Define Truth

[The Void]

Anyone?

 

[The Void]

Spoiler

1: Define truth

2: Truth is something that is in accordance with reality and…

1: Define reality

2: Something that actually exist….

1: Clarify what do you mean by ‘actually exists’.

2: …………

1: By ‘actually exists’ do you mean the thing exists independent of your consciousness?

2: I guess so.

1: why do you define that as ‘actually exist’?

2: ………..

1: If that is what your definition is, then how can you know truth with certainty? All knowledge is dependent on consciousness. So to know with certainty if something exists outside your consciousness, you have to go outside your consciousness but if you do that, you will not have consciousness and you cannot gain any true understanding or knowledge because they are dependent on consciousness. Then it is never possible to know the truth.

2: Then consider that things existing dependent on consciousness are also things ‘actually existing’.

1: That means, a dream is also reality. That means hallucination is also reality.

2: Uhmmm. I don’t know…

1: If you don’t even know the meaning of truth then what were you searching for all these years, my fellow truth seeker?

 

[Anktark]

Truth is a subjective belief that one has an understanding about something to make oneself feel better about (him/her/it)self. You can't know the truth about anything, including the truth.

Well, with one exception. By now we know for sure that cake is a lie.

 

[Latte]

To go out on a limb where I myself am relying on my own axioms...

What one deems to be in the category of truth is derived from axioms who are held to be true because _____.

Or, to go out on a limb where I myself am relying even further on even more of my own axioms who are true because ____, and also on things I don't see as true:

The structure in which information can be organized if a specific set of axioms is the basis, will be relatively efficient compared to other sets "considered", given the method of perceiving information. The more efficient will be seen as more clear and thus making more sense and thus seeming more likely to be true. Some axioms seem so sensible and so self-evident due to how well it aligns with relatively basic information structure recipe utilized in a person's mind that they can be believed without one even knowing so.

The gradual cleanups in the history of physics provides good examples.

"Intuitive, counterintuitive".

The amount of axioms implied in these sentences gives me a headache given the thread topic.

To talk to anyone at all implies a lot of beliefs.

""I-it's" "not" "like" "I" "believe" "with" "certainty" "you" "e-exist" "or" "anything" "*blush*""..." "baka""

*hides*" "

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

did you mean, universal truth? universal truth would be that something exists, or that there is something

pretty much anything else is probable and unknown

all the other truths are based on assumptions and abstractions and as such are merely interpretations of universal values

I have come to recognise that two valued logic falls short when describing the world, you need at least three values.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Truth
First published Tue Jun 13, 2006; substantive revision Tue Jan 22, 2013
Truth is one of the central subjects in philosophy. It is also one of the largest. Truth has been a topic of discussion in its own right for thousands of years. Moreover, a huge variety of issues in philosophy relate to truth, either by relying on theses about truth, or implying theses about truth.

It would be impossible to survey all there is to say about truth in any coherent way. Instead, this essay will concentrate on the main themes in the study of truth in the contemporary philosophical literature. It will attempt to survey the key problems and theories of current interest, and show how they relate to one-another. A number of other entries investigate many of these topics in greater depth. Generally, discussion of the principal arguments is left to them. The goal of this essay is only to provide an overview of the current Theories. Many of the papers mentioned in this essay can be found in the anthologies edited by Blackburn and Simmons (1999) and Lynch (2001b). There are also a number of book-length surveys of the topics discussed here, including Burgess and Burgess (2011), Kirkham (1992), and Künne (2003).

The problem of truth is in a way easy to state: what truths are, and what (if anything) makes them true. But this simple statement masks a great deal of controversy. Whether there is a metaphysical problem of truth at all, and if there is, what kind of theory might address it, are all standing issues in the theory of truth. We will see a number of distinct ways of answering these questions.

It's a start.

 

[TBerg]

Spoiler

1: Define truth

2: Truth is something that is in accordance with reality and…

1: Define reality

2: Something that actually exist….

1: Clarify what do you mean by ‘actually exists’.

2: …………

1: By ‘actually exists’ do you mean the thing exists independent of your consciousness?

2: I guess so.

1: why do you define that as ‘actually exist’?

2: ………..

1: If that is what your definition is, then how can you know truth with certainty? All knowledge is dependent on consciousness. So to know with certainty if something exists outside your consciousness, you have to go outside your consciousness but if you do that, you will not have consciousness and you cannot gain any true understanding or knowledge because they are dependent on consciousness. Then it is never possible to know the truth.

