Are ideas more real then the world around us? Do concepts like "Love" and "Justice" exist independent of people? Do they change?

I had an argument with my INFJ friend about the concept of time. I questioned whether or not you can truly have an accurate measurement of something so all-encompassing that there's no way to step outside of it and really measure it. She vehemently disagreed, claiming that of course it was consistent and there were accurate measurements of time. She couldn't understand my question and I couldn't understand her answer. >.> There are certain topics that will never be universally agreed upon.

Concepts created by the human mind cannot exist separate from humanity except to be perceived from human perspective. Love and Justice are such expansive ideas, containing worlds of descriptions and meanings that differ from person to person. The real question is, can they exist without concepts like Hate and Injustice? Is it not the negative that truly creates and defines the positive?

Love and Justice are such expansive ideas, containing worlds of descriptions and meanings that differ from person to person. The real question is, can they exist without concepts like Hate and Injustice? Is it not the negative that truly creates and defines the positive?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_morality

Posted By ENFPGuy on 12 Jul 2009 03:09 PM
Are ideas more real then the world around us? Do concepts like "Love" and "Justice" exist independent of people?

How would we know really? It's our mind that constucts them, so if we had no mind would Love still exsist?
I can't concieve of that idea, but I'm sure life would still go on...and if you consider life to be a gift of love then hell yeh

I agree with you on that argument, Aly. The theory of relativity basically states that any measurement of time, which we stake so much faith on, is flawed at best. Because time can be warped and twisted, like any physical object, we can't measure it if we cannot see the whole of the object. It's like trying to measure the dimensions of a wall so vast that one cannot see it. It's impossible.

In this way, even if an absolute value of 'good' or similar concepts exists, it would be impossible for us to understand them, or even to begin to understand them. As such, it is much better, and, I believe 'good' in the long run to operate under a flexible definition of 'good'. If we cannot change flaws as we find them, we are likely to commit grave errors.

I think that that's all things. I don't think any perfect circles exist (despite that band's claims to the contrary--*shakes fist at the flagrant liars*), nor ability to measure anything precisely (is it really 10 feet? 10 feet and a few millimeters? Micrometers?).

Precision and "perfect" objects and other math-like things don't "really" have grounding in reality. Or maybe they do, because we see circle-like things and whatever else, and extrapolate out into the ideal ones... am not sure. I think(?) that's why Plato suggested that there was a world that our Soul could observe, with the ideal objects and abstract concepts, so we remember them instead of inventing them.

My guess is that whether you believe something like Love and Justice exist apart from the mind is very related to whether you believe that ideal things like circles or squares (with every side exactly equal) or rectangles (with every angle exactly 90 degrees) are real "things", when all we have to observe are imperfect physical versions of them.

It just sort of boils down to--like the OP said--you think that man defines reality and truly *creates* new things, or if he observes and discovers reality and instead "makes" new things by using what's already there. I guess, probably driven mostly by my spiritual beliefs, I have a hard time suggesting that men really "create" anything, so I tend towards thinking that the ideas really do exist independent of people.

I would say that that also puts it on equal footing with the existence of the world around us--no more real, and no less real. More or less important is still up for debate, though, as well as whether those ideas change or not over time.

I think(?) that's why Plato suggested that there was a world that our Soul could observe, with the ideal objects and abstract concepts, so we remember them instead of inventing them.

Plato went over in the republic that there is an ideal good and there is imperfections in the world that distorts the perfect form of the good, which is what we see.

It just sort of boils down to--like the OP said--you think that man defines reality and truly *creates* new things, or if he observes and discovers reality and instead "makes" new things by using what's already there. I guess, probably driven mostly by my spiritual beliefs, I have a hard time suggesting that men really "create" anything, so I tend towards thinking that the ideas really do exist independent of people.

I would say that that also puts it on equal footing with the existence of the world around us--no more real, and no less real. More or less important is still up for debate, though, as well as whether those ideas change or not over time.

Very good, here is one that threw the ancients for a loop...

So man does not create anything. But you your self are created. You are self aware, at least on some level. You did not exist. Now you exist. Soon you will not exist. Therefore how could there not be creation when you yourself did not exist but now do?

So if man (or should I say woman) creates then just like a person an idea is created. There was no idea of Cryptonia or sbal before. And if in a million years no one will remember us will us, will the idea of us "be dead". Or is it independent?

God knows haha...How do you know consciousness?awareness without thinking and would it still exisit if it wer'nt for thought

If you think about consciousness as the fundamental building block of the whole universe, it would make sense for love and justice to exist innately. This is especially reasonable if paired with the idea that consciousness is inherently good. Human beings have the extraordinary gift of self-awareness. Our brains are hooked up to this chaotic, swirling maelstrom of experience. If we can come to terms with and take comfort in how insane it is that we even exist, I think that it makes love the only answer.

Some would argue that consciousness goes down and up to infinity, building all forms of matter and energy. From the human to the single-cell organism, we all have some kind of consciousness. The cell knows to eat this protein and not that. The earth seems to know when to heat up or cool down to keep homeostasis. I mean obviously it's the sun and its cycles that do this but what if our whole universe resides in some kind of conscious whole. Not that of a God but that of the universe.

The universe is a conscious being. There's no reason to think we're separate from it. We came from the same big bang as the trees outside our windows and the bugs that live in them. However, we have something more. We have self-awareness. We are consciousness all the way down. I would even argue that we are consciousness trying to become aware of itself. The universe has the desire for ultimate knowledge and we're the first successful algorithm that's worked toward achieving that goal.

I think love ties into this to the utmost. From birth, we are nurtured and cared for and loved.

We go through life and, due to the systems that we've put in place, we lead extremely stressful, unnatural lives. Working, paying taxes, driving, whatever. We force ourselves into these angry, ape-like patterns and forget what we're really meant to do: love each other.

Compassion is the only road to a happy life. If you only look out for yourself, you're gonna be sorry. I hate to put it like that, but everything in my life has shown that unregulated negativity leads to isolation. First it's little things like being mad at someone at work. Then you come home and take it out on the people you live with. Then you go to bed and feel terrible about yourself for having a crappy day. You wake up and repeat the process because that's 'just life'.

But it's NOT!!! I, for one, am sick of living in a world that thinks we're meant to be violent. It's just wrong.

"I, for one, am sick of living in a world that thinks we're meant to be violent."

Don't worry, the universe doesn't think. Though I can't help you out with the carnage in the animal kingdom.

The Refutation of Idealism