Freethought & Rationalism Archive

yguy · 07-12-2003, 07:59 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tristan Scott
Fine. Why don't you change it so that Moe and Joe each said "it's 76 degrees in here."

There is nothing disingenuous about drawing logical inferences.

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I think you need to try to keep your eye on the ball.

What ball would that be? The one that's objectively there?

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Don't use temperature. Try using beauty or justice. Joe says that Betty is the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, while Moe says he thinks Betty is homely.

Joe thinks Betty is beautiful. Moe thinks Betty is homely. Both are true, and there is no contradiction, as they are subjective truths. Each man is implictly making a claim about how Betty appeals to his own unique sense of beauty, not comparing her to some objective standard.

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Or how about, Joe says "it tastes great", while Moe says "it's less filling."

If we are to believe the advertiser, they are both correct, and emphasizing different aspects of the same thing.

Tazz10m · 07-12-2003, 12:21 PM

This "Moe and Joe" argument is just silly. Talk about getting off on a tangent in order to support a limited perspective.

Get real, the world is not FLAT. SURE it has flat spots, but that doesn't make it flat! And the flat spots doesn't make it any less true that the world is ROUND. It's beautiful to some, but not to others... it's warm to some, and cold to others... SO WHAT? Unless it is relative to the issue, and in this case the issue is truth itself, it is not superlative.

I think there are some people in here that just like to push to have everything explained to them just to get more attention for themselves... just like little kids. Look at me... look at me... ego ego ego ego... blehhhhh... just like the typical troll. Granted, some people here just don't know and are trying to learn, but others here are just rediculous!

Some people just-don't-get-it! :banghead:

Tazz10m · 07-12-2003, 12:47 PM

Sophie : Understanding turns information into truth?
Keith : So?
Sophie : Instead you could have mentioned 'profound'.

Tazz : Understanding DOES NOT "turn information into truth", that's rediculous! There's nothing "profound" about it. Understanding SEES truth that already exsists, and is productive with it. Truth itself is information to begin with, in and of itself.

Keith : Understanding what turns information (again, information of what?) into truth.
Sophie : In this instance, whatever it is which reveals the truth to Keith.

Tazz : Sophie, with understanding information about truth is revealed.

Keith : I don't think just any understanding of something can turn just any information about something, into a 'truth' about anything.
Sophie : With a stiff reading of what I proposed, your statement is evident. Why mention the obvious Keith? Should we not be searching for the truth instead?

Tazz :

Keith : Specifics, anyone?
Sophie : I just cannot imagine how much more specific one can be about the truth.

Tazz : i can, and have.

Sophie : I think I understand what you have tried to do, and with this understanding I have your truth in mind.

Tazz : Mm K...

John Page · 07-12-2003, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tazz10m
Get real, the world is not FLAT.

WOuldn't the world look "flat" from the point of view of a sphere that surrounds the earth. What does "flat" mean? Don't we know "appears flat" is not really flat because flat's just a concept of how thing appear to the human mind.

Quote:

Originally posted by Tazz10m
Look at me... look at me... ego ego ego ego... blehhhhh... just like the typical troll.

Cheers, John

sophie · 07-12-2003, 01:57 PM

Tazz : Understanding DOES NOT "turn information into truth", that's rediculous!

Tazz, I will surely differ. Tazz, If you have followed the earlier conversations surrounding truth, you may have realised it was proposed that truth needs a truth delivery system.

To say Understanding SEES truth that already exsists, one must have converted truth in its extrinsic form into intrinsic information.

The rest follows.

Tazz10m · 07-13-2003, 01:00 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by John Page
WOuldn't the world look "flat" from the point of view of a sphere that surrounds the earth. What does "flat" mean? Don't we know "appears flat" is not really flat because flat's just a concept of how thing appear to the human mind.

Cheers, John

John, i totally agree. It is true, that's about how people perceive it until it's looked at it from a distance. It's true that it looks flat, it's also true that it is round. One is truth about looks, the other truth about shape. It just looks flat because we are that small...

Sophie, it looks to me

like truth is its own delivery system. It's like light, when you hold it out in front you can see wherever you look. When you understand a fact, do you know it, or see it? Do you convert truth, or does truth convert you, or are you converted by truth, or are you converted in your understanding by finding the truth in something. The fact that life exsists it truth. So truth emanates out of life itself. People find truth shining. The light of truth. I saw a woman today. She was one of the most beautiful women in the whole world i have ever seen if not the most beautiful. What is beautiful to me, may not be what's beautiful to you. That it's possible that someone might be beautiful to me, but not to you, is true, and that is the truth. But it may also be true that she wasn't truly beautiful at all. But then it may also be true the she was God... but then maybe not.

