Starboy

Keith, sorry for the flip answer but I couldn't resist (reminded me so much of Billybob). As in everything, the devil is in the details. From your very simplistic statement I would assume that if it exists then it is true. So any thought that I have would be a true thought? Anything I write here would be true, because upon writing it, it now exists? Does truth have a temporal nature? Can something be true today but be false tomorrow? If something no longer exists is it no longer true? If you say it exists but no one else says so, does that mean it exists? Does that make it true? If you make truth == reality you have made truth as uncertain as reality, since who can say that they completely understand reality? If something is only true in one place and time does that make it true everywhere? Your idea of truth as stated is difficult to work with and I am not sure if it is of any use at all.

Starboy

Kent Stevens

I think that it is an accurate depiction of reality. But you may have a different perception of reality from what I do.

Perhaps what causes the most contradictions is everyone going around saying their perceptions are true and everyone's else's viewpoint is false.

Christians say that Jesus is God. Muslims say that Muhammad is the messenger of God. Jews say they are God's chosen people. Buddhists say that we should seek after Niravana. A religion claims to be the truth. If another religion believes otherwise than the true religion then it must be false religion. From the perspective of a true religion freethinkers must be false or wrong in their unbelief.

Scientists are usually more circumspect in the way that they conduct their business. They usually do not use the word truth and do not claim to have the "truth". Instead there is talk of models of reality, theories, and hypothesis. Ideas are said to be confirmed or undermined by experimental results.

I suggest that the way that the scientific community does not use the word truth is consistent with the notion that truth is partly buggered. When evidence is found of their being another state of matter to what was previously believed scientists do not say it is the truth that there are say 5 states of matter. That is because some time in the future there might turn out to be 6 or more states of matter.

What is usually meant by the word truth is sincere belief. If we ask someone if something is true we are asking them whether they believe something to be the case. But the kind of problem with the word truth is that it can give an inflated sense of certainty. We can handle people saying that they believe that Jesus is the Son of God, while others believe that Muhammad is God's messenger. It becomes more of a mental headache when you have these same people claim that their religion is the truth and everyone else is wrong. That you had all better accept the truth or you are all destined for hell.

[ September 27, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Stevens ]</p>

Keith Russell

Greetings:

'Truth' means correspondence to reality.

It has nothing to do with belief.

Keith.

Starboy

Keith,

It seems to me that you have got it backwards. The one area of human endevour that can make any claims about truth (mainly because it rigously defines what is true) would be mathematics, and yet it is not about reality at all. Science on the otherhand is all about reality, and yet most scientists do not make any claims about truth in their work at all. Keith, you should get out more, studying philosophy all the time has given you a narrow view of the universe, try mathematics, physics, chemistry. After all, if you are going to obsess about reality don't you think you should actually know something about it.

Starboy

Starboy

&lt;&lt; oops wrong place &gt;&gt;

[ September 28, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Keith Russell

Starboy said:
Keith, sorry for the flip answer but I couldn't resist (reminded me so much of Billybob). As in everything, the devil is in the details. From your very simplistic statement I would assume that if it exists then it is true. So any thought that I have would be a true thought? Anything I write here would be true, because upon writing it, it now exists?

Keith: Starboy, not hardly. If it exiss, it's true in the sense that it exists, has identity, and is real. If you have a thought, it is true that you had that particular thought. Whether the concept(s) represented in your thought correspond to reality is another matter entirely.

Starboy: Does truth have a temporal nature? Can something be true today but be false tomorrow?

Keith: It is true that things can change, but it is also true that they can change only in accordance with their nature(s); they can only change in concert with their identities. So, yes, what is true today might not be true tomorrow, but the resultant change should offer new insights into the nature of the thing that changed.

Starboy: If something no longer exists is it no longer true?

Keith: The only 'thing' that can 'no longer exist' is the form of a thing. Energy is the essential component of all 'things', and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

Starboy: If you say it exists but no one else says so, does that mean it exists?

Keith: No. It only exists if I say it exists, and I'm right. Things don't exist in my say-so, nor anyone else's. They exist, whether we are aware of their existence, acknowledge their existence, or reject that they exist.

