Is there absolute objectivity?

Jewish World Review ^ | December 26, 2003 | Rabbi Hillel Goldberg

[WaterDragon]

When I was in college, I was often doing what I wasn't supposed to. Do you know people who need to study for a test and can sit for four hours straight, methodically reviewing one fact after the next, never taking their mind off their notes? Their attention never wavers.

My attention always wavered. Whenever I went to the library to get the book I needed, I was fascinated by the book next to it, or a few books over. Suddenly they seemed much more important than the book I was supposed to read. When I was supposed to be studying for a test, I suddenly felt the need to peruse a different subject — how narrow the test seemed! Why was I limiting myself? I must broaden my horizons! Never was the impulse stronger than when I was studying for a test.

One day, I was sitting in the Jerusalem Public Library reviewing for a doctoral exam. The reading list was heavy, very heavy. I wandered over to the shelves and noticed a copy of Harry A. Wolfson's Crescas' Critique of Aristotle — it had precisely nothing to do with my upcoming exam.....(snip)

Under Einstein's special theory of relativity, no two observers moving through space at different speeds — and we are all moving through space — see things the same way.

For example, observers moving at different speeds will measure the length of a stick differently. They will also measure the time it takes for the stick to pass by differently.

Time is relative to the speed and position of the observer. On earth, we are all moving through space at the same speed, so reality seems objective. It is not this way.

All this is another way of pointing out the contingent nature of the human being as he or she strives to become like, to apprehend and to communicate with the one objective reality, G-d.

Click Here For Immediate Link to Full Article.

[Grut]

There is an objective reality for every possible location in four-space; it just doesn't happen to be the same reality.

[farmfriend]

Getting a press pass seems to blow objectivity straight out of the water.

[aruanan]

All this is another way of pointing out the contingent nature of the human being as he or she strives to become like, to apprehend and to communicate with the one objective reality, G-d.

And the other objective reality, his creation ex nihilo of the universe in which we live.

[JusPasenThru]

I really think so, too.

[EGPWS]

All this is another way of pointing out the contingent nature of the human being as he or she strives to become like, to apprehend and to communicate with the one objective reality, G-d.

Excellent thread WD!

Objectively speaking, is it even possible for humans to become, apprehend, or communicate with God in reality?

[little jeremiah]

bookmarked for later reading. I think I'm going to like this article.

[little jeremiah]

Is this one of the publications that must be excerpted? I have wretchedly slow dial up (my excuse for not wanted to go to an "external website"...

[RightWhale]

Under Einstein's special theory of relativity, no two observers . . . — see things the same way.

Relativism as a near synonym of psychologism is older than Einstein's STOR. Do the laws of logic have objective reality as idea, or are they subject to the observations of the thinking being? Are they generalizations from thought-experiment, facts, or are they beyond time? Einstein mentioned that time was important to his theory; if so, his results wouldn't be objective law except as they concern the nature of time in itself.

[Urbane_Guerilla]

There is no objectivity. There is striving for objectivity. Life is a mystery, and consciousness is a strange device. We are two things, here and not here. But the belief and the action in our lives must assume objectivity to go on. And it is immoral not to assume objectivity. We depend on agreeing with each other.

[Urbane_Guerilla]

Ex nihilo is an impossible but necessary belief.

That is the hallmark of humanity.

I dont feel like I am waiting around, but it seems like I am just waiting around.

Above all, I want to be with my family when I die.

[WaterDragon]

If you use my "immediate link" it'll take you right to the article!

[GeekDejure]

Is there absolute objectivity?

Only if it's divisible by obsolete abjectivity !!! ;-))

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[LiteKeeper]

INTREP - EDUCATION