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2003

  • in personal
  • 4 min read

Murder, abortion, euthanasia, war and the death-penalty

I

Okay, let's construct this in a simple fashion. I want to write about death, or rather about giving death("donner la mort") and it's moral context. In most religions "Thou shall not kill" is one of the main moral guidelines. Yet in most cultures some forms of death-dealing are excused or justified. The question is obvious, how can we reconcile these opposing standpoints?

II

Let's begin with a short list of the forms of death-dealing frequently encountered in our culture. I did this in the title of this entry, naming murder, abortion, euthanasia, war and the death-penalty. This list is not exhaustive of course, but it gives us a clear picture of the number of situations, where the exact same thing (taking a life) is treated differently. Most would agree that murder is inexcusable, but abortion and euthanasia are "controversial", while war is often cheered and executions in some parts of Texas are treated as something of a show.

III

Conditio humana. One moral criterion, which seems important to the point of obviousness to most of my carnivorous brethren that of the human condition. Humans are considered to be different from other beings, because they have a soul. This allows us to kill and eat animals, without moral concern, because they are soul-less (or at least they do not share our Humanity) and are therefore expendable. But clearly this does not form an absolutely respected law. People lawfully kill other people, so the soul-criterion is not set store by. The death penalty is a clear example of this, but so is war. In our televised wars, it seems that people don't die, they become lost, like soldiers in a computer game. Alas I remind everyone, that in war people die!

IV

Another criterion which is often called upon is the criterion of innocence. People who are "innocent" are never intentionally sentenced to death. They have to be found guilty of horrible crimes, ironically usually of taking a life. But the innocence criterion goes much deeper then what can be decided by courts and laws. The Bible teaches us about the original sin, due to which none of us is innocent. But my favorite theologian Kierkegaard, would argue that point. He wrote that "children are not capable of sin, only of bad temper". According to him, a mind has to go past a certain point of self realization, before it can stand in the presence of God and thus be capable of sin. Only then is an original innocence replaced with original sin. I wrote about this earlier.

If we accept this then we reconcile objections to abortion with consent to war or the death penalty. However in turn, we raise many other extremely difficult questions. When can we decide that a person already lost their innocence? Do we determine it by age?, deeds?, a psychological test? What about mentally-impaired people, who never stop being children?

But let us be crude and accept some estimate of innocence, the birth for instance. Once a person is born it has the potential for loosing innocence, so let's consider it guilty until proven otherwise. This doesn't really solve our problems, only translocates them, because now we have to deal with our carnivorous behaviors. Animals, after all will never be capable of sin and thus will always remain innocent. We cannot kill innocent animals and object to abortion at the same time if we are guided by the innocence-criterion.

V

So, is there a solution? But of course there is! All we need to do is to combine the two described criteria into a rule-set. We cannot kill innocent beings, which at the same time possess the human condition. What a nice solution. Starting out from "Thou shall not kill", we arrive at a situation in which we can kill anything and anyone we wish, as long as they are born.

Doesn't this violate some basic law of logic? Of course it does and I hope I've made it obvious. If we allow ourselves to set moral laws, and then create exceptions in them, or use them in sets, we and up with a combinatorial ethics, which is no ethics at all! If we can set un-absolute rules, then they are no longer rules, but parts of a relativistic theory, which can take on any form we desire according to our mood or situation. If we are free to combine the above mentioned two criteria, then why not take a third one along with them? There's not reason not to.

When it comes to death dealing, we really shouldn't play moral combination theory. The stakes in such game -- lives (human lives, innocent lives, or just plain lives) are too high. "Thou shall not kill" is a rule, which applies in the same way to murder, abortion, euthanasia, war and the death-penalty. If we choose to accept it, let's be faithful to it. And if we choose at any point to reject it, let's not pretend to be holier-then-thou when talking about abortion or the death-penalty...

Vegetarian food, anyone?

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  • 1 min read

Brukowiec

Strategia marketingowa gazety Fakt jest ciosem ponizej pasa! Osobiscie gardze tym pismem, gardze wszystkim co ono soba reprezentuje -- pogonia za sensacja, plotkami, brakiem jakiejkowiek refleksji, chwilowoscia opisywanych zdazen. Jestem pelen pogardy dla jego formy, tresci (tudziez jej braku), formuly itd... A jednak...

