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

Do you really struggle or is that just a rhetorical garnish? As Lao Tzu wrote:

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

This is a fundamental insight from just about all ways of seeing the world, not just eastern philosophies. When you get to know me better, you'll see I bring the Tao Te Ching into just about all my arguments.

Welcome to the forum.

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

Math is a good place to start:

• Absolute: x = 5
  
  • (The value of x is absolute)
• Relative: x = y * 3
  
  • (The value of x is relative to the value of y)

There is a qualitative difference between the first example and the second example, is there not? When children are introduced to algebra they must make quite a leap from what they have known previously.

You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. — Matt Thomas

The definition is in words, and words are not absolute. Words have relatively fixed meanings: less firmly fixed in colloquial speech, more firmly fixed in scientific papers; less in the case of general, multi-purpose words like 'up' and 'run'; more in specific ones like 'cantilever' and 'teak'.
There may be absolutes in the process of change - e.g. water is heated at so many calories per second, wherein the quantities of both heat and time units are fixed in absolute numbers - but the observer may not know what that rate is; he may only know that the water is hotter is than it was (a relative condition) or hot enough for tea but not for cooking pasta (an approximation fixed to defined range).

To say the world is relative seems arbitrary. — 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.

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

That's true. And that's why words don't occur in isolation; they come as part of a package: in a language, with grammar and syntax. In the language, words have definitions, expressed in other words, subject to misuse, abuse, combination, transformation, translation and gradual change of usage. Verbal language is an evolving tool of human communication. To call a single word relative or absolute is meaningless, but one can show that the word is more or less appropriate in a particular application than an alternate word that might be used in that context, or that one is more precise than another, more elegant. These judgments are [relatively] subjective.
The languages that consist of absolute fixed vocabularies are those of mathematics and music.

This:

Relative: x = y * 3
(The value of x is relative to the value of y) — Leontiskos

applies to what I said here:

You could say something changes in relation to something else, but that relation is defined in absolute terms. — Matt Thomas

I would say that x = y * 3 describes the natures of x and y in terms of each other. However, I don't think it is true to describe it as statement of relativity. I am more of the opinion that the terms relative and absolute are pretty much redundant. So, I would describe the two examples you gave as equally absolute and relative, and equally neither. X = 5 describes the natures of x and 5 in terms of each other, just how the other example does for y and the other x. At the same time, they both the examples are saying that each side of the equations are not just equal, but the same. Saying that there is fundamentally no difference between the two, that they are two ways of saying the same thing, that x is y * 3. In this way, they can't really be seen as providing comparisons, or description of a relation between two things, if fundamentally each side of the equation is referring to exactly the same thing. As far as I know, there are infinite solutions to the second example you gave. But, in any example that fits the conditions of that equation would provide a very absolute comparison between the value for x and the value for y. It is really arbitrary in this case to make a distinction between numbers defining a value and letters not. For example, if we are to look at the first equation you gave, we could define another variable that is perfectly logical within the boundaries that equation defines. We could say y = 2.5. Then that equation could be re-written as x = 2y. What I'm getting at is that real numbers also only provide a comparison. None of them mean anything in isolation. They only appear to mean anything because of the rules that define how they relate to each other, their relative values. For example, 2 is defined by being 1 bigger than 1, or being double 1. And you can represent how two numbers relate to each other, their relative values, in whichever way you like. However, this is the only thing that gives numbers meaning to us. We only know the value of one number because we know the value of another. Nothing has value in isolation. The value of one thing implies the value of another, because it is dependent of the value of that other.

I guess I'm more inclined to side with the idea of relativity, but this is due to the language that I don't really have a choice but to use. But I tried to show here that all you can really show is equivalence or non-equivalence, and that there is no intermediate. I'm not happy to support the idea of relativity though, because it implies the idea of absolutes, which I tried to show as illogical. Of course I can't support an idea that requires another that I consider illogical.

So, I would describe the two examples you gave as equally absolute and relative, and equally neither. — Matt Thomas

1. x = 1
2. y = z

So you would say that example (1) and example (2) are equally absolute and relative? The value of x and the value of y are equally absolute and relative? Example (2) is not more relative than example (1)?