2: Then consider that things existing dependent on consciousness are also things ‘actually existing’.

1: That means, a dream is also reality. That means hallucination is also reality.

2: Uhmmm. I don’t know…

1: If you don’t even know the meaning of truth then what were you searching for all these years, my fellow truth seeker?

I cannot believe I just read something so clear. By synthesis of your dialogue, a dream or hallucination is just one stream through which reality is channeled. And truth is just something that flows from our various streams of reality. Although this accordingly means that all of our perceptions are true, which means that we must kill or subdue those whose truths do not accord with ours, or we must find a way to deal with this perpetual conflict peacefully, which restrains the consciousness of all participators.

I think I will print out your dialogue, actually.

 

[Latte]

Spoiler

1: Define truth

2: Truth is something that is in accordance with reality and…

1: Define reality

2: Something that actually exist….

1: Clarify what do you mean by ‘actually exists’.

2: …………

1: By ‘actually exists’ do you mean the thing exists independent of your consciousness?

2: I guess so.

1: why do you define that as ‘actually exist’?

2: ………..

1: If that is what your definition is, then how can you know truth with certainty? All knowledge is dependent on consciousness. So to know with certainty if something exists outside your consciousness, you have to go outside your consciousness but if you do that, you will not have consciousness and you cannot gain any true understanding or knowledge because they are dependent on consciousness. Then it is never possible to know the truth.

2: Then consider that things existing dependent on consciousness are also things ‘actually existing’.

1: That means, a dream is also reality. That means hallucination is also reality.

2: Uhmmm. I don’t know…

1: If you don’t even know the meaning of truth then what were you searching for all these years, my fellow truth seeker?

I think that... when one realizes this, that there is only one sure thing and that is experiencing, for a period one will in a perceptual sense partially step back from the "dream" (or, the "experential entity") that one distinguishes from elsethings and calls reality. But eventually it just doesn't seem that special anymore because the "weirdness" of it wears off and one mainly just starts living in one's life again and mainly being conscious of things from within the conceptual framework of external-world existence and oneself being a subset of this existence, keeping formally but merely peripherally in mind that all that again is within the framework of the primary consciousness-only existence, but not really obsessing over it much because it stops feeling very relevant to anything one cares much about unless one feeds it with activities centered around it. It's just there, in the back, as a formalism of sort.

 

[The Void]

Truth is a subjective belief that one has an understanding about something to make oneself feel better about (him/her/it)self. You can't know the truth about anything, including the truth.

Well, with one exception. By now we know for sure that cake is a lie.

IF we can't know truth, we can't even know lie. We can't say what makes lie lie.
Truth and lie depends on each other after all.

 

[The Void]

Whether truth is what exists indepedant of consciousness or dependant of consciousness, consciousness is true in both of the cases though.
But I can't say that because definition of truth is subjective.
what I have noticed is that we use terms based on some intuitive feelings without much of a thinking what it specifically means to us and many of us thing how we use the terms are same as how other's use the term.

It ticked me when I was reading some text from philosophy course where plato's definition of 'knowledge' was quite famous, but then gettier cases came and everybody got confused.

But then I realized that before plato's definition the word know was used, after plato the know was used, then gettier cases showed that the classical definition was incomplete, and still we went on using 'know', but if the definition is not there, what do we even mean by 'know'?

Also another thing that striked me..

Say plato defined knowledge 'justified true belief'
But then gettier cases showed how belief is there, justification is there, truth is there, but still not knowledge....

but that I don't understand.

Because of we follow the definition, knowledge is there, because the conditions of definitions are met.

SO in what basis, gettier cases shows that there is not 'knowledge'?

How do they define their knowledge then?

So I concluded, We primarily use terms based on intuitive feelings, not on definition.

Big men and women tries to define the feelings, and these definitions are just based on subjective perspectives.

I guess because of all these troubles mathematics is there.

But not everything can be communicated in the language of pure mathematics.

 

[nexion]

It would seem to me that there are most certainly different "levels" of truth, though, as we may see, the existence of these levels may not, in fact, be grounded in 'reality', in 'truth', but instead in the fact that Man continually looks at what is true but sees something else.

1. The notion of 'reality' as it is, unadulterated by perverse perception and fauly consciousness (the "objective" definition)
2. One's reaction to the above definition as it is phenomenologically understood (the subjective definition)

For an example or two concerning the posited second definition. consider this scenario:

I: Bob did x
II: I think Bob did y

'Bob did y' is MY truth, even though it is not THE truth (objective). Now, Bob both did x and thinks he did x, so his believes happen to line up with what is true. However, Bob has no way of KNOWING for sure that his belief lines up with reality (truth) even if he himself did the act that he thinks he did, which brings us around full circle; what is True is independent of the apprehension of that truth.

