It is the consequence produced by the assumption that absolute truth exists. This is what happens:

A. let’s assume that an absolute truth exists
B. if it exists and it is absolute, then it must be universal
C. if it is universal, it must involve every object and every subject, including the subject who is making the assumption A
D. involving the subject who is making the assumption A means that the subject is part of the assumption
E. if the subject making the assumption A is part of their own assumption, it means that the assumption has, as a necessary structure of it, that it is necessarily and always made from inside itself
F. if the assumption A is necessarily made from inside itself, then it is relative to itself, it depends from its own perspective, so it is not absolute
G. if A is not absolute, then it is relative.

In short, we have the paradox: if A, then G, which is: if an absolute truth exists, then it is relative.

As a conclusion, we have

H. absolute truth cannot exist.

and, of course, we have also

I. H is relative.

So, yes, the statement of mine that you quoted is relative. The problem is that you cannot conclude from I that,

L. since H is relative, then

M. some absolute truth must or might exist

because

M = A.

So, my statement

“Absolute truth cannot exist”

is relative, but we have no way to deduce from it anything absolute.

This is our human condition: we are forced to think that everything is relative, and we cannot even use this very thought as an absolute starting point for anything, because it must be relative as well. We cannot exploit its relativity, we cannot exploit anything.

In a similar way it is possible to realize the paradox that “if something exists, then it doesn’t exist”.

I think your question is important. In a radical philosophical way, I find useful to think of evil as objectivity and good as subjectivity; this is equivalent to say that evil is what goes against me, good is me. I think this framework has the advantage of being based on our natural instinct, that in other brutal words would be called natural selfishness. But this would be only a starting point. Then we can realize that good and evil are never 100% separated, as well as subjectivity and objectivity. As a next step, I think the best way to go on is to adopt Heraclitus’ mentality of becoming, which is the basis of what I said in my preceding message. In this context, I think that there is no point in throwing out or taking out any thoughts from our mind: it would be almost equivalent to throwing out our mind itself, and even ourselves. Instead, I think we need just to build in our mind an attitude, a familiarity with a dynamic mentality, based on becoming, changing, progressing, fighting against anything static.
So, in a synthesis, I would say: I am subjectivity, I am good, but contaminated with objectivity, with evil. The world and other people are evil (Sartre: “Hell is other people”), but there is also a lot of good in them. In this context, I just need to elaborate, to plan my activity, to find continuously better solutions, better dialogues or harmonies between subjectivity and objectivity, better contaminations between good and evil.

Certain things we talk about in philosophy are not so much concepts: they are much more experiences. Conceptualizing experiences can be useful, but it is not the best way to deal with everything. Many mistakes and misunderstandings in philosophy come for mixing these two perspectives. Saying that some evil is necessary for good to exist is a total conceptualization of evil and, as such, it looses sight of a lot of human aspects of it, especially personal involvement. On the opposite, complaining, crying, without any further action, happens when the intensity of experience overwhelms our ability to think. The solution is not in finding a balance between experience and concepts: such a balance cannot exist and, actually, there is progress, movement, becoming, exactly because of imbalance: a too perfect balance turns into absence of life, of progress. I think the solution needs to be dialectic, which means, a permanent action of work, movement, progress, self-criticism, among the different elements and imbalances.
So, facing the OP question “What to do...”, what is important is looking not for a conclusive answer, but exactly for something to do, which is, a kind of doing that must be never expected to stop, like instead conclusive answers are.
In other words, a conclusive answer to evil not only does not exist, but we need to be vigilant to avoid any temptation to find or to built it; a conclusive answer must not exist and we need to work actively to make impossible for it to exist. Conclusive answers to evil are worse than evil itself, because evil can change, but conclusive answers are aimed at not changing: they block progress.
So, from a philsophical point of view, facing the question “What to do with evil”, I think a good answer is working on philosophy to make it dynamic, permanently self-critical and in dialogue with experience and subjectivity, avoiding conclusive answers, conceptualizations that can make us disconnected, forgetful of personal human experience.

