Totalitarianist

I would say nothing is true unless it is totality comprehended. And since nothing known by man is totality comprehended, some things are truer than other things. The whole frog is truer than its individual parts. The whole frog is what defines that individual frog, which includes environment, diet, etc.--things other than itself in appearance. The whole of its environment, which it is one part of, is truer than itself, has more reality. The environment, likewise, is part of a greater whole. This next whole is truer than the whole before it. And so on ad infinitum. I would say, I might be wrong, that the only truths known are things independant of the empirical world. I would judge that only a priori knowledge can be considered truth (in the dyadic sense), such as "If Outside exists, it is either raining or not raining". This is necessarily true.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Lady Anoteros ]</p>

Starboy

Lady Anoteros:

What is the truth of a thing the purpose of which is unknown. For such a thing how does its truth change if some maniac breaks it.

You also seem to imply that truth is something physical since it appears that it can be destroyed by breaking things.

Starboy

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Starboy ]</p>

Totalitarianist

If you are isolated from the greater good, the whole, just as if you isolate the human eye from what it is related to, or a musical note from the entire song, yes. Do you believe that when we see people, cars, trees, etc., we are just seeing patches of colours and different shapes? Isn't there a mental process, or a creative synthesis, that gives whatever is perceived meaning? The state has meaning because it is a comprehended whole, not a bunch of elements (people); a man has meaning because he is a comprehended whole, not patches of colours, etc.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Lady Anoteros ]</p>

Totalitarianist

The whole that it is a part of.

Yes.

Baby stops relating to the mother because it is dead. The dead baby is not the same as the alive baby. The dead baby, therefore, never stopped relating to its former mother. The dead baby begins relating to the mother when its consciousness expires. The alive baby stops relating to the mother when it is no longer an alive baby, when it loses its definition. The dead baby replaces the alive baby.

"Dead baby" is its definition. "Dead baby" gains a definition the moment it exists; i.e., the moment the alive baby dies.

It is not the same baby. I would judge that it is either a bunch of meaningless parts, or that it is still the alive baby that the mother relates to. She, the mother, mourns over the ceasing to exist of the alive baby. It is the alive baby that the mother relates to. It is the natural error of the mother.

Its being a baby, which necessarily includes its being alive and relating to everything else.

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Lady Anoteros ]</p>

Arvel Joffi

You've assigned a value to the parts. Nothing intrinsically has value. Value has to be assigned, and is done so emotionally, as in, "This is valuable to me because I like it/need it/can sell it/it will feed me."

The truth of the parts of a baby is that they are a collection of organic matter that will be quite useful to organisms that can utilize them.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

Example of truth, or an example of a truth.

It is true that this sentence contains the word 'true'.

Keith.

Calvan

Lady Anoteros,
I suggest that the examples you employ to illustrate “truth” are corruptive: i.e. a baby and cup.
I refer to your premise: “the whole is not always the sum of its parts”. Here is my interpretation of this statement:
The whole is not always the sum of its parts… because some parts have been added to the whole which do not authentically belong to the whole.
The whole is not always the sum of its parts… because some of the parts have been removed.
If some parts have been removed (as your examples illustrate) or added, the whole is materially altered to become something other than what it was before the alteration.
But you employ the noun truth to the new entity as if it were a relevant label. Truth is not a label applicable to neither a baby nor a cup. Even if it were applicable as a label, it would be irrelevant to the new entity because its use implies that the new entity is the original whole unchanged.
Let me assume for the moment that we are talking about human beings. Am I to understand that what defines me is how I relate to everybody and everything else? What about my definition of myself? How do I define myself? Based on what others think? Do I take a pole to determine who I am in order that I may be defined? If I don’t react with other people, do I become nothing? Am I less “true”? Suppose I am secretly writing a book that when published would make a contribution to mankind but died before I got it finished. Then someone else finds it and finishes it. Because I did not relate to others, does that make me less important with "less truth—less reality—than the state" when I was alive?

And how did the state get into this discussion?

Calvan

[ November 12, 2002: Message edited by: Calvan ]</p>

Keith Russell

Calvan:

Politics was integral to Lady's initial post.

I responded to that in my first post in this thread.

As far as I can tell (and I could be wrong) Lady is trying to justify statism (totalitarianism) by virtue of her understanding of epistemology and metaphysics.

She has yet to do so, but she certainly seems eager to try...

...the only question I have, is why!

Keith.

HaysooChreesto!

But doesn't the baby being dead and it's parts being in various states of disconnect from it's original whole change or distort the original context of "alive baby"? Therefore, our sensory perceptions now grasp the truth of a dismembered baby and it's various parts. Also, through presupposition, we comprehend the difference between "alive baby" and then "dead baby", because one could not be dead without being alive first.
As a side note, couldn't you have come up with a less gruesome example?

Totalitarianist

The parts cannot be understood in isolation from the whole. I do not believe in empirical truths. All truths are only the mind's representation of something that may or may not exist without the mind. The mind always distorts the object with a creative synthesis, i.e., by giving it meaning. I would judge that since this creative synthesis is of our mind, and since everything outside our mind is only appearances and representations, and since the creative synthesis in itself is true and cannot be false (for it evidently exists), only meaning, i.e. creative synthesis, can be true. Although the human eye is probably true without the mind, it cannot be understood in isolation from the human body by the mind, and since only what is understood can be true to the mind, the human eye in isolation from the human body is false, or at best has less meaning in itself, than it as it relates to the human body, which is what makes it meaningful. The individual persons of the State cannot be understood in isolation from the whole; viz., the State (which likewise cannot be understood in isolation from the greater whole).
The eye is less true than the man, the man is less true than the state, and the state is less true than the greater whole.

It can be said, again, that you cannot be understood in isolation from the whole; i.e., what you are related to, what defines you. Again, it is impossible to understand the human eye by itself, in isolation from the human body. What defines you is partly what you do, your behaviour; and your behaviour cannot be understood without your environment, which is part of a greater whole.

[ November 13, 2002: Message edited by: Lady Anoteros ]</p>