Relativity

Absolute and Relative Modes of Consideration

written by BooBalo

Two events influence my choice of 'absolute and relative modes of consideration as my "Great Ideas" topic. One occurred last summer, while another came from a book.

During the past summer, a co-worker of mine was telling another co-worker about the relativity of time. In summary, he said that an activity can seem to take forever for one person, and a mere second for another. After I thought about it for a minute or two (or did it just seem that long?), I realized he was right, and that I had experienced that phenomenon so many times before. Another good example of relativity comes from The Phantom Tollbooth, when Milo goes into the forest, and meets 'the worlds smallest giant'. Milo asks a question, and is deferred to 'the worlds tallest midget'. After he asks the same question, he is again sent off, this time to 'the worlds skinniest fat-man'. Finally, after Milo asks 'the worlds skinniest fat-man', he is, once again, deferred, this time to 'the worlds fattest skinny-man'. The catch, if you will, of this whole story, is that the same single man is these four men at once. Like Milo, this set me on my quest for answers about relativity.

One thing I find interesting about relativity is a sort-of 'your rules don't apply here' way of explaining things. Sure a second is a second, but as shown in the first example, 'time' is just an arbitrary set of numbers so that people know what the other person is referring to (on the set of arbitrary numbers). This has even been proved scientifically with the knowledge we've accumulated since Aristotelian time. The same principle applies to fat, as shown above, your 'fat' isn't my 'fat'. There are so many relatives in fact, that my stance on the issue is that there are no absolutes, and everything is relative. By 'relatives', I mean relative ways of describing things, and relative attributes attributed to objects. There are no concrete absolutes, and so the world is relative, which I'll expand on later.

Most of the authors I've consulted don't share my opinion, however. In fact, 5 out of 9 of my authors didn't. Interestingly however, all 5 of those authors were ancient and/or middle, while the 4 modern/present authors all agreed with me, at least in relative degrees. While my idea is the minority, I still believe it is absolutely correct. Now lets take a look at the first absolutely incorrect author, Plato.

Plato had the views he did, such as changing his center of identity from the city to the individual, because these were the views of Socrates, his teacher. Plato had a traumatic childhood, growing up during the Peloponnesian War, and having to deal with the death of Socrates. Because of these events, he tried to look for a better life, or perfect 'forms' which were created by God and lay beyond the easily fooled senses. He even tried to apply his 'theory of forms' to politics, but it never took hold.

There is only one passage from Plato, in which he is expressing his ideas on relativity to some friends and by-standers. He is trying to prove a point, and he starts out by saying "...First of all assume that there is an absolute beauty and goodness and greatness, and the like, grant me this...". His friend grants him this and Plato's explanation begins.

The first point of his argument is that something can be beautiful (or good for that matter) only if it consists of absolute beauty (or goodness). He goes on to say that is the only cause for an objects beauty, the color of a flower doesn't make it beautiful, only the presence of absolute beauty. He also says that if something is absolutely beautiful, it can't be ugly as well, even to a degree (which seemingly wouldn't exist anyway), it is an all or nothing type of categorization.

He expands on this point though, and it seems to be the main logic behind his argument. He says that "...nor can any other opposite which remains the same ever be or become its own opposite, but either passes away or perishes in the change." In the case of the flower then, you wouldn't say 'this flower is beautiful but that part is ugly', because it can't be said, or at least doesn't make sense. This is because it makes an object its opposite while it remains the same.

On top of this is the idea that the same principles apply when comparing one object to another, sticking with the example, an ugly flower and a beautiful flower. If you were to say 'That flower is ugly and that flower is beautiful', there is no argument, but if you were to say 'that flower is more beautiful than that other one', well, just don't let Plato hear. His argument with this would be that when you compare degrees of an absolute, you make the objects in contention "either pass away, or perish in the change". What he means by this is that you would make the once ugly flower now beautiful in order to compare it to the absolutely beautiful flower. Likewise, the beautiful flower would become ugly, which would make both "perish in the change".

Aristotle believed that the pursuit of happiness was the ultimate goal for humans. He thought this could be achieved through wisdom and virtue, which would explain why he became a great philosopher in his pursuit of knowledge.