I think there is a big mistake in that article. Apparently, it makes the big and valuable step of including subjectivity into consideration, together with the traditional objectivity that has been already considered by science so far. It makes creditable statements, such as “We can’t know any consciousness other than our own” and “it’s turning the very lens of consciousness back on itself”. Actually, it doesn’t realize that, as soon as we talk (or think) about subjectivity, we automatically turn it into objectified subjectivity, that is not anymore the true subjectivity, the one that it is impossible to talk about, exactly because of this phenomenon. What I am saying is very clear when he says “while the study of subjectivity, as a physical phenomenon, is different to some degree because it’s turning the very lens of consciousness back on itself, it is not different in kind from other scientific objects of study”. Here is, very explicit, the operation of objectifying subjectivity. He forgets Wittgestein’s important statement “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”: this applies specifically to subjectivity.
It is impossible to truly talk about subjectivity. Then you might ask what I am talking about by saying “true subjectivity”. I am talking about a hope: the hope that you will go beyond my words and think about your own personal, inexpressible experience of subjectivity. We can’t do anything more than hope.

absolute truths — Cidat

Absolute truth cannot exist, because truth is a relationship between two things, the thing that gets known and another thing (like a mirror) or a subject (like a person) that does the action of knowing. As a consequence, it is impossible, for the thing or the subject who is knowing, not to condition the information. For example, it is impossible for a mirror to be 100% faithful to the content of what it mirrors, for the simple fact that the mirror is not the mirrored object.

I think your question is very important, especially today. In my perception, today’s philosophy is going more and more towards a scientific way of considering questions. Perhaps this is an effect of the weight that the “analytic” philosophy is going to have in philosophers’ minds, in opposition to “continental” philosophy. I think this is going to be a big loss in philosophy.

As you wrote,

is a more objective window — Skalidris

. That’s exactly the problem: philosophy is going to ignore more and more what cannot be grasped in an objective way. What cannot be grasped in an objective way is precisely subjectivity and everything related to it, like, for example, relativism, consciousness. With this “scientific drift” of philosophy, a dangerous mentality can become more and more a normal habit of thinkers: the mentality of thinking “what I cannot understand, what I cannot grasp, does not exist, or is not worthy of interest”. According to some philosophers, for example, Chalmers’ “hard problem of consciousness” does not exist, simply because it cannot be defined objectively. Similarly, consciousness is being explored by philosophy as a phenomenon whose ultimate answer is expected to be given by neuron sciences. More dramatically, the problem of subjectivity, which I mean, relativism, just does not exist. Relativism is considered only in the perspective of social relativism, that can be easily turned into an objective phenomenon. For example, morality is subjective, because different people in society think differently, but this social perspective makes philosophers think that, once we understood the social dependencies that cause different opinions, we have ultimately gained an objective final image of the question. Essentially, what happens is that the philosopher forgets and ignores their own subjective existence; subjectivity is the plurality of others’ opinions, forgetting that this is being thought inside the subjectivity of who is thinking of it.

There is a tiny opposite tendency that is going to be explored in the world: it is philosophy as experience, as meditation, as a chance for an experience of meeting between people, where what is most important is not the discussed topic, but the persons who are meeting each other. This recovers philsophy as a spiritual experience, as it was in ancient Greek, as Pierre Hadot has shown. This way philosophy explores more deeply its connections with literature, art, music, life. These connections are going to be ignored by philosophers with an “analytic”, which is scientific, tendency.

"We" is anybody thinking that neuroscience has not explained consciousness and qualia.
"Meet our subjectivity" is my formulation of what is considered not explained by those who think that neuroscience has not been able yet to explain consciousness and qualia.

Consciousness and qualia will never be explained by neuroscience because actually they can be considered already explained by neuroscience, but we realize that the neuroscience explanation is unable to meet our subjectvity.
They can be considered already explained: they are simply a product of the activity of our neurons. What else do you want to be explained?
I will tell you what else: your inner feeling of being a "I", a subject. Any explanation cannot but be objective and, as such, will always make you feel unsatisfied.
So, actually, we are just pretending that they have not been already explained.

