I wonder... does anyone here believe in absolute truth? That for every question out there, there is only one right answer? Only one right way to do everything? Weather we know them or not? Is there anything in life that you feel should never be open for debate, because it's truth and fact, and there's no possible way it could be anything else?

Like, for example... if you see a flower, you know it's a flower. It has all the parts that a flower should scientifically have. Though still, how can you be so sure that it's really a flower? What if you're deceived? What if everything and everyone you see is fake?

Perhaps you'll wake up tomorrow and they'll all be gone. Perhaps you're asleep and living in a dream, only to wake up one day in a completely different life, as a completely different person.

What if our concept of life isn't what we think?

What if we're all wrong about everything?

Do you find this type of thinking paranoid, or logical?

Not sure if this thread will go anywhere... it wasn't thought out very well. But we'll just have to see.

I wouldn't necessarily say that theres only one "right" way to do something, because that's completely dependent on who thinks its right. But As far as I'm concerned, things that exist, exist as they are.

But that's the thing, are they really as they are, or just how we see them as we THINK they are based on what we're told to believe?

Of course, being an existentialist in every sense of the word, I deal with those head exploding questions every day. That's why hardly anybody can stand to talk to me because I see everything in an objective light. Many people don't realize that opinions can't be right, and often think that when I'm stating an opinion I'm actually stating what I believe to be a truth. This results in alot of people getting mad at me and trying to convince me otherwise, which will never work because I know that my opinion is just an opinion and that their opinion is just an opinion, meaning that there is a very good chance that neither of them are right. The whole train of thought that goes of in my head consisting of different points of view, doubts, backwards viewpoints and cause and effect relationships usually ends in me spewing seemingly endless nonsense...QED.

Either way, it is your opinion that opinions are never truly right...

I think that absolute truth does exist... SOMETHING has to be true. It's just impossible for us to know what exactly the truth is.

If you are talking about it in a moral sense though, that's another story...

Either way, it is your opinion that opinions are never truly right...
Ah, see, but I didn't say opinions are never right, I just meant that it's impossible to KNOW which opinions are correct.
(though you are entirely correct. Like I said, because we are only human and a subject to biased information and opinions, there is no way for us to know)

Something I've always wondered is why everyone wants to know everything about everything... I mean, the more we know the less happy we are, yet we strive to learn more in spite of it. It's pretty insane.

There is no such thing as fact, or truth, or lies. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is perspective.

Sorry guys, too busy thinking about other head-imploding things to discuss existentialism. Enjoy kinda-related pic in the meantime.

To me, everything is circumstantial, so there is no moral or theoretical stability. However I am fairly sure that a flower is a flower, and an opion is always an opinion. I believe the world is real, and solid, and that known facts such as gravity are always correct. But then again, who can ever be sure about anything? We can never know for sure that what we believe is real. I mean for all we know our entire universe is a soap bubble floating through the kitchen of a higher powers house, in an even larger universe that is still only a soap bubble in an even LARGER universe. Hehe, that was long. All I mean, is we can never know for sure.

No. This is sort of a paradox, but there is no such thing as anything but perspective, which is itself a perspective. What may seem like a fact is only the perspective of many people who agree on the state of the thing. For example, is the sky blue? Not necessarily. To me maybe, it looks more like a purple-ish green. The rods and cones that determine forms and colors in may be different from the rods and cones in the eyes of others.

Is my house really exactly where I think it is? Possibly. Maybe its actually several inches to the left of where I think it is, or to the right. Maybe its different for anybody who views it, because they may think in terms of meters rather than feet. It's these things that make me believe that there are no facts, only different perspectives.

Thats pretty close to what I was saying, only in terms of different peoples perspectives as opposed to reality.

i used to think about this kind of thing for years. i even used to wonder if i was the only one in the world thinking about it or if the rest of the world was on a higher level to me....
its basically (as DP said) making everything objective. the problem with this is that you then disregard anything as fact and purely as opinion, but whithout facts, shit gets very confusing......

Maybe things just are.

Or maybe nothing is.

I reckon everything that gets debated on will eventually become an argument of terms.
For example: what is the meaning of life?
That argument would eventually become "what is life?" or "what is meaning?"

It even works for a simple question such as "what's one plus one?"
It would become "do you mean one individual or one group?" and "define plus" and "how are you adding them?"

It gets way too complicated.

That's why you have to know who you're arguing with and if they are a big details-freak.

Yes.

good in put there...... (i know i cant talk)

absolute truth is a style of thinking where you simply refuse to believe anything as fact and act as if you are observing it for the first time in a science lab....

Or in nature.

yes

Except that isn't necessarily true. Absolute Truth is the style of thinking as Nicky described it. I don't think you quite have to think at all times that you're observing something for the first time, in a science lab or otherwise.

I think absolute truth as a thinking style would be pretty close to existentialism (poor spelling). At least as far as my understanding of existentialism goes. Which is really only based of the French Novella The Stranger.

you're pretty spot on there....

You know... the more I contemplate the whole mind-set of "question anything and everything" and constantly doubting anything presented to you remotely resembling fact (aka existentialism... or whatever DP called it), the more I think that entire mind-set is based solely around fear of being wrong. It seems like it anyway. Like if you start to lean toward a specific way of thinking but then one day that way of thinking is proved completely wrong, you would be able to say to yourself "Well, that doesn't really bother me that much anyway because I didn't truly completely believe it in the first place... so whatever." Sigh of relief... and move on. But I don't think it's possible for a human being to truly question everything. If they did, they would go completely nuts. I mean really nuts. So crazy they'd have to be locked up forever, away from any sign of human life, because there'd be no way to properly handle a person like that. At least that's what I think.

DP, you can prove me wrong if you feel the need to. It just seems like living like that would be extremely frustrating... and depressing. I'm surprised you're not suicidal.

It all has to do with coming to peace with the fact that you will never be 100% sure. No matter what happens, the only thing you can do is choose what is most LIKELY and believe that. You are just a body and a brain, it's pretty much a scientific fact that you will never be absolutely sure, because everything you know about the outside world is delivered by easily-fooled senses. Well, actually there is one thing you're sure about, and that is that you exist, in some way, or form.

But there is something else, called faith (please don't misunderstand this word for its religious-overuse). Faith means BELIEVING something totally even though you don't know completely, and yes, without faith or certainty, you would go insane. Faith is a little different from just believing though. Rather than believing everything you sense to be true, faith is something you only put into believed truths that are important to you. The best choice, in my opinion, is casting aside the blind belief of whatever is most likely, and adopting faith towards the truths you believe is most important to really be how it is.

Seems we have a new Neverender. among us...

I'm being compared to someone? Well, tell me about the one I'm being compared to then!

Not in a negative way. Geez. O_O I'm just saying you and Neverender. (a member of this forum) seem to never want to post unless it's something direly contributive. On rare occasion ever saying something for the sake of uselessness. Which is good...

Basically I'm calling you smart.

I guess I'm a little flattered. I even saw a little of how I think in Coldin's last post.

Yes.
I can see a lot of how I think in this post

I try to regulate how I go about thinking, but most people will just ignore my posts.