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Truth: What is it, and do we really need it?

Started by TaintedAndDelish, December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM

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TaintedAndDelish


I recently posed these questions to a good friend of mine, and not so surprisingly, he squirmed in his pants as if afraid of the consequences of answering them. He dodged the question by stating that the concept of "Truth"  was not so easily defined. The idea of defining what truth is was rather interesting, but in this case, the question was  used as a smoke screen or delay tactic. I thought that this would be an interesting topic for discussion, so here are my questions:

1. What is truth?

2. Does it matter if our beliefs are true or not?

3. How does one go about determining if something is true or not?



Scribbles

#1
Oooo, interesting questions! *Puts on thinky cap*

Fish Hooks - Milo and Bea use the Scientific Method

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM1. What is truth?

For the individual, the truth is characterized by our own experiences and perceptions, so that can make it a bit difficult to define. I think it's important to simply keep an open mind, no matter how hard that can be at times.


Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM2. Does it matter if our beliefs are true or not?

I'm hestitant to speak of the truth of them but I certainly feel that our beliefs themselves matter. They can give us strength or direction when times are difficult.


Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM3. How does one go about determining if something is true or not?

There are probably many ways to go about finding "truth" we just need to be careful about obsessing over them...




Out of curiosity, do these questions tie-in with religion?
AA and OO
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TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: Scribbles on December 12, 2012, 12:23:32 AM

Out of curiosity, do these questions tie-in with religion?


I think that it should be evaluated without concern over the consequences - with a neutral sense of detachment. Yes, they *could* be applied to many concepts including religion.

Deamonbane

1. A. Truth is facts. Concrete evidence, without the involvement of feelings, emotions, or beliefs on the matter. Truth is impartial. How we interpret the truth is another matter.

2.A. Beliefs are how we interpret the facts, and sometimes can interfere with one's assessment of the truth. Therefore, in our minds, our beliefs will always be the 'truth', and therefore, in essence, it doesn't, because beliefs should be end result of the overall interpretations of truth. Granted, a lot of the times it can be the other way around.

3.A. I think that the only way that one can go about the collection of data necessary for the determination of truth would be if one yourself are impartial to the situation, entering it without an opinion formed, and without forming an opinion based one's feelings, predetermined beliefs and somebody else's prejudgement on the matter, as that other person could be presenting the facts as they viewed them in a lopsided manner, not on purpose, but because their own judgement on the matter is compromised. Thus, certain people could be, in my opinion, determined to be unfit to present the unbiased, irrevocable truth on certain matters.
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

BraveEarth

Quote from: Deamonbane on December 12, 2012, 05:35:53 AM
1. A. Truth is facts. Concrete evidence, without the involvement of feelings, emotions, or beliefs on the matter. Truth is impartial. How we interpret the truth is another matter.

2.A. Beliefs are how we interpret the facts, and sometimes can interfere with one's assessment of the truth. Therefore, in our minds, our beliefs will always be the 'truth', and therefore, in essence, it doesn't, because beliefs should be end result of the overall interpretations of truth. Granted, a lot of the times it can be the other way around.

Okay I disagree here due to the limited nature of our perspective of the world around us. There fore Absolute Truth is unattainable. And because of this to put such a absolute definition of the concept really can't work for a useable concept or definition.

TaintedAndDelish

At what point is truth not attainable?
What is absolute truth?

xyloph

I'd just like to point out that these questions are some of the bases of the philosophic subfield of epistemology, and that if you're looking for stuff to read on the topic that's a good place to start.

The answer to the questions is that there isn't simply one answer, there are as many epistemologies as there are people to have them, and often times you'll have separate epistemologies for separate sorts of inquiry. What I consider "truth" when I'm talking to a friend about a TV show is very different than when I'm writing an article or conducting an experiment.

Aight peace.

BraveEarth

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 14, 2012, 12:11:49 AM
At what point is truth not attainable?
What is absolute truth?


The point at which you believe what you say to be truth in irrefutable. I would say.

Absolute Truth is something that is pure in logic reason, with out the taint that perspective limits upon it.

TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: BraveEarth on December 14, 2012, 01:10:11 AM
The point at which you believe what you say to be truth in irrefutable. I would say.

That would mean that I cannot state that 1=1 is an irrefutable fact? To say that 1=1 is not factual would not be truthful.
I may be missing the point here?

Quote from: BraveEarth on December 14, 2012, 01:10:11 AM
Absolute Truth is something that is pure in logic reason, with out the taint that perspective limits upon it.

Some would say that we perceive the world through a warped, imperfect lense. That's true, but how accurate does that perception need to be for that distortion to make a significant difference - to negate the value of one's perception?

Take a large engineering feat like the successful building and deployment of a spacecraft. Such a machine could not be constructed without a serious degree of factual information and accuracy. Without real, usable truth, it would never work.

I've heard people use this warped lense argument to lessen the assertion that we can indeed possess good, accurate knowledge and see things accurately, but I question how credible the argument is in light of some of the current  technological things that people have made.

Quote from: xyloph on December 14, 2012, 12:50:10 AM
I'd just like to point out that these questions are some of the bases of the philosophic subfield of epistemology, and that if you're looking for stuff to read on the topic that's a good place to start.

The answer to the questions is that there isn't simply one answer, there are as many epistemologies as there are people to have them, and often times you'll have separate epistemologies for separate sorts of inquiry. What I consider "truth" when I'm talking to a friend about a TV show is very different than when I'm writing an article or conducting an experiment.

Aight peace.

Does it not have some of the same properties though? Would you agree that truth by definition, cannot contradict itself?





xyloph

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 14, 2012, 01:41:20 AMDoes it not have some of the same properties though? Would you agree that truth by definition, cannot contradict itself?

no.

TaintedAndDelish

Care to elaborate?


( Just a note, if I sound argumentative, I'm not trying to be. I just find it interesting to pick apart stuff like this and understand it better. )

xyloph

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 14, 2012, 01:52:12 AM
Care to elaborate?


( Just a note, if I sound argumentative, I'm not trying to be. I just find it interesting to pick apart stuff like this and understand it better. )

Well, people disagree with each other, and believe self-contradictory things, so of course truth contradicts itself.

TaintedAndDelish

If I contradict myself, then what  claim to be truth wasn't truth in the first place. I may have thought it was, but it wasn't if it proved to be untrue.

Perhaps you're saying that a person can be truthful, though incorrect? I would say in that case that what they honestly thought was truth, simply was not. Were honest and truthful, but misinformed.  I think the key here is the difference between the act of being truthful, and a "truth"


Pumpkin Seeds

Science has many paradoxes.  There are many contradictions in mathematics that are held to be true.  An argument could be raised that the whole truth is not understood, but that does not mean that the contradictions and paradoxes presented are not true.

Sabby

Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM
2. Does it matter if our beliefs are true or not?

I do not wish to make this a religious debate, but I have an example I'd like to use.

Someone is trapped under a fallen building. They pray to God to let them be rescued. They are saved 2 days later. They naturally assume God protected them.

But the praying had lowered their breathing rate and allowed them to stay calm. This was what helped them survive the enclosed space with limited oxygen. Now the question is 'what's the harm of the persons belief if it saved them?'.

No immediate harm, that I can see. It would be better we learn to remain calm in danger, and why it is helpful, then to have a roundabout answer. If we simply let it be believed that it was prayer that saved this person, then why not have the mayor publicly pray for rain, like has happened recently? It saved the trapped person, why wouldn't it save a towns livelihood? Why not pray for a friends alcoholism to stop? Or for a disease to fade? The trapped person was saved by prayer, the alcoholic and the cancerous should pray as well, right?

And there in lies the danger of choosing belief over truth. Belief influences your choices. Choices shape the world. A world based on comfortable falsehoods is no world I want to live in.

Oniya

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 14, 2012, 11:02:37 AM
There are many contradictions in mathematics that are held to be true.

Other than their use in 'proof by contradiction' (in which a falsehood is assumed and then proved to be impossible, such as SQRT(2) being rational), could you give me an example of one?  Because honestly, I can't recall a single contradiction from my studies.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
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Pumpkin Seeds

The concept of parallel lines meeting and the idea that 1 does not equal 1 are all part of mathematics.  Depending on which theorem or part used, there are all manner of things that can come about.  Statistics also has odd formulas whereby almost any number of things can be extrapolated from the same data, even though they might say different things.

Deamonbane

Quote from: Sabby on December 14, 2012, 12:21:49 PM
I do not wish to make this a religious debate, but I have an example I'd like to use.

Someone is trapped under a fallen building. They pray to God to let them be rescued. They are saved 2 days later. They naturally assume God protected them.

But the praying had lowered their breathing rate and allowed them to stay calm. This was what helped them survive the enclosed space with limited oxygen. Now the question is 'what's the harm of the persons belief if it saved them?'.

No immediate harm, that I can see. It would be better we learn to remain calm in danger, and why it is helpful, then to have a roundabout answer. If we simply let it be believed that it was prayer that saved this person, then why not have the mayor publicly pray for rain, like has happened recently? It saved the trapped person, why wouldn't it save a towns livelihood? Why not pray for a friends alcoholism to stop? Or for a disease to fade? The trapped person was saved by prayer, the alcoholic and the cancerous should pray as well, right?

And there in lies the danger of choosing belief over truth. Belief influences your choices. Choices shape the world. A world based on comfortable falsehoods is no world I want to live in.
Well, that is one way to put it. I prefer this way, however.

I forget who precisely said this, or if these were precisely his words," Belief is the opiate of the people." Consider it this way: Opium was originally used as a painkiller on the battlefield, hence the name of one of its derivatives, Heroin (A female hero). While it was good for that use, if used in excess, it turned into a dangerously addictive habit. The same with beliefs. It dulls the pain of life, giving a person hope, and a standard to live by. However, when fanaticism is involved, then it becomes dangerous. When a person is dying of cancer, or when a city needs rain, what difference will praying for it make? Is it better when it provide hope, even when it is a false one, or should people despair instead, and give up all hope?

However, when belief turns into something that warps everything that you see, where people that don't believe are in terrible error, something which you feel the need to correct, by force if necessary, if it causes you to turn a blind eye to facts that do not support or actively come in contradiction of said belief, then it is time to put it under the microscope.

Belief in itself isn't bad. You can't judge belief in an entirety scope, in the same fashion that you shouldn't judge all medicine because it is the basis for the discovery of biological weapons, torture, and other such unpleasantness, disregarding the fact that it helps billions of people all over the world. False hope is sometimes better than no hope at all. Plus, who knows? When all else fails, there might be a God, and he might even give you a hand. What's the harm in asking?
Angry Sex: Because it's Impolite to say," You pissed me off so much I wanna fuck your brains out..."

Sabby

Of course belief is not bad. I believe ghosts may exist. I have no proof, and I'm ready for a day when they are proven a scientific impossibility. I will then accept that ghosts as I've known them simply do not exist. My belief is and will always be based on reality. No, that isn't 'absolute truth' as people have thrown around, but who needs absolute truth?