I would like not to be misinterpreted as somebody who has not respect for science: I appreciate it infinitely, I think I have a real scientific mentality and I am proud of it, against pseudosciences and against confusion between science and philosophy. What I said is limited to the level of philosophical radical criticism.

the fact that scientific theories keeps being test by experiments is, in my opinion, a more objective window to the world then the endless debates of philosophers which are based on other debates, which are based on other debates and on and on — Skalidris

Science is more objective from the point of view of science, which means, from its own point of view, which means self-referential. Even a drunken man is objective from his own point of view.
Some philosophers try to make a difference by admitting their dependence on their own point view; as a consequence, they are aware that everybody and everything is conditioned by their point of view. In this context, the fact that science is based on experiments doesn’t make it more objective at all, because, at this fundamental level of criticism, we don’t even know if reality exists, we don’t even know what the meaning of “reality” and “exist” is; so, how can any experiment make science more objective, since it is based on something we don’t even know if it exists?

and on and on where no one really knows where a theory comes from except from pieces of logic and imagination. — Skalidris

This is true for science as well: if we go backwards on and on, asking for the base of every answer we receive, we end up in infinite and totally ungrounded theories and postulates; one of the most basic of them is the assumption that reality exists and that we know the meaning of “reality” and “exist”.

I think your ideal of independent thinker doesn’t work because this effort of independence is exactly the effort already practiced by all philosophers. The independence imagined by you is already a contradiction itself, because it has already a lot of dependency from your culture, your mentality, your psichology, everything of you. Independence just doesn’t exist. Since we are all in this situtation, obviously including me writing these things, the best thing is not to try to be independent, but rather try to gain, as much as possible, awareness of our dependencies, awareness of the cages we are into. This is the real wisdom. That’s the reason why your professors seem not based to science: because they know, I assume, that science isn’t independent at all: it depends as well on our structures, culture, mentality, everything of us.

Important concepts are those ones considered important by the persons. Obviously, they are different according to different people, but we can make discussions and see if we can find agreement on some concepts. So, some concepts are deep for me, other ones for you, other ones might be important for both of us.

Depth is subject to a lot of shallowness and meaninglessness, because anybody is able to make a cocktail of evocative words. Real depth can be proven by certain criteria:
- connection with important concepts
- openness towards further important connections
- connection with the richest elements and aspects of today's culture
- connection with humanity.

This way we can even determine degrees of depth, for example "heart" is deeper than "mind", wich is deeper than "car", which is deeper than "34523".

The fact that the universe seems to your mind to satisfy your cause-effect scheme does not mean that your mental scheme expresses entirely how everything works. This is the mistake made by Russell's inductivist turkey.

So, God should exist to satisfy your cause-effect mental scheme, the same way God should not exist to avoid conflicts with the mental schemes of atheists.

It seems that you have quite a moderate idea of "objective", since a few checks are enough for you to think that something is objective. This makes the discussion very ambiguous and confused. In philosophy "objective" means absolutely, totally independent from our judgement. That's the reason why I think objectivity is just a human fantasy, since you cannot refer to anything without making it automatically related to your judgement.

what our our reasons for trusting reason — Paulm12

It is important to note that it is reason that defeats itself. Realizing that reason is a circular process, as you have shown, is an entirely rational process: you don’t need any element external to reason to show that reason is fundamentally unreliable, self-contradictory.

This means that the statement “everything is relative” is not an external idea introduced by relativists. It is reason itself that says that reason is invalid. As a consequence, once reason has concluded that reason is invalid, you cannot apply the criterion to the sentence itself, to say that, as a consequence, the statement is wrong. This is the mistake made by those who apply the statement “everything is relative” to itself, to conclude that the statement itself is relative and, as a consequence, something must be non-relative. This is a mistake, because, once reason has said that reason is invalid, you cannot apply the conclusion to the statement itself, because, applying the conclusion to itself would mean ignoring what it has said: once reason has said that reason is invalid, the consequence is that we must stop reasoning, which means we cannot carry on by applying the conclusion to itself. After reason has said that itself is invalid, applying this to itself again is an invalid action. Applying the conclusion to itself would mean treating reason as something that is still valid, still working.