A jednak, gdy przechodze obok kiosku i katem oka zobacze na odwrocie brukowca zdjecie pieknej, rozebranej dziewczyny, to przez ulamek sekundy chce miec Fakt. Przez moment chce miec ta gazete, by moc w spokoju przyjzec sie temu cudowi natury jakim jest cialo sfotografowanej kobiety.

Moment mija, ja ide dalej. Przechodze kilkadziesiat metrow, ale refleksja ciagle zatacza kregi w polkulach mozgu... A moze tak naprawde chce miec Fakt, czytac Fakt, wchlaniac Fakt? Moze moje swiete oburzenie jest tylko fasada, moze tak naprawde o niczym innym nie marze, jak otulic sie kojaca, papierowa pustka brukowej gazety?
I wtedy zaczynam gardzic samym soba...

Szmata o nazwie Fakt, wtykana mi codziennie pod nos w drodze do pracy, oraz inne jej podobne Big Brothery dokonuja psychicznego zatrucia calego(!) naszego pokolenia. Zyjemy w ich oparach, chac tego lub nie.

Chcesz 10% wiecej?

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  • 1 min read

Ja [serduszko] Popper

"Staralem sie przetlumaczyc ten Heglowski belkot z Filozofii przyrody tak wiernie, jak mozna; pisze on: 'Dzwiek jest wymiana zachodzaca pomiedzy specyficznym byciem-na-zewnatrz-siebie-na-wzajem maretialnych czesci, a zanegowaniem tegoz -- tylko abstrakcyjna albo, by tak rzec, tylko idealna idealnoscia tego specyficznego momentu. Ale wskutek tego sama ta wymiana jest bezposrednio negacja specyficznego materialnego trwania. Negacja ta jest tym samym realna idealnoscia ciezaru wlasciwego i kohezji -- cieplem. Rozgrzewanie sie dzwieczacych cial, podobnie jak rozgrzewanie sie cial uderzanych i tracych o siebie nawzajem, jest przejawem ciepla wytwarzajacego sie zgodnie z pojeciem oraz dzwiekiem.'

Do dzis nie brak takich, ktorzy wierza w powage Hegla i w dalszym ciagu nie sa pewni, czy tajemnica jego powodzenia nie polega raczej na glebi mysli niz na jej braku. Tym radzilbym uwazne przeczytanie ostatniego zdania -- jedynego zrozumialego -- tego ustepu, poniewaz w tym zdaniu Hegel odslania sie calkowicie. W gruncie rzeczy bowiem znaczy one nie co innego, niz: 'Rozgrzewanie sie dzwieczacych cial... jest przejawem ciepla... wraz z dzwiekiem.'

Powstaje pytanie, czy Hegel oszukiwal sam siebie, zahipnotyzowany wlasnym inspirujaczym zargonem, czy tez bezczelnie chcial oszukac i oczarowac innych."

- Sir Karl Raymund Popper Spoleczenstwo otwarte i jego wrogowie, tom II, str. 36.

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  • 3 min read

The Universal Other

The following is a summary of my current understanding of Kierkegaard's philosophy.

According to Soren Kierkegaard there is no race, creed of culture devoid of prescience of the one true God. He does admit that many people in all cultures are unaware that this knowledge is the knowledge of God, while others repress the realization and thus live in sin. Despite this he believes all adult people have an insight into the Absolute.

I have stumbled upon this idea in other places, reading Ken Wilber, or learning about Buddhism. I have always had a problem understanding the how this "Buddha nature", or what you would call it, can be universal...

The child. Innocent, void of cultural schemata, slowly becoming. In this pre-personal state an infant associates itself with the world. It perceives in only two categories -- that which is good for me, and that which is bad for me. That which hurts and that which is pleasant. Those categories are innate, instinctual, pre-intellectual. They are shared by children and animals, this is the prime oblivious innocence.

As the child dissociates its self from the world, these categories are retained in their absolute form. There is truth and there is falsehood, there is good and there is evil, there is white and there is black. Those categories are infinite to a child, they are subject to no interpretation.

During a rise to adulthood in our age and in our civilization, we are taught to question and finally reject absolutes. "Remember, there is no black and white, only shades of gray". This notion is so important, so seemingly fundamental, that we call others, who embrace absolutes fanatics. But I digress.