I will not get into semantic games concerning this topic, or attempt to define words ad nauseum, as this is something I have taken great care to avoid for quite a while. You can define all you want, but you have to realize at some point that there are things you CAN'T define. You can try, of course, but do watch out for those circular arguments, they can be quite subtle.

 

[Brontosaurie]

there is no objective reality. truth must be defined in relation to survival benefit.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

Truth is a subjective belief that one has an understanding about something to make oneself feel better about (him/her/it)self. You can't know the truth about anything, including the truth.

Well, with one exception. By now we know for sure that cake is a lie.

The cake was real.

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5QveX3-1O8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-q-wyk7wXnA

 

[gilliatt]

In "Human Action" the book, Truth: "The most adequate comprehension of reality that man's mind and reason make accessible to him. Man is fallible and can never become omniscient or absolutely certain that what he considers as certain truth is not error. The criterion of truth is that it works even if nobody is prepared to acknowledge it." Ludwig Von Mises
X is what it is---or X is not what it is. The choice between truth and falsehood is the choice between 'tautology and self-contradiction. So, one's recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge.

 

[Upekkha]

In regards to the absolute, you cannot "define" truth. Once you start, it slips through your fingers and is lost.

Only relative truth(s) can be defined.

 

[Vrecknidj]

Only relative truth(s) can be defined.

True.

Or not.

 

[RaBind]

I defined it as

The truth I seek is that which is most reliable really. If something tells me to 100% accuracy about everything, than that is the whole of reality as it is.

in another thread (The Consequences Of Suicide In The Afterlife (Faith/Spirituality))

I think it's quite a good definition.

 

[doncarlzone]

Once 'truth' has been defined, we can begin to define the words for which we defined 'truth' etc.. The further our definition goes, the further away from the truth we feel, though in reality nothing changed.

 

[The Void]

I defined it as in another thread (The Consequences Of Suicide In The Afterlife (Faith/Spirituality))

I think it's quite a good definition.

What is reality?

 

[RaBind]

What is reality?

It might seem like I'm putting thunderf00t on a pedestal, but really I don't listen to him much (more TAA) and you can discard everything else he says, but I think the three assumptions that he pointed out to makes it a lot easier to understand people and how they make sense of reality.

thunderf00t's three basic assumptions that everyone must assume in other to correctly predict and function:
1. Making an assumption that the universe exists
2. You can learn something about reality
3. Models with predictive capabilities are more useful than models without predictive capabilities.

In other for entities to have a better chance of survival, they must assume these before all else then learn all that there is to know, in other to aid their survival. Basically this is the groundwork of a mindset which progresses to learn as much as possible indefinitely. What is being learnt is reality. It is everything there is to know about (all that exists). !00% knowledge of reality means 100% accuracy of all predictions, it is what people would call god.

 

[Cherry Cola]

truth is that which is, no one knows what is, so everyone knows only what is not, which is not what is, which is hence not truth, which is hence false since that which is not truth is falsehood. therefore everyone knows only falsehood so far as they know what is, still one may know that something is since everything is something, that is the one truth, all else is false, hence truth is the ambiguity of the cosmos or something

ironically denial of this ambuigity, ie truth, is required to state anything about anything

 

[The Void]

The most primary truth is life (awareness).
Wether that which 'is' is something that is independant of perception, or dependant on perception (like dream), awareness is true in both cases.
Even the things percieved in a dream is in a sense something that 'is' but just within the mind but still 'is'.
Isn't it absolutely true if I say I am typing in a keyboard, atleast in my subjective perception?
May be not perfectly absolute because words are symbols representing the truth but not the truth directly, depends on how absolute is defined.
Well for practical matters, primarily we believe\know our own awareness, that is the basic truth \or may be assumption, and then science is there trying to create as accurate a model as it could out of the observed.

 

[Cherry Cola]

But then you have to define awareness, for which you have to define perception, for which you have to define the mind etc etc etc.. and then eventually you'll end up going in circles or becoming caught in a recursive chain of definitions. Something can only be defined by something else which in turn needs to be defined by something else ad infinitum. And since you can never get to the end of infinity there's no way of knowing what is, only that it is.

Hence from a strictly logical standpoint one can only say that something is, and that something is is the only statement which can be said to be true for certain.

