Similar to Ken Wilber's "Pre/trans fallacy", which is about conflating pre-rational views with trans-rational views, the Relative/absolute fallacy is about conflating relative perspectives with The Absolute perspective. This is the main source of confusion in the forms of spirituality that deal with the implications of non-duality (Oneness).
There are generally two levels to the fallacy:
1. The first level is the conflation that happens when you don't have knowledge about the distinction between the relative and The Absolute (dual/non-dual). This is common in pre-rational religious people (Wilber). The way that traditional religion interprets various holy texts is itself a good example.
2. The second level happens when you do have knowledge about the distinction between relative and absolute (but it's obviously not complete knowledge). This is common in (aspiring) trans-rational people. A common example is to think that because nothing ultimately really matters, morality doesn't matter, and therefore it's fine to for example hurt other people. This is to conflate "the relative" with "The Absolute". From The Absolute perspective, yes, nothing really matters, but morality can only ever be defined "relative" to a certain value system in the first place. By taking the absolute perspective, you're deliberately stepping outside of all value systems, but "it's fine to hurt other people" would be a moral statement, which means you're actually invoking a relative perspective.
There are generally two levels to the fallacy:
1. The first level is the conflation that happens when you don't have knowledge about the distinction between the relative and The Absolute (dual/non-dual). This is common in pre-rational religious people (Wilber). The way that traditional religion interprets various holy texts is itself a good example.
2. The second level happens when you do have knowledge about the distinction between relative and absolute (but it's obviously not complete knowledge). This is common in (aspiring) trans-rational people. A common example is to think that because nothing ultimately really matters, morality doesn't matter, and therefore it's fine to for example hurt other people. This is to conflate "the relative" with "The Absolute". From The Absolute perspective, yes, nothing really matters, but morality can only ever be defined "relative" to a certain value system in the first place. By taking the absolute perspective, you're deliberately stepping outside of all value systems, but "it's fine to hurt other people" would be a moral statement, which means you're actually invoking a relative perspective.
You're conflating relative perspectives with The Absolute perspective ("The Relative/Absolute Fallacy").
Albert thinks he is God and nobody else is. Albert has committed the Relative/Absolute Fallacy.
Albert thinks he is God and nobody else is. Albert has committed the Relative/Absolute Fallacy.
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Get the The Relative/absolute fallacy mug.When the vibrations from your phone cause your desk to catch alight. Typically when the Falcons hit 20+ booked in a single day.
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Get the Bring the absolute fire mug.The insight that claims of absolute, unchanging truth (divine command, totalitarian ideology, scientific certainty) are not the antithesis of construction, but its most aggressive form. Absolutism is built by rigorously eliminating contradictions, declaring its foundations sacred or beyond question, and constructing entire social systems—laws, education, punishments—to reinforce the illusion that its truth is eternal, natural, and not a human-made edifice. It's construction that denies its own constructed nature.
Example: "The dictator's cult wasn't just belief; it was the Theory of Constructed Absolutism in action. His every word became 'The Eternal Truth.' History was rewritten, art was purged, and critics vanished to construct a reality where his rule was as absolute and unquestionable as gravity. The 'absoluteness' was a terrifyingly elaborate social production, maintained by fear and spectacle, not a fact of the universe."
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Theory of Absolute Disautonomy Example: A dictator who believes themselves a god-like, independent actor is, under Absolute Disautonomy, just as determined as their lowest subject. Their paranoia, their ambition, their decisions are the inevitable output of their genetics, childhood trauma, the geopolitical pressures of their region, and historical precedent. Their belief in their own free will is just another programmed response in the system.
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Kardashev Type Absolute Infinity Civilization Example: In set theory, the set of all sets is a paradoxical concept. A Type Absolute Infinity civilization is that paradox, resolved. It is both the Library of Babel containing every possible book and the reader who has read them all and the meaning derived from them, all at the "same time," where "time" is just another book on a shelf within itself.
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Get the Kardashev Type Absolute Infinity Civilization mug.A civilization on the precipice of true Ex Nihilo creation, capable of generating not just new universes with new laws, but entirely new frameworks for laws—new logics, new mathematics, new dimensions of qualia. However, it is still "Nigh" Absolute because its creations, while utterly novel and independent, still bear the subtle, inescapable signature of its own primordial consciousness as their source. It is like a painter who can invent new colors never before seen, but the paint still comes from their own palette.
Kardashev Type Nigh Absolute Creator Civilization Example: A Type Nigh Absolute Creator could design a universe where emotions have tangible mass and gravity, and love literally forms attractor planets. Yet, a hyper-intelligent being within that universe might, after eons of study, detect the faintest aesthetic preference for symmetrical forms in the cosmic background—a ghost of the creator's own mind. It can create independent realities, but not yet erase its own fingerprints from the act of creation.
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