Yes. To know what the number 1 means in example (1) requires additional knowledge of maths. I know that could sound stupid, but it is true. If I had no knowledge of maths, I couldn't tell you anything more about example (1) than you have told me there. It would mean as much to me as example (2). I can only tell you 2=2x because I already knew that 1 is half of 2.

Well let's try a third example just to be precise:

1. x = 1
2. y = z + 1

The question is whether the value of y is more relative than the value of x; whether example (2) involves more relativity than example (1). To say, "example (1) requires additional knowledge of maths" does not answer that question. The simple fact is that even if you want to say that the value of x is relative, it is still true that the value of y is more relative than the value of x, because the value of y varies relative to the value of z.

Even if we grant that the symbol '1' is relative, it is still true that the symbol 'z' is more relative than the symbol '1'. This is because 'z' is relative in the same sense as '1', but it is also relative in an additional way because it is defined as a variable as opposed to a constant, and it is therefore relative to the numerical domain in a way that '1' is not. Thus example (2) is clearly more relative than example (1). If you can't see this then I'm not sure what else to tell you.

To know what the number 1 means in example (1) requires additional knowledge of maths. — Matt Thomas

To use words of any kind requires a vocabulary. If you don't know any Latin "in vino veritas" doesn't mean anything more or less than X=x+2. If you don't know what words or numbers mean, you can't use either relative nor absolute terms in a meaningful way.

Oh, really? Well clearly you can still use words to say a whole bunch of nothing.

Well clearly you can still use words to say a whole bunch of nothing. — Matt Thomas

Certainly. I can use words in many ways, because I know them.

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

But you do have knowledge of math, so why pretend otherwise? I chose to give the example in mathematical terms because I knew you had knowledge of math, and I was correct. To Vera's point, if I didn't have knowledge of English then the words you are writing would make no sense to me and we would not be able to communicate. But I do have knowledge of English and that is why we are able to communicate.

Saying, "If I didn't understand the words then I wouldn't know what they mean," is a tautology. It isn't an argument against the meaning of any word, including the word 'relative'.

If I didn't understand the words then I wouldn't know what they mean — Leontiskos

That is a hilarious bastardisation of what I said. However, I can directly quote many tautologies in what you said, if you think it's important. This includes all the mathematical examples you gave. So, I think you need to start again.

But regarding this:

But you do have knowledge of math, so why pretend otherwise? — Leontiskos

there was a key word in what I said:

If — Matt Thomas

That is a hilarious bastardisation of what I said. — Matt Thomas

Compare:

• "If I had no knowledge of maths, I couldn't tell you anything more about [x = 1] than you have told me there."
• "If I didn't understand the words then I wouldn't know what they mean."

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.

Dialectical reasoning covers this by making two opposing limits relative to each other. So you have pairs of absolute limits that are related by their reciprocality. Each is defined in terms of being as little like its other as possible, in dichotomous fashion.

A bunch of familiar metaphysical dichotomies have been organising Western thought since Ancient Greece.

Take for example the oppositions of stasis and flux, chance and necessity, matter and form, the one and the many, the discrete and the continuous, meaning and nonsense, atom and void, local and global, etc, etc.

Change can be measured in terms of a lack of stability. And stability as a lack of change. That is, applying the law of the excluded middle - the dichotomy defined as that which it is both mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive - stability = 1/change, and change = 1/stability. There is an inverse relation that defines its own absolute measurable limits. The measureable lack of one is the measurable degree of presence of its “other”.

So problem solved. We seek opposites that have metaphysical strength generality. And use them as our yardsticks to measure reality.

To be discrete is to be absolutely broken apart in some fashion. To be continuous is to absolutely lack that characteristic. We then can relate these two absolute ideals by the inverse operation which can tell us that how far or near we are from those bounding ideals in any particular case in question.

In reality, nothing could be absolutely continuous as it would indeed just break the yardstick. It would claim that the absolute simply existed in a way that made its opposite pole of being - the discrete - not even a remote possibility.

