Relativistic fallacies

From: Martin Crim <mcrim_at_erols.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 13:15:22 -0400 (EDT)


Carl writes:
>Now, in the "whatever is believed is true" universe, some future
>heroquester can retroactively rearrange history so that he and his
>sister saved the city, or the city was never in danger, or we failed
>and the city *was* eaten by chaos. Anything we did is ultimately
>meaningless and futile, because it may never actually have happened.

Well, in general when we talk about belief creating reality, we are talking about Godtime or at least divine events (for those who don't believe in Godtime). However, to the extent that this perspective applies to "historical" events, then the above statement has a big problem: the word "actually." If all is subjective, there is no actually. Yuor characters did what they did when they did it; that someone later erases it doesn't, to my mind, take away from that any more than the fact that someday (in an objective-reality universe) it will have been forgotten. Does becoming completely forgotten make something meaningless and futile? Then everything is meaningless and futile, because everything we do will one day be gone and forgotten. If something is "true" but unknown, so what?

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