Starboy: Does that make it true? If you make truth == reality you have made truth as uncertain as reality, since who can say that they completely understand reality?

Keith: Our understanding of truth is exactly, precisely, and completely as uncertain as we ourselves. But 'truth' exists independently of us.

Starboy: If something is only true in one place and time does that make it true everywhere?

Keith: Again, you confuse what we think is true, with what actually is true. If we view something as true, and the thing changes in such a way that our view is no longer true, then we have not grasped anything essential about that object/event. If we truly understand a thing's/event's nature, then we will be able to understand the underlying reason behind the change, and then we will (hopefully) have grasped a more basic, fundamental, and possibly universal 'truth'.

Starboy: Your idea of truth as stated is difficult to work with and I am not sure if it is of any use at all.

Keith: Of course, you have a right to your opinion.

Keith Russell

Kent:

I don't use the word truth to mean 'sincere belief'. I don't even like to say 'sincere belief', since that phrase tells one nothing about the basis for such 'sincere' beliefs.

Beliefs can be rational (based on evidence alone) or they can be irrational (based on anything but evidence, or something in addition to evidence).

But, reason doesn't always lead to 'truth'; rational beliefs--although the only valid kind of belief--are not necessarily 'true', just by virtue of being rational.

Even if we base our beliefs only on a rational evaluation of all of the evidence available to us, that in no way guarantees that we have all of the evidence, nor that we have evaluated the evidence we do have, correctly.

This is possibly why Starboy claims that my view of truth is difficult, and ultimately, not very useful.

'Truth' as a totality, is mostly unknown. We get pieces of it, compare them to other pieces, and generally change our minds about the nature of both pieces. We change our minds yet again when we discover a third piece, that forces us to alter our views about the first two.

The only reason I believe that 'truth/realtiy/existence' is important at all, is because I think it's crucial that we keep in mind that this isn't all subjective or arbitrary.

Reality (the sum total of everything that exists) is real, existence exists, and although it is an awfully large and complex place, and it is very unlikely that we will ever be able to understand all of it, it is possible for us to understand something about it.

And it is possible for us to add to our knowledge.

If one dispenses with the idea of truth, then there is no way to claim that one has any 'knowledge' at all.

Keith.

yoyopro

Marcion - I think I'm enjoying this forum as much as you are.
One of my favorite books on the subject of epistemology is "The Social Construction of Reality" by Berger and Luckman. I'm sure you'll have no problem locating the book in a search.

Is anyone else here familiar with the title?
It's very interesting in the way it approaches the concept of reality and compares it to the action of an electric circut.

It's not a foundation, but it is for sale!

Kent Stevens

When people are asked to give testimony before a courtroom they are asked for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me god. I reinterpret this to mean that they are being asked for sincere reasonable belief. For if the pledge is taking literally it is asking for the impossible, in asking for perfect knowledge.

The problem is that human testimony is fallible. People make mistakes. They may incorrectly believe that certain things happened, but to them it is the truth.

If people were asked questions about religion they would just tend to give their beliefs. So if people in a courtroom were asked who is god?, there would be a number of conflicting true answers. Some people would say Jesus, others Allah, others Brahma, while others would say that no god exists.

If questions were asked outside of scientific boundaries this could cause some difficulties. If someone is asked how many dimensions there are to the physical universe they could say 4, but this could easily be easily incorrect. Some scientists say there could be a lot more dimensions than 4. If someone is asked how did the cosmos begin they can only give beliefs about how this occurred.

The truth is an ideal just as the ultimate computer or the ultimate car are ideals. But they are only ideals, the ultimate theory or the ultimate car is only something that we approach in our work, but they are never actually realised.

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: Kent Stevens ]</p>

Bloop

To Hugo and Immanuel Kant:

What is the difference between relativism, subjectivism and solipsism ?

Is any of the following self-refuting ?:

All knowledge is relative ?

All knowledge is subjective ?

Or are these two questions just horribly strange and misinformed ? If so, why ?

Bloop