The infinite categories offer a growing mind a glimpse of the Absolute, which is super-cultural (or pre-cultural). This Absolute is Kierkegaard's Other -- the unpersonified God, who is common to all people, regardless of cultural origins.

An interesting notion in Kierkegaard is that a one can only be a self in a relationship to an other. This other in childhood is one's parents, in adulthood it is the state, or one's business (science, religion, etc.), but one's true self can only be realized by a relation to the absolute Other.
Unfortunately people often refrain from this Other, and choose to relate to worldly things, thus living in sin (not realizing their true Self).

Why do people do this? Why do people choose to remain in sin, in Samsara? Kierkegaard's answer is interesting, although I'm not sure if I quite grasp it. From what I understand, his logic on this point uses a sort of circular dialectic, a positive feedback mechanism. A person shies away from the absolute because he is awed by it's eternal nature, which causes fear. He then tries to refrain from thinking about this, repressing the notion (as Freud would call it) in a defence mechanism of the unconscious. Any glimpse of the absolute causes an anxiety, which further pushes it away from the conscious mind. And thus the circle closes. We live in sin because we are sinful. We are sinful because we live in sin.

There are many things which I don't understand, but Kierkegaard was a fascinating mind.


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  • 2 min read

Robin Hood

On my way to work today, I chanced to pass by two strangers talking. I heard one sentence of their conversation, but it lead me down a strange road of thoughts...

The sentence was: "Stealing means taking from someone that which they have a right to have".
How interesting... a subjective definition of the crime of theft. By comparison an objective definition would have to be: "Stealing means taking that, which you do not have a right to have."

The principle difference between the definitions, other then the fact that one is voiced in the positive, the other in negative terms, is the point of reference. The subjective definition refers to the subject -- the person who is being robbed, while the objective definition refers to the object being stolen.

Come to think of it, our laws are based on the subjective definitions of crimes, aren't they? There must always be a victim for a crime to have been committed. If I am to lie it is not a crime, unless I deceive someone. Murder is not a crime, if I'm only killing time. And stealing is also not a crime until I steal from someone in particular.

It is for that reason that we have special bodies appointed, (usually by the state, but not necessarily), which take care of interests of non-humans. The forest authority, will be the victim of your theft if you steal trees, the RIAA (or ZAIKS in Poland) will be the victim if you download an mp3 file from the net. Notice, that the artist who composed the song, may be long dead...

This subjective nature of our laws leads to (or perhaps is the consequence of) the subjective nature of out moral values. We do not steal because it is wrong. We refrain from stealing if it may hurt someone, usually if we believe the victim may retaliate by legal action or otherwise. If we believe that "no harm is being done", we don't think our actions to be wrong. Hence the idea of "victim-less crime" and it's harmless nature.

Moral questioning is the nature of our postmodern world, but it goes much further back in time. Perhaps to the ideas of the Enlightment period...

Lack of absolute values, subjective morality, ethics and laws not referenced to objective definitions of crimes... all this leaves me with one question: Pray tell, what came first subjective laws or a demise in the absolute nature of moral values?

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  • 1 min read

Dialog

A. -- Byla nawet taka sytuacja, ze las pozwal firme.
B. -- Slyszales C., Las jakis pozwal firme.
A. -- Tak, za to, ze go sciela.
B. -- Ale to juz nie byl wtedy las...
C. -- Tak, raczej sklejka.
B. -- A., chesz mi powiedziec, ze sklejka pozwala wlasna firme do sadu? Ach, ta Ameryka to piekny kraj...

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  • 1 min read

Antyintelektualizm

Rozwijając tę gorzką myśl, Karl Popper napisał kiedyś, że (cytuję z pamięci) niewiedza nie jest prostym i biernym brakiem wiedzy, ale jest postawą aktywną, jest odmową przyjęcia wiedzy, niechęcią do wejścia w jej posiadanie, jest jej odrzuceniem. (Słowem: niewiedza jest raczej antywiedzą).
(Władysław Kapuściński -- "Imperium")

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  • 1 min read

Living in the 21st century

Living in the 21st century is fun. This is the century in which it will not be possible to be lonely anymore. There are people all around you. Everywhere you go you have your phone, you have messages; at home you have your mail, you have your e-mail; if you're even more perverse you have your TV, your radio, your net...

Even if you were standing in the middle of a forest, you could reach your close ones with a few button strokes. But somehow, all this contact does not add up to anything concrete... Being lonely in the 21st century will be a sign of hipocricy, it will require a lot of trying, and yet...

