Tropism – Change and Uncertainty

Tropes is a type of epistemological skepticism that concludes, in principal, that you can’t know anything to be certain due to relative truths or the change in property of the object in question. This then renders any form of certain knowledge inconclusive, as opposed to a universalistic approach that we can know things to be certain by similar characteristics. Example is that an apple can be green and that is true only to my perception for the period of time in which it occurred. It can’t be certain truth because another’s perception may be different. Also, if it rots, it is no longer true the apple is green, nor can it be considered an apple. In universalism, one can say: that is, that was, or that can be an apple or it’s “appelish” dispute perception or change.

In light of this example, a trope here is that if the apple rots and becomes dirt, the next person to see it next says that it’s dirt, not even aware of it’s previous state. So it’s no longer true the dirt is an apple.

The ten examples of this view is the Ten Tropes of Pyrrhonian Principles which adopt an Epoché view, fundamentally holding off all judgement of ontology or certainty because it can’t be qualified by absolutes. Certainty being unattainable. The reason for this is that one can’t qualify certian truth due to varying perception of the knowledge bearer or the change that could occur. It’s true at the time for that person, but not absolutely true because it can change or the perception of another person could be different. Essentially, the belief that all truth is relative to the one experiencing it. That said, someone who considers tropism at their core worldview is a Relativistic Nominalist. Funnily enough, the motivation to reject absolutes was for reasons in which believers yearn for a bliss of ataraxia in the afterlife. This ignorance is bliss theory ultimately leads to an excuse to reject God and suppress ones own pursuit of knowledge by rejecting the ability to really know anything for certain based on ones own individual experience. This is all dispute the fact they make assertions on God, universals and abstract objects . Ultimately, leaving them in an ataraxia state of ignorance and no real purpose in the pursuit of knowledge. I don’t think the problem of “no more need to seek knowledge” is intended, but it make the pursuit a waste of time then. Most people that have just understood what I just said here, why do you even seek to prove “the concept of” God wrong if you can never nor never wish to qualify him with certainty? You have no reason to argue because the outcome will be treated as a trope and therefore is fleeting or as inconclusive as you current belief. So what is it? Are you absolutely sure there are no absolutes?

You see, the problem with tropism (notice that was written in a universal term) is that it collides with the basics of logic and reason.
By this I mean that even if one believes in the fact that there are tropes, there is universals and absolutes as well. Logic is a universal and it does not change, nor does physics. We discover more about them, like quantum physics, but we are bound by them. Because one can choose to reject that truth=truth or false=false, doesn’t mean that the rule doesn’t governs us. Even thinking of the implications of the question “is it absolutely true there are no absolute truths” leaves a huge contradiction in this viewpoint.

Secondly, if I took law as relative to my perception, I could come with all kinds of interpretations of that law I wish according to my reality. Like if I were raised in a home where theft was acceptable and that was my reality, if in the real world I steal, the lawmakers don’t take these as relative and I will be thrown in prison. Again, perhaps despite all the warnings of others about the cliff in front of me, I ignore their “perception” in light of my own and walk off the cliff. I will fall. Granted, scientific method says if it’s tested lots, chances are it will be like that again (which is another topic altogether). There may be a cause in which the cliff is no longer there at the time you walk over it, but it doesn’t mean there wasn’t a cliff or that there is a cliff still. So it’s absolutely true there was a cliff or, if you are falling, it’s absolutely true that there is a cliff. You think this is relative, but anyone falling of the cliff experiences the absolute truth. Because everyone experiences something different, it doesn’t mean it isn’t absolutely true.

For our apple, despite it’s now dirt and the fact it is no longer an apple, it’s absolutely true it was an apple regardless of my knowledge or perception.