1 + 1 = 2. Is this absolute truth? No. You don't know if the laws of time and space can somehow be manipulated to make it equal 3. But all methods we have constructed to measure the value of something have shown the same result. We are justified in claiming that 1 + 1 = 2 is true, and until such time as 1 + 1 = 3 is a possibility, to believe it does can make 2 + 2 = 6.

If the basis of something is incorrect, all methods built upon it are flawed. This is why it matters if our conclusions are based on fact. Two methods that reach the same conclusion are not necessarily equal.

Oniya

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 14, 2012, 01:33:13 PM
The concept of parallel lines meeting and the idea that 1 does not equal 1 are all part of mathematics.  Depending on which theorem or part used, there are all manner of things that can come about.  Statistics also has odd formulas whereby almost any number of things can be extrapolated from the same data, even though they might say different things.

The concept of parallel lines meeting (or for that matter, multiple parallel lines through a point not on a given line) is not contradictory to parallel lines never meeting, because you are leaving out half of the statement. 

Parallel lines on a plane never meet.  End of discussion, stop.  There is also only one line in a plane parallel to another line in that same plane through a point not on the given plane.

Straight lines (actually geodesics) on a sphere always meet.  They can be visualized as 'great circles' (circles that include the diameter of the sphere), and are commonly used in air navigation.

On a saddle-shaped surface,
there can be multiple geodesics that will never meet. 

The three geometries refer to completely different surfaces, and as such, do not contradict each other.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Pumpkin Seeds

But then are they parallel?  If the lines are to always meet then they are not parallel because parallel lines do not meet.  Also, if I remember correctly parallel lines on the same plane do intersect at the point infinity.

Oniya

You'll note that in the spherical example, I did not refer to them as parallel.  I referred to them as 'straight' (defined as the shortest distance between two points).

As for the 'point at infinity', that's a concept involved in the construct known as the Riemann sphere, used in projective geometry - again, you're talking about something different than Euclidean space.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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Pumpkin Seeds

#22
Yes, the infinity point is used concept is used in non-Euclidean geometry, which is the geometry used to bring about talk of spheres with their large circles and the parallels of latitude.  Too much math, making my head hurt.

The line is a paraphrasing of Karl Marx.

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.

Sabby

Maybe I don't properly understand the topic, but what does a lengthy Marx quote have to do with the supposed importance of truth?

TaintedAndDelish

I think this quote from Marx was in reference to daemonbane's post about "belief".

Regarding Sabby's assertion that one cannot be certain that addition will always work the same from now until eternity,  I would agree that we cannot predict the future or prove that the universe will never change that drastically, however I would argue that this condition or state in which the laws of math/physics act so differently would need to be represented as an additional variable.

  1 + 1 = 2 when state=A
  1 + 1 = 3 when state=B

Regarding the need for truth, I like to visualize one's knowledge as a tall, complex machine or building. The foundation needs to be solid and well planned as the rest of the building will rest on it. If the foundation is badly flawed, the building may collapse. Likewise, as the building is constructed, its parts attach and join along the way. Bricks are cemented to bricks, glass is attached to the window openings, etc... If certain parts of the house are left out or if we substitute loaves of bread for bricks, grey icing for mortar, or use lead pipes instead of copper, the building may look OK at first, but falter later.

It appears to me that when we learn things, we associate one perceived truth with another.  They sort of mesh and support one another to form a concrete representation of reality - much like the building illustrated above. I use past experience to make predictions about the unknown. Much of my ability to judge is based on experience, knowledge, belief(true or false), etc... if my beliefs are sound, my predictions will likely be sound. When I was young, I stepped on a bee's nest and got stung from head to toe by an angry swarm. From then on, I perceived bees as being "angry, threatening, and dangerous" based on my experience - despite having learned later on that they normally don't sting unless provoked or threatened. Here, false belief had a greater influence on my behavior and reactions than learned knowledge.



Oniya

I still haven't found any references to 1 being not equal to 1.

As for 1+1 equaling 2 and not something else, (well, it can equal 102, but only if you're in a binary base system) I would refer to Russell and Whitehead's 'Principia Mathematica', but only if you have a couple days and a full bottle of ibuprofen to kill.  It's three very large books, and they finish up the proof somewhere in volume 2 - after proving that 1 exists, addition exists, and 2 exists.  I think there may even be a bit about proving that = exists, but I gave up three-quarters of the way in.  (Fscking reference library hours.)
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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TaintedAndDelish

I think the idea is that if the laws of physics were to change due to some  unimaginable event - something as monumental as the big bang.

Oniya

See, I've actually been listening to lectures about that very thing recently (thanks to an inquisitive 11-year-old), and something that cataclysmic would require a complete unraveling and re-creating of the universe - meaning that none of us (or our future progeny, or the progeny of any species that exists now or in the future, even to the point of assuming that black holes have consciousness) will have the opportunity to experience it.  We would be reduced to our components - possibly down to strings - and absolutely nothing of the current state of things (on a universal scale) will exist.  Game over, hit the reset button, new experiment.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Pumpkin Seeds

I may have been making a reference to the 0.9999999 equals 1.  Not so much that 1 does not equal 1.  Misspoke.  As I said, math gives me a headache and is a long way from my subject.  Science I'm good, math I'm not. 

Lithos

#29
Here is my view of it.

You could say that physical truth (by truth here i mean validity of either theory or accepted physical law) is something you can use to make predictions that are true to the greatest accuracy of observations available at the time. There have been many different truths and there will no doubt be many more. There is no such thing as total accuracy of observation, and in some things (quantum physics) the very observation tampers with the result so things get tricky there. I suppose in things between two people for example, truth would be something that is percievable to totally unbiased observer. Just like totally accurate observation there is no totally unbiased observer so there, too some sort of "ultimate" truth will probably always elude us.

Newtonian physics were accurate enough to get man to the moon, theory of relativity was accurate enough to give us things like GPS (without taking changes in flow of time relative to speed to account, accuracy of gps system would deteriorate by 10 kilometers each day, so would have been useless very soon after launch.). Getting more accurate truth in physical sense has nice rewards for sure, these things matter very concretely for our everyday lives.

The source for the deterioration rate that i cited is here, i am not sure that I would remember it if somebody asks later: http://www.astronomy.ohio-state.edu/~pogge/Ast162/Unit5/gps.html
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Caehlim

#30
Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 11, 2012, 11:46:12 PM
I recently posed these questions to a good friend of mine, and not so surprisingly, he squirmed in his pants as if afraid of the consequences of answering them. He dodged the question by stating that the concept of "Truth"  was not so easily defined. The idea of defining what truth is was rather interesting, but in this case, the question was  used as a smoke screen or delay tactic. I thought that this would be an interesting topic for discussion, so here are my questions:

1. What is truth?

I believe that we each have our subjective experience of whatever reality is out there. It's not true per se, but it is important because all of the pleasure, pain, justice, love, good and evil in our lives is contained within our own subjective experience. All the things that truly matter are subjective, however...

Quote2. Does it matter if our beliefs are true or not?

... As time goes by, we learn that simply acting on our subjective experience alone rarely allows us to control our lives and get the results we are hoping for. In order to actually get anything done we have to understand how our actions shape the future sensations that we experience. The only reliable way in my experience to get this done is to form a model in our head of what 'reality' is like and to learn its rules, at least enough to roughly predict the outcome of our actions upon our subjective experience.

Quote3. How does one go about determining if something is true or not?

You can't. But you can see if something is close enough to true, by observing how it affects your ability to predict the personal consequences of your actions.

In the end your beliefs may not be correct, but they can be good enough for practical purposes and that's good enough for me.
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Caehlim

#31
Quote from: TaintedAndDelish on December 14, 2012, 01:41:20 AM
That would mean that I cannot state that 1=1 is an irrefutable fact?

It's not a fact at all. It's a convention of formal logic*. We have all agreed to construct the language in which we discuss the universe in such a way that 1 = 1. But this doesn't say anything at all about reality itself, we just invented it so that we can understand one another when we talk.

There are other forms of human communication in which 1 does not equal 1. Sarcasm, parody and humour in general being the most obvious examples. Because we know the rules of these ways of talking, we can all still understand what one another means.

Edit:
* I was actually thinking of A = A when I said this was a convention of formal logic. 1 = 1 is obviously a more specific example and is actually a convention of formal mathematics. Still, the same idea applies none the less.

I believe this also forms one of the four Axioms of mathematics but it's been a looooong time since I've read mathematical philosophy, so you might have to take that with a grain of salt.
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Oniya

It would be the Axiom of Equality.  Without putting too fine a point on it, it's the very definition of equality, and without it, we'd have no business even talking about the subject.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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Sethala

Hm, interesting topic...

First, about the whole 1=1 thing, I did actually find a "proof" somewhere the ends with 1 not being equal to 1, but it involves dividing by zero (technically, having a denominator of "a - b" and then defining a = b, making the denominator a - a).  So that might be what some of you are thinking of.

Back to the topic, though.  My answers:

1. Truth is factual, impartial information, whether we can actually obtain that information or not.  For instance, say someone decides to bury a box under his home.  We have no way of knowing what's in the box short of either asking the person, or digging it up ourselves.  That doesn't change the fact that whatever he put in the box, is what's in the box.  Similarly, if we find a dinosaur skeleton, we can say for a fact that that dinosaur somehow died.  We won't be able to tell how it died, though we can possibly make some guesses based on the condition the bones were in and how they were positioned.  The "truth" in that case is how the dinosaur actually died, even though no one can actually say for certain what that is.

2. It is important if you make decisions based on those beliefs.  For instance, let's say that my personal banker is a young-earth creationist (in other words, he believes that God created all life as it is now about 6000-10000 years ago, despite all evidence to the contrary).  Now, being a banker, what his belief of the world's origins doesn't actually matter - as long as he can still do my banking, he can believe whatever he wants.  However, if he were a high school biology teacher instead, his belief of how old the earth is and whether or not we all evolved would definitely impact how well he does his job.  Thus, his beliefs being based on truth would be significantly important.  Similarly, if he had decided back in September to sell off all of my assets because the would would end in December, that would definitely be a bad thing for me; again, he's letting his personal beliefs interfere with his decisions, which can have disastrous results.

3. The scientific method has proven itself to be the best way for us to determine whether something is true or not.  In short, you simply observe something, try and predict what's causing it, determine a way to test whether your guess is correct or not, then test it.  Most importantly however, you need to come up with a result that would prove your guess false.  If you try to say that something is the way it is "because God made it that way", you need to come up with some result that would convince you that your answer is false before you test it; if you would always assume your guess is correct no matter what result you get, you're not actually testing anything.

That being said, sometimes there's just no way for us to know if something is true or not.  In that case however, you should still try to get an answer that's as true as possible; throwing around "God did it" as a panacea for every single question you have does not actually help at all.

mj2002

Quote from: Sabby on December 14, 2012, 01:58:34 PM
Of course belief is not bad. I believe ghosts may exist. I have no proof, and I'm ready for a day when they are proven a scientific impossibility. I will then accept that ghosts as I've known them simply do not exist. My belief is and will always be based on reality. No, that isn't 'absolute truth' as people have thrown around, but who needs absolute truth?
This is a weak position in my opinion. First of all you're waiting for the day when a negative is proven. This of course will never happen. As such, you've now allowed the possibility that everything may exist. This makes your position useless because every figment of someone's imagination is now considered 'possible' by these standards. While that may technically be true (because one can't be absolutely sure that they're not possible) it devalues the whole process of distinguishing what true and what is not true to the point where it is meaningless. Logically this could be a valid position, until you consider the overwhelming evidence that shows that trying to find evidence for a claim instead, does actually work. If you continue down this line, then there is no reason to assume ghosts exist.

