Subjectivity, Objectivity, and Truth.

[Old Things]

There is this question which arises in my mind, the same question that Pilot asked Jesus before he crucified Him: What is truth?

There are various ways people conceptualize truth and different ways people engage with others around the topic of truth.

Some people will whitewash the truth for the sake of peace, while others are hardliners on truth and can be "brutally honest."

But what is truth? And can we know it?

I think everyone should think there is such a thing as truth. You do have some people who think everything is subjective, but if that is true (heh), then we can't actually make sense of anything, and knowing anything at all is impossible. Everything would devolve into "Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man." Society cannot function if that narrative becomes predominant. Because then there are certainly no moral truths. And if that is the case, then people can do whatever they want, and it becomes too judgmental to punish people for committing crimes. If the relativists have their way, then you can't tell anyone they are wrong because everything is just an opinion. There is no objective truth.

As for my own view of truth, I adhere to the correspondence view of truth. That just means that whatever is true corresponds with reality. There are other ideas of what truth is, but people have to be programmed to believe them since pretty much everyone is born believing in the correspondence view of truth.

Spoiler: Short Article I Wrote on Truth

Is Truth subjective? What is Truth? How do God and Truth relate?

Do you remember when Pontius Pilot asks Christ, the savior of the world, "What is truth?" and then he just walks away? This seems to be quite a pervasive problem in the world today. Maybe people don't do exactly what Pilot did, but they more or less do the same thing with their words and...

www.oldthingspassawayallbecomesnew.net

But then the question becomes, should we always tell the truth, even if it is harmful to people? I think in some very rare situations, it is okay to lie about a small thing if it means a greater good would come out of it. But it is certainly not something you want to get in the practice of. The kind of example I am talking about is lying to the Ghestopo saying that you are not hiding Jews when you actually are because a lie is a less bad moral thing than murder.

But to the point about this allowance to lie, how much can you bend things and not tell the truth for the sake of others? If I have a wife and my wife asks me if I like her outfit and I don't, can I lie to her and tell her I like it when I don't? There are replete examples of this in everyday life.

What about trying to distract from the truth someone is saying to keep the peace? What if one person feels someone is being insensitive with the truth they are saying, so the person says some completely unrelated truth to distract from the uncomfortable truth that one person is saying, which can hurt someone's feelings? To me, this is a logical fallacy. If someone has a preoccupation in believing that water is itchy, and I say, "No, water is wet," and then someone else thinks me telling the person, "Water is wet," will hurt their feelings and they say, "People can die from falling a long distance into water." That is also true, but it is actually cruel to the person who believes that water is itchy since it does not actually get them to see the faulty of their belief that water is wet, which is a correction to their view. In short, you have to let people correct other people even if it is uncomfortable for the person. Sometimes, the truth hurts, and in essence, all growth is based on discomfort in some way. In fact, I believe that when you have to change your mind about something that you used to think is true, it is quite a painful experience. But in the end, it actually helps you grow closer to being truthful in your orientation toward reality.

So the next time you see someone correcting someone else about something false that person believes, let it go. Let them struggle with the truth the person is telling them. Because if you interject yourself in that situation to "spare their feelings," you are literally being the devouring mother who eats her young in an effort to save them.

 

[Cognisant]

But to the point about this allowance to lie, how much can you bend things and not tell the truth for the sake of others? If I have a wife and my wife asks me if I like her outfit and I don't, can I lie to her and tell her I like it when I don't? There are replete examples of this in everyday life.

I think that's less a matter of truth as it is a matter of tact, in such everyday examples there's usually something you can say which isn't lying, but still sounds good.

"Do you like my outfit?"
"My love, whatever makes you happy makes me happy."

There's very few situations in which you're forced to tell an outright lie, when you cannot simply refuse to answer or say something irrelevant and nice.

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Regarding everything else you have written here, I totally agree, which I find baffling given that you have asserted your belief in the supernatural. I agree there is more to everything than we currently know, and I cannot assert what doesn't exist as that would be proving a negative which can only be done if the negative in question is somehow self contradictory. But what I don't understand is how the supernatural can exist without being natural as the only distinction between the two is that one can be studied and the other cannot.

I can study whales but I cannot study fairies, because if I could study fairies then they wouldn't be supernatural, which has nothing to do with the nature of fairies. My point being that the term "supernatural" exists solely as a barrier to study, to assert that something exists but not in a manner in which it can be studied as a prerequisite of its existence.

And as I explained the only reason I see to assert this supernatural status is to keep something in a semi-fictional state where it is subjective, you can assert whatever you want about it because nobody can correct you, a fairy can be whatever you want it to be.

This seems kind of pagan to me, I mean what else is the distinction between a real animal and a pagan spirit guide other than one is natural and the other is supernatural, and as a supernatural (read: subjective) entity it can be a totem, it can be an idol, it can be whatever you want it to be.

 

[Old Things]

But to the point about this allowance to lie, how much can you bend things and not tell the truth for the sake of others? If I have a wife and my wife asks me if I like her outfit and I don't, can I lie to her and tell her I like it when I don't? There are replete examples of this in everyday life.

I think that's less a matter of truth as it is a matter of tact, in such everyday examples there's usually something you can say which isn't lying, but still sounds good.

"Do you like my outfit?"
"My love, whatever makes you happy makes me happy."

There's very few situations in which you're forced to tell an outright lie, when you cannot simply refuse to answer or say something irrelevant and nice.

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Regarding everything else you have written here, I totally agree, which I find baffling given that you have asserted your belief in the supernatural. I agree there is more to everything than we currently know, and I cannot assert what doesn't exist as that would be proving a negative which can only be done if the negative in question is somehow self contradictory. But what I don't understand is how the supernatural can exist without being natural as the only distinction between the two is that one can be studied and the other cannot.

