thefugitivesaint

dostf stated:
I think you misunderstood what Bill was attempting to convey to you but this is understandable as his wording appeared to me to be slightly off. Bill was saying that, if i can reword here, what can be labelled "objectively true" exists independently of all human perceptions and valuations. The universe we are essentially a part of and the reality we all commonly share does not require our existence to be. It simply is.

It is "objectively true" that ALL people who live on this planet and will live on this planet will inevitably die (outside of some unforseen S.F. scenario in the future). Death is a commonality we all share. Your dying is not affected in the slightest by your perceptions, ideas, opinions or feelings about it. It is an independent and objective process we all must face. This is part of what exists as "objectively true" within the natural world. Death, Gravity, energy, etc. all are aspects of the universe and are "objectively true". You can think and believe what you would like to the contrary but these aspects of the universe are regardless of your thoughts.

Now, the term "Truth" is a completely different matter. "Truth" is something i try to keep to adjective status when i use it since this form resists the reification that the noun usage positively invites. "Truth" has definitions which seem to wrestle with one another. "Truth" can be an expression of ones values and it can mean a factual statement or belief.

For example, i can say that "one day i am going to die". This premise would be true. If i was confronted by another person, who demanded to know why i would say this, i could respond that i was, in fact, telling the "truth". I believe it will happen, i have seen it happen more times than i care to count and i know that this will take place.

Consider a simple example:"Water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen" is a statement the truth of which is utterly independent of human belief, desire and preference. "Theft is morally wrong" is not a statement of comparable universal obejectivity. It is not independent of the beliefs, desires and preferences of peoples, but is indeed an expression of those beliefs, desires and preferences. There is a sense in which "thinking makes it so" is true of the moral realm.

Values and moral motivations depend on the contingent facts of human nature, particularly facts about patterns of desire and preference. This is a fact as far as any of us can tell. The price of this fact is, of course, a kind of relativism (relativism here meaning: values are not universal objective truths, but rather expressions of the preferences of persons or groups of persons). Relative values are still values. Values can vary because people and their preferences can vary; and thus in this sense values are relativized to persons and their preferences. "Truth", as a value could not, in anyway, exist independently of the human mind.

i'll shut up now.
-theSaint

I'll shut up now.

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: thefugitivesaint ]</p>

Bill

No, you are mixing apples and oranges here. Specifically, you are mixing "external reality" (in this case, "objective truth") with "internal reality" (knowledge or belief about "objective truth").

Verification of belief ("internal" or "subjective" reality) is necessary in order for somebody to assert their belief as a potential representation of (or "symbol" for) "objective truth." But real ("external") "objective truth" exists without reference to what any human (or any other organism) might believe about that "objective truth." In other words, ontologically speaking, "objective truth" just IS!

When a person takes their subjective experiences and attempts to document a "symbolic representation" of what they perceive "objective truth" to be, they are attempting to approximate a statement about "objective truth" by presenting what is their own "subjective truth" (again, only an "internal" symbolic representation that stands for the "external" objective truth which is under discussion). Verification is a process whereby one or more intelligent agents attempt to devise allegedly objective testing procedures for the purpose of ascertaining whether or not the proposed "symbolic representation" that is going to stand for the reality of the associated "objective truth" does, in fact, reasonably correlate with the true reality of that "objective truth" to the best ability of those who are conducting the testing procedures to measure.

Now, dostf, what you are speaking of is a belief where no suitable (or "realistic") attempt at verification has been made (or perhaps, none is even possible, which is the case for the majority of religious beliefs). I agree that religious faith is an excellent example of that class of beliefs. But members of that class of beliefs should never be spoken of as "objective truth" when either no verification is possible, or none has ever been reasonably attempted. A belief in humans having "souls" is just such a belief. Science has never been able to detect any such thing, and in fact, due to the "supernatural" nature of a "soul," it is very unlikely that science could ever, in fact, verify their existence.

But a belief that the Moon is made of green cheese is at least theoretically verifiable. It took mankind until the 20th century to acquire sufficient technology to verify (or not) that particular belief. And similarly, the belief by a primitive tribe that the horizon line is the edge of a flat Earth would also be verifiable, but again, only with some sort of technological assistance (even something as simple as a canoe capable of long-range sailing could be used to perform some degree of verification).