As for the more general question, how does one determine what is true. I like these two rules;

1) Independent verification (basically the Scientific Method)
2) Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

Sabby

Quote from: mj2002 on December 27, 2012, 02:39:58 AM
This is a weak position in my opinion. First of all you're waiting for the day when a negative is proven.

I never said that :P Ghosts aren't even defined. But eventually we'll learn things that will make the concept more or less plausible. We may never prove or disprove it, but I'm not waiting for an absolute. My 'suspicion' (because I realize belief is the wrong word) is a shaky one at best, and that reflects the evidence.

If one day we discover something that lends a small amount of plausibility to the concept of ghosts, my suspicions will then be strengthened a small amount. Likewise, something that makes the concept of ghosts seem slightly more unlikely then before will make me slightly more doubtful. But I will never claim that they exist simply because I have suspicions.

mj2002

Quote from: Sabby on December 27, 2012, 03:42:29 AM
I never said that :P Ghosts aren't even defined. But eventually we'll learn things that will make the concept more or less plausible. We may never prove or disprove it, but I'm not waiting for an absolute. My 'suspicion' (because I realize belief is the wrong word) is a shaky one at best, and that reflects the evidence.

If one day we discover something that lends a small amount of plausibility to the concept of ghosts, my suspicions will then be strengthened a small amount. Likewise, something that makes the concept of ghosts seem slightly more unlikely then before will make me slightly more doubtful. But I will never claim that they exist simply because I have suspicions.
Like I said, you could take up this position for any figment of one's imagination and you still wouldn't get anywhere. I think we're somewhere on the same level though. I just word it like this; Ghosts probably don't exist, so the concept shouldn't be taken seriously. If evidence is found proving otherwise, then the possibility can be taken somewhat seriously. Perhaps even better; I'm almost absolutely sure that ghosts don't exist. There is no known evidence, yet there is an overwhelming amount of evidence that shows that ghosts are just an idea, a concept made up by men. Fiction.

Sabby

On that we agree. I admit I misused the word belief, so my suspicion of ghosts is a very fragile one for the reasons you stated. No physical evidence whatsoever, and plenty of cultural reasons to explain the concept. Also that whole vibrating pipes thing really threw a wrench in it for me, so my suspicions have been severely lowered.

The only 'evidence' is the same kind you get for UFOs and Angels. Eyewitness accounts. And no one in their right mind would deem something true just because someone says they saw it. Now, if billions of people see it every year, thats another thing, but something that so many people apparently see would be a lot easier to track down, wouldn't it? And yet there's not one cup of ectoplasm to attest to these eyewitness accounts.

UFO's, however, get slightly more credence for the simple fact of how unlikely it is we are alone in the universe. Once again, the physical evidence does not exist, like with ghosts, but the theory is still slightly more credible.

I guess what I'm getting at is the plausibility of a concept is something we can and should measure in the absence of physical evidence, but it should never be a substitute.

Serephino

What is the truth?  Well, that depends on who you ask.  I know that many of you will not like that answer, but... that is the real truth.  Do ghosts exist?  Yes.  To me, that is truth.  Too many weird things have happened to me for me to believe otherwise.  We as beings are the sum of our experiences.  Another person who, say, is more scientifically minded and hasn't had the same experiences I have will say ghosts don't exist, and that is the truth to them.  Whether or not ghosts actually do exist is beside the point.  Each person's truth is based on their personality that has been shaped by environment.

My spiritual teacher once said to me the world can change for me, and yet, nothing changes.  What she meant by that is something could happen to me that would completely rock my world.  Such things have happened.  And yet, for everyone else who didn't have that experience, nothing changed.  Life went on as usual for the rest of the world.  Or, say it was scientifically proven that ghosts do exist.  That would change everything for us humans, and yet, nothing actually changed because the ghosts existed before their existence was proven, it's just that many people who didn't have the evidence didn't believe.

Me, I like to believe that anything really is possible.  Who am I to say that something isn't?  I am just an imperfect person on this planet with billions of other imperfect people.  If you can't prove a negative, then why not be open to possibilities?  I find life so much more interesting when I look at the world that way.  My truth is that there is so much more to this world than can be proven by science. 

Sabby

You are mistaking the word truth for belief. They are not the same thing. I can go into a lead box, erase my memory and render myself a completely blank slate. All I would know is that I am in a box, some kind of force holds me towards the ground, and that I lose strength as time passes. This is all I know based on my surroundings and feelings.

I can come up with ideas as to why this one side of the box attracts me, and the other five do not. Perhaps it has something to do with the groaning in my stomach. As time goes on, I find it harder to stay off of the floor. My stomach must need to rejoin the 6th surface of the box! It explains why it sounds so unhappy and why I am drawn to it.

So I disembowel myself to appease a slab of metal. I believe that it will allow me to fly and escape the box. Now, you people outside the box know this is idiotic. I'm going to kill myself if I do this. But I have no way of knowing that. I only know what is in this box, and I have come to this conclusion based on my experience in the box. Does my ignorance render my theory of disembowelled flight on par with the scientific theory of gravity?

TaintedAndDelish


While its true that different people have different ideas of what truth is, this difference of opinion does not change what truth is. Truth is correct. It's consistent, and it's never false. If it was inconsistent or false, it would not be truth but rather, something other than truth.

Can truth be discovered? Yes. Are we too stupid, flawed or imperfect to know truth? No, we have proven over time that we humans are quite capable discovering truths and putting that factual knowledge/information to use. Discovering truth is much easier when you use a sound method. When you use methods that are highly error prone, its much harder to discover truths.

If I assume that any new piece of information that pleases me must be truthful - because it makes me feel good, then I'm going to have a very hard time discovering truth. "Feels good", "Is pleasant to think about", "makes my colleagues nod and smile" and "doesn't force me to change my other beliefs" are all very inaccurate indicators of truth.

Does it matter if our beliefs are truthful? Yes. Beliefs that are not truthful lead to erroneous conclusions. For example, if I believe that reality is subjective - that I can leap from a tall building and choose to defy gravity if I really, really, truly believe it because reality is what you allow it to be, then I'll be sorely corrected when my body is smashed against the ground - assuming that I do not die from the resulting injuries.

Is it OK to just pick and choose false and truthful beliefs without much concern for the consequences?
Yes, but here's an example of the troubles that this will cause:


  • I believe that all men are abusive.
  • I believe that all women are gentle.
  • I believe that Pat is a man.

If I learn through trial and error that Pat is not abusive, but gentle instead, then I must now adjust my beliefs about men being abusive, or about Pat being a man because one of the two is clearly not correct. If he's gentle, then perhaps he's really a woman? I could get around this by just saying, "Well, you can never really be sure of anything", but that's replacing intelligence with ignorance. It's a cop out.

This is a tiny example of the logical errors that result from false beliefs. Think about all the interconnected knowledge that our minds hold. Having a core belief change can cause a huge ripple effect as illustrated above.

So how does one filter out untruths and false information?


  • Don't believe that something is true unless you or someone else can prove that it's true.
  • Make a clear distinction between fact, theory, and questionable information and judgments.
  • Refuse to allow your emotions to influence what you choose to believe.
  • Be prepared to dispose of your beliefs in favor of newer ones that are proven to be more accurate.
  • Use a sound, well thought out method to evaluate truths and rank any judgments made( fact, theory, speculation).

mrsjaz

@ TaintedAndDelish

I’m not very good at these types of debates but a couple of points struck me about your example, please correct me if I’m wrong but your example and the one above by Sabby seem to fit square pegs into round holes.
They appear god-modded and designed to leave nothing to chance; yours seems to say “I am without reason, unaware of depth perception and I’m jumping.” And Sabby’s seems… well godded - as in  “get out of this example if you can.” Both have a subjective nature (I think most if not all truth does) that although I understand them as being designed to show what you meant, they nevertheless betray a type of bias, an untrue and unrealistic situation. Can you set up examples that make your point if they have this characteristic? As I said both appear “unnatural” or unreal examples used for real life problematic questions. Is that fair? I’m not criticising.  And/or it is a case of extreme questions requiring extreme examples?   
   
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mj2002

Quote from: mrsjaz on December 28, 2012, 07:32:18 AM
@ TaintedAndDelish

I’m not very good at these types of debates but a couple of points struck me about your example, please correct me if I’m wrong but your example and the one above by Sabby seem to fit square pegs into round holes.
They appear god-modded and designed to leave nothing to chance; yours seems to say “I am without reason, unaware of depth perception and I’m jumping.” And Sabby’s seems… well godded - as in  “get out of this example if you can.” Both have a subjective nature (I think most if not all truth does) that although I understand them as being designed to show what you meant, they nevertheless betray a type of bias, an untrue and unrealistic situation. Can you set up examples that make your point if they have this characteristic? As I said both appear “unnatural” or unreal examples used for real life problematic questions. Is that fair? I’m not criticising.  And/or it is a case of extreme questions requiring extreme examples?   
   

I'm having trouble with your notion that "most if not all" truth is subjective. This is what I gather from your post, correct me if I am wrong. How can truth be subjective? That seems to go against its definition. If a 'truth' is different for other people, it either isn't a truth or it is just an ill defined truth that needs to be refined in order to remove bias.

Sabby

Mrsjaz, I don't understand. My example wasn't intended for you to find a way to beat it. It was an example of why subjective truth does not work. Ignorance does not somehow elevate your belief. That was all I meant by it. If it was unclear, then I'll restate it here in much simpler terms for you :)

You believe the Moon is made of cheese.

I believe it is a large rock.

Serephino is suggesting that we are both correct. I am saying that that is wrong. The words 'belief' and 'truth' are being mixed up. Belief in something does not need to be backed up. Elevating it to a truth, however, does need evidence.

Pumpkin Seeds

Truth being subjective is not a new concept and is pretty well argued throughout history.  For instance, taking the moon example, a good response would simple be how does someone "know" the moon is made out of rock?  Has anyone here been to the moon for certain to say that  the moon is rock and not some strange form of curdled milk?

Sabby

...we have been there o.o We brought back samples. We know how planetoids are formed, and that information rules out space milk congealing.

Quote from: Universe TodayThe composition of the Moon is a bit of a mystery. Although we know a lot about what the surface of the Moon is made of, scientists can only guess at what the internal composition of the Moon is. Here’s what we think the Moon is made of.

Like the Earth, the Moon has layers. The innermost layer is the lunar core. It only accounts for about 20% of the diameter of the Moon. Scientists think that the lunar core is made of metallic iron, with small amounts of sulfur and nickel. Astronomers know that the core of the Moon is probably at least partly molten.