Unlike Plato, Aristotle has many passages, and these do not seem to me to be structured in any particular way, they're just writings. He doesn't ask anyone to grant him the existence of absolutes, but he takes the liberty to do it anyway, and herein lies his argument.

Aristotle's main idea is the principle that there are absolutes, and that exceptions to the absolutes don't change them. To expand this idea, he uses the example of skin color. He states that if a person is all black, but white in relation to his teeth, he is still black because the exception of the teeth does not override the absolute of the skin. He also says that the addition of white to some black object doesn't automatically make the whole object white. He uses another example, saying that 'sacrificing your father is absolutely wrong'. He then goes on to state that a tribe of people find it honorable, but that doesn't make it absolutely honorable, it is still absolutely dishonorable to people outside of that tribe that don't believe it is honorable.

Aristotle defines a 'relative' as something that has no contrary. For example, if someone were to say 'that mountain is tall', no one could say 'no it is not' without both statements being pure opinion. Thus, neither is 'right', in the traditional sense of the word. Using this definition, he proceeds to say that all arguments and proofs are relative to that particular argument, especially when dealing with words with multiple meanings. If there is confusion over the meaning of a word, any proof that arises out of the assumption of a singular meaning makes said proof relative to the situation.

He states that anything with 'greater' or 'lesser' degrees (of beauty, goodness etc...) is also relative. This is, according to Aristotle, due to the fact that "Again, any predicate of which we can speak of greater or less degrees belongs also absolutely... for a bad thing will never be said to have a greater or less degree of goodness than another, but always of badness. If some object is distinguished by the greatness or smallness of its parts, all judgment is relative. Also, if this object is compared to another object with more or less of the same parts, no distinction is made.

Aristotle states that an affirmative and a negative can't both belong to an object absolutely. Although, he does say they can both belong relatively, or one relatively and the other absolutely. Also, he says that nothing can be 'apparently' absolutely good, because, that is "absurd". Aristotle and Plato lived during the same time period (about 400 bc), in the same country (Greece), and were teacher and student.

My next author, is Thomas Aquinas (1225-1275). Aquinas wrote the volumes he did to settle a dispute at the university where he taught. The dispute was between "the Latin Aviarists of the faculty of arts, who were presenting an Aristotelianism seemingly incompatible with Christianity, and the Augustinians of the theological faculty who tended to look with disfavor upon the use of Aristotle in theology".

In doing so, Aquinas formed his own approach to religion. He said that both faith and reason were needed for a understanding of God, religion and truth. His new approach to religion and truth was called 'Scholasticism'. His most interesting use of Aristotle though, was to help prove the Augustianins right, even though they were opposed to the use of Aristotle.

Aquinas starts out by saying "a thing is, in consequence, called being absolutely according as it is primarily distinguished from that which is only in potency..." By this he means that: because an object is a reality, and not just potential, it is being absolutely. In addition to this, he says "but that which has not the ultimate perfection it ought to have..., is not said to be perfect absolutely nor good absolutely, but only relatively". What he means here is that things are either absolutely or relatively good, depending on whether or not they posses the "ultimate perfection they ought to have". Those which posses it are absolutely good, while all others can only be relatively good.

He goes on from here to say that while one is being absolutely, and good relatively (or absolutely), this does not constitute two different beings. This is to say that, the relative goodness is not separate from the absolute being. Even though we have x number of attributes, we aren't x number of different beings, such as Joe the being, and Joe the good, and Joe the short. As it is, these attributes come together to form Joe the potentially perfect, and whether or not I am perfect or good, absolutely or relatively, depends on whether or not I posses the ultimate perfection I ought to have if I were to be absolutely perfect.

By Aquinas' time, people began to look back to vindicate the pope's authority, and in doing so, rediscovered Greek culture, especially Aristotle. During the time period of my middle authors, Europe was in the renaissance. This was a rebirth of ideas, mostly those of Plato and Aristotle, so all of the authors of the time were influenced by Aristotle.

Between Aristotle and Aquinas, the idea of relativity changed very little. Aquinas actually used Aristotle, (not even paraphrasing, but using the straight text) to prove a point.