On an evening like this one, the perfect autumn evening, with a sea of mist washing over the fields and forests, under a full, silver face of the moon I walk. If I pressed a few buttons I could talk with my close ones, but they wouldn't be there. There is no way for me to digitilize this perfect evening. There is no camera, no scanner, no nothing which could translate all the beauty of a simple night-fall.

Considering, that we spend so much time in front of our computers, TVs, etc., and so little time, watching the beauty of the world, I strongly belive we're missing something important.

I wonder how we'll procreate, if we won't even meet to have sex...

Endlesly musing,
Yours Truly

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  • 1 min read

Artysta glodny jest glodniejszy

Kocham XXI wiek, jakiez to wyzwanie... czy dorownamy XX-temu?

XXI-wieczna, egzystencjalna walka z wiatrakami. Nieosiagalny cel szczecia i spokoju zastepowany protetyczna hybryda 'dobrobytu' i latwo osiagalnej satysfakcji. Zamiast mety otrzymujemy pogon za polsrodkami. Wszystko zapakowane na 'wynos sie' w blyszczacy plastik telewizyjnej reklamy.

Zinstytucjonalizowana, zlaicyzowana religijnosc pcha niezliczone masy co niedziele na zakupy. Bog pieniadz, nienazwany, niewyslowiony, jest prawdziwie tym, ktory jest. Elektryczne swiatlo mowi Ci co mozesz robic! Religia-Lotto, Religia-Sklep i Hiper-Religia Super-Market. Najwyzszym wyznaniem wiary sa zakupy!

Dla mnie symbole kultury masowej wybrzmiewaja pelnym swoim znaczeniem. Znacza one dla mnie nic. Bez telewizji, radia, gazet, zyje poza swiatem, poza czasem, a na pewno poza nasza epoka. Zyje obok. Nie mam wiele, a chce miec mniej. Nie jem wiele, a chce jesc mniej. Polowe kolacji oddam bezdomnemu, wiedzac ze nie czyni mnie to lepszym.

Na szczecie, gdy wreszcie ustanie tetent mysli, powoli staje sie niczym...

Nie mysl, badz.

  • in personal
  • 9 min read

Changes in the concept of 'truth' during the 20th century

I.

Classically, in realist philosophy the World was considered to be embedded in an absolute framework of space and time within which all events and objects have their place. Religious people referred to this framework as the 'thoughts of God', scientists involved it in their theories as the invisible aether and philosophers searched for it as the 'ultimate truth'. Each sentence could be judged true or false based on the correspondence of its meaning with this absolute framework, commonly referred to as the 'real world'.

Even though already Plato pointed out that all absolutes exist in a realm beyond human experience, it was not until the 20th century, that the consequences of this begun to be fully appreciated. During this century what we perceive as 'true' changed dramatically bringing unprecedented revolutions to most areas of human life. In science the relaxation of the rigid materialistic framework allowed for new and radical ways of thinking including Einstein's relativity theory and Heisenberg's paradoxical uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics. These developments changed the way physicists think of the world allowing them to ponder the existence of multiple universes and the role of consciousness in creating reality, etc. In religion the 20th century brought about ecumenism, an interfaith dialog never before possible. Morals became more relativistic, people more understanding and equal, politics more democratic and philosophy post-modern.

It would be impossible to judge, whether the changes in the definition of truth were causes or consequences of these processes, but it is nevertheless interesting to try following the concept's evolution and this will be the topic of my essay.

 

II.

Throughout the centuries, ever since the Renaissance, a battle existed between the empiricists and rationalists about who has the proper means for investigating the truth about the world and the soul. The battle was largely unresolved, because the latter group failed to provide satisfactory explanations of the physical world, while the former could not deal with metaphysical questions. It was in the 19th century, when empirical science begun to produce advances in technology that people, in awe of modernity begun to believe that the proper way of investigating reality was found. With the development of the scientific method however it was beginning to become clear that there is a whole class of metaphysical problems, which it could not resolve. Science could explain the orbits of planets, predict the trajectory of projectiles and even begin to answer questions about the origin of man, but it could not deal with something as obvious as the existence of God. At the turn of the 20th century it became clear that the empiricists' definition of truth as correlation of theory with experiment needed to be changed or extended.

 

III.

