To: one_less who wrote (6606 ) 6/27/2003 4:12:47 AM From: Solon Read Replies (1) | Respond to Just so the context does not get lost...I had responded to the following comment you made to CR on another thread:Message 19060480 "You don't? Can you not imagine purity without polution? Perhaps it is impossible to achieve such purity in practicality. A moral absolute is an ideal of principle in an uncontaminated, albeit abstract form. Ideals are achievable in the abstract if not in the practical realm of spacio-temporal existence. If its just a matter of thinking about it you ought to be able to do that... ""An ideal is an idea not physical experience. Ideas are as much a part of my “real” experience as are episodes in daily life """Ideals are achievable in the abstract if not in the practical realm of spacio-temporal existence ". When you used the word "achievable" I took it to mean that you believed that an actual standard could be realized rather than merely the realization of an "idea" about an actual standard. My comment was meant to challenge the possible idea that ideas themselves have a necessary counterpart outside of ideas. In other words, does the fact that you can conceive of perfection (of goodness, beauty, or whatever) mean to you that perfection necessarily exists? I would argue that there is no necessary connection and I would argue this due to the fact that the infinite capacity to conceive includes an infinite capacity to conceive absurdities which are unlikely to exist except in the realm of ideation. The law of parsimony would thus argue against casting aside the obvious for complex flights of fancy."It seems most people can agree in principle on fundamental ideals that transcend events and circumstances ""but as some people like to say “we know it when we see it" ""Like the “golden rule" "
