AquaVita

"There are no universal truths. "


Is that a possible statement? If it was true, then wouldn't the phrase itself be a universal truth?

John Page

No, because some people think there are. A truth is relative to the mind that thinks it.

Relativism is alive and well. Cheers, John

sophie

Hi I am new to IIDB and I wanted to share my opinion.

Currently, I believe there is one universal truth I think I can defend. To know necessitates communication. There is no knowing without communication.

By universal truth, I take it to mean something which is always valid and always true no matter what the conditions. If I have misrepresented the meaning of universal truth, please do not hesitate to communicate this to me.

Not being too hign in philosophy, would it mean that Communication itself is a universal truth, once we accept that it is impossible to know without communicating.

Mageth

Welcome, sophie.

Currently, I believe there is one universal truth I think I can defend. To know necessitates communication. There is no knowing without communication.

How do you define "communication"? One could imagine a scenario of an individual stranded alone from a very young age on a desert island. Would that individual, if she survived to adulthood, not be able to "know" anything because there was no one there to communicate with? Or does "communication" extend beyond just entity-to-entity exchange?

sophie

Hi Mageth,

I appreciate the time and effort on your part to take notice of me.

The young human in my estimation would only be able to know what was communicated to it. It may have been a one-sided form of communication with the environment communicating its extent to the child.

There should be the internal form of communication which the child naturally posesses. All new ideas concerning the extent of what the child concieves is also communicated to the child, by the child.

If children cannot communicate with themselves then they are genetically malfunctioning and their ability to know things is severely hampered.

In this arrangement, communication extends to making information available outside of itself. The necessity for an entity to entity ratio is not absolute in communication. It may be necessary for survival but to posess the truth of communications may itself be detrimental to the survival of some.

Answerer

I think this problem is similar to another case:

" All statements are false"

So, is the above statement true?

John Page

False what?

Witt

"There are no universal truths. "

AquaVita: Is that a possible statement?

Yes.

AquaVita: If it was true, then wouldn't the phrase itself be a universal truth?

No.

What do you mean by universal truth?

I take it to mean absolute truth or ultimate truth.

In that case I agree that there are no absolute truths and that "There are no absolute truths" is not an absolute truth.

It seems to me that we cannot verify any absolute truth unless we have 'the' method of deciding it absolutely true.

A truth is absolutely true if it is decided by that system which decides all truth.

But, according to Godel--there are truths within all useful system of decision that cannot be decided by that system.

That is, there is no system of decision that can decide all truths.

Therefore 'the ultimate system of decision' cannot exist.

Even if there were absolute truths we could not have a proceedure that would show its truth.
We cannot know absolute truth.
There is no absolute knowledge at all.

There are no absolute truths because there is no system that can verify its absoluteness.

All truth is systemic.
The relativity of truth and knowledge is not the subjective relativity of personal minds, suggested by John Page, but rather the objective relativity of the methods of decision of logic, eg: deduction, truth tables, rules of inference, arithmetic, etc..

The illusion of certainty is verification.

Truth is that which *can* be shown to be the case.
Knowledge is that which *is* shown to be the cse.
Belief is assumed truth.

Witt

John Page

Hi Witt!

1. Your mind is a system.
2. Methods operate via the mind.

Illustrations:
"(I think) this is the truth",
"(I believe) that analysis using a truth table helps me to arrive at truth statements that are more objective"
"(I think) The truth of the matter is not what you think".
"(I believe) that analysis by computer will tell me the truth".

Have I persuaded you?

Cheers, John

Witt

John:
1. Your mind is a system.
2. Methods operate via the mind.

Illustrations:
"(I think) this is the truth",
"(I believe) that analysis using a truth table helps me to arrive at truth statements that are more objective"
"(I think) The truth of the matter is not what you think".
"(I believe) that analysis by computer will tell me the truth".

Have I persuaded you?
-----------------------------

Not quite, yet. I don't understand your assertions.
Could you expand.

Witt