When humans have tested their beliefs to the best of their then-current abilities, then their beliefs about what is true and what is false are at least reasonable. And in those cases, it is also reasonable to speak of those beliefs as being "objectively true." However, from a philosophical standpoint, in a formal discussion such as this one, it is wrong to assert that "thus and so is objectively true." Yes, I assert that some objective truth actually exists. However, that objective truth is extremely difficult for humans to understand (and it may well be impossible for humans to fully understand everything there is to know about any aspect of "objective truth").

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To summarize, we must not confuse ourselves with the clear distinction between the existence of an objectively true fact and human knowledge of that objectively true fact. All objectively true facts have a real existence at all times from the time of their creation (by whatever means) until the time of their destruction (by whatever means). Some objective facts might never become known to humans (for instance, current theories about our "Big Bang" space/time continuum assert that it is far larger than the speed of light will ever allow humans to be able to perceive, thus those objective facts that happen to exist outside of the range of human perception will never become known to humans, but they exist all the same).

Unfortunately, human knowledge of objectively true facts seems to be difficult to obtain, even more difficult to verify to any degree of certainty, and perhaps impossible to verify to a full and complete ("absolute") certainty, always depending (however) on the exact nature of the allegedly objective truth itself. Simple statements about large facts, such as the Earth being "substantially ball shaped," are clearly capable of sufficient verification so as to declare them to be objective facts to a full and complete ("absolute") certainty. In other words, our present state of knowledge about the shape of the Earth does not admit of any other possibility other than that the Earth is "substantially ball shaped." More complex statements about the nature of "objective reality" are less easy to verify and thus cannot be stated with anywhere near the same degree of certainty as can the facts about the shape of the Earth.

And again, I would remind you that the Earth took on that shape long before there was any life on Earth, and thus long before there was human intelligence to ponder about the shape of the Earth and how to verify what humans believed about the shape of the Earth. Again, "objective truth" exists without regard to any perception of any such truth. It is only the perception of an "objective truth" which requires verification! The truth itself never needs verifiction. Instead, the truth itself merely exists.

== Bill

Bill

One of the most intense arguments in modern philosophy is the question of whether or not there are "objective moral facts," or rather, whether "moral values" can exist as "objective facts." In other words, do any "moral values" have an objectivly ("externally") "real" existance?

The strongest argument the Christians have for their faith is the idea that "objective moral facts" can come only from God. The strength of the Christian argument is based entirely upon the weakness of the counter-arguments.

One very weak argument is to assert that all moral facts are subjective. While clearly some moral facts are at least culturally relative (the old "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" sort of a "moral fact"), and while individual moral motivations are also clearly subjective (varying from one individual to the next), if there were no objective moral facts at all, nobody would ever be able to condemn any other person's actions as being morally wrong. The fact that we can so easily assert various moral wrongs (such as Hitler's actions vis-a-vis the Jews) argues strongly that objective moral facts necessarily exist. Accordingly, the view that moral relativism is the correct model to use as a basis for individual ethics must clearly be wrong. After all, Hitler almost certainly believed that what he did vis-a-vis the Jews was the right thing to do.

<a href="http://www.leaderu.com/isot/docs/truthopinion.html" target="_blank">The Christian argument for objective moral truth</a> asserts that all moral truth must necessarily be founded upon a bedrock belief in the commandments handed down by the Christian God. The atheist views those commandments as being a pistache of possibly-once-useful rules for personal behavior (along the lines of the "cultural" rules mentioned above; plus additional possibly-once-useful rules, such as to avoid eating pork, which would appear to be an attempt to deal with the consequences of the diseases which eating improperly cooked pork can subject a person to), probably-still-useful rules for personal behavior (such as not murdering other people), and probably-not-useful rules for personal behavior (such as stoning people to death for various moral transgressions that are now seen as insufficient to justify the death penalty, such as adultery).

=====

I believe that there is an objective ("external") foundation for morality. I believe that human morality evolved in parallel with human language and our human brains (see <a href="http://www.secweb.org/bookstore/bookdetail.asp?BookID=625" target="_blank">Terrence Deacon's book</a> for more on this idea). Accordingly, the reason for (or foundation for) human morality can be found in the need of humanity to survive in competition with other species of animals. Morality allows larger and more cohesive groups of humans to act in concert with one another than would appear to be possible for any other known group of primates. This gives humans a survival advantage vis-a-vis those other primates. Ultimately, this "large group cooperation" model of human behavior has allowed our species to take control of and totally dominate our planet (Earth).

