praetorius Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 "What is truth?" [Jn 18:38] To provide a home for the off-topic, but perhaps more interesting, drift of another thread: perhaps we can neatly wrap up this longstanding question here through the infallible medium of online discussion and argumentation? Please respond in a completely serious manner only, since incorrect answers may result in eternal ridicule on the internets. Link to post Share on other sites
Snao Cone Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 [insert fart noises] Link to post Share on other sites
StormySky Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Not cake, because the cake is a lie. ;D I feel like it's impossible to know absolute truth, since human sensors are very weak. Since you can't experience much beyond who you are and what you experience, who you are and what you experience is your truth. Link to post Share on other sites
StormySky Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 The deepest mystery of them all: why is this in Just For Fun instead of Philosophy, Politics, and Science? Link to post Share on other sites
praetorius Posted January 22, 2018 Author Share Posted January 22, 2018 7 minutes ago, StormySky said: I feel like it's impossible to know absolute truth, since human sensors are very weak. Since you can't experience much beyond who you are and what you experience, who you are and what you experience is your truth. Is human ability to "sense" truth relevant to the question "what is truth," and howso? Do you consider the following analogy to be lacking, and why?: "what is ultraviolet light? Since human senses are weak at seeing ultraviolet light, what you see as purplish is your ultraviolet." 10 minutes ago, StormySky said: The deepest mystery of them all: why is this in Just For Fun instead of Philosophy, Politics, and Science? Oops, did I accidentally post this on the wrong forum? Would I have gotten more true answers in another place? In summary, [splattery fart noises] Link to post Share on other sites
Snao Cone Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 2 minutes ago, praetorius said: In summary, [splattery fart noises] Very good point. Link to post Share on other sites
Yeast Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 As suggested, it is a matter of perception. The ultimate question becomes the notion that everything beyond yourself is an illusion, making you the only "real" thing in the universe. For purely pragmatic reasons most of us prefer to think of the world as real. However our dreams are assumed to be reality when we dream them, no matter how unusual the experience is. Perhaps this suggests we have a natural desire to perceive what we experience as reality. Logically speaking what is true isn't false. What is false is an assertion that something is what it is not. However what it really is returns to the issue of perception. In terms of biology, our brains create virtual reality worlds we exist in, especially in terms of sight. We create the colors we see and can easily be fooled by visual illusions. Moralistically speaking, truth can become grounded in a set of beliefs. This is especially true of genocide. "Manifest destiny" was how the extermination of native Americans was justified. However this kind of truth is the most liable to be scrutinized and is eventually seen to be untrue, although this can take some time. Perhaps the Moody Blues summed it up best. Heartless orb that rules the night; Removes the colors from our sight; Red is grey and yellow white; But we decide what is right, and what is an illusion; Link to post Share on other sites
TheAP Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Truth is whatever I believe to be true. Just kidding (kind of). Link to post Share on other sites
StormySky Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 An important part of my experiences of reality is the fact that I don't take life with absolute seriousness. Link to post Share on other sites
praetorius Posted January 22, 2018 Author Share Posted January 22, 2018 I reject solipsism on the basis that I find it implausible, and can find no more certain basis than that. Link to post Share on other sites
J. van Deijck Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 sorry I had to. Link to post Share on other sites
Juno_L Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 This makes me think of the start to the trailer to I, Tonya. "The haters always say: "Tonya, tell the truth." There is no such thing as truth. Everyone has their own truth." Spoiler For the most part, I do believe this. In many situations there are facts that can be stated, but everyone has their own interpretation of them. I don't think you can ever get to only the facts of an event from human accounts, as everyone interprets as they take in facts, and you end up with their interpretations. You are able to see only the facts with something like a video recording. With human accounts, they may misremember, or be telling facts through a filter of interpretation. That being said, I think there are things that can be found to be untrue. There can be many truths, but not everything is a truth. For example, Person A may say "Person B grabbed my arm aggressively", and Person B could say "I touched Person A on the arm to get their attention", and those may both be interpretations of the truth. But if someone said "Person B round-house kicked Person A in the face and ran off," that would be untrue. I hope anything I just said made any sense. I confused myself a bit while typing this. Link to post Share on other sites