This much we know. And that much allows us to make fairly accurate predictions. The core is PROBABLY sulfur and nickel based on our studies of the outside layers, but it could be a slightly different material. But not knowing for 100% certain what the core is comprised of does not make cheese an option.

Quote from: ContinuedOutside the core is the largest region of the Moon, called the mantle. The lunar mantle extends up to a distance of only 50 km below the surface of the Moon. Scientists believe that the mantle of the Moon is largely composed of the minerals olivine, orthopyroxene and clinopyroxene. It’s also believed to be more iron-rich than the Earth’s mantle.

The outermost layer of the Moon is called the crust, which extends down to a depth of 50 km. This is the layer of the Moon that scientists have gathered the most information about. The crust of the Moon is composed mostly of oxygen, silicon, magnesium, iron, calcium, and aluminum. There are also trace elements like titanium, uranium, thorium, potassium and hydrogen.

This is what we know. The composition of the crust is enough for us to reasonably rule out an inner layer and or core of cheese. Ignorance of this knowledge does not someone invalidate it, and subjective truth is and always has been absurd. Perspective does not change truth, only our view of it.

Oniya

I believe Pumpkin was referring to anyone here on E personally.  After all, there's nothing saying that those rocks had to come from the moon.  The reports could have been faked.  The specimens could be from right here on Earth.  Those photographs could have been made on a soundstage, and the film footage of astronauts walking done with a slow motion camera.

And for my final comment on that...
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Pumpkin Seeds

There is a certain amount of belief extended to the scientific community that the results, findings and such are indeed true.  Afterall, very few people have actually been to the moon and the samples recovered are distributed by only a select few sources.  Once more, this is simply casting a little shadow over a very simple concept so one can see how subjective truth can easily be expanded to more complex notions that are not so observable.

Sabby

Okay, where do you draw the line between subjective truth and a lack of an answer? Both are concepts you think exist, right? So they must both have their own criteria in order to be two separate concepts. So what is an example of something you think hasn't been answered yet, and something that is a subjective truth?

Pumpkin Seeds

I would suppose the line is between "knowing" something and not "knowing" something.  Just because something is subjective does not mean the conclusion was determined irrationally.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 28, 2012, 11:01:43 PM
There is a certain amount of belief extended to the scientific community that the results, findings and such are indeed true.  Afterall, very few people have actually been to the moon and the samples recovered are distributed by only a select few sources.  Once more, this is simply casting a little shadow over a very simple concept so one can see how subjective truth can easily be expanded to more complex notions that are not so observable.
The concept of independent verification justifies this belief. There has been no system (not that I am aware of anyway) that can compare to this, or even come close to providing the results that the scientific method has. Feel free to show alternatives.

I don't see how this leaves any room for subjective truths. Like I argued before, if there are any subjective truths they are ill defined or they're just not truths. What could be subjective is one's personal experience of certain truths. But that simply means that you're either right or wrong about them. Personal experience isn't relevant when it comes to determining what is true and what is not true.

Pumpkin Seeds

The scientific community has been wrong before even with idependent verification through articles printed in journals and has been swept up in a tide of popularity and false findings.  Hence why contradictory studies can both be published and upheld even while using the scientific method and independent verification.  Also, the scientific method is very narrow in scope and practice with a requirement for controlled enviroments and precise definitions.  Many discoveries are not made by the scientific method but rather through direct observation, personal expierence.  Later the findings are tested, but the discovery is through personal expierence and insight.

Subjective truth does have a place in science and in the world.  Subjective truth is even incorporated into various aspects of the scientific field and accounted for within the scientific method so that some form of testing can be done.  Yet subjective truth is still a up to the interpretation of the individual and so remains a personal expierence and a truth for that person.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 29, 2012, 01:39:10 AM
The scientific community has been wrong before even with idependent verification through articles printed in journals and has been swept up in a tide of popularity and false findings.  Hence why contradictory studies can both be published and upheld even while using the scientific method and independent verification.  Also, the scientific method is very narrow in scope and practice with a requirement for controlled enviroments and precise definitions.  Many discoveries are not made by the scientific method but rather through direct observation, personal expierence.  Later the findings are tested, but the discovery is through personal expierence and insight.

Subjective truth does have a place in science and in the world.  Subjective truth is even incorporated into various aspects of the scientific field and accounted for within the scientific method so that some form of testing can be done.  Yet subjective truth is still a up to the interpretation of the individual and so remains a personal expierence and a truth for that person.
The scientific community might have been wrong, but the method has not. Errors can all be attributed to incorrect application of the method. The research may be flawed, but I challenge you to show a flaw in the actual concept. That's not even mentioning that there's no system that comes even close. Subjective experiences on the other hand are as flawed as one can imagine. People's can 'feel' and 'experience' whatever they want to, but that doesn't mean they're right. The inaccuracy of human experience is so large its not even worth calculating. This makes experience almost entirely meaningless when it comes to determining what is truth and what isn't. It just degrades the concept of truth and turns it into "what people like the truth to be." This method has no reliable track record of making accurate predictions and is therefor vastly inferior, if not meaningless.

You're just changing the definition of truth to personal belief. We have a word for that already, it's called belief.

Pumpkin Seeds

Typically when something produces flawed results continually then there is a flaw to the concept and sytem.  Improper use is certainly an aspect, but then that is certainly a flaw to the system being so delicate and easily manipulated to produce false conclusions.  This means that even with the scientific method being utilized false truth can be expected.  Also the scientific method relies on human observation which, as you continual point out, is flawed.  Therefore something that relies on a flawed system and method of input is by extension flawed.  We just don't have anything better, but that does not mean the system is sound.

As for the use of the word belief, I would counter that most people know when they are expierencing pain.  People typically say "I am in pain."  That is taken as a true statement despite any method of objective detection.

mj2002

#54
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 29, 2012, 02:08:30 AM
Typically when something produces flawed results continually then there is a flaw to the concept and sytem.  Improper use is certainly an aspect, but then that is certainly a flaw to the system being so delicate and easily manipulated to produce false conclusions.  This means that even with the scientific method being utilized false truth can be expected.  Also the scientific method relies on human observation which, as you continual point out, is flawed.  Therefore something that relies on a flawed system and method of input is by extension flawed.  We just don't have anything better, but that does not mean the system is sound.

As for the use of the word belief, I would counter that most people know when they are expierencing pain.  People typically say "I am in pain."  That is taken as a true statement despite any method of objective detection.
You should start by pointing out where science produces flawed results continually then. It is also of interest to explain how it can be determined that these results are in fact false. Is there any way to determine this, other than the scientific method itself? This also shows the self-correcting mechanism of science, which is why it is so valuable. Yes, science relies on human observation which I am glad you agree is flawed. However, this flaw is corrected by independent verification, peer review, etc. This doesn't mean science is flawless, because it isn't. I don't see any alternative though. Science has a track record that is unparalleled by any other mechanism that I am aware of. I'm inviting everyone here to give examples of systems that are somewhat similarly reliable in making predictions.

Yes, people know when they're experiencing pain. They can 'feel' it, because they literally have senses for this. This can be objectively verified using science, because we know what causes pain and how signals are relayed to our brain. I would counter that the statement "I am in pain" is not necessarily true. It's a claim that someone can make, but perhaps they're lying. I'm not saying it is practical in all circumstances, but whether they are in fact in pain (assuming its physical pain, mental pain is a bit more difficult because of limited technology) can be verified. After this is done, it becomes a factual statement. Before that, it becomes an unverified claim that may or may not be true.



Strident

Is it true that there is no truth?

Take this statement

"There is no truth"

Is that statement true or false?
If it's true, then the statement is false
If it's false..then..well, it's false.

In either case, I should not believe it.

There is such a thing as truth. The difficulty is knowing what is true or false.

This is the different between ontology (What exists) and epistemology (how we get to know what exists)

There are many things which are ontological questions to which we have no epistemological access. It's a mistake to think that merely lacking epistemic access means there is nothing ontologically there to have access to.

For example, take the following statement:

"at 13:00GMT on 27/12/12 there were 2,657,434 people in Paris"

That statement is certainly either true or false. However, it's impossible to have epistemic access to the answer. How could you possibly know whether that statement is true or false? You can't. Assuming the ballpark figure is roughly plausible, (the population of paris is around 2.5million) we can't say with certainity if the specific figure given is correct...but it still is definitely either true or false.

It's suprising how often people make this logical error, of thinking that, just because one can't know the answer to a question, that therefore there is no answer.

Another equally common logical error is to think that negative propositional statements are, by default, more probably true than positive ones. and that therefore, in the absence of a reason to believe the positive statement, we are entitled to default to belief in the negative...buy that's another story. 

Pumpkin Seeds

There is, to date, no way to objectively measure pain.  The most recent article I have seen on the subject involved an MRI and burning the hand of patients.  Pain is subjective and the treatment of pain is based off subjective statements.  So treatment and therapy is based off a subjective truth that is real to the patient alone. 

So because you do not see anything better than science, then the scientific method is to be heralded as the greatest instrument for finding the truth.  Very subjective of you in that regard.  The scientific method has various flaws that keep the method from being universally applied and used.  Social scientists face quite a struggle in setting up the scientific method for social research and in defining measurable definitions.  Medicine likewise faces several barriers when making use of the scientific method.  Vaulted areas of physics do not use the method because the concepts they are using cannot be experimented upon but instead rely on mathematical equations.  Critical thinking and observation still serve as the corner stones of scientific discovery.  The scientific method is simply another tool.

Oniya

I just realized something - this thread has been all over the place trying to answer the first question, and hasn't even touched the second:  Do we really need truth?

I propose that while we may not need (or possibly be able to achieve) TRUTHTM, we at least need Truth, if only to have a common frame of reference to converse in.  If we're wandering around on the surface of the Earth, it's fine to stick with the 'truth' that the Earth is flat - until we have to fly from DC to Moscow to Tokyo and back to DC.  At that point, the Truth that the Earth is round is needed (or we have to do a lot of extra refueling).  Even then, it's fine to stick with the 'truth' that the sun and other planets go around the Earth - until we get into space-flight and have to factor in the Truth that Earth and the rest of the solar system orbits the sun.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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Lithos

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 29, 2012, 08:13:44 AM
There is, to date, no way to objectively measure pain.  The most recent article I have seen on the subject involved an MRI and burning the hand of patients.  Pain is subjective and the treatment of pain is based off subjective statements.  So treatment and therapy is based off a subjective truth that is real to the patient alone. 

So because you do not see anything better than science, then the scientific method is to be heralded as the greatest instrument for finding the truth.  Very subjective of you in that regard.  The scientific method has various flaws that keep the method from being universally applied and used.  Social scientists face quite a struggle in setting up the scientific method for social research and in defining measurable definitions.  Medicine likewise faces several barriers when making use of the scientific method.  Vaulted areas of physics do not use the method because the concepts they are using cannot be experimented upon but instead rely on mathematical equations.  Critical thinking and observation still serve as the corner stones of scientific discovery.  The scientific method is simply another tool.