However, along the way, religion reared its ugly head and co-opted the moral idealism of early humans for its own purposes. And at the same time, we've forgotten the rational foundation for our "large group cooperation" model of human behavior: as a survival advantage for humans. One of the reasons that I am a humanist is because I believe that when we get back to the basics of our true moral foundation, we will be forced to see that all humanity needs to cooperate for the combined purpose of survival for all life on Earth.

I will not take up space in this post to develop my entire ethical theory. I mention it only to illustrate one possible outcome of a belief in "external moral facts" while renouncing traditional theism. And, at the same time, I also denounce any form of overarching moral relativism. Yes, some sort of relativism has its place within our framework of moral values. But there is no good reason to believe that our moral foundation itself must lie in relativism.

=====

Anyway, Saint, I take strong issue with your denial that "truth as a value" can exist as an objective ("external") truth. I believe that certain values (like valuing survival) are imposed upon all living things as a matter of necessity. There may well be individuals that fail to value survival, and there may be good reasons to value conduct leading to death over conduct leading to survival on an individual basis. But overall, for an entire species, that species must value its own survival or else it will rapidly become extinct because it will fail to take the measures necessary to foster survival. In that sense, species survival is something that at least a sustainable breeding core of the members of the species must value or else the species will not continue to exist.

== Bill

Wyrdsmyth

My rote answer to this old chestnut:

When a tree falls in the forest and impacts the ground, this causes a disruption of the air molecules around it. The disruption expands outward in waves, which lose energy and dissipate as they travel away from the tree. This is the case whether any animal with audial capability is in close proximity or not.

So, if your definition of sound is "that which is detected by an ear," then, no the tree falling in the forest with no one nearby does not make a sound when it falls. But if your definition of sound is "a certain kind of wave-occurrence caused by a physical event" then the answer is yes.

We presuppose an objective world. That is the presupposition the vast majority of us human beings share. Tell the Christian presuppositionalists they're onto something, but they're wrong about the specifics; atheists and theists alike do indeed presuppose something, which is necessary to all knowledge claims but what they presuppose does not differ. They both presuppose an objective world, a world of trees and clouds and stars and so forth, which we can see and hear and make inferences about, but which we can NEVER experience unmediatedly. No matter how much empirical evidence we have, we can never be ABSOLUTELY sure that the objective world exists, or that it has the features we think it does. So, we presuppose it; that is the "leap of faith" we all make -- theists and atheists alike. Once we presuppose it, then we can begin to discuss it, as something separate from us, and independent of each of our (and all of our) subjective experiences. But really, none of us has anything but subjective experience.

You can't step outside of your own skull, to say, "Oh! So that's what the world really is, without seeing it through a particular cognitive lens!"

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

99Percent

we can never be ABSOLUTELY sure that the objective world exists, or that it has the features we think it does. So, we presuppose it; that is the "leap of faith" we all make -- theists and atheists alike.

We can be 99.9999999999% sure that the objective world exists or even more. I find it sad that subjectivists and theists pathetically grasp on the .0000000001% remaining possibility to have the right to demolish objectivity so that the subjectivist can say that nothing is real, and the theists can say that there is life after death.

I just finished reading about Descartes. He was troubled because of the fact that you cannot determine what is actually real. He said that everything could be a dream, except the mind because the mind references itself. This is utter bullshit. You can determine what is real because reality has a logical persistency. Reality is constantly being confirmed to the senses and matched with what you have in memory. You would know that you are in a dream because logic breaks down in a dream and in order to have memory of events and therefore be real there has to be a continous confirmation, a refresh if you will, of what is being experienced. Dreams don't do that and that is why you forget them quickly. Reality OTOH does just that. If it didn't then it wouldn't be real. There is no leap of faith involved.

That you might fail to firmly grasp reality is another matter entirely. The consequence of this sick situation is a lack of self-esteem and can certainly lead to depression even suicide or absurd illogical beliefs, such as theism.

[ April 13, 2002: Message edited by: 99Percent ]</p>

dostf

the saint:

Your clarification of Bill's statement was useful as it changed the context of what it expressed.