 

[The Void]

But then you have to define awareness, for which you have to define perception, for which you have to define the mind etc etc etc.. and then eventually you'll end up going in circles or becoming caught in a recursive chain of definitions. Something can only be defined by something else which in turn needs to be defined by something else ad infinitum. And since you can never get to the end of infinity there's no way of knowing what is, only that it is.

Hence from a strictly logical standpoint one can only say that something is, and that something is is the only statement which can be said to be true for certain.

As I said words are just representation of something, some experiences and observations.
I can't define anything.

But there can be things known without defining. Depends on what is knowledge?

In a sense definition is just naming something, or a process or pattern.

Yes if we go on playing with words and definitions, there are limitations, and we will run in circles and stuffs.

Thats why the ultimnate conclusion in my story in some other thread was silence.

Since I don't even really know what know means I don't know if something can be known or not or anything much.

 

[RaBind]

But then you have to define awareness, for which you have to define perception, for which you have to define the mind etc etc etc.. and then eventually you'll end up going in circles or becoming caught in a recursive chain of definitions. Something can only be defined by something else which in turn needs to be defined by something else ad infinitum. And since you can never get to the end of infinity there's no way of knowing what is, only that it is.

Hence from a strictly logical standpoint one can only say that something is, and that something is is the only statement which can be said to be true for certain.

Right but this is only in circumstances for defining. If you know everything from the beginning then you don't enter this loop. So you can logically claim what truth is if you know everything to begin with. Sure this is an impossibility (if everything is infinite) but certainly we can get closer to knowing everything and discovering and defining the truth increasingly accurately as we expand our knowledge.

 

[BigApplePi]

Truth = that which holds steady when you look at it. This makes truth relative because

(1) It is you who are looking at it.
(2) You are judging how steady it is.

If it changes over time, the truth changes.
If another sees it differently, something is not true.
If lots of people see the same thing, you have a shot at it being true.
If one person sees it differently, a review becomes necessary.

Is it true I find beauty in this? That is momentary truth. Let time enter in.
Is it true she loves me? Here two people stand in judgement. Check out how steady it is.
Is it true 2 + 2 = 4? Same answer.

 

[Cherry Cola]

Right but this is only in circumstances for defining. If you know everything from the beginning then you don't enter this loop. So you can logically claim what truth is if you know everything to begin with. Sure this is an impossibility (if everything is infinite) but certainly we can get closer to knowing everything and discovering and defining the truth increasingly accurately as we expand our knowledge.

Aye but truth and falsehood are a dichotomy which does not allow for blurred lines, strictly logically speaking, something can hardly be more or less true, it either is or isn't.

As you point out it's not something that you need to consider that much though, since its pretty impractical, tis better to approximate.

 

[BigApplePi]

Aye but truth and falsehood are a dichotomy which does not allow for blurred lines, strictly logically speaking, something can hardly be more or less true, it either is or isn't.

This may be the case if we ask if a rooster is an animal or is orange a color? But what if we ask, is Pluto a planet? Is hir gender male or female? Does she love me or does she love me not?

 

[RaBind]

Aye but truth and falsehood are a dichotomy which does not allow for blurred lines, strictly logically speaking, something can hardly be more or less true, it either is or isn't.

We're talking about different things it seems. You're taking in terms of judging individual elements of reality. So gravity or evolution or a specific statement being true or not. In my case I'm talking about whole models of reality being true. In this case models of reality actually fall into a spectrum of "trueness" lol. Models that are static don't change their position in this spectrum, but models with such systems as the scientific method as their foundation, adapt to information and continuously change their position. This change obviously isn't always in the direction of truth, and there are many possible models which blind change their view of reality, but the models which utilize the scientific model (at it's core trial and error) move along to truth in the long run. Of coarse I completely agree with what you said too.

As you point out it's not something that you need to consider that much though, since its pretty impractical, tis better to approximate.

Many things thought to be impractical/impossible have been achieved by humanity's pursuit of knowledge. Instant achievement of the impractical is as you say better to be approximated as impossible, but they become possible and are achieved in small steps, though long periods of time.

 

[nexion]

Once 'truth' has been defined, we can begin to define the words for which we defined 'truth' etc.. The further our definition goes, the further away from the truth we feel, though in reality nothing changed.

Precisely this. I believe that truth is quite resistant to definition, because definition in itself is defying truth.