As a consequence of all of this, such concepts like “foundation”, “fundamental”, need to be abandoned. We need to resign ourselves to give up the comfort and reassurance given by the idea of foundation. There are no hard props to rely on, everything is like liquid.

It is important to note that “liquid”, “relative”, does not mean “nothing”. Liquids have a certain degree of consistency. We just need to calibrate our actions to that degree of consistency. You cannot stand on water, but you can swim and a ship is able to travel on it; water is even able to make holes on rocks and metals, if sprayed with enough pressure.

Here is the difference: theology is done from the inside of a religion: you must be a believer, belonging to that religion, in order to produce theology. An atheist or a Muslim cannot do Christian theology, a Christian cannot do Muslim theology. Theology is this: you belong to a religion and you try to build a structured understanding of your religion.
Instead, anybody can produce philosophy of any religlion, because, as a philosopher you are independent and you are free to produce your philosophical understanding of that religion, from the point of view of your philosophy. In this case, what you are doing is not theology: in philosophy of religion you can even question in full every meaning of that religion. An atheist can do a philosophy of Christianity, interpreting the phenomenon of Christian religion from his point if view.
In your philosophy of Christian religion you can even claim that God does not exist. Instead, if you are in the context of Christian theology, saying that God does not exist is a nonsense, a contradiction, it just means that you are not doing Christian theology.

Forcing people to anything is bad and immoral. We do it sometimes because we can’t escape doing it, like when parents force children to obey, to help them grow. The fact that forcing a child to study gives good results does not mean that forcing them is a good thing; rather, it is because we are unable to find better solutions. If we were able to obtain results without forcing anybody, there would be no reason to force anybody. We can choose to force ourselves and even find pleasure in it, like when we force ourselves in practicing sports. But in that case it is not a real forcing, because in that case you are 100% free not to do it and the experience of forcing yourself becomes 100% positive. So, in those cases like sport and games I think the word “forcing” is just instrumental, not really philosophically, existentially meaningful identify the radical problem of constraint in human existence.

It seems clear to me that we are considering here the bad side of the question. From a very radical philosophical point of view, we could even say that the tiniest evil, or suffering, in existence is enough to make existence philosophically problematic, let’s say unacceptable, just because it is not entirely positive. The passion of philosophy is trying to understand, to explain, and I think the hardest thing to understand and explain is the presence of evil, suffering, in life. I think we need to abandon the way of trying to understand and explain, because it doesn’t work. So, it seems to me the only philosophical alternative is the subjective perspective.

I see your point in terms of conflict between objectivity and subjectivity. Objectivity forces us to a lot of unwanted things. Subjectivity is when we are able to freely express ourselves, like artists do. We can use creativity to change some objectivity aspects into positive resources working in favour of subjectivity, like artists do.

Itself judges itself. The psychiatrist is trying to cure the psychiatrist and the patient is trying to cure the patient. We desperately need objectivity but can have no objectivity because objectivity comes from the outside and we have no outside. — Ken Edwards

At least you have understood this! It seems to me that a lot of philosophers and deep thinkers have not realized this at all.

Thus our inner worlds can believe and say or deny whatever nonsense that they like with no disapproval except from us in other, similar, inner worlds. — Ken Edwards

I think it depends on us: if we consider that disapproval, disagreement, instead of being a threat is a resource, a stimulation for progress, further research, then we will look for it like a treasure. It is hard, obviously, our nature drives us to dominate, but we can try to do something. So, I think we have at our disposal several sources to appreciate disapproval: other people, experiences, books, reflection, and even ourselves. We just need to cultivate an attitude of listening and appreciation for disagreement.

The world's scientists once had similar problems but, perhaps a hundred years ago, they solved those problems and today, science not philosophy rules the roost. — Ken Edwards

I agree about this as well: it seems to me that today a lot of philosophers, instead of doing philosophy, they use their rationality in a way that is just an attempt to change philosophy into science. The reason is clear: such a way of doing philosophy gives us a perception of power and control.

