Some words like ‘absolute’ can put a serious spell on people. Just the word itself, the promise it holds, seems enough to convince some of the truth of their suggestive meaning. In general, absolute truth is that what is always valid, regardless of context. The absolute in the term connotes one or more of the folowing: ‘ultimate’, ‘complete’, ‘unvarying’, ‘permanent’, ‘essential’ or ‘valid in all possible worlds’.
The very existence of logical absolutes is a concept itself, not a fact about and verified in reality. To grant existence to logical absolutes the concept of existence has to be extended to the conceptual realm. But this does not mean that these logical absolutes necessarily have meaning in the real world. The point is that the applicability of logical absolutes to the real world is suggested by the label but not a deductive logical necessity. To say for instance that the world is governed by mathematical laws is in essence a form of inductive reasoning not a deduction from logic. The first perfect circle has yet to be found in our world. In fact Hume identified the non-provability of the applicability of mathematical laws to the real world as the Problem Of Induction. The applicability of these laws to our universe cannot be deduced from logical absolutes. So how can we even verify them in an absolute way? The answer: we can’t. The reason: we make up logical absolutes but have no clue about the nature of their link with the real world. Bottomline, all logical statements depend on the logical framework within which they are used.
Then why does our universe looks so logical, one might ask. All seems to fit together, somehow. The answer, in short, is that the choice of logical framework usually is instigated by the practical coherence between the logic and the phenomena in reality we try to understand. Usually we choose the logic that best fits the problem, so all kinds of internally complete yet impracticle logical frameworks get weeded out in our thinking process about the grand pattern we try to see in nature. The beauty of thought is however that it is not necessarily restricted to logical frameworks that fit to what we think is nature. We can and have thought up logical frameworks that don’t (yet) make sense in nature. Moreover in mathematics there is a certain tradition of thinking up seemingly impractical logical frameworks, while in physics there seems to be a tradition of making practicle use of seemingly impractical mathematical frameworks. This indeed has shown to be a very potent force in the scientific endeavour. On the other hand nature itself keeps surprising us with patterns that don’t fit ‘normal’ logic. In reaction to that we (some of us at least) are not afraid to …yep, devise new logical frameworks that do fit. An example is quantum logic. As of yet however it is not clear how to reconcile the different regimes of logic that are needed to describe all of nature. Most strikingly, the logic of the world of the very small has not yet been reconciled with the world of the very large. These worlds seem to use different logical frameworks. This should not be an unfamiliar concept to ancient philosophers though. In the bible clear traces of different regimes governing ‘above’ and ‘down here’ can be identified. We have narrowed the gap thanks to Newton, Einstein and countless others, but we haven’t come full swing. One could say that the attempts to tie together all the known facts about the universe into a single unified theory is a search for absolute truth about our reality. The latest news is that we haven’t struck gold yet, so declaring absolute truths seems rather premature.
But that sounds like postmodernistic relativistic bullshit, I hear you say. Well, you are entitled to think so, but keep in mind that there is no conclusion here that reconciliation of the logical frameworks with which we describe nature is impossible. Now that would be a very premature conclusion indeed. All scientific effort essentially is part of this strive for reconciliation. That there is no reconciliation yet does not mean that reconciliation cannot be achieved. This only shows that we should be very sparse with labels like ‘absolute’, ‘complete’, ‘ultimate’ and ‘truth’. These are all concepts of the human mind in need for verification/falsification. They may hold to a great extent in the conceptual realms of mathematics, logic and thought but they hold no intrinsic guarantee for their applicability to that what is.
Posted by fujaro 