My next author, Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was sent to the Jesuit School at La Fleche. This school was founded by Henry IV and was one of the most celebrated schools in Europe. He got a very good education and became not only a philosopher but a mathematician as well. He is credited with the famous quote "I think therefore I am".

Descartes has written a large book of rules to understand the universe by. The particular rule that mentions relativity deals with separating that which is "quite simple, from what is complex...". He says that while it seems to teach nothing new, "it contains... the chief secret of method...".

He states that "all things can be said to be either absolute or relative" and to discern them, one must "...not regard things as isolated realities, but compares them with one another in order to discover the dependence in knowledge of one upon the other...". Next, in his definition of 'absolute', Descartes says "I call that absolute which contains within itself the pure and simple essence of which we are in quest".

As for 'relative', he states "But the relative is that which,... enables us to relate it to the absolute and to deduce it from that by a chain of operations, involves in addition something else in its concept which I call relativity." He goes on to say that "...we may be able by traversing all the intermediate steps to proceed from the most remote to that which is in the highest degree absolute".

What Descartes means is that in some big picture views one thing appears more absolute than others, while in other, detail orientated, views, the opposite is true. He gives some examples, such as the universe and the individual, stating that "Thus though the universeis more absolute than the particular because its essence is simpler, yet it can be held to be more relative than the latter, because it depends upon individuals for its existence, and so on." He also says that "Certain things likewise are truly more absolute than others, but yet are not the most absolute of all." By this he is saying that absolute isn't always absolute, sometimes it can be a relative state as well. Finally, he states that "...we can know unequals only by comparing them with equals..." and as for deducing equals, he says "All the others (relatives) can only be perceived from these (absolutes)...".

The interesting part about Descartes' school, was that its goal was to "reconcile the classical learning of the Renaissance with the scholastic philosophy of the Middle ages." The renaissance sought to bring back the old Greek philosophies of Plato, and especially Aristotle, and Descartes school was teaching those ideas.

Consequently, Descartes had similar ideas to that of Aristotle, so many years later. In his writings, you could detect a very clear Aristotelian influence.

Not much is known about Benedict Spinoza's (1632-1677) early life, but he did have the same birth date as me (11/24). His father had a high position in the Jewish community. In 1656 though, Spinoza was excommunicated by the Jewish authorities for "abominable heresies which he practices and teaches".

In his passage, Spinoza starts out with definitions to help in his describe his 'propositions'. He refers to 'absolutes' as 'substance'. His definition of 'substance' is "By substance, I understand that which is in itself and is conceived through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed."

He also has a list of axioms to help understand his writing. His 'relativity' axiom states "That which cannot be conceived through another must be conceived through itself." As for his proposition dealing with relativity, he says "Each attribute of a substance must be conceived through itself". In his explanation of this, he says "From this it is apparent that although two attributes may be conceived as really distinct... we cannot nevertheless thence conclude that they constitute two beings or different substances...". With that said, he states that "It is very far from absurd, therefore, to ascribe to one substance a number of attributes...", meaning that any object can be ascribed an infinite number of attributes.

What he is saying here is that even though two attributes may be distinct, we can't conclude that they're two different things. He is implying, as an example, that someone could be both tall and skinny. Both are different attributes, but they belong to the same being.

Interestingly enough, Spinoza spent the next four years of his life after being expelled from his community studying Latin and Greek and other "humane sciences". Consequently, Spinoza studied Aristotelian philosophy.

The ideas on relativity still hadn't changed significantly since Aristotle's time. People still used him as a guide. This was due to the renaissance, or the 'rebirth' of ancient Greek ideas. By the time my 'modern' authors are reached though, the renaissance will have ended, will Aristotle still reign supreme?

My next author is George Berkeley (1685-1753). While many of the earlier authors either studied Aristotle directly, or studied people who studied Aristotle, Berkeley seemed to depart from that path. Berkeley studied Newton, Boyle, and Locke, but he had disagreements with all of them. In 1705 he formed a society that met to discus the "new philosophy". It seems to me that Berkeley, instead of following someone else's ideas, created his own, much as Aristotle did.