Epitaph Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 My avatar is truth. Link to post Share on other sites
Skycaptain Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 Truth. Anything uttered by a dictator, as those who disagree will be shot Link to post Share on other sites
Homer Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 7 hours ago, Juno_L said: For example, Person A may say "Person B grabbed my arm aggressively", and Person B could say "I touched Person A on the arm to get their attention", and those may both be interpretations of the truth. I think that truth is objective, so as soon as anyone adds their personal interpretation or motivation to it, you're leaving that path. Truth: Person A touched Person B's arm. Interpretation: "They grabbed my arm aggressively" / "Touched it to get their attention". Technically, a punch is a touch. Yet adding "to get their attention" likely creates that image of a rather gentle action. We can't know what happened, but at least both A and B agree that A's arm had been touched - and while "B touched A's arm" likely doesn't tell the whole story and might not be sufficient to evaluate the situation, it's still true. Link to post Share on other sites
Snao Cone Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 2 hours ago, Homer said: I think that truth is objective, so as soon as anyone adds their personal interpretation or motivation to it, you're leaving that path. Truth: Person A touched Person B's arm. Interpretation: "They grabbed my arm aggressively" / "Touched it to get their attention". Technically, a punch is a touch. Yet adding "to get their attention" likely creates that image of a rather gentle action. We can't know what happened, but at least both A and B agree that A's arm had been touched - and while "B touched A's arm" likely doesn't tell the whole story and might not be sufficient to evaluate the situation, it's still true. So, truth is bare of context. But is it worth anything without context? There is no justice if a punch is technically classified as a "touch" and that's acknowledged as truth, while adding an adverb makes it no longer truth (though not false either). Link to post Share on other sites
Nevyn Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 In order to find the truth one has to remove all bias. If you do that the truth is no longer relevant because there is no-one left to perceive it. Link to post Share on other sites
Guest Jetsun Milarepa Posted January 22, 2018 Share Posted January 22, 2018 You mean absolute truth or relative truth? Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I adamantly disagree that "truth" is what an individual believes it to be. I, as an individual, perceive reality a certain way. I am just one person, so there is no way for me to know if my perception of reality is accurate or not. For all we know, my vision is off and I'm incapable of seeing the color "blue," and the color that I've been taught is "blue" is actually "purple." There is no way for me to know better, and no way for you to know what I see to tell me if it agrees with what you see or not. Because it doesn't affect anyone but me, I can go right on thinking purple is blue and living my life that way, but the truth, in this case, would be that my perception is inaccurate. "Truth," to the best of our ability to define it, is the overlap of evidence accumulated by repeated, independent observations. It requires multiple inputs, because the statistical likelihood of one observation representing an accurate reality is not 100%. Link to post Share on other sites
Nevyn Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 What if someone’s eyes see more colors than everybody else and whats blue to us really is purple to them? Are we wrong with our more limited sensory organs or are they wrong for being statistically insignificant? Link to post Share on other sites
Polygon Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I can't think of an answer pretentious enough, I'm sorry. I'll try to capture the essence of the argument, though: Socrates, logos, Kierkegaard, Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, [insert Latin here], quantum [noun-dropping], Shakespeare. Link to post Share on other sites
Samby Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I recently did an exam that had loads of philosophy in it so hey, might as well what little I learnt from it here. Science essentially strives to know the 'truth' and involved is that is being completely objective. Therefore, anytime we bring our subjective view into the equation, it's doubtful whether what we know is true. Plato said knowledge is true if it is true in all time and places. It can be argued we can never know the truth because all we know is what we perceive and our senses can be tricked. Therefore, truth could be something we will never understand. It is something that exists but we won't ever really be able to know it. If this makes no sense. Well, fingers crossed I made more sense in the exam XD Link to post Share on other sites
