Belief = Fact?

[Nocturne]

According to a brilliant man, 'truth' is an idea/belief that is proven. But if there were no faith/belief supporting the truth, would it still be true, would people still think it is true? Does belief influence truth? Do truth need belief? Feel free to add comments and answers. Thnx!

 

[Minuend]

In order to exist, truth must have belief. Truth is something human, the world itself has nothing- it just is. If all living entities vanished now, nobody would be there to enlighten us as to what truth is ("us" wouldn't be there either). Truth would no longer exist as an idea.

Humans change some truths. If they decided that oranges were purple, that would be the new truth. There's really nothing but ourselves that can support our logic. Thus we are biased. And beyond the bias toward our own system, we find bias towards our own subjective world.

But. Truth seen plainly will not require belief to exist. Even if all claimed gravity was false, we would still be walking on our fee... this is kinda like that "if a tree falls and nobody hears it"- thingy, isn't it? I hate that tree

 

[Adymus]

Another question I'd like to stack on top of the OP Topic is:

At what point does something become "Proven?" And if even theories that have been "Proven" in the past have been "Disproven" later on, then can we ever truly declare anything true at all?

I would say simply believing in something does not make it true, not absolutely true anyway. Ultimately Truth is a lot like safety, it doesn't really exist, it is more of a subjective state of mind than it is an objective state of being. Truth presides only until it is disproven, and if it can be disproven then it had no right to be called truth in the first place. There is never a point when you can truly declare something absolutely true, because at any point a revelation of perception or phenomenon could completely contradict your assumptions of what you thought was true, or change the way you look at something, or completely invalidate the evidence you thought you had.

The way I see it is that Truth is defined by essentially what presently works, it is nothing more special or authoritative than that. When something stops being True, it no longer works, and it is time for an update. Our rationalization and understanding of the universe must constantly be updating, we have to assume we are not going to get things right on the first, second, third or even forth try, if we actually want to continue understanding. Over time we do get closer to what we might be able to one day call an absolute or universal truth, but to assume we found it right now just because we think we have evidence, would be idiotic, and essentially making the same mistake the bigger religions have made.

 

[Adymus]

But. Truth seen plainly will not require belief to exist. Even if all claimed gravity was false, we would still be walking on our fee... this is kinda like that "if a tree falls and nobody hears it"- thingy, isn't it? I hate that tree

Gravity as a phenomenon, would be an example of truth, but not necessarily gravity as a theory.

There is a very big difference between a Phenomenon and a Theory (I really need to make a thread about this one day, I find myself repeating it a lot, but usually in the context of "There is a difference between the real life phenomenon of the personality vs the shit Jung theorized... anyway.) A Phenomenon is the pattern that can been seen or experienced in some way, for example, what comes up must come down, that is a phenomenon. A Theory is your rationalization of the phenomenon, and how you explain how it actually works.

Now then the Phenomenon is irrefutable, it is what it is, so the face that you can plainly see that "Something" is happening would be the truth. What is not necessarily true is how we explain how gravity works, sure our theory seems pretty rock solid right now, but we are only working with what we know now, there could be an infinite amount of Unknown Unknowns that we have not taken into account. There are even unknown phenomena out there, such as Dark Energy and Dark Matter, that might indicate that our theories are off.

It is very wise to understand the difference between these two things, I find all to often people (Especially INTPs) think they are the same thing.

 

[Vrecknidj]

According to a brilliant man, 'truth' is an idea/belief that is proven.

I don't know who this brilliant man is. So, I did some Google searches.

"truth is an idea that is proven" One hit on Google.

"truth is a belief that is proven" Zero hits on Google.

So, who is this brilliant man?

Dave

 

[Polaris]

Truth is just a word. Whatever that word represents is far more complex. I cannot grasp "Truth" anymore than I can grasp "Salmon".

Therefore, Truth ≈ Salmon

 

[Zensunni]

According to a brilliant man, 'truth' is an idea/belief that is proven. But if there were no faith/belief supporting the truth, would it still be true, would people still think it is true? Does belief influence truth? Do truth need belief? Feel free to add comments and answers. Thnx!

In your first two sentences, you conflated your terms, I think.

Truth, according to your brilliant man, is an idea or belief that is PROVEN. In your next sentence you ask if there were no BELIEF supporting the truth if it would still be true. The brilliant man did not say that you needed belief to have truth, you needed a proven belief to have a truth.

Unless I misunderstand you.

 

[Reluctantly]

belief = illogical fact. Facts don't always have to make complete logical sense.

 

[nexion]

According to a brilliant man, 'truth' is an idea/belief that is proven. But if there were no faith/belief supporting the truth, would it still be true, would people still think it is true? Does belief influence truth? Do truth need belief? Feel free to add comments and answers. Thnx!

'Truth' and 'objectivity' ultimately do not exist, in my opinion, from a human perspective. I don't see how it is possible, but things get muddled in my own mind and I don't know.