The scientific method is the best tool there is, and that has been verified many, many times. Ability to get data when it is needed, ability to replicate experiments when it is needed, and ability at any time to present arguments and tests that disprove previously sound theory are all parts of a package that delivers the closest presentation of "truth" about something that we are ever able to get to. Physics still use scientific method as base, theories remain non verified till there is actual observation based evidence on the predictions that they produce. The current hunt for higgs boson is great example of that. The problems with using scientific method for social studies are simply problems of creating sound enough experiment setups, but lo and behold when research is important enough and enough work is performed to complete it, workable methods tend to be eventually found.

Many people seem to harbor the flawed idea of there being available absolute truth. This idea is popular to imagination based things like religion and illusions produced by certain mental disorders. Nature is as it is, and scientific method is the best way there is to get closer to figuring out how it actually works. No scientific discovery is the absolute truth and no discoverer even claims that. Each popular theory just is, as long as better one comes along, closest thing to explaining how some aspect of nature works before better describing and tested theory comes along. People who do not bother to go through this effort have absolutely nothing apart from products of their imagination.

Absolute truth does not exist, so far, and I doubt that being able to absolutely model everything is not possible till very far in the future. Its value is that it would be nice to know exactly how it works, at the moment we have to deal with only knowing to certain degree of accuracy. Where it comes to motion of planets for example and changes and fluctuations in passing of time, at the moment we only know to the degree of accuracy that we are able to measure. Whether absolute truth would be needed, it is hard to say for sure. It seems to be that knowing what is possible to the degree of measuring and utilization technology we are able to produce is enough in many cases. That also is all that there can be cause there does not seem to be others than us humans to figure it all out.
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mrsjaz

Sorry Sabby, I was really asking a question in a bad way. I simply wanted to know if there were “real” examples that I or anyone else could use to prove that belief and or subjective truth was not reliable proof.  And why people use cheese moons examples instead of real examples.

It was a bit of an aside I confess.  :-[

@ mj2002
QuoteI'm having trouble with your notion that "most if not all" truth is subjective. This is what I gather from your post, correct me if I am wrong. How can truth be subjective? That seems to go against its definition. If a 'truth' is different for other people, it either isn't a truth or it is just an ill defined truth that needs to be refined in order to remove bias.

My truth concerns my here and my now which to me is subjective, but outside of my subjectivity there exists an objective truth. 

"Often people will choose the assumptions that best fit the conclusion they prefer. In fact, psychological experiments show that most people start with conclusions they desire, then reverse engineer arguments to support them – a process called rationalization." ( from the Sceptics guide to the universe )

So removing bias becomes an objective in itself and very hard to do. :-\

 


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mj2002

Quote from: mrsjaz on December 29, 2012, 12:43:13 PM
My truth concerns my here and my now which to me is subjective, but outside of my subjectivity there exists an objective truth.
What distinguished your personal truth from beliefs?

mrsjaz

Quote from: mj2002 on December 29, 2012, 01:59:34 PM
What distinguished your personal truth from beliefs?
I think that's a hard question but... I have a very small belief system - very small, and I have a very large personal truth system. My personal truths are life affirming ones they help define who or what I am, I'm good at drawing and so on. My belief system appears more from what I choose  - I not a lover of the word belief, it feels random, and hard to convert to something positive. Do I believe in science? Yes sometimes, do I believe if faith? No. I'm not saying I'm correct in my view that's how I view my reality. Belief for me is the absence of knowing. My personal truths are things I know about myself.  :-)
         
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mj2002

Quote from: mrsjaz on December 29, 2012, 07:14:24 PM
I think that's a hard question but... I have a very small belief system - very small, and I have a very large personal truth system. My personal truths are life affirming ones they help define who or what I am, I'm good at drawing and so on. My belief system appears more from what I choose  - I not a lover of the word belief, it feels random, and hard to convert to something positive. Do I believe in science? Yes sometimes, do I believe if faith? No. I'm not saying I'm correct in my view that's how I view my reality. Belief for me is the absence of knowing. My personal truths are things I know about myself.  :-)
         

It sounds like your personal truths are more opinions about yourself and your skills.

TaintedAndDelish

Quote from: mrsjaz on December 28, 2012, 07:32:18 AM
@ TaintedAndDelish

I’m not very good at these types of debates but a couple of points struck me about your example, please correct me if I’m wrong but your example and the one above by Sabby seem to fit square pegs into round holes.

Debate is good. If I am wrong about anything I've posted, I hope someone will point out the flaws in my logic so that I may learn from it.

Quote
They appear god-modded and designed to leave nothing to chance; yours seems to say “I am without reason, unaware of depth perception and I’m jumping.” And Sabby’s seems… well godded - as in  “get out of this example if you can.”

God-modded? Well, that's the tricky thing about discovering the truth about something. Its easier to just remain uncertain and say that the truth of the matter is too obscure to ever be certain of it. With that sort of stance, you avoid being wrong, but you also avoid getting to the truth of the matter.

Quote
Both have a subjective nature (I think most if not all truth does) that although I understand them as being designed to show what you meant, they nevertheless betray a type of bias, an untrue and unrealistic situation. Can you set up examples that make your point if they have this characteristic? As I said both appear “unnatural” or unreal examples used for real life problematic questions. Is that fair? I’m not criticising.  And/or it is a case of extreme questions requiring extreme examples?   

Most of the arguments that I've heard for "subjective truth" have been illogical, so its hard to give more "realistic" examples. Here is an example.

1. The "Heavan's Gate" cult's belief in a UFO that would remove them from the earth while it was "recycled" or "rebooted" or whatever. This was very true to them, but was not an objective truth.

2. Hitler's belief that people of various races were inferior. This may have been true "to him", but it is not an objective truth.

Simply stating that a judgment about something is true, does not make it true. Saying that "everyone else" believes this statement or that this belief is very old does not make it any more true either. There was a time when it was common knowledge that the world was flat. This was just flat-out wrong, however such a two dimensional view may have been sufficient at the time for map making or defining land boundaries as Oniya illustrated.

The "flying spaghetti monster" is a made up, nonsensical entity - a mere character. To say that the F.S.M. is anything other than a made up character would be an inaccurate judgment (hence false). I can claim that knowledge of the F.S.M. comes through faith alone. I can argue that only the F.S.M. can bestow knowledge of itself to an individual. I can claim that those who do not believe in the F.S.M. are unenlightened, but that does not make my judgment of the F.S.M. any more true. I cannot prove that the F.S.M. (A real, living, conscious, noodly god with big, saggy meatballs ) does or does not exist, so its existence must be considered a theory until it can be proven - even though it may seem to be very real to me.


Pumpkin Seeds

To this point in the conversation the subjective debate has focused on the concrete, which is not really where the argument rests.  The moon being rock and cheese, while having some glimmer of truth in meaning, is rather ridiculous in practice.  When items are not so readily assessed and observed is when the notion of a subjective truth can be applied.  Subjectively a person might say that someone else is smart, but another might say they are not.  The basis behind this ranking of intelligence rests on comparison of one observer’s experience with intelligence to the experience of another with intelligence.  Now objectively a ranking system and measurement system can be established.  Once that has been setup then all parties can agree as to whether this instrument accurately measures the subject.  If all parties agree then an “objective” process can be established.  Problem is when no agreement can be made on the tool of measurement.

Subjective judgment is then used to rank intelligence and in some cases different types of intelligence.  So one might say that a quarterback having to make snap tactical judgments, gauge distance rapidly, keep track of multiple elements in a short time frame and socially command a team of people larger than himself is intelligent.  Another might say the scientist that critically examines piles of information, constructs experiments to measure abstract ideas and makes discoveries is intelligent.  Still another may point toward the artist that creates things from seemingly nothing, can derive a multitude of ideas from a single subject on near command and has the ability to view ideas from multiple angles and translate those ideas across boundaries as being intelligent.  There are a multitude of other examples, but in the end the dilemma is the same.  Which is more intelligent than the other and which form of intellect do we encourage?

There are other areas where subjective truth and judgment are paramount.  Places where objective truth cannot be reached due to lack of agreement on the tools of measurement.  Concepts like Good and bad (even evil), ideas such as freedom and justice and very real notions like life and death are all subjective truths that are not easily or even cannot be measured objectively.  Such truths are up to the individual that must then use those truths that cannot be measured objectively to carry out their lives and affect others.  The example of intelligence can be shown in this way as administrators must decide what programs in schools to fund and which to cut, ranking the importance of intelligence against each other to find the best outcome.

mj2002

#65
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 03:53:29 AM
To this point in the conversation the subjective debate has focused on the concrete, which is not really where the argument rests.  The moon being rock and cheese, while having some glimmer of truth in meaning, is rather ridiculous in practice.  When items are not so readily assessed and observed is when the notion of a subjective truth can be applied.  Subjectively a person might say that someone else is smart, but another might say they are not.  The basis behind this ranking of intelligence rests on comparison of one observer’s experience with intelligence to the experience of another with intelligence.  Now objectively a ranking system and measurement system can be established.  Once that has been setup then all parties can agree as to whether this instrument accurately measures the subject.  If all parties agree then an “objective” process can be established.  Problem is when no agreement can be made on the tool of measurement.

Subjective judgment is then used to rank intelligence and in some cases different types of intelligence.  So one might say that a quarterback having to make snap tactical judgments, gauge distance rapidly, keep track of multiple elements in a short time frame and socially command a team of people larger than himself is intelligent.  Another might say the scientist that critically examines piles of information, constructs experiments to measure abstract ideas and makes discoveries is intelligent.  Still another may point toward the artist that creates things from seemingly nothing, can derive a multitude of ideas from a single subject on near command and has the ability to view ideas from multiple angles and translate those ideas across boundaries as being intelligent.  There are a multitude of other examples, but in the end the dilemma is the same.  Which is more intelligent than the other and which form of intellect do we encourage?

There are other areas where subjective truth and judgment are paramount.  Places where objective truth cannot be reached due to lack of agreement on the tools of measurement.  Concepts like Good and bad (even evil), ideas such as freedom and justice and very real notions like life and death are all subjective truths that are not easily or even cannot be measured objectively.  Such truths are up to the individual that must then use those truths that cannot be measured objectively to carry out their lives and affect others.  The example of intelligence can be shown in this way as administrators must decide what programs in schools to fund and which to cut, ranking the importance of intelligence against each other to find the best outcome.

This is just allowing opinions into the realm of determining what is true and what is not true. I don't see how this enters into it. The moment you allow subjective judgement, it becomes an opinion. You're free to hold any opinions you like, but that doesn't make it a fact or 'the truth'. I am still wanting to see how this personal truth concept differs from the concept of opinion and belief. Just expanding the definition of truth for the sake of making opinions and beliefs more credible and trustworthy is nonsense. So when you are presented with a problem that can't be judged without personal views and opinions, then you're not seeking the truth any more. You're asking for judgments, views, opinions and beliefs. These are inherently flawed and that's especially problematic when there's no independent verification possible.