But we can still stay within the measurable bounds of possibility if the amount of discreteness being claimed as part of our continuous “whatever” is infinitesimal. That is, we are infinitely distant from a state which we would label as discrete.

So you get both the relative and the absolute out of a dichotomy for all practical purposes. Two poles are related in a mutually self-measuring fashion. And that relation is absolute to the degree it conforms to the constraints of the LEM.

Continuity and discreteness can have an absolute limit state description even if it is one based on the asymptotic approach to those limits via acts of relativistic discrimination.

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 is not comparable to the world; the world and knowledge are not in the same category - not related. Our current knowledge is relative to what we knew last year, or to what Centaurans know, or to what God knows.

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

Our understanding may or may not affect the world. The world certainly presents itself as being largely independent of human control, so that was not the point. The point was that what we know of the world is dependent on, meaning relative to, human experience and judgement.

In reality, nothing could be absolutely continuous as it would indeed just break the yardstick — apokrisis

Absolute continuity

I know, not quite what you mean. :cool:

The world certainly presents itself as being largely independent of human control, so that was not the point. — Janus

It doesn't. The world doesn't perform for us. It simply exists.

The point was that what we know of the world is dependent on, meaning relative to, human experience and judgement. — Janus

Yes: knowledge is comparable to knowledge. Worlds are comparable to worlds.The worlds and the knowledge are not relative to each other.

It doesn't. The world doesn't perform for us. It simply exists — Vera Mont

The world doesn't perform for us, but is given as always already interpreted. Of course we think there must be a pre-interpretive world, and must acknowaledge that we are pre-cognitively affected in ways we cannot be conscious of, and consequently have no control over.

So yes the world simply exists, but we know nothing, cognitively speaking, of the nature of that existence.

Yes: knowledge is comparable to knowledge. Worlds are comparable to worlds.The worlds and the knowledge are not relative to each other. — Vera Mont

You are making the point for me. The world of our experience is the world of our knowledge and understanding; we can imagine a world that exists in itself prior to our known and understood world but we cannot imagine what it would be like.

If something is X, only because of its relation to something else, then it's relative, if it's X regardless of anything else then it's absolute.

It doesn't matter if you isolate the claim to itself, it's about the logic of the claim. A word such as "superior" can be described as relative, because it simply can't function without comparing one thing to something else. A word like "flying" could be described as absolute because it's a binary, something qualifies as flying or it doesn't.

That being said, I'm not confident that I even understand the OP, it could be interpreted in a multitude of different ways, but I decided to assume the context here is linguistics.

You are making the point for me. — Janus

Happy to be of service.
What I didn't get was how it relates to the concepts of 'relative' and 'absolute'.

What's the confusion? These are well understood and accepted concepts (this thread notwithstanding). To label something as "tall" is a relative descriptor, to label something else as having a height of 6 feet is an absolute descriptor.

I know, not quite what you mean. :cool: — jgill

But note how fractals neatly express the intermediate case between the continuous and the discrete.

To label something as "tall" is a relative descriptor, to label something else as having a height of 6 feet is an absolute descriptor. — LuckyR

To label something 6 feet is to describe it relative to something, like the length of someone's foot.

only characteristics of an object are relative; not objects themselves — Vera Mont

What is an object without its characteristics?

So you have pairs of absolute limits that are related by their reciprocality — apokrisis

What I have been trying to say is that the reciprocity is an absolute aspect something. The way it is reciprocal to something else does not change. So I'm asking, what is the point in describing anything as relative if that 'relative' aspect can be defined completely synonymously in a way that most people here seem to describe as an example of absolute?

I don't see the fundamental difference between the two examples you gave. A thing is either superior to something else or it is not. A thing is either flying or it is not.

A word such as "superior" can be described as relative, because it simply can't function without comparing one thing to something else — Judaka

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.

What is an object without its characteristics? — Matt Thomas

unknowable

I am interested to hear what people have to say about this. — Matt Thomas

Are you asking people to comment, relative to your own views?

I'm open to hearing an approach from any direction. — Matt Thomas

So an approach, in relation to/relative to yours?

Are the opinions in your op, absolute or relative?