I can study whales but I cannot study fairies, because if I could study fairies then they wouldn't be supernatural, which has nothing to do with the nature of fairies. My point being that the term "supernatural" exists solely as a barrier to study, to assert that something exists but not in a manner in which it can be studied as a prerequisite of its existence.

And as I explained the only reason I see to assert this supernatural status is to keep something in a semi-fictional state where it is subjective, you can assert whatever you want about it because nobody can correct you, a fairy can be whatever you want it to be.

This seems kind of pagan to me, I mean what else is the distinction between a real animal and a pagan spirit guide other than one is natural and the other is supernatural, and as a supernatural (read: subjective) entity it can be a totem, it can be an idol, it can be whatever you want it to be.

I'd encourage you to wrestle with the data and examples that show some supernatural thing happening that have no natural explanation for them. As @Hadoblado tries to say, these things can't happen because anything in the universe can be studied. But what if there are "higher laws" that do not function the same way natural laws function? For example, some Christians posit that angels are simply higher-dimensional beings who do not play by the same rules that we three-dimensional beings operate on. All that is to say is that God is the greatest reality. That is how Christians, and Jews, and Muslims view God. They do not say that God is like us or functions the same way as humans. Rather, God is the most real being in existence because He transcends all physical laws, and He has to because he is the creator of these physical laws.

Here is a video I would encourage you to watch about some miracles. It is a discussion with some Christians and an atheist. I would ask you to say who you think is being the most reasonable with the data.

 

[Cognisant]

I'm not denying the existence of the unknown, there very well could be higher planes of existence and ways of healing people that are yet unknown to us. But just because something isn't understood doesn't mean that it cannot be understood, that is the distinction between the natural and supernatural.

We don't fully understand how black holes work, they seem to break the known laws of physics, that doesn't make them supernatural, we don't know how they work but they must work somehow.

Likewise if an angel appeared and cured someone's cancer, we don't know how it did that, but it must have been done somehow. There's no reason to assume that it must be fundamentally unknowable, unless you have some ulterior motive.

 

[Old Things]

I'm not denying the existence of the unknown, there very well could be higher planes of existence and ways of healing people that are yet unknown to us. But just because something isn't understood doesn't mean that it cannot be understood, that is the distinction between the natural and supernatural.

We don't fully understand how black holes work, they seem to break the known laws of physics, that doesn't make them supernatural, we don't know how they work but they must work somehow.

Likewise if an angel appeared and cured someone's cancer, we don't know how it did that, but it must have been done somehow. There's no reason to assume that it must be fundamentally unknowable, unless you have some ulterior motive.

That is just a faith that nature can answer everything.

 

[Cognisant]

In theory yes, but that doesn't make it feasible, for example a stable wormhole may be theoretically possible but they may not occur naturally and are infeasible to create artificially, so we may never be able to study one.

But that doesn't' make wormholes supernatural.

I'm saying the supernatural is very specifically that which is asserted to exist but in such a manner that it cannot be studied, because the manner in which it exists is outside of the scope of the possibility of understanding.

For example a supernatural clock would be a clock with no mechanism, there's nothing turning the hands, no energy source, no mechanism keeping time, the hands on the clock move of their own accord. There's no mechanism hidden in the frame or in a higher spatial dimension, because that wouldn't be supernatural, that's just a clock that's made to appear supernatural.

An actual supernatural clock is a fundamental contradiction, it is fundamentally a thing that works despite it being impossible to do so, that is what precludes the possibility of understanding it.

I cannot assert what doesn't exist as that would be proving a negative which can only be done if the negative in question is somehow self contradictory.

Thus I can disprove the existence of supernatural clocks because the concept is fundamentally in contradiction with itself, it is inherently illogical, if a supernatural clocks can exist then 10 + 2 can equal 15.

That is just a faith that nature can answer everything.

As for my own view of truth, I adhere to the correspondence view of truth. That just means that whatever is true corresponds with reality.

Do you, or do you not, adhere to the correspondence view of truth?

Because you cannot do that without taking it on faith that nature can answer everything, or to put it in your own words: That whatever is true corresponds with reality.

 

[Old Things]

Thus I can disprove the existence of supernatural clocks because the concept is fundamentally in contradiction with itself, it is inherently illogical, if a supernatural clocks can exist then 10 + 2 can equal 15.

No one is saying natural things can become supernatural. It's a category error. The supernatural is not something natural, just with weird properties. It is a different thing from the natural.

Because you cannot do that without taking it on faith that nature can answer everything, or to put it in your own words: That whatever is true corresponds with reality.

I'd just say my view of reality is bigger than yours. In my view, there is both natural and supernatural things that fit under the umbrella of reality.

 

[Cognisant]

I don't have faith in reality being reality, that's a given.

You have bad faith.

Bad faith (Latin: mala fides) is a sustained form of deception which consists of entertaining or pretending to entertain one set of feelings while acting as if influenced by another.[1] It is associated with hypocrisy, breach of contract, affectation, and lip service.[2] It may involve intentional deceit of others, or self-deception.

Bad faith - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Your belief in the supernatural proves you are lying about adhering to a correspondence view of truth.

 

[Old Things]

Your belief in the supernatural proves you are lying about adhering to a correspondence view of truth.

That is a ridiculous statement. Show me one philosopher who believes in miracles who adheres to the correspondence view of truth and thinks it is a problem for his view.

 

[Cognisant]

That's why philosophers don't believe in miracles.