know of the world is dependent on, meaning relative to, human experience and judgement. — Janus
It doesn't. The world doesn't perform for us. It simply exists — Vera Mont
Yes: knowledge is comparable to knowledge. Worlds are comparable to worlds.The worlds and the knowledge are not relative to each other. — Vera Mont
only characteristics of an object are relative; not objects themselves — Vera Mont
So you have pairs of absolute limits that are related by their reciprocality — apokrisis
If this is true, then the same applies to the second example. The conditions we all understand to be defined by the word "flying" is what gives the word meaning, because it allows us to compare the state of "flying" to other states, such as "not flying". If we couldn't compare, then the word "flying" would have no meaning. How would you identify something as "flying" if you couldn't recognise it as different to something that was "not flying"? There is a comparison being made.A word such as "superior" can be described as relative, because it simply can't function without comparing one thing to something else — Judaka
Are you asking people to comment, relative to your own views?I am interested to hear what people have to say about this. — Matt Thomas
So an approach, in relation to/relative to yours?I'm open to hearing an approach from any direction. — Matt Thomas
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