Anyway, objectivity can only be reached if a set of assumptions is applied (depending on the situation). Someone who believes that objectivity exists is merely applying these assumptions at all times. These assumptions often have to do with the human perceptions being accurate. That is what I think, anyway. Skepticism is bred when one denies the accuracy of all human perceptions. More, but I can't think of it.

Axioms. Assumptions. Beliefs. Everything else stems from ideas or ideals. To actually answer your question.

 

[Nocturne]

Hmmm... Allow me to re-phrase. "According to someone ( XP ), truth is an idea that is proven through rational thought/ observation/ logic. But, does belief make something true? Can atruth that nobody believes still be true? Does truth need belief? " .... I hope that would help clarify things. I may be just talking nonsense again here, forgive me.

 

[Adymus]

"According to someone ( XP ), truth is an idea that is proven through rational thought/ observation/ logic.

Observation should be the only thing in there, Logic and Rational thought do absolutely nothing to prove an idea. Logic and Rational thought can give you an explanation, but it cannot give you evidence. Logic is limited by human understanding of natural law, Observation on the other hand is a direct glimpse at natural law, which makes the phenomenon being observed truth in itself as a pattern that clearly exists and requires an explanation.

But, does belief make something true? Can atruth that nobody believes still be true? Does truth need belief? " .... I hope that would help clarify things. I may be just talking nonsense again here, forgive me.

Let me answer your question with another question, if you were born on a space-station with no gravity, and you had no knowledge or understanding of gravity, thus did not know it even existed. Would Gravity not exist?

Before intelligent life, with single celled organisms that could not actually think about the phenomenon of gravity none the less "believe" in it, did gravity not exist because nothing was there to acknowledge its existence?

Needless to say, it would be kind of stupid to say "no" to that, am I right? Because obviously life would not have formed on this planet in the way that it did without gravity. Natural law is not a democracy, it will always be there and do what it does whether humans know about it, understand it clearly, or like it or not. Natural law does not revolve around a bunch of stupid homosapien's ability (or lack there of) to acknowledge it.

 

[Black Rose]

YouTube - Athene's Theory of Everything

 

[Lobstrich]

I do not like people who can't tell the truth. That is he truth =o

 

[socialexpat]

Truth is pointless in itself and not easy to make hard, belief is a second component to turn the truth credible enough to be believed.
Adymus, what you say is true .. Still i stick to the fact that when there's an occurance of disbelief even when the truth is true... It does not need any backup to be proven, such happenings often slide down into a position where people are left with their own truth or what they want to believe at that given moment.
I have a theory about it in some ways but i am not able to explain it as it would require a sociogram to show you some sort of mixed up interaction.

 

[Da Blob]

It is really pointless to talk about truth without talking about falsehood as the opposite polarity. There is a similar problem with all sorts of phenomena that exists, but not within the realms of fact or belief.
Not to indulge in the abstract, but cognitive development is founded on a system of beliefs, not on a system of facts or truths, beliefs that change as the human brain matures and able to add dimensions and perspectives not found in earlier belief systems. So do facts change as well. Certainly a fact is a temporary observation. For example, "John is fat" could be a valid fact and true at the time of the observation. However, if John goes on a diet and loses weight, then that is no longer a fact, nor is it true.

true and fact are temporary states of being, based within a belief system...

 

[socialexpat]

It is really pointless to talk about truth without talking about falsehood as the opposite polarity. There is a similar problem with all sorts of phenomena that exists, but not within the realms of fact or belief.
Not to indulge in the abstract, but cognitive development is founded on a system of beliefs, not on a system of facts or truths, beliefs that change as the human brain matures and able to add dimensions and perspectives not found in earlier belief systems. So do facts change as well. Certainly a fact is a temporary observation. For example, "John is fat" could be a valid fact and true at the time of the observation. However, if John goes on a diet and loses weight, then that is no longer a fact, nor is it true.

true and fact are temporary states of being, based within a belief system...

How do you see it when we speak about irreversible events?

 

[Da Blob]

How do you see it when we speak about irreversible events?

well, irreversible implies temporal reversibility, or history, in other words. The relationship of facts to the Past is a tenuous one, in that the Past does not exist except via the Belief in it. After all the past is a figment of imagination accessed via memory.

Establishment of "historical fact" is something of an oxymoron, there really is no objective way to do such a thing, so usually establishment of historical fact is the result of a vote or of an opinion poll amongst historians.

Science and history are mutually exclusive, despite the popular fantasy that the past is susceptible to scientific investigation using the scientific method of inquiry. One can not verify the Past and one cannot conduct experiments with history.

IMO, it is a great leap of faith to say, it 'is' a fact that such and such occurred in 1892, when one really has no scientific method to verify that such and such even 'was' a fact in 1892. There is a great deal of difference between the statements "The facts are" and "The facts were..." One can be verified, the other is an untestable hypothesis"