In 1709, he wrote a book called An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision. This was about the "new philosophy" that he had 'discovered' to help him overcome the difficulties he had with Locke. Later in his life he wrote about the disagreements he had with Newtonian mathematics in his Analyst.

Berkeley states that numbers are "creatures of the mind". He says this is evidenced in the fact that "Thus, the same extension is one, or three, or thirty-six, according as the mind considers it with reference to a yard, a foot, or an inch." He goes on to say that even if they have the same number, they can have different quantities, "We say one book, one page, one line, etc.; all these are equally units, though some contain several of the others." In the end, he says that units are just made up, "And in each instance, it is plain, the unit relates to some particular combination of ideas arbitrarily put together by the mind." The mind just needs to be calibrated to a certain set of arbitrary standards and it's on its way.

The significance of this is great if you consider, for example, that time is arbitrary. This might not seem to connect right away, but if we break down time, we can state that a 'day' lasts a certain number of 'ticks', which we've called 'seconds'. We've called them 'seconds' and given them a duration of '1 second', but since numbers are arbitrary, the significance of the second is nullified. The day could just as easily take 7 hours, which consisted of 12,343 'seconds' in an hour. While the latter example may seem even more arbitrary than it is by definition, whose to say that if this was how scientists had decided to set time up when they first created it, we wouldn't think the latter less arbitrary than the former.

With Berkeley, came change in the concept of relativity. Finally someone had other ideas than Aristotle's. Berkeley's "numbers are arbitrary" was probably a ground shaking idea then, and not only that, it went against the churches 'golden boy', Aristotle. Berkeley formed a mold that future philosophers followed, and that was the breaking of the Aristotelian mold.

My second modern author is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant, like Berkeley, wasn't influenced directly by other philosophers. He did read some Rousseau, but no one like Aristotle. He formed his own philosophy, and people read him, not vice-versa. He was an incredibly popular professor in Prussia, much like Plato and Aristotle were in their day.

Kant had many interesting things to say, but was quite hard to understand. Kant's passages are taken from The Critique of Pure Reason, so he is talking about reason, and its 'uses'.

Kant starts off by saying, "...Reason doesn't properly give birth to any conception, but only frees the conception of the understanding of a possible experience, and thus endeavors to raise it above the empirical, though it must still be in connection with it". What Kant is saying here is that reason doesn't itself understand, or conceptualize ideas, but allows for the conception of the object in question. This means that, if someone were to see a ghost, reason wouldn't conceptualize that it was a ghost, but would allow for the conceptualization that what that person has seen is a ghost.

Kant goes on to talk about relationships and series. He states that "Time present is in relation to time past, but not time present. Present only exists as a condition of past time, or the passing preceding time." Here Kant is saying that the present exists because of the past, and in relation to the past, but not because of, or in relation to the present, or the future, for that matter. This is to say that time is a series, and relies on that which came before it, not that which occurs during it, or that which comes after it.

As for space, Kant states "Space is not a series as time but is a continuation or annexation of the limits of existing space." By this, Kant means that a room in a house exists only as a continuation of the rest of the house, and not as a separate entity. In addition, the house exists only as a continuation of the street, and so forth.

From this point, Kant claims that "Reason allows me to cogitate the existence of an idea, but I cannot admit that this being exists absolutely, because I can't prove it in a way that I normally prove an object exits." Here, Kant states that reason allows him to think up the existence of something such as a supreme being, but he has no way to prove this idea. This does not disprove the idea, but there is no way to know whether or not it is true. Kant says "Thus the supposition of a supreme being or cause is purely relative... such a being is but a something of whose existence in itself we have not the least conception."

Finally, Kant remarks that "To understand the unity of experience we think up an idea because no object can be experienced as containing an example of complete unity. We accept the idea as a point of view." When my dad and I were talking, he said that even though this idea is just that, a point of view, that point of view is absolute, which makes sense. I then asked him if that idea was absolute to just that person and just that idea, or to everyone. My dad said that it is absolute to anyone who'll believe it, and he gave me an analogy that went along with the supreme being idea. He said that my belief in a supreme being is shared with everyone else at my church, and thus that point of view is absolute to anyone who believes it. However, if someone didn't believe it, that would just mean we would have two different points of view, not that either one was 'right' or 'wrong', because absolutely they're relative, but relatively they're absolute.

