Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

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LinuxPup

Is this a true statement? If it is, how do you know this?

Truth is "that which corresponds to reality."
It is also objective, so don't confuse it with "love."

Truth transcends humankind. Before humans were around, truth was still in existance. Stars burned the same way billions of years before us, and they followed strict physical equations. Isaac Newton didn't create laws of gravity, he discovered them. Now, for the sake of argument, I'll say there was no intelligent being(s) before mankind. This does not in anyway negate truth. Truth does not change, nor does it come into existance once it comes into knowledge. An example of this is mentioned above(Isaac Newton).

Excellent question. I don't know.

Yes, you must have the correct context before interpreting a statement. If I am given the true statement, "He threw the ball", and then I am asked "Did Tim throw a baseball?" I need to know if "He" is "Tim", and if the "ball" is "a baseball". As far as problems with knowing and defining truth, those are human problems, and have no bearing on truth itself. The fact that you sway far from claiming absolute truth as fact (actual), makes you appear as though you don't belive in "absolute" truth. If this is the case (and correct me if I'm wrong) then you are essentially saying "absolute truth is absolutely false", which is self-refuting.

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

Yes, I agree that your baseball analogy bares only trivially on the question at hand, being concerned largely with the amount and quality of the information given to you. It is also clear, from the wording of your post, that you do actually think in terms of absolute truth and true/false dichotomies. And this is obviously the reason why you feel it necessary to attack my position with an either/or fallacy, and strap me onto your Procrustean bed (look it up).

No, I am not saying that absolute truth is absolutely false. I am saying that, within the context of my particular philosophical system, "absolute", transcendent, universal truth is not a tenable position. Do you see the difference? I am not making any absolute, universal, transcendent claim. Indeed, my philosophical position does not allow me to make any absolute, universal, and transcendent claim of any kind.

The claim I can make, according to my own philosophical position, is that absolute truth is not a "useful" concept. It is not a useful concept because it leads directly solipsism. It leads directly to solipsism, because there is no "fact" about the natural world (outside of purely abstract systems like mathematics) that you can state with 100% accuracy. The impossibility of complete accuracy is not just an unfounded belief on my part, but a fact derived from quantum physics. And to balabor my point, this is not an "absolute" fact -- transcendent and pure -- but a fact wholly dependent on its quantum physics context.

You admit that context is important to truth. I would go much further than that. Context creates the truth. A truth is simply a continuous relationship between the points of reference that serve as the context. Without the context there is no truth -- it doesn't continue to exist in abstract, it ceases to exist at all. Similarly, if the context changes the truth changes.

For example, let us say you place two flags in a field. You could say, "the flags are twelve feet apart," and this statement might be true or false. If you move the flags, the context changes, and so does the "truth" -- "the flags are twelve feet apart" might not be the truth anymore. If you take the flags away altogether, thus eliminating the context, then even the possibility of "true or false" ceases to exist. Without the flags, "the flags are twelve feet apart" is not a false statement, it is a nonsensical statement.

To conclude: (1) no truth is absolute because no truth can exist apart from its context; (2) the context creates the truth -- if the context changes the truth changes; (3) these are not "absolute" statements, but statements within their context; (4) therefore, these statements are not self refuting.

Have I made myself clear?

LinuxPup

False. It remains true that the flags are twelve feet apart at that time and place, that is, the context. This is a true even if you burn one of them. You must take time into contextual considerations, just like spatial dimensions like "twelve feet". So essentially it remains that if you keep your context, the truth remains absolute, and nothing can change that.

(1) is false. Truth is absolute *because* of its context, not despite it.

As I have shown earlier, your example to demonstrate (2) is false also.

John Page

Care to verify this by going back in time? Where does your standard measurement of "foot" come from? Did you properly allow for perspective? Did you measure from the edge of each pole or the middle? I don't think you know what your context is, thereby proving that truth is subjective.

Please provide an example of an absolute truth so we can shoot holes in it.