AnthonyAdams45

I voted consequences, because the consequences are the truth. If it's not what's happening, it ain't true!

Gurdur

hmmm, Hugo Holbling forced me to re-evaluate my own position.

¶ : At first, I plummeted for "Truth"; and I'll illustrate why with an example:

The question is sometimes posed,
Your wife is nastily cheating on you, but maintains a happy face to you.
Would you prefer to know, or be left in the dark believing her, since knowing the truth would all but destroy you emotionally ?

Another exploration of this all is carried out to quite an extent in John Steinbeck's novel, East Of Eden, where Steinbeck plummets very firmly for truth in nasty situations, as well as in the novels of John Le Carré, albeit very subtlely in Le Carré's case.

¶ : But then Hugo Holbling's point suddenly becomes very acute when say, considering whether to vote for a Mormon or a Nazi as President.

Now both of the Mormon's and the Nazi's beliefs are whacko, but in this particular case so the hell what ?
What's important in this case are the consequences of their beliefs; I can live with a Mormon as President, but never with a Nazi, simply because of the consequences of their beliefs that would become apparent in practice.

So call me a pragmatic swinger.

Bill Snedden

Feh. If you voted for "consequences" as a pragmatist, then your vote was actually for "truth" because, as AnthonyAdams45 pointed out, for a pragmatist, the consequences are the truth.

And I think you're wrong about that quote from the Mahatma. Consider it in an anti-foundationalist paradigm as a rejection of the absolute conjoined to a pragmatic definition of truth!

Regards,

Bill Snedden

Volker.Doormann

I guess a belief is a self constructed idea, which has no real meaning. Knowledge has a meaning, if knowledge is part of the consciousness. Continuous Attention to that what is - including to the own self and to the own think process - can help to release from that bond to belief systems.

BTW. If truth has an existance, it is. If truth is only a hoax, than the false differs not from the truth. That shows, that without the existance of thruth no thing has any meaning greater than self constructed ideas.

Volker

Hugo Holbling

Nice, but i'll go one better. You ought to know that whenever i see the word truth used in a manner that isn't explicitly pragmatic, i capitalize it. Ergo, i voted for consequences to avoid that devilry that is Truth.

I'll do no such thing until the poll is edited to capitalize truth and make my vote mean what i meant it to! Damned consensus indeed!

Hugo Holbling

See that, Bill?

Yes, that's the point entirely. Maybe the Truth is that God doesn't exist, and that this statement corresponds to Reality, and also that Nazism is Evil according to Reason; however, come polling day you must cast your vote for Hitler or the High Host and i'll wager Truth doesn't come into it.

Gurdur

Not at all necessarily.

Consider the case of optimism:

Having a slightly unrealistic attitude of optimism can and often does actually help you have a better life -
since you tend then more to radiate friendliness, hope and happiness, and people will often interact with you more positively than they would otherwise, leading to better results for you.

Another case example is young schollchildren: several studies have shown that schoolchildren will often act as is expected of them by a teacher, including their scholastic results, even when that teacher's beliefs about the schoolchild are erroneous
(in the studies, the new teachers were informed that certain schoolchildren were good or bad learners, completely against the actual facts).

pug846

I voted “consequences always” and really don’t understand why anyone would always want to know the “truth.” (I never understood why some people capitalize “truth” in certain places. It’s either true, and I assume nearly everyone either explicitly or implicitly accepts the correspondence theory of truth, or it’s not true.)

I think in nearly every situation that the knowing what is actually “true” is what will be beneficial to me, even if it hurts me in the long run. One example that was given was knowing whether or not your wife is cheating on you. Even if your wife retains a “happy face,” more than likely the fact that she is cheating on you will mean that there are very real problems with your marriage. On the other hand, lets say your wife dies in a car crash. Why would you want to know the “truth” that she had cheated on you? Nothing positive would come from knowing “the truth” and in fact, you would probably be quite distraught, etc. Why would you want to know the truth for the sake of just knowing it? That seems like an incredibly odd position to take.

A clearer example for me is the matrix. Why would anyone want to know reality for the sake of knowing reality? I’d rather live in my happy “fake” dream world as opposed to the “real” world, which was horrible. Why would you want to know the truth in that situation? Why would you care?

It sounds really noble I guess to say you want to know the truth no matter what, but to me, it sounds like you are biting off your nose to spite your face.

As Gurdur mentioned, it’s generally psychologically healthy to have a slightly optimistic attitude. Look at the case of a job interview. Lets say if you knew the truth, that going into the interview, you actually only have a 5% chance of getting the job. If you knew this, you probably wouldn’t give a great interview and it would turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. However, if you didn’t know the glum odds, you might be overly optimistic and come off very confident and possibly get the job.

The schoolchildren example is also an excellent example that demonstrates the futility and unproductive attitude that can come from knowing the truth.

Hugo Holbling

Hello, pug. I understand we have a mutual friend.

I think you're right that most people mean the correspondence theory when they speak of truth here. In answer to your implicit question, i capitalize truth sometimes to refer to the theistic belief in truth that some appear to have, rationalists in particular. I also do it to annoy Bill.

It seems to me that whether or not we believe in any form of truth, we act in spite of it and to bring about the consequences that we hope for. Truth is irrelevant, methinks; what matters is intersubjective agreement about what should be done and why we should do it.

Volker.Doormann

I think that, what you call 'slightly' unrealistic is in reality real. If it would not be real, it would have no meaning.

That what you argue deals not realy with thruth, but with love, the second dimension of (spiritual) existance. But pure love is as helpless as pure thruth, if they are separated from each other. Only if both dimensions are acknowledged as an existing non indivisible couple, a freedom from bondage in belief systems can occur.
Logik is a very powerfull tool, but without love it is cold and lonely. Love is the best (un-)known tool to separate harmony from disharmony, but it is stupid without recognize the truth.

But still there is the question for existance of both and for answers if they have not.

Volker