Kant grew up in a time of turmoil for Prussia. He was alive when Prussia and Austria were splitting up Poland. Also, the German government was strict about religious writings, and he was forced not to publish one of his books as a result. Perhaps the wars and strict government forced him to be independent, but he seems like a person for whom time period was unimportant, and if he had lived a thousand years ago, he would have had the same ideas anyway.

As with Berkeley, Kant represented new ideas. Finally someone was proving obvious relatives such as time and space, albeit without concrete 'proof'. Kant also started to delve into the absolute and relative aspects of ideas, taking the topic of relativity to new fields.

My final modern author is William James (1824-1910). James had a young life much like Berkeley, in that he didn't study Aristotle, or any one philosopher for that matter. James' whole life seemed to "bounce around". He never settled down with any one thing for long. He had a stint with psychology, but later tired of the subject. He settled into philosophy quite late in his life. In fact, he was in the middle of writing a book on his thoughts of philosophy (Some Principles of Philosophy), when he died.

In James' passage, he clarifies his thoughts by criticizing the work of others. In this case, he is criticizing Hume. Hume discuses self, and what self is to him. In relation to self he says that when he cannot perceive, he is not truly himself, such as in sleep. As for death, he says that when one can no longer perceive, and have ideas, one is simply annihilated.

James critiques this discussion by saying that Hume is as much an extremist as the substantialist philosophers, "As they say the self is nothing but unity, unity abstract and absolute, so Hume says it is nothing but diversity, diversity abstract and absolute; where as in truth it is that mixture of unity and diversity...". The truth of existence is the in the middle ground, between pure unity and pure diversity, but Hume doesn't acknowledge the middle ground's existence.

The next section of Hume's writings focuses on ideas themselves, and the Associanist Theory, which was started by Locke, and carried on by Hume.

Hume says that ideas never come again, and that no two ideas are the same. What he means is that ideas are not related over time, and that no idea ever occurs twice, even if it is related, it is not the same as the previous one.

In response to Hume's writings on ideas James says that ideas are indeed connected, and that metaphorically speaking, the present is the 'glue' that the past ideas 'cling' to. As evidence, James claims "We found among the objects of the stream certain feelings that hardly changed, that stood out warm and vivid in the past just as the present feeling does now..."

James says that ideas are both connected and separate. According to him, "both connection and separation are ways in which the past thoughts appear to the present Thought;-unlike each other in respect of date and certain qualities-this is the separation; alike in the other qualities and continuous in time-this is the connection. James says that Hume "...gives a striking example of that Absolutism which is the great disease of philosophic Thought." Through this it would seem that James is a relativist, and that he is not only chiding Hume, but also Aristotle and even Plato.

I feel James' ideas might have been influenced by America's independence. With the First Amendment, people could say what they wanted. James' time, like his life, was one of great change in America. Gold was discovered in California. Other events included the Mexican-American war, the movement west, and the invention of cars and planes. No one was staying still, which seemed to be more the case than in the previous author's lifetimes. Perhaps as a result of this, James' writing kind of dances around.

James followed the lead of the other modern authors and came up with non-Aristotelian ideas. He talked about ideas much like Kant, and explored the absolute and relative ideas of the soul and spirit. On the whole, I feel James represents modern America with his tendency towards relativist views.

The author that I used as my modern author is Stephen Hawking (1942- ), and his work A Brief History of Time. Hawking is the first person to really have scientific proof to back up his ideas. Aristotle used common sense, but that doesn't always hold up against science.

A Brief History of Time is a look at time from a scientific viewpoint, starting with Aristotle and continuing on into the 1990's. The book covered time through its exploration of people's ideas of what time was or is.

The mainstay of Hawking's argument is the fact that there is no absolute time. In fact, he plainly states "In the theory of relativity there is no unique absolute time, but instead each individual has his own personal measure of time that depends on where he is and how he is moving. He says that the idea of absolute time is disproved through Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Hawking states that there could be absolute time for very slow moving objects, but once you get near the speed of light, absolute time no longer holds up because it is impossible to measure. Thus it can no longer be 'absolute', as different people would get different values for it.