For instance I am trying to look at what "objectify" is and to try to imitate it. I and others, have even partially succeeded. — Ken Edwards

I disagree about this. In my view objectivity is evil, because everyday and every moment it forces us to think according to certain necessary criterions: objectivity forces me to think that I cannot fly, I cannot go through a wall, I cannot do this and that, because otherwise I would just put at risk mine and others’ life. Since we cannot ignore objectivity, we cannot get rid of it, we can try to build some kind of good relationship with it. But wanting to imitate it seems excessive to me: why should I imitate evil? I prefer to use it as a possible instrument, a vehicle able to carry something good.

You seem to be "Comparing" the two worlds, one with another. Is that possible? — Ken Edwards

I agree: according to what I said about objectivity as evil, subjectivity and objectivity are enemies. But, as I said, since we are forced to live together with it, I think we can develop an extraordinary ability that we have as humans: you said

We are bright. We are incredibly smart and our thinking can sometimes do the unthinkable. — Ken Edwards

I think our great ability is to change, at least to some extent, evil into good, lack into resources. Aren’t artists those who transform a defect of a piece of marble, a bad shape of a piece of wood, into an inspiration for an amazing artwork? Aren’t great musicians those who transform noises and dissonances into new styles of music?

This means that the serious problem that you expressed, about which I agree

Itself judges itself. The psychiatrist is trying to cure the psychiatrist and the patient is trying to cure the patient. We desperately need objectivity but can have no objectivity because objectivity comes from the outside and we have no outside. — Ken Edwards

is to be faced not by trying to find, obstinately, some kind of strong objectivity, some undefeatable stable reality, but by using it as a real resource. The artist, in trying to depict a tree, is defeated by the perfection of photography. How does the artist answer to this defeat? He changes his problematic point into a resource: he renounces to the aim of painting a tree as similar as possible to the real tree, he abandons totally this purpose and rather he follows the opposite way; this way a total new universe is opened: he discovers that, rather than showing other people the draw of a tree, he can show other people his soul, his heart, just by painting the tree not as similar as possible to reality, but as connected as possible to his emotions, his heart.

I think we need to do the same in philosophy: rather than looking for objectivity, we should use the weakness, the contradictions and paradoxes of our thoughts as positive resources to open completely new universes of philosophy, that are just waiting for us to explore them.

1. Get some idea about what other philosophers thought before you, throughout the history of philosophy, including the present, including living philosophers
2. Get a critical mentality: get aware of how philosophers have always been very critical about everything
3. Get awareness of yourself as a human, your uniqueness in the history of this world, get familiar with literature, art, sport, religions, life, news, history
4. Use your self awareness, together with all other knowledge that you have acquired, to criticise everything, including your own criticism, including the algorithms that you are using, consciously and unconsciously
5. Now you are, presumably, hopefully, in the ideal maturity to create your own philosophy and contribute to the growth of humanity.

I think your thoughts are metaphysic, which is, they try to work out how thing are. I want to work on how things are perceived by us. Nothing to do with phenomenology; it is, rather, an emotional, spiritual interest.

I have seen in your words an attempt to show how great our inner universe (which you call the second universe) is and I appreciate this very much, because I think that today most philosophers all over the world, professionals or not, give too little importance to this. But, at the same time, you still perceive the phisical universe as the real one and the big one. This makes me think that your mind is, like most philosophers, still slave of a perspective that gives too much deference to the “real” universe. Instead, the task of artists should be, in my opinion (and you are an artist), to show the world that what deserves to be considered “real” is our inner world. The phisical world, the external world, is just a crumb: its phisical vastness is nothing compared to the depth of our inner life. Actually, what gives depth to the phisical universe is our human perception. We see depth in the universe, because we have depth inside us. So, the real deep universe is the one inside us. Our inner universe is what makes everything real, worth consideration. Our inner universe makes possible the existence of the external universe.
When I die, the external universe ceases to exist, while instead all the emotions that I spreaded in life will keep their mark in the emotions of other people.
Seeing that, when other people die, the universe is still there should not make us conclude that the remaining universe is the phisical one. Instead, we should realize that, when somebody dies, the external universe has lost a big chance of being something to somebody, the external universe has become less meaningful, because now there are fewer people able to give meaning to the universe.
The universe is just an instrument to let our depth to show itself, otherwise it is nothing.