Pumpkin Seeds

In a world where there is truth, then these concepts have a right and wrong.  Because you cannot establish a criteria to rate or measure them does not exclude them from having a right and wrong answer.  These are more than simply opinions but questions that require answers.  Such questions as when does life begin, when is murder acceptable and who has freewill if that will exists have shaped the world.  None of these are objective question but all have a true answer if one believes in an ultimate truth. 

vtboy

Quote from: Oniya on December 29, 2012, 10:39:10 AM
I just realized something - this thread has been all over the place trying to answer the first question, and hasn't even touched the second:  Do we really need truth?

I propose that while we may not need (or possibly be able to achieve) TRUTHTM, we at least need Truth, if only to have a common frame of reference to converse in.  If we're wandering around on the surface of the Earth, it's fine to stick with the 'truth' that the Earth is flat - until we have to fly from DC to Moscow to Tokyo and back to DC.  At that point, the Truth that the Earth is round is needed (or we have to do a lot of extra refueling).  Even then, it's fine to stick with the 'truth' that the sun and other planets go around the Earth - until we get into space-flight and have to factor in the Truth that Earth and the rest of the solar system orbits the sun.

I think Oniya is on to something.

Absolute "truth" is a rather nebulous notion, freighted with all sorts of semantic baggage. But, objective utility, that's.... well, that's something useful. To the extent a map of the darkness permits us to avoid painful encounters with hard objects, it is sufficiently "true" from this perspective, notwithstanding that it may be replaced one day with a more effective map.

Take Newton's conception of gravity as an attractive force, exerted instantaneously through ether-filled space, by bodies with mass upon other bodies with mass. Einstein's more comprehensive theory of general relativity showed the model not to be entirely accurate. However, it remains sufficiently "true" -- i.e., useful -- for a lot of stuff, like calculating the tides and the velocities of falling bodies. Getting a grip on black holes is another matter, however.

From a utilitarian view, the theories of both Newton and Einstein are "true" to varying degrees, with Einstein's being truer (i.e., more useful) for permitting prediction of a greater range of phenomena, and doing so without Newton's unexplained construct of the "ether." In this sense, the Ptolemaic geocentric model of the heavens is also "true" for backyard astronomy purposes, as it permits fairly accurate predictions of the observed motions of many celestial objects.   

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds
In a world where there is truth, then these concepts have a right and wrong.  Because you cannot establish a criteria to rate or measure them does not exclude them from having a right and wrong answer.  These are more than simply opinions but questions that require answers.  Such questions as when does life begin, when is murder acceptable and who has freewill if that will exists have shaped the world.  None of these are objective question but all have a true answer if one believes in an ultimate truth.

Saying that none of these are "objective" questions assumes your conclusion. Saying they have "a true answer if one believes in an ultimate truth" only begs the question with which this thread started.

I am puzzled by any notion of "truth" divorced from efficacy. "Subjective truth" strikes me simply as shorthand for saying we do not yet have entirely satisfactory explanations for why some people do the things they do. But, to confess incomplete comprehension is hardly a concession that the phenomena we call "mental" or "emotional" or "moral" belong to some separate category of knowledge, incapable of objective modeling and verifiable prediction. Advances in neuroscience have already opened part way the curtain which has concealed the mechanism of human impulse, and I am sure that fuller objective explanations of such mysteries as love, empathy, delusion, and religiosity will continue to emerge. 

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 05:52:48 AM
In a world where there is truth, then these concepts have a right and wrong.  Because you cannot establish a criteria to rate or measure them does not exclude them from having a right and wrong answer.  These are more than simply opinions but questions that require answers.  Such questions as when does life begin, when is murder acceptable and who has freewill if that will exists have shaped the world.  None of these are objective question but all have a true answer if one believes in an ultimate truth. 
All the answers to the questions 'is murder acceptable' etc are opinions. If you believe they are truths then please explain to me the difference between opinion/personal belief and personal truth.

Sabby

Murder is wrong, true or false? Trick question. Murder removes a human life from the world. Am I saddened by this murder? Does this murder have any lasting effects? Do I consider it to be justified? These are all opinions. The only truth here is that a life has been taken.

Looking for more then that, you might as well be asking "How much does Justice weigh?" Which I've heard asked before.

Pumpkin Seeds

Opinion and belief is what someone calls another person’s truth.  Someone does not stand all night in the rain chanting for a cause, march into gunfire holding up a sign, get on a boat to be sent thousands of miles away to fight or blow themselves up for an opinion or belief.  Such commitment is done out of a devotion to their personal truth, to what these people have discovered for themselves.  We could say they fight for their beliefs, but they would say they fight for something dear to them. 

As for there being no right and wrong, that would be the conclusion of a subjective mindset.  Someone that looks at such questions subjectively invariable reaches the conclusion there is no right or wrong, because if everyone is right then everyone is also wrong also. 

Sabby

#71
You're still changing definitions.

We've been throwing around the definitions of truth and opinion, and we're not really getting anywhere retracing these, since we clearly have very different definitions here. So I've heard your assertions, and now I would really like to hear an example to demonstrate your point.

Can you show me two 'truths' that conflict with each other?

Pumpkin Seeds

What definition did I change?

As for two, true contradictory statements that would depend if we are taking a subjective approach or an absolute approach.  If I subscribed to absolute truth then that is impossible, because two statements cannot contradict each other while also being true.  If I subscribed to subjective truth then that is easy.  Abortion is wrong by one person and right by another. 

Sabby

Your using belief in place of truth, that was what I meant by changing definitions. Sorry if I was unclear.

Quote from: Dictionary.comnoun, plural truths
1. the true or actual state of a matter: He tried to find out the truth.
2. conformity with fact or reality; verity: the truth of a statement.
3. a verified or indisputable fact, proposition, principle, or the like: mathematical truths.
4. the state or character of being true.
5. actuality or actual existence.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 08:10:24 AM
Abortion is wrong by one person and right by another. 

These two quotes do not match. It is fact that one person disapproves of abortion, and one person approves. These are conflicting opinions. Not truths.

Pumpkin Seeds


Sabby

...what? o.o I really have no idea what you mean. You want me to disprove that these two people have these two thoughts, or that these two people value their own thoughts? What am I trying to disprove?

Pumpkin Seeds

You said the contradictory statements were opinions, not true statements.  Prove the statements are not truth, but instead opinion.

Sabby

Okay, you need to clarify what it is you are trying to prove as true.

It is true that this person disapproves of abortion.

It is true that abortion is wrong because this person believes it is.

Which is it? Because there is nothing to disprove with the first, and the second is wrong. If neither applies, please explain.

Pumpkin Seeds

I am saying prove that either abortion is wrong is not a true statement or that abortion is right is not a true statement. 

mrsjaz

QuoteI am still wanting to see how this personal truth concept differs from the concept of opinion and belief.

@ mj2002

That’s not a simple question, just as other social constructs are hard to define and create objectivity for. Please don’t ask for the near impossible! I am a social subjective animal striving for a state of balance. Pure objectivity from humans is asking a lot, and it may be an infatuation of ours, a belief in fact; you believe as has been point out somewhere I think - that an pure objective state uncompromised by subjectivity - ultimate truth - can be achieved by humans. That’s what you choose to believe, but it’s still ( just) what you desire to be true. Tracing my personal truths back to upbringing does not lead  me to opinion and belief, in fact I can reject them or hold tight to them at will, my personal truth are gained through knowledge and experience and understanding. empathy etc. If I say I’m good at something say art, nobody accepts that based on my opinion or what I believe about myself, so I’m asked to produce evidence. Semantics? (not putting word into your mouth here) Some would say yes, but I still lean more towards the subjective nature of humans as not. I do take vtboy’s point that we may well get to the ultimate science of emotion and feeling, but an unbiased methodology for empathy, love and morals?  Wow ... who knows. :o   

QuoteTo this point in the conversation the subjective debate has focused on the concrete, which is not really where the argument rests. The moon being rock and cheese, while having some glimmer of truth in meaning, is rather ridiculous in practice.

Can I also add I am not stating what holds true for me is universally true. I do have opinions like everyone else; objective truth and subjective truth may both be - as others have pointed out- idealist nonsense. I know these are hard ideas to debate. I did not mean to derail the thread. Sorry Pumpkin :-X
"... And she looked at me with big brown eyes and said, you ain't seen nothin yet."
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Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 08:31:18 AM
I am saying prove that either abortion is wrong is not a true statement or that abortion is right is not a true statement.

Because for something like this to be proven, you would need some way of objectively evaluating that such an act is morally correct or incorrect. Some people agree with abortion, some people don't; that odesn't mean abortion is a contradiction. It means two people feel differently on a sensitive subject.

For an example of believe =/= truth, take the Flat Earth Society. We do know, for a fact, that the world is round. This does not stop people having a different opinion, despite the fact we -can- prove that the world is round. Also, there are groups out there who believe that we don't need food to survive, only 'life giving energy from the sun'. While it's their -opinion- that they don't need food to survive, the fact is people have starved to death from doing this, which points to the fact that their opinion is not made anymore truthful because it's their opinion.

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 08:31:18 AM
I am saying prove that either abortion is wrong is not a true statement or that abortion is right is not a true statement.

You really want me to try and answer that?

Read it back to yourself out loud please.

Prove that something is wrong is not right? Okay, I'm going to go ahead and rephrase your question, because I can't answer it in it's current state.

"Demonstrate that 'abortion is wrong' is a truthful or false statement"

My answer is that abortion is a procedure that terminates pregnancy. Some are for it and some are against it. Some have well informed opinions regarding the topic, some do not.

mj2002

i
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 07:53:39 AM
Opinion and belief is what someone calls another person’s truth.
No, you're just changing the definitions now. Truth is in accord with fact. It is what most accurately represents reality. You can't just make up new realities where you 'personal truth' is different because you don't like the actual truth. It doesn't work that way.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 08:25:57 AM
You said the contradictory statements were opinions, not true statements.  Prove the statements are not truth, but instead opinion.
They are opinions because they they are a value statement. The person is making a judgement over abortion and they're expressing their subjective beliefs. They're not stating truths, they are making claims at best.

Pumpkin Seeds

Yet you don’t know reality and so cannot make a statement that something is true because it accords with reality.  That would be like standing in a dark room saying the walls are black when there is no certainty that the walls exist at all.  A value statement is simply a statement of belief and a belief, by the dictionary definition people now want to take, is the acceptance of something as true.  Nowhere in those definitions is something labeled as not true, so a value statement can be true.

As for requiring an objective measurement that would imply that truth only exists if something can objectively prove that truth.  More to the meaning that because something cannot be measured, discovered or proven means that the something is not true until such a time.  So the Earth was flat until it was discovered to be round.  Abortion is right until an instrument is created that proves abortion is wrong (or vice-versa).  The other side of the coin is that something was always true, always existed, and we merely confirmed that truth.  The Earth was always round and so on.