Luiseach · 07-13-2003, 01:15 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tazz10m
So truth emanates out of life itself. People find truth shining. The light of truth.

This description of 'truth' seems to have religious connotations.

Am I correct?

07-13-2003, 06:24 AM

Spacer1

��.I disagree that a measurement is an interpretation in itself. Measurements or (I think you mean) mathematics is merely a different way to describe reality than language. The reason for the "measurer's" measurements, or their expectations regarding the results of the measurements, may be an interpretation, but the measures themselves, like words, must have a fixed and common meaning��

well we really differ here,

, I personally do not see any language as independent of interpretation. To be sure the same interpretation may be possible using different languages, but each language is loaded. I would also say that no language is capable of expressing all interpretations.

Nor do I believe that generally languages are fixed, and their flexibility/instability (or lack of) is a part of the way they are both powerful, limited and biased. Measurements as a means to describe reality is precisely what I mean by a cultural relationship to reality. It is both how and why we choose to measure that helps interpret the measurements.

��..I don't believe the scientist's relationship to the world is any different than the seer of the ghost. The person who saw the ghost assumes there was some physical object in reality..�

well I�ll match your wincing with a smile.

many people who see such things do not claim to see physical reality, and many more would strongly disagree with you that their relationship to the world is no different to the scientist. Your perspective of them is nothing more or less than the scientific one in itself. This I would suggest is why you winced at the suggestion that we do not passively receive experience. It is a very different way of relating to the universe,��. and is not so extreme as you seem to fear.

07-13-2003, 06:46 AM

Sophie

While I agree that facts are accepted as such within a cultural relationship, and that interpretation and understanding is to go further within that cultural paradigm, facts are nonetheless no more or less in the �placeholder� than the understanding of them. imo.

�Do you have an inkling when information hits its turning point and becomes truth?�

no, because truth can also be seen as information. Personally I believe that truth is often created by a culture relating to itself. Truth for me is a part of reality but has to be in a cultural context, whereas physical and other aspects of reality aren�t necessarily. But even physical and emotional reality requires perceptional bias of the life form, but strictly speaking I think it is useful to not see say eyesight or hearing or whatever as cultural. I mean they are in the sense that we are human and our perception is biased by that, but what we mean by culture in this discussion is human culture and does not include say ant culture and perception.

The topic is perhaps complex and controversial enough without going into the relationship between culture and perception, �� which I personally do not see as being entirely independent of each other. For others they are, and thus facts can come from perception and are beyond cultural context for some people, just like measurements. I personally disagree but not to the point of solipsism.

spacer1 · 07-13-2003, 07:24 AM

Leyline,

Thanks for your response. I hope you enjoyed your weekend away.

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I personally do not see any language as independent of interpretation.

Nor do I. To recognize any patterns in reality, which is necessary to signify such a pattern by a symbol or word, requires a mind to interpret that reality and/or find those patterns.

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To be sure the same interpretation may be possible using different languages, but each language is loaded.

What do you mean by "loaded"?

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I would also say that no language is capable of expressing all interpretations.

Are you familiar with Wittgenstein's argument against a private language? The following, taken from his Philosophical Investigations may set things aright:

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272. The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible - though unverifiable - that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.

273. What am I to say about the word "red"? - that it means something 'confronting us all' and that everyone should really have another word, besides this one, to mean his own sensation of red? Or is it like this: the word "red" means something known to everyone; and in addition, for each person, it means something known only to him? (Or perhaps rather: it refers to something known only to him.)

274. Of course, saying that the word "red" "refers to" instead of "means" something private does not help us in the least to grasp its function; but it is the more psychologically apt expression for a particular experience in doing philosophy. It is as if when I uttered the word I cast a sidelong glance at the private sensation, as it were in order to say to myself: I know all right what I mean by it.

275. Look at the blue of the sky and say to yourself "How blue the sky is!" - When you do it spontaneously - without philosophical intentions - the idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs only to you. And you have no hesitation in exclaiming that to someone else. And if you point at anything as you say the words you point at the sky. I am saying: you have not the feeling of pointing-into-yourself, which often accompanies 'naming the sensation' when one is thinking about 'private language'. Nor do you think that really you ought not to point to the colour with your hand, but with your attention. (Consider what it means "to point to something with the attention".)

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many people who see such things do not claim to see physical reality

What do they claim to see then? The way I see it, the contents of the mind can only be effected by the external world, or by the mind itself. If they do not see a ghost in physical reality, and the ghost is not merely a product of their mind, what other option is there?