However,

[QUOTE] -saint
Bill was saying that, if i can reword here, what can be labelled "objectively true" exists independently of all human perceptions and valuations. The universe we are essentially a part of and the reality we all commonly share does not require our existence to be. It simply is .

Without going into a long discussion,( i hope) i have many difficulties with these assertions.

The universe we are essentially a part of ....

Human is not a "part" of anything. "mind" always separates in order to classify, compare and categorize. This is done in order to protect the body and allow us to survive. The universe is not separate or "outside" us, as opposed to "inside" or "around" us etc. "Mind i assert cannot understand this as it is a living experience.


the reality we all commonly share
[QUOTE]-saint

What is this common reality we all share?
I would suggest our "realities" are quite different depending on what we have in our mind at any given moment.

the reality we all commonly share does not require our existence to be. It simply is .
[QUOTE] -saint

By this i would take it you mean the earth, universe, etc.
The "isness" of the universe does not necessarily equate with the "objective truth" of it. From one perspective the universe itself cannot "know" its own "truth". Only human can do this. This is certainly progressing from a knowledge standpoint, but there is not an "end" to it-it mirrors human progression-they are not "separate".
There is not "final objective or absoloute truth."

It is "objectively true" that ALL people who live on this planet and will live on this planet will inevitably die . [quote]-saint

Again a tricky proposition this "death" business.
Our idea of death is from the opposite of what our idea of "life" is.-for example

Also let us say for sake of conversation that you and i through conversation had come to exactly the same understanding of things that we were as of 1 mind. If I "died" and you "lived" what does it matter? All that mattered of my "life" did not "die"............

"Water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen" is a statement the truth of which is utterly independent of human belief, desire and preference. [quote]-saint

Water does not know its own "truth" independent of the human. It might be said that this assertion(water is....) is an expressable "part" of "whole" truth that is human.

dostf

Bill:

No, you are mixing apples and oranges here. Specifically, you are mixing "external reality" (in this case, "objective truth") with "internal reality" (knowledge or belief about "objective truth").[QUOTE] [/Bill]

Again the difficulty with "outside" and "inside". Mind always dicides in order to attempt comprehension. ie. there is the universe and there is "me" - in the universe are "objectively true" facts- and we "know" them only imprecisely, and perhaps never will. As I stated to saint, this "outside external" and "inside" us subjectivity only exists for the mind. This is done in order to protect the body and allow us to experience "beauty in difference" in our envirornment. This however is not "truth". There is no "truth" "outside" of us. -or "inside" for that matter.

But real ("external") "objective truth" exists without reference to what any human (or any other organism) might believe about that "objective truth." In other words, ontologically speaking, "objective truth" just IS![quote-Bill]

Your statement here, suggests there is "objective truth" regardless and independent of human "belief" or knowledge. It is difficult to state this if we may never know if that statement is "true" or not. If it is true (for conversation sake) it is of no use to me as I can never verify that statement. I would suggest it is our expression of that truth that is human that continues to advance as we ourselves do. However this expression will always only be a "part" of the "whole" truth that is "human". This is why verbal or written communication on this topic is always "lacking" in some manner. However as I stated earlier, our expression of this "truth" is improving in accordance with human development.

A belief in humans having "souls" is just such a belief. Science has never been able to detect any such thing, and in fact, due to the "supernatural" nature of a "soul," it is very unlikely that science could ever, in fact, verify their existence.[quote-Bill]

I agree that the idea of "souls" is religious ideology that is incorrect. However to say that science may never prove it, is not known for certain.-again I'm certainly not a supporter of the "soul" argument whatsoever. However science has shown that "auras" in fact can be photographed, -a assertion many scientists not so long age would have scoffed at. -not that this is of any use to anybody.

Yes, I assert that some objective truth actually exists. However, that objective truth is extremely difficult for humans to understand (and it may well be impossible for humans to fully understand everything there is to know about any aspect of "objective truth").[quote-Bill]

Truth i contest is not a "known" but a "lived". As stated before only our expression of this "truth" advances.
If in fact your assertion was correct, it is reasonable then to spend out time elsewhere as opposed to contemplating "objective truth" we quite probably will never know.?

Instead, the truth itself merely exists.[quote-Bill]

Where? "out there somewhere"? - as a not yet fully known scientific "fact"? Religious followers also assert "god" exists-Where? out there somewhere?- as a not yet known scientfic fact?