 

[Cherry Cola]

No, I'm judging the whole of reality not individual elements. The models of reality you speak of can only be true within their own boundaries, they do not pertain to actual reality since they are closed artificial systems corresponding imperfectly with reality as a whole which is why they can be perfectly logical within themselves.

Perfection can only be achieved within an imperfect system.

Science isn't a model at all, it is a method that perhaps could be said to imply a model but that's another matter.

But meh I might be misunderstanding you now, it feels like I probably actually should agree with you. I mean I agree with this:

Many things thought to be impractical/impossible have been achieved by humanity's pursuit of knowledge. Instant achievement of the impractical is as you say better to be approximated as impossible, but they become possible and are achieved in small steps, though long periods of time.

It's just that for truth to be we'd need to have the whole puzzle layed out first. Which is what we should try to do as best we can, our most succesful way of doing so thus far being through science.

 

[kora]

there is no objective reality. truth must be defined in relation to survival benefit.

I'm not so sure. Truth= describes/corresponds with objective reality?

I mean yes, clearly, the world is primarily our own interpretation of it, and even logic and mathematics (too frequently perceived as the infallible providers of objective truths) do not give us direct access to the objective reality around us, themselves being a pattern or structure human minds apply to what they perceive. So all "truth" could be considered merely to be an "anthropocentric truth" that fails to tell us anything whatsoever about the nature of reality, independent of human perception. So, do you...

1) scream in existential despair and writhe in realization of how lonely one is. Then eat some chocolate and try to forget about it.

2) become a mad nihilist artist, having decided that the only thing worthwhile is the act of creation, and that any pursuit of understanding, knowledge, etc is in vain.

However, as has been stated previously in the thread, we can be certain that this statement is truth: "something exists" (You know, Descartes' cogito and shit), and scientific advancement enables us to accurately (ish) predict phenomena happening around us and within us, which does show to some extent that what we deduce from these perceptions must correspond (even if it is only loosely)to something that is actually there...

there is objective truth, and I think we can find it, it's just insanely messy and difficult getting there with our puny minds.

 

[RaBind]

No, I'm judging the whole of reality not individual elements. The models of reality you speak of can only be true within their own boundaries, they do not pertain to actual reality since they are closed artificial systems corresponding imperfectly with reality as a whole which is why they can be perfectly logical within themselves.

Ok. Maybe I misunderstood. I guess models can also be seen as being either true to reality or wrong, but that's a false dichotomy, because models can have many things correct and other things wrong. I want that to be clear because if a model had 99% of things true to reality, and could be used to make 99% possible predictions based on it correctly, it is very different to a model that's say 50% true to reality, and makes 50% of all possible predictions based on it correctly. If your going to say models of reality are either right or wrong than both these models fall into the "wrong" category. However this is unfair to the 99% correct model as it is obviously far superior than the 50% model. So instead of have either right or wrong models of reality as the categories, it is more accurate and fair to have a spectrum of accuracy in depicting reality, in which models fall in their respective scores.

Perfection can only be achieved within an imperfect system.

I want you to elaborate but it feels like it will lead to an extended derailed conversation.

Science isn't a model at all, it is a method that perhaps could be said to imply a model but that's another matter.

But meh I might be misunderstanding you now

No I agree. I did try to say "models with systems such as the scientific method as their foundation" instead of something like "the scientific model of reality".

It's just that for truth to be we'd need to have the whole puzzle layed out first. Which is what we should try to do as best we can, our most succesful way of doing so thus far being through science.

Another agreement. I was only pointing out the fact that the loop, you pointed out, isn't a loop once the whole puzzle has been laid out (then again nothing would be). BTW I did define truth as having the puzzle laid out.

Of coarse now the only bit, and probably the bit we disagree on, is the fact you said the truth is indescribable, as it requires other currently indescribable concepts, which send the whole thing into a loop. If the truth were all of reality itself (having the puzzle laid out), there would be no loop to begin with no? I do realize that you said

Spoiler

truth is that which is, no one knows what is, so everyone knows only what is not, which is not what is, which is hence not truth, which is hence false since that which is not truth is falsehood. therefore everyone knows only falsehood so far as they know what is, still one may know that something is since everything is something, that is the one truth, all else is false, hence truth is the ambiguity of the cosmos or something

ironically denial of this ambuigity, ie truth, is required to state anything about anything

so anything I used to describe the truth would only be partly correct. I do however feel that by saying the truth is 100% of reality that it captures the essence of what the truth is, even if 100% knowledge of reality would be nothing like how I'd imagine it to be, when describing it, maybe that's also part of the description.