In addition to this idea, he goes on to say that time is relative to position as well as speed. He proves this through many examples, the first being the fact that if you have two clocks, the clock farther from the Earth's surface would run faster than that closer to the ground. The proof for this is scientific, and is as follows: "Because as light travels upward in the earth's gravitational field, it loses energy, and so it's frequency goes down. This prediction was tested in 1962, using a pair of clocks mounted at the top and bottom of a water tower. The bottom clock, nearer the earth, ran slower." This shows that time is relative to position, and further disproves the notion of absolute time. As for time being relative to speed, he uses the 'twins paradox'. It states that if you were to take 2 twins, and send one in a spaceship at nearly the speed of light, and keep the other on earth, the one in the spaceship, when he returns, will be much younger than his earth-bound twin. A final interesting tidbit he includes, is a poem, that, while not fact, states "There once was a lady from Wight; Who traveled much faster than light. She departed one day; In a relative way; And arrived on the previous night.", suggesting that since time isn't absolute, time travel is possible.

Science isn't Hawking's only ally though. The fact that he lives in modern times, with modern ideas influences his work as well. Aristotle is hardly the scientific reference he once was, and his ideas aren't even as heavily used in society, if at all. This being the case, if Hawking were to study philosophers, he would've studied the likes of Berkeley and Kant, who had a much more modern outlook on the world. The largest boon to Hawking however, must have been Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Right away this dispels absolute time, making that unnecessary to prove before one begins further work. One can merely find more proof to validate this theory.

When I first started this paper, I had views on some aspects of relativity, but they were limited to such things as time and size. I knew I would have to form ideas on all aspects if I where to write a paper on it though. After lots of thinking, and talking to my dad, here is what I came up with.

While my topic is 'absolute and relative modes of consideration', I believe there are no absolutes. By this I mean that there are no absolute modes of consideration, and that everything is either relative and/or arbitrary. There is no absolute time, no absolute size, and no absolute beauty, hence the phrase, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". The reason that this is the case is that there are no standards for all of these attributes. Not everyone would agree object A was small, or large, or beautiful. For something to be absolute, there would have to be a standard, and everyone would have to agree, but nothing fits that bill. Someone might, however, say "killing is absolutely wrong, no matter what you say!", but, there are few people who wouldn't kill in self defense, and of those people, even fewer would think it 'wrong'.

This is much akin to what Aristotle was saying when he presented his 'exceptions to absolutes' idea, but I feel that that idea doesn't hold up. He said that there could be exceptions to an absolute, and that wouldn't make it a non-absolute. By absolutes definition alone ("pure" and "unmixed" according to Websters) this is disproved. Something can't be 'purely' absolute if it is 'mixed' with relativity. Exceptions to absolutes make them relatives, which in turn makes 'killing is bad' relative.

Another example of this comes from Descartes' "in some views objects are more absolute while in others they're less" idea. Just as there aren't exceptions to absolutes, there aren't degrees to them either. 'Degrees' in itself is anti-'pure'. Plato might have been correct with his 'apples to oranges' idea of comparing things, that you can't compare unlike objects, because they both become relative. Even the fact that they're relative to begin with becomes of little consequence if you think of Plato's mode of comparing things.

I was having trouble with one aspect of absolutes and relatives though, and that dealt with science. I couldn't figure out how all the laws of science could be relative, completing the 'everything is relative' theory. It took me to my modern, and really, my present day authors to get my answer. Berkeley said that all numbers were arbitrary, which disproved absolute time, and every law that was based on absolute time. No more constants dealing with x per second, because the second doesn't exist, its a figment of the corporate world's imagination, it helps their time clocks run smoothly. This still didn't explain ideas involving position though, such as the sun rise. Stephen Hawking solved this for me, with his disproving of absolute position. If there's no absolute position, just where does the sun rise, and for that matter, where is east? Again, these are all arbitrary markers so people don't get lost going to work to punch in their time clocks.

In conclusion, I feel that there are no absolutes and that we live in a relative world. After all, its better to be relatively right than absolutely wrong.