I like your appreciation for what you call 'the second universe', I think it is full of potential, but the way you organize and manage this concept doesn't seem to me very smart, despite your conclusion about smartness . After all, it looks just like a materialistic conception of what you call the "real" universe. Calling it "real" looks metaphysic, so that the wonders of the second universe are totally slave of the big real universe, totally unable to do anything really new, really different from the big universe. But I appreciate your effort to find a difference, when you try to find things that the seconds universe does and the first one is unable to do.

A suicide like a kamikaze might think that he is going to get the real life, while other ones who are too scared or decide not to sacrifice their life can be considered cowards by the kamikaze, remaining in a kind of life that actually is death. So, in that case, from that perspective, the coward who doesn't sacrifice his life like the kamikaze, is tbe one who is committing the real suicide, which is, depriving himself of the real true life.

I agree, and this is what makes the concept of knowledge full of problems.

I thinkn it shouldn't be difficult to imagine situations perceived this way. Do I need to make examples?

It depends how you conceive them. Anything can be considered self-destructive from perspectives that, in turn, can be considered self-destructive as well. As a consequence, even your OP can be considered self-destructive. The same way, somebody who is going to commit suicide can think that the real self-destructive ones are those who are going to stay alive. This is relativism, that you considered suicide.

What criteria you think we should use to answer your question?

This is a kind of mathematical reasoning. I was talking in an existential way. Besides, with your reasoning we obtain the paradox that, if evil is needed to make possible good to be distinguished, then evil is not evil; however, it is evil, because it makes a difference from good; so, the logical conclusion is that, in order to make good distinguished, we need something that is evil and is not evil at the same time. Actually, this contradiction comes out because you are applying some sort of mathematical logic to the ideas of good and evil. But in strict logic good and evil just don't exist: we cannot say that 2 is good and 3 is evil. The ideas of good and evil come from a human, subjective, emotional, psychological experience, so, it is nonsense dealing with them with a theoretical logic that says that something needs an opposite to make it distinguished.

Is buffone really bad? — Hillary

Yes, don't use it with Italian people, even when you are joking. It's not like saying "you are ridiculous, you are funny"; it expresses an explicit intention to stop joking and offend seriously, it's like saying "you have no dignity, you don't deserve respect".

Ok, I see you are not familiar with the Italian language, maybe you just used Google translate. That's fine, I see it was not your intention.

Sei un buffone! — Hillary

I assume you don’t know that this Italian expression is quite offensive, in Italian it has never a friendly meaning.

What’s the problem with giving me the power of creation? Why things would have gone out of hand? Isn’t it assumed as working very well with the three persons of the Trinity? What’s the problem with having some billions of persons, let’s say “the Billionity”, rather than just three, or just one? Why should we impose limits to the ability of God to make Gods all of us?
It would be similar to making all of us owners of this forum, with the difference that, since all of us would be perfect Gods, we would act in total love, total harmony, total perfection. Where is the problem?

I am not asking God to make me as an image of him. I am asking God to make me 100% God as well. Why doesn’t he do it?

How is this supposed to answer the question “Why didn’t God make us Gods, since he has power to do it and absolutely no problem would have been raised by doing it?”.

if we fathom God, that is, God's wisdom, it would make us gods because we would have all the knowledge God has, making us omniscient.

Therefore why do you consider evil to fathom God? because it would not make us Gods or something else? — SpaceDweller

What’s the problem with making us Gods? After all, at least according to the Christian doctrine, they are already three persons in the Trinity, and they all love each other; what’s the problem with making everybody God? We would be all happy, all loving each other, maybe even all being one God, like the Trinity is considered. So the paradox becomes: has God the power to make all of us Gods as well? Or, in terms of theodicy: if making all of us Gods would make a perfect world, with all people loving each other, in absolute perfection, no evil, no suffering, where is the problem?

because we can't fathom God's wisdom — SpaceDweller

Being unable to fathom God's wisdom is evil, so it leaves us with the same question: why doesn't he delete the evil of our inability to fathom his will?