3. Absolutes and relativity: One of the key ways that people think critically is by understanding the roles of relativity and absolutes.

An absolute is something that is always constant, doesn't change, is always there, always must be considered, is never not applicable, is never not part of something, etc. An absolute is a certainty. For Descartes, it was, "I think, therefore I am."

There is an old joke that the only things that are certain in life are death and taxes. The humor is that no one can avoid these two things, no matter what they do: everyone dies and even those who die must pay their taxes.

This joke relies on the notion that both death and taxes are absolutes.

Are there any absolutes in your life? How do these absolutes affect your ability to think critically? Do they help you? Do they hinder you?

For many people, their moral code (often based on a religion) presents many absolutes to be followed in life. This can be either good or bad, depending on the individual.

The point is, you must be aware of those absolutes that exist in your life (and thoughts) and you must be aware of how (whether) these absolutes affect your ability to reason properly (think critically). Only you can judge this for yourself.

If some of the absolutes in your life are preventing you from thinking critically, then perhaps you should consider re-examining them with an eye on why they hinder your ability to think.

Reality is relative. This is a phrase you may have heard that carries some wisdom. Everything you know is defined in terms of something else. This gives knowledge the quality of relativity. Anything we know is build upon other things we know. Morality, based on knowledge, will also exhibit the quality of relativity.

What is big, for example? Big, for example, is a concept that can only be understood in relation to another idea, for example, small. This is true of many of our ideas: up/down, left/right, inside/outside (you can only think outside of the box if there is an inside of the box). (see also the idea of opposites)

After all, the power of perspectival thinking is tremendous. It frees the individual from a specific vantage point or point of view and allows the imagination to operate, enabling an individual to consider the reality in front of him or her.

This is the methodology of science. Scientists conceive of a reality and attempt to prove their ideas through experimentation. The experiments yield results which either prove or disprove the scientist's theory (hypothesis). Then the scientist adapts his or her theory to the reality of the results of the experiment.

But it is the imagination of the scientist, the ability to conceive of something that he or she doesn't see, hear, feel, taste or touch, that allows the process to proceed. Often the scientist is incorrect. Always, however, the scientist learns.

The scientist understands by creating a pattern to reality, called a paradigm. This is a way that the facts are organized so that they make sense to the scientists. Paradigms are very strictly organized orientations (perspectives).

When a basic or fundamental aspect of the paradigm changes, for example, new experiments yield new facts (data), the scientist must change the paradigm to explain the new facts.

This is the definition of scientific truth: the simplest explanation that explains all of the available facts.

This is why scientific truth changes. For example, in 1491 it was scientific truth that the world was flat. In 1492, when Columbus sailed to North America, the world became a globe. Not really. The world was always what it is. It was human understanding that changed. (see also Medieval Hierarchy)

Similarly, in 1542, the earth was the center of the universe (according to the Ptolemaic system). But, in 1543, the Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), published a book called Six Books Concerning the Revolutions of the Heavenly Orbs, which contained his scientific observations that put forth the theory that the sun was the center of the universe. This was a change in the conceptual paradigm of science. Ever since,, scientists have understood that the sun is the center and the earth revolved (orbited) around.

There are no absolutes. Another phrase to consider. It is itself a contradiction (it is an absolute statement that there are no absolutes; it is self-contradictory). The joke is that this is the exception that proves the rule, that there are exceptions to every rule.

The point for life is that absolutes are few and far between. Once you determine that something is an absolute in your life, it will affect your entire life. This is as true for vegetarians, who will not eat meat, as it is for a Buddhist, who would not use violence.

Different does not mean bad or wrong or good or right. This is one of the conclusions of relativity: if morality, for example, is relative (to a particular situation), then the fact that something is different than what you are used to, does not indicate that there is something amiss (wrong with it).

This doesn't mean anything is OKAY (Dostoyevsky's "all is permissible"). It does mean, however, that you should consider everything you encounter in life with an understanding that there are other ways to think about things in addition to (besides) your own way of thinking.

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