Well Sabby, if you cannot prove that either statement is untrue then your statement that they are not true is kind of preplexing.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
Yet you don’t know reality and so cannot make a statement that something is true because it accords with reality.  That would be like standing in a dark room saying the walls are black when there is no certainty that the walls exist at all. 
Sure we know reality. I don't see why not. Our knowledge might not be complete or perfect, but that doesn't mean we can't make statements about it that are in fact true or false.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
A value statement is simply a statement of belief and a belief, by the dictionary definition people now want to take, is the acceptance of something as true.  Nowhere in those definitions is something labeled as not true, so a value statement can be true.
I'm not saying a value statement can't be a true statement, but not all value statements are either true or false, they can just be statements of opinion. Such is the case in your example.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
As for requiring an objective measurement that would imply that truth only exists if something can objectively prove that truth.
This is just nonsense. Just because no measurement is available, has been done or if the technology doesn't exist yet doesn't mean that no truth exists on the matter. We're simply unable to establish it with a great amount of certainty. It is/becomes an unknown. You can speculate about it all you like, have personal truths that you feel are right, but those don't enter into it because someone else can just claim the opposite and there's nothing you can do determine which one (if there even is one available) is actually true until you can objectively verify it.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
More to the meaning that because something cannot be measured, discovered or proven means that the something is not true until such a time.  So the Earth was flat until it was discovered to be round.  Abortion is right until an instrument is created that proves abortion is wrong (or vice-versa).  The other side of the coin is that something was always true, always existed, and we merely confirmed that truth.  The Earth was always round and so on.
You don't understand the scientific method if this is how you believe it works. If something (a claim) cannot be measured, discovered or proven it is an unknown.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
Well Sabby, if you cannot prove that either statement is untrue then your statement that they are not true is kind of preplexing.
Of course it isn't perplexing. Subjective opinions aren't true or false, they're opinions. There is no universal right or universal wrong, whatever emotionally charged example you come up with. Therefor, your demand that people prove subjective statements like that true or false is a meaningless demand.

Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
Yet you don’t know reality and so cannot make a statement that something is true because it accords with reality.  That would be like standing in a dark room saying the walls are black when there is no certainty that the walls exist at all.  A value statement is simply a statement of belief and a belief, by the dictionary definition people now want to take, is the acceptance of something as true.  Nowhere in those definitions is something labeled as not true, so a value statement can be true.

As for requiring an objective measurement that would imply that truth only exists if something can objectively prove that truth.  More to the meaning that because something cannot be measured, discovered or proven means that the something is not true until such a time.  So the Earth was flat until it was discovered to be round.  Abortion is right until an instrument is created that proves abortion is wrong (or vice-versa).  The other side of the coin is that something was always true, always existed, and we merely confirmed that truth.  The Earth was always round and so on.

Well Sabby, if you cannot prove that either statement is untrue then your statement that they are not true is kind of preplexing.

Except we do know reality. I can grab this cup of tea infront of me and say that it exists in reality; it quenches my thirst, because it's a liquid. I know the cup exists, because it holds the water. I know it's tea, because I know what tea leaves smell and taste like. It doesn't matter if five hundred people tell me they don't believe I have a cup of tea; that won't make the cup poof out of existance or turn into coffee because I believe it's tea and five hundred people believe it's coffee. Reality does not change based on collective belief. The world was not flat, and then round because we changed our opinions on it. We were wrong about the shape of the Earth, and then later down the line, we found out it was round. Which doesn't stop people holding their beliefs that the world is flat, but their beliefs don't retroactively change the truth that the Earth is round.

You can get vaguely into arguing something like that, but by that point, you're arguing definitions. Just because the whole world starts calling the colour green blue insted won't change every item in the world which was once green blue; we just call it something different.

Maybe there will be an instrument one day which measures objective morality. But until that time, the baseline isn't 'abortion is wrong' or 'abortion is right' until otherwise proven. The baseline is 'what you think about abortion, you think about abortion'.

It's also rather silly to expect Sabs to be able to objectively prove or disprove whether something is moral for everyone. He can explain to you why he supports, or doesn't support it. Or why he thinks it's right, or why he thinks it's wrong... to him. He can't prove or disprove blanket statements on the morality of an entire subject. That's just a ridiculous expectation to think that he can.

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:19:05 AM
Well Sabby, if you cannot prove that either statement is untrue then your statement that they are not true is kind of preplexing.

You're using a malformed question that I cannot answer. That is why I did not give you the answer you wanted. The answer you want is absurd. You assert that something is true because someone believes it is. I say that is wrong.

Y believes that X is wrong.

Z believes that X is right.

This is true.

You're asking me to demonstrate why Y and Z are wrong, and if I can't then they must be right. This is broken logic.


Pumpkin Seeds

Yes, but to five hundred other people that drink being held is a cup of coffee.  So the problem with the example comes that subjective belief changes reality for you.  Therefore the reality you know and are aware of existing is not the reality that, in this example, five hundred other people know and are aware of existing.  Your statement of accord with reality is then different than theirs because your reality is different from theirs.

What is preposterous about Sabs having to support statements?  Sabby said the statements were not true, either of them.  I only asked for him to prove the statements were not true, either of them. 

Also, I did not say something could not be true if it cannot be measured.  Vt did or at least inferred that with his statement before. 

I also find it perplexing how an opinion is not true or false, but all research begins with essentially an opinion.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:48:35 AM
Yes, but to five hundred other people that drink being held is a cup of coffee.  So the problem with the example comes that subjective belief changes reality for you.  Therefore the reality you know and are aware of existing is not the reality that, in this example, five hundred other people know and are aware of existing.

What is preposterous about Sabs having to support statements?  Sabby said the statements were not true, either of them.  I only asked for him to prove the statements were not true, either of them. 

Also, I did not say something could not be true if it cannot be measured.  Vt did or at least inferred that with his statement before. 

I also find it perplexing how an opinion is not true or false, but all research begins with essentially an opinion.
Research doesn't begin with an opinion at all. It begins with questions, hypotheses, etc. Researchers don't start with conclusion and then try to prove they're right. That's not how science works. That's how pseudoscience works. Also, a cup of tea doesn't change to coffee depending on the view of other people. It might be coffee to other people, but those other people are wrong.

Pumpkin Seeds

Actually research begins with an observation and then a statement of opinion.  From that statement an experiment must be extrapolated making the statement a hypothesis, a well worded guess and/or opinion.  Once more though, the tea might not be tea at all to the other people but instead coffee.  Vt might suffer from a rare condition whereby his taste buds do not register the taste of coffee as coffee, but instead as tea.  So once more the connection Vt has with reality is through a sense that can be deceived and so can be wrong.  Vt’s concept of reality is then not what he would believe, but 500 people are not going to make that cup of tea into coffee for him.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:57:18 AM
Actually research begins with an observation and then a statement of opinion.  From that statement an experiment must be extrapolated making the statement a hypothesis, a well worded guess and/or opinion.
A hypothesis is not an opinion. It's an proposed explanation. That's not the same thing.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:57:18 AM
Once more though, the tea might not be tea at all to the other people but instead coffee.  Vt might suffer from a rare condition whereby his taste buds do not register the taste of coffee as coffee, but instead as tea.  So once more the connection Vt has with reality is through a sense that can be deceived and so can be wrong.  Vt’s concept of reality is then not what he would believe, but 500 people are not going to make that cup of tea into coffee for him.
What people perceive is irrelevant. Perception doesn't change facts and it doesn't turn coffee into tea or the other way around, unless youre purposefully messing with the definitions along the way. In that case, you're example is flawed and cannot be used in this discussion. When person x is drinking a cup of tea, then millions of people who aren't there to witness this can say whatever the hell they like. They can come with personal truths, opinions, guesses, beliefs, statements, the whole lot. None of this changes what we agreed upon as being tea at the beginning of this example.

Vanity Evolved

#91
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:48:35 AM
Yes, but to five hundred other people that drink being held is a cup of coffee.  So the problem with the example comes that subjective belief changes reality for you.  Therefore the reality you know and are aware of existing is not the reality that, in this example, five hundred other people know and are aware of existing.  Your statement of accord with reality is then different than theirs because your reality is different from theirs.

What is preposterous about Sabs having to support statements?  Sabby said the statements were not true, either of them.  I only asked for him to prove the statements were not true, either of them. 

Also, I did not say something could not be true if it cannot be measured.  Vt did or at least inferred that with his statement before. 

I also find it perplexing how an opinion is not true or false, but all research begins with essentially an opinion.

Their belief on what is reality is different but it doesn't stop them being wrong. You can claim, somewhat, an arguement from ignorance; if those five hundred people disbelieve me for whatever reason, and I don't show them what I'm drinking, then it's completely completely understandable -why- they're wrong, and why they hold the belief that I'm drinking coffee and not tea, but it doesn't make the assumption any less wrong. Just because we kept saying the world was flat without any other evidence doesn't mean we had a different view on reality, it means what we thought about the world was wrong. You can hold an opinion which is blatently contradicted by fact (Once again, the Flat Earth Society exists, despite evidence that the world is not flat).

And an opinion isn't true or false, because that's just it; it's an opinion. I don't like sprouts and that's my opinion; I think they taste awful. This does not mean that everyone else with the opinion of 'I like sprouts, I think they taste nice' are wrong. If one opinion is right, that means the opposite of that opinion has to be wrong, but that's not how things work. One person can think a film is good and another person watching the same film can think it's bad - this doesn't mean one of them is right and one of them is wrong. They hold two different opinions on the same topic. Neither of them is right, neither of them is wrong; it's simply how their personal tastes work.

And what is preposterous is that you're asking Sabs to not just support his statements. You're asking him to prove that abortion is, in all cases, either morally right or morally wrong. Not why people hold their beliefs, or why he himself thinks abortion is right or wrong. You're telling him to prove to you that either abortion is always right or always wrong, because that's the only way to prove that belief is reality isn't true. It's like asking some random guy on the internet to prove to you what the meaning of life is.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:57:18 AM
Actually research begins with an observation and then a statement of opinion.  From that statement an experiment must be extrapolated making the statement a hypothesis, a well worded guess and/or opinion.  Once more though, the tea might not be tea at all to the other people but instead coffee.  Vt might suffer from a rare condition whereby his taste buds do not register the taste of coffee as coffee, but instead as tea.  So once more the connection Vt has with reality is through a sense that can be deceived and so can be wrong.  Vt’s concept of reality is then not what he would believe, but 500 people are not going to make that cup of tea into coffee for him.

It may not taste like tea to him, but that doesn't change the fact that it -is- tea. The taste is irrelevant. He believes thats what the taste of tea is, but that doesn't change the fact that it's made with tea leaves, that it has the chemical and nutritional content of tea and not coffee. If I had a rare disease which makes a nice, fatty steak taste like salad, it doesn't make the steak healthier because it tastes like salad; it's still a huge lump of meat.

Sabby

Quote from: Pumpkin SeedsWhat is preposterous about Sabs having to support statements?  Sabby said the statements were not true, either of them.  I only asked for him to prove the statements were not true, either of them.

Okay, that does it. I'm done with this discussion. Have a good day.


Pumpkin Seeds

Once more, I am asking Sabby to simply explain what he said and support the claims.  That is sort of basic in any discussion.  Sabby is not able to do so, which I didn’t expect Sabby to be able to do either.  Yet if he cannot prove something then he should not state something as if that something is true.

Yeah, I think at this point you two are confusing the word opinion as a statement of something not true or of something that does not have any truth associated.  That is, to my understanding, false. 