One of the attempts to reconcile science and metaphysics was the Pragmatic method devised by William James and Charles S. Pierce. This method assumed that if all empirical results of two different theories were identical, then both were equally true. This is a straight forward logical assumption, which could be used to resolve purely verbose and insubstantial quarrels, but James interpreted it differently. He used the pragmatic method in a way opposite to Occam's law of parsimony. James was a man with a 'will to believe' and he used the pragmatic method not to skeptically discriminate against unfounded theory, but rather to promote a new definition of truth. James assumed that if all evidence presented is equal, the theory one chooses to believe should be the most beneficial one. He went further, suggesting that the most beneficial theory is the true one.

It is not a coincidence that the Pragmatic definition of truth was developed in the United States of America, and that it became so popular there. That country, which strongly believes in the regulatory mechanisms of democracy and the free market, naturally accepted a new means of 'natural selection of ideas'. For the Pragmatist truth was an entity which evolves and the force which drives its evolution is its pragmatic value, the ability to make people happy. Since people pursue happiness, they will accept such beliefs which are most beneficial for them (and thus the most true).

The pragmatic philosophy makes no reference to an absolute test of truth, and thus anything can be considered true as long as it does not contradict empirical facts. This notion applied itself well in the culturally diverse United States. James assumed that different groups of people could hold their own beliefs as true, which would allow them to coexist peacefully.

This idea was later picked up by Postmodernists, who defined truth as consensus, but rejected any discriminatory tests or comparisons of belief systems. To the postmodernists truth was a pluralistic and individualistic notion. Their idea was to arrive at truth through a coherence of all theories, which everyone could agree with.

There is a difference however between the pragmatic definition of truth and the radical postmodernists "consensus definition". While neither defines truth through reference to an absolute, the former is relativistic, while the latter pluralistic. The pragmatists' truth evolves and changes with time and understanding of the world, the 'consensus truth' may vary between groups but is more static.

Practical applications of both notions prove problematic. The ever-changing pragmatic truth offers no firm basis for formulating moral judgments. If it is beneficial for me to believe that a certain law is wrong, I may break it without guilt. In fact the term 'pragmatist' in English language is used to describe a person, who willingly alters their principles in order to achieve desired results.

'Consensus truth' faces the problem of arriving at an agreement in the first place. This requires institutionalized consensus building, of which democracy is an example. Unfortunately not all problems lend themselves to legislative processes, especially in secular states. Also, we have not yet developed global institution able to arrive at and execute compromise solutions to disagreements. These problems can lead to religious conflict and supremacy of certain powerful states over others, conducted by people who are opposed to fundamentalism and dictatorship.

 

IV.

Many philosophers, scientist, and logicians found themselves on the other end of the spectrum in the discussion of truth. They could not accept truth as a relative product of one's fancy and insisted that there exists an absolute framework of time, space and logic, which they aim to discover. The truth for them exists independently of man, and the quest for it is an ever-more-exact approximation of this absolute by means of testable theories. We may point here to Bertrand Russell, who advocated the philosophy of logical analysis and claimed that the role of a philosopher was a "disinterested search for truth".

These materialists rejected problems of metaphysics as unscientific and refused to investigate them. They also rejected all non-empirical forms of "higher" or pre-given knowledge. Their ultimate goal was to construct a system of theories, able to explain all phenomena, which would be based on pure logic and not be based on any dogma or axioms, other then those empirically obtained.

It is clear that what guides such investigation is a belief that the world is based on an absolute framework, which is complete, rational, non self-contradictory. Furthermore this framework is to be based on a logic, which man can comprehend. In other words it is based on the assumption that God is a logician, or as Einstein said, that God does not "play dice with the Universe".

My question however is such: do we have reason to believe that God, or the Universe follows our human logic?

There is no doubt that science in the 20th century made remarkable progress. The developments in physics, chemistry and biology allowed development of technologies, unimaginable a hundred years ago. Yet upon close scrutiny, we find a world of contradictions and paradoxes.

Perhaps the most convincing definition of truth in accordance with the demands of logical analysis was given by Alfred Tarski. At first glance his definition is simple: "a sentence is true if it is satisfied by all objects, and false otherwise". However there is no way of investigating any property of an infinite set of objects, so any general sentence cannot be proven to be true. Tarski writes: "the notion of truth never coincides with that of provability, for all provable sentences are true, but there are true sentences which are not provable". Tarski's full theory is complex, but it does conform with the laws of logic. There is a problem however, because the statement "is true" belongs to a different language (a metalanguage) then the sentence it describes. Is this only a problem of semantics?