07-12-2003, 12:47 PM	#203
Tazz10m Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: between cultures merging Posts: 17	Re: understanding what the truth entails Sophie : Understanding turns information into truth? Keith : So? Sophie : Instead you could have mentioned 'profound'. Tazz : Understanding DOES NOT "turn information into truth", that's rediculous! There's nothing "profound" about it. Understanding SEES truth that already exsists, and is productive with it. Truth itself is information to begin with, in and of itself. Keith : Understanding what turns information (again, information of what?) into truth. Sophie : In this instance, whatever it is which reveals the truth to Keith. Tazz : Sophie, with understanding information about truth is revealed. Keith : I don't think just any understanding of something can turn just any information about something, into a 'truth' about anything. Sophie : With a stiff reading of what I proposed, your statement is evident. Why mention the obvious Keith? Should we not be searching for the truth instead? Tazz : Keith : Specifics, anyone? Sophie : I just cannot imagine how much more specific one can be about the truth. Tazz : i can, and have. Sophie : I think I understand what you have tried to do, and with this understanding I have your truth in mind. Tazz : Mm K...

07-12-2003, 01:57 PM	#205
sophie Veteran Member Join Date: May 2003 Location: On the road to extinction. . . Posts: 1,485	Tazz Tazz : Understanding DOES NOT "turn information into truth", that's rediculous! Tazz, I will surely differ. Tazz, If you have followed the earlier conversations surrounding truth, you may have realised it was proposed that truth needs a truth delivery system. To say Understanding SEES truth that already exsists, one must have converted truth in its extrinsic form into intrinsic information. The rest follows.

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07-12-2003, 12:21 PM	#202
Tazz10m Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: between cultures merging Posts: 17	This "Moe and Joe" argument is just silly. Talk about getting off on a tangent in order to support a limited perspective. Get real, the world is not FLAT. SURE it has flat spots, but that doesn't make it flat! And the flat spots doesn't make it any less true that the world is ROUND. It's beautiful to some, but not to others... it's warm to some, and cold to others... SO WHAT? Unless it is relative to the issue, and in this case the issue is truth itself, it is not superlative. I think there are some people in here that just like to push to have everything explained to them just to get more attention for themselves... just like little kids. Look at me... look at me... ego ego ego ego... blehhhhh... just like the typical troll. Granted, some people here just don't know and are trying to learn, but others here are just rediculous! Some people just-don't-get-it! :banghead:

07-13-2003, 06:24 AM	#208
leyline Guest Posts: n/a	Spacer1 ��.I disagree that a measurement is an interpretation in itself. Measurements or (I think you mean) mathematics is merely a different way to describe reality than language. The reason for the "measurer's" measurements, or their expectations regarding the results of the measurements, may be an interpretation, but the measures themselves, like words, must have a fixed and common meaning�� well we really differ here, , I personally do not see any language as independent of interpretation. To be sure the same interpretation may be possible using different languages, but each language is loaded. I would also say that no language is capable of expressing all interpretations. Nor do I believe that generally languages are fixed, and their flexibility/instability (or lack of) is a part of the way they are both powerful, limited and biased. Measurements as a means to describe reality is precisely what I mean by a cultural relationship to reality. It is both how and why we choose to measure that helps interpret the measurements. ��..I don't believe the scientist's relationship to the world is any different than the seer of the ghost. The person who saw the ghost assumes there was some physical object in reality..� well I�ll match your wincing with a smile. many people who see such things do not claim to see physical reality, and many more would strongly disagree with you that their relationship to the world is no different to the scientist. Your perspective of them is nothing more or less than the scientific one in itself. This I would suggest is why you winced at the suggestion that we do not passively receive experience. It is a very different way of relating to the universe,��. and is not so extreme as you seem to fear.

07-13-2003, 06:46 AM	#209
leyline Guest Posts: n/a	Sophie While I agree that facts are accepted as such within a cultural relationship, and that interpretation and understanding is to go further within that cultural paradigm, facts are nonetheless no more or less in the �placeholder� than the understanding of them. imo. �Do you have an inkling when information hits its turning point and becomes truth?� no, because truth can also be seen as information. Personally I believe that truth is often created by a culture relating to itself. Truth for me is a part of reality but has to be in a cultural context, whereas physical and other aspects of reality aren�t necessarily. But even physical and emotional reality requires perceptional bias of the life form, but strictly speaking I think it is useful to not see say eyesight or hearing or whatever as cultural. I mean they are in the sense that we are human and our perception is biased by that, but what we mean by culture in this discussion is human culture and does not include say ant culture and perception. The topic is perhaps complex and controversial enough without going into the relationship between culture and perception, �� which I personally do not see as being entirely independent of each other. For others they are, and thus facts can come from perception and are beyond cultural context for some people, just like measurements. I personally disagree but not to the point of solipsism.

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