SorryNotSorry Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Quid est veritas (what is truth)? Est vir qui adest (it is this man). They were talking, of course, about the Jesus-dude. Link to post Share on other sites
Sally Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 Truth is illusion; illusion is truth. I protest this thread being moved to Philosophy etc. Since truth is illusion, it's more properly placed in JFF. Link to post Share on other sites
RoseGoesToYale Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I shall answer in the form of an acrostic poem: Totally Really Utterly Tangible Honesties Link to post Share on other sites
Chimeric Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 2 hours ago, Samby said: It can be argued we can never know the truth because all we know is what we perceive and our senses can be tricked. This, this, this! =D (It won't let me like your post - but I do!) The best we can do is measure things over and over again until we're reasonably confident we have a measurement that represents the truth. With things we can't measure, all we can do is guess. With the amount of stuff we guess, the odds are good we've gotten stuff pretty close to being true just on guesswork alone, but we can't know for sure until we find a way to measure it. And we can extrapolate based on accumulated data that resembles the thing we're guessing about to help increase our confidence in truth. But we can't ever know for sure. =) 5 hours ago, Nevyn said: Are we wrong with our more limited sensory organs or are they wrong for being statistically insignificant? Hmm, I dunno if "wrong" is exactly the right word. Inaccurate, maybe? Most humans have three "cone" receptors in the eye that, when stimulated, create the visible spectrum that we see - blue, green and red. This is already more than our other mammalian counterparts (cattle have 2, I believe - red and green - for example), but there are some critters that have far, far more than we do (The Oatmeal made the mantis shrimp popular a few years ago; mantis shrimp have 16 different cone receptors). There are also some women who possess a fourth cone receptor, and whose vision, consequently, extends further into the violet range than do others. So it's a good question. Is it us who are further away from what color actually looks like, or is it them? I tend to suspect it's us limited by our perceptive abilities, especially since we have methods in place to measure light wavelengths otherwise. But, again, I don't know that I would qualify our perceptions as being wrong. Link to post Share on other sites
Nevyn Posted January 23, 2018 Share Posted January 23, 2018 I like to use the word “limited”. Science’s limits are just the sum of human knowledge. We know a lot about how things work but very little of the why of anything. Link to post Share on other sites
gisiebob Posted January 24, 2018 Share Posted January 24, 2018 I think a good way to say that something is true is to admit that we are unreliable witnesses, such to a point that we are unable to reliably witness the ways in which we are so. then it is a matter of building a probability of truthyness. considering our own selves as point 0,0; the center of our universe and something we are incapable of relying on reliably. moving out in an arbitrary grid we meet dave at point 0,1. and dave thinks we are 95% right, suddenly now we have a graph we can start working with. but lets get a bigger sample size! I probably know less than 100 people I could easily do this with. truth is the number of people you can get to believe something is true devided by the number of people you can comprehend, where people are cognisant individuals that you assume exist. Link to post Share on other sites
binary suns Posted February 1, 2018 Share Posted February 1, 2018 Naming the persons who touch the hand to the arm would be biased, just as labeling it as grabbing or as assault. but then stating it plainly and objectively is also biased by failing to denote any of the appropriate context of the situation. Even giving both - the “objective view” as well as the “subjective view” - is biased due to diluting the situation to a point where it’s meaning must necessarily be parsed rather than taken straight for itself. That without simplicity of presentation, biased interpretations necessarily result. .... if truth is that which is not biased, then it is nothing that exists within our awareness, wouldn’t it? As soon as we are aware of an idea, this is biased. So truth either is inaccessible, as accessing it is biased, or truth is biased.... ? i guess truth must be something which is biased then, for the alternative is without meaning. Link to post Share on other sites
Frogster Posted February 19, 2018 Share Posted February 19, 2018 If truth is limited or defined by my ability to perceive it I am in deep trouble. I believe that objective reality exists. Oh no, did I just come out as a non post modernist? guess so. What I see with seems pretty limited to me. I can't even watch a cloud in the sky without conceptualizing and relating to the concept more than the reality. Link to post Share on other sites
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