The logician Kurt Gˆdel, on whose work Tarski based his theory, delivered a spectacular blow to the philosophy of logical analysis. He proved that no logical system can be complete. He proved that in all logical systems there will be true sentences for which no logical proof can be given, without extending the set of axioms. If the world around us really is based on logic, then it may contain questions essentially unanswerable.

Current developments in the field of quantum mechanics bring further questions. The nature of the world seems to defy logic and be filled with paradoxes. Can particles really exist in all possible places at once? Does a conscious observer really create reality? Is it possible that there are infinite universes parallel to ours? These paradoxical questions cannot be answered within the confines of our current understanding of logic.

The final argument against truth in materialistic empiricism was refined by Sir Karl Popper. He established the most convincing presentation of the scientific method given so far and concluded that science does not lead to truth, because it cannot give any proof of it's theories. Deductive logic can only produce hypothesis and science can only progress on the basis of falsifying invalid ones. Popper states that even if we did arrive at the final truth, we would have no way of knowing that we did.

The above presents, on three different levels, reasons to doubt that empirical materialism is the way to find truth. Some of these problems may be technical, some may be resolved by a redefinition of our logic, some may be due to fundamental limitations of human cognition. It is interesting to ponder, however how strong the trust in the materialistic absolute framework remains. It is the myth of modernity, which remains with us, because we wish it to be true. We need it because evidence-based logical analysis gives us our only tool for rejecting false beliefs and unsubstantiated dogma. Yet it remains largely unnoticed that the assumption that the world is a rational, logical system, which can be modeled by mathematics is yet another axiom of this philosophy.

There is another problem. If we believe that the world will provide us with the truth, we end up desperately trying to find answers out there, instead of looking for them in here ñ within ourselves. This brings us to the final philosophy I wish to discuss, namely Integralism of Ken Wilber.

 

V.

Wilber's philosophy is also based on a belief in an absolute system, but his absolute is not limited to the external world and also exists inside each of us. In fact, he describes four different validity claims, four ways to seek truth, all of which "are correct, falsifiable within their own domain". He does not deny science or empiricism, he embraces them, but says they can only provide answers to questions of the external physical world. This approach suffers from the fundamental doubts already described, but Wilber extends the search for truth into other spheres.

Our inner subjective experiences cannot be objectified by reference to external realities, so another system is devised. According to Wilber, psychological development is an evolution of ever-wider reaching, less self-centered consciousness, with the final aim of arriving at a universe-centric consciousness of Spirit. Referring to this model Wilber explains the sources of psychological problems, as arising from misunderstandings, or mistakes committed at any level of this development. The validity-claim here is truthfulness, and problems arise from self-deception. The role of a psychologist is to help people understand their inner evolution and aid them in overcoming obstacles they may have stumbled upon.

The third sphere Wilber deals with is the domain of our inter-subjective, cultural interaction. He also objectifies this domain by reference to his evolution of global conscious model. His initial stance is postmodern ñ he claims that all myths and beliefs are equally valid, as long as they do not run into conflict with each other. If conflict arises and there is a need for judgment, he referees to the criterion of world-centrism in deciding which stance is better. Wilber wishes for a world in which ego-centric or ethno-centric motivation will be marginal, while global decisions will be made according to the needs of the whole world, by globally-aware men.

The very brief outline of Wilber's stance on truth and the criteria for judging it (the scientific method on one hand, the global-centric selflessness on the other) gives but a glimpse of his philosophical model. Integral philosophy manages to combine science with mythologies and gives us a criterion for moral judgments. In this sense it goes further then any of the other theories mentioned in this text. However, by replacing the set of logical and materialistic axioms with those of the journey-towards-Spirit, it may go further then most people of the Western cultures are willing to follow. Nevertheless it is a fascinating philosophy, which should not be shunned because of it's axioms.

 

VI.

All philosophies contain axioms, even the most materialistic and logic-based ones assume the existence of a rational universe. There is no way to construct a belief system without axioms and so I do not believe that a final and absolute definition of truth will ever be formed. It is interesting however that the matter continues to give so much thought to intellectuals throughout the world. We must be idealistic by nature...