Also MJ, I did not agree that the tea was tea at all.  I am highlighting how reality viewed through the senses is flawed and so we cannot say our understanding of reality is sound or even that we are capable of doing so.  At least not with the tea example.

Oniya

No, they are equating an opinion with something that may or may not have any 'truth-value' to be assigned.  If A believes that 1+1=fish and B believes that 1+1=squirrel, then neither one is right, because assigning animal names to addition problems is not appropriate.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
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Pumpkin Seeds

Well no, their statement is than an opinion is not true or false.  Meaning that an opinion has no truth or possibility of truth, while at the same time stating that an opinion has no ability to be not true.

Unless what they are saying is that an opinion is "not true" or in other words false.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:17:52 AM
Once more, I am asking Sabby to simply explain what he said and support the claims.  That is sort of basic in any discussion.  Sabby is not able to do so, which I didn’t expect Sabby to be able to do either.  Yet if he cannot prove something then he should not state something as if that something is true.

Yeah, I think at this point you two are confusing the word opinion as a statement of something not true or of something that does not have any truth associated.  That is, to my understanding, false. 

Also MJ, I did not agree that the tea was tea at all.  I am highlighting how reality viewed through the senses is flawed and so we cannot say our understanding of reality is sound or even that we are capable of doing so.  At least not with the tea example.
You can disagree all you like, but in the set example the object was identified as tea, period. Now you can start by saying that what is tea to one person might be coffee to someone else, but at that point your entire worldview implodes because everything can be anything and you haven't got a single frame of reference to discuss. That's the reality you believe you live in? Because I'm pretty sure the reality I live in is an objective one (as per Occam's Razor) and even if that might not be the absolute truth, I have no choice but to accept that I have to act as if I am in one. Everything that ever happened indicates that this is the case. A reality where facts are subject to change because of the beliefs of another is a pure fantasy world. I don't think there's much use arguing over truth if you believe that to be the case, because then truth loses its meaning.

Oniya

Assigning the value of 'true' or 'not true' to a moral opinion is as inappropriate as assigning the value of 'good' or 'evil' to the statement that 'cheese is made from curdled milk'.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Vanity Evolved

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:17:52 AM
Once more, I am asking Sabby to simply explain what he said and support the claims.  That is sort of basic in any discussion.  Sabby is not able to do so, which I didn’t expect Sabby to be able to do either.  Yet if he cannot prove something then he should not state something as if that something is true.

Yeah, I think at this point you two are confusing the word opinion as a statement of something not true or of something that does not have any truth associated.  That is, to my understanding, false. 

Also MJ, I did not agree that the tea was tea at all.  I am highlighting how reality viewed through the senses is flawed and so we cannot say our understanding of reality is sound or even that we are capable of doing so.  At least not with the tea example.

I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, here. Sabs did answer you. Your question made little sense, and he did attempt to answer you. You asked him to give you absolute proof of absolute morality on a subject, and he couldn't answer that, because no-one can; of course he wasn't able to answer it how you wanted. No-one could.

And no, a statement is your opinion. If you say you like a film, or you think a film is good, then that is your opinion. Opinions don't have truth attached to them. You can hold an opinion that is contradictory to truth. Flat Earth Society has proof that the world is round, and they choose to believe that's a lie in their opinion.

Viewing reality through the senses is the only way you can view reality; that is how we interact with the world. It's true that the senses can be fooled, but that is where independent verification comes into play. If you say 'Hey, look at that pink bunny over there handing out golden eggs!' and your five friends say 'What pink bunny?', then there's a pretty good chance you're seeing something which isn't there. Add into this modern technology, where we can take pictures and observe the world in ways our senses can't be fooled. You can take a photograph, and what you see on the photo is what is there, barring any problems with the photograph.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:24:31 AM
Well no, their statement is than an opinion is not true or false.  Meaning that an opinion has no truth or possibility of truth, while at the same time stating that an opinion has no ability to be not true.

Unless what they are saying is that an opinion is "not true" or in other words false.

It's not true and it's not false, because it's not asserting a fact; a fact can be true or false, but an opinion is a statement of what -you- believe which may or may not be supported by the facts. People believe the Bible is the word of God, with no proof to go along with that. Someone can say they love a film, but that's not a statement that the film is good or bad or that it's a fact that people will love that film. I can say I hate fish when I havn't even tried fish. You don't need facts or proof to have an opinion.

Quote from: mj2002 on December 30, 2012, 10:26:57 AM
You can disagree all you like, but in the set example the object was identified as tea, period. Now you can start by saying that what is tea to one person might be coffee to someone else, but at that point your entire worldview implodes because everything can be anything and you haven't got a single frame of reference to discuss. That's the reality you believe you live in? Because I'm pretty sure the reality I live in is an objective one (as per Occam's Razor) and even if that might not be the absolute truth, I have no choice but to accept that I have to act as if I am in one. Everything that ever happened indicates that this is the case. A reality where facts are subject to change because of the beliefs of another is a pure fantasy world. I don't think there's much use arguing over truth if you believe that to be the case, because then truth loses its meaning.

It's also a theory which is very easy to test. If you believe that something changes based on your belief, let someone hand you two plain boxes. Both of them have coffee in them, but your friend has told you it's tea. They make you a cup, and you drink it. Will it taste like tea, because you have no reason to think it isn't tea and you believe what you have in your hands is tea? Or will you go 'Hmm... are you sure this is tea? Because this tastes like coffee, to me.'

Pumpkin Seeds

#99
Only if you do not believe there is an absolute truth in regards to morality.  If you consider those questions of life and death to be similar to “the moon is made of cheese” then certainly.  Yet if there is an absolute truth then words true and false are applicable to questions of morality.  As the OP asked about beliefs being truth, I will go with that area.  If this is not a discussion of absolute truth then the discussion is simply, do people believe science.  Not what I read the original post as being.

So Sabby said a statement that nobody could backup.  That would not be my fault or doing.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:35:11 AM
Only if you do not believe there is an absolute truth in regards to morality.  If you consider those questions of life and death to be similar to “the moon is made of cheese” then certainly.  Yet if there is an absolute truth then words true and false are applicable to questions of morality.  As the OP asked about beliefs being truth, I will go with that area.  If this is not a discussion of absolute truth then the discussion is simply, do people believe science.  Not what I read the original post as being.
This is simply not true. Even if there's an absolute truth, then that doesn't mean morality is objective as well.

Vanity Evolved

If you're trying to state that science is 'just an opinion', then it's a pretty far stretch. There is no truth to any life and death statements, just opinions; my opinion is nothing happens. Some believe in Heaven and Hell. Some believe in Valhalla. You can believe the moon is made out of cheese, regardless of the fact that in reality, it's not, because that's your opinion. However, none of us knows what happens after death until it happens, and then, we're not exactly able to tell people about it.

So yes. On the subject of death, everyone is on equal footing - no-one knows any better than anyone else. But to me, and going by what we know about the human body, the idea that there's nothing is a little more believable than a land filled with demigoddesses and goats with mead spewing nipples and pits of brimstone filled with fire and demons. As much as I'd like to imagine that after death, I'll be going to a place full of Vikings, hot babes, booze and meat.

mj2002

Quote from: Vanity Evolved on December 30, 2012, 10:42:09 AM
If you're trying to state that science is 'just an opinion', then it's a pretty far stretch. There is no truth to any life and death statements, just opinions; my opinion is nothing happens. Some believe in Heaven and Hell. Some believe in Valhalla. You can believe the moon is made out of cheese, regardless of the fact that in reality, it's not, because that's your opinion. However, none of us knows what happens after death until it happens, and then, we're not exactly able to tell people about it.

So yes. On the subject of death, everyone is on equal footing - no-one knows any better than anyone else. But to me, and going by what we know about the human body, the idea that there's nothing is a little more believable than a land filled with demigoddesses and goats with mead spewing nipples and pits of brimstone filled with fire and demons. As much as I'd like to imagine that after death, I'll be going to a place full of Vikings, hot babes, booze and meat.
I'd contest this as well. There are no indications that anything happens after death. If someone wants to claim that something other than the shutting down of the brain and the decomposing of the body happens, they will have to provide evidence. At this time, as far as our knowledge goes, nothing actually happens.

Pumpkin Seeds

Not sure I ever stated that nor did I ever state that science was wrong.  I even pointed out when going down this path about the moon being made of cheese was more humor than anything.  That I pointed toward the subjective truth pertaining more toward the unmeasured and the unobserved.  Did I not make mention when answering Sabby’s question that if one believed in an absolute truth then I could not make a contradictory true statement and once more I just said if someone believes in an absolute truth for morality. 

Also, you likewise have to provide proof that there is nothing after death.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:50:35 AM
Not sure I ever stated that nor did I ever state that science was wrong.  I even pointed out when going down this path about the moon being made of cheese was more humor than anything.  That I pointed toward the subjective truth pertaining more toward the unmeasured and the unobserved.  Did I not make mention when answering Sabby’s question that if one believed in an absolute truth then I could not make a contradictory true statement and once more I just said if someone believes in an absolute truth for morality. 

Also, you likewise have to provide proof that there is nothing after death.

My position is that there's no indication that there's anything beyond death. That's because in order for there to be something after death, there has to be a functioning mind to experience this. With death, that dies. So... that's where it ends.

Pumpkin Seeds

Depends on what someone maintains goes into the next life.  Of course by that assumption the heads in the frozen containers are “alive” and not dead.  Of course continuing down this road simply leads to an off topic discussion.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:57:18 AM
Depends on what someone maintains goes into the next life.  Of course by that assumption the heads in the frozen containers are “alive” and not dead.  Of course continuing down this road simply leads to an off topic discussion.

It would, though an interesting one. If you maintain that something goes into the next life, I challenge you to demonstrate this. As far as I am aware and I am pretty sure that (and the general opinion is behind me on this (save for a few religions)) there are absolutely no indications that anything is 'maintained' or lives on.

Pumpkin Seeds

http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

"With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?22 Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s from onset of syncope.29,30 Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.31 NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation."

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 11:11:43 AM
http://profezie3m.altervista.org/archivio/TheLancet_NDE.htm

"With lack of evidence for any other theories for NDE, the thus far assumed, but never proven, concept that consciousness and memories are localised in the brain should be discussed. How could a clear consciousness outside one's body be experienced at the moment that the brain no longer functions during a period of clinical death with flat EEG?22 Also, in cardiac arrest the EEG usually becomes flat in most cases within about 10 s from onset of syncope.29,30 Furthermore, blind people have described veridical perception during out-of-body experiences at the time of this experience.31 NDE pushes at the limits of medical ideas about the range of human consciousness and the mind-brain relation."
This is an often quoted article and it's demonstrably flawed. When Deepak Chopra says something, it usually is nonsense.

Pumpkin Seeds

#109
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds_case

Also, just because there is criticism of a study does not make the study invalid.  As Dr. Kauffman points out in his criticism there are a lot of variables in place that cannot be accounted for and Kauffman also does not list his own sources in his critique.  "His colleagues" is not a reputable source for a published article written in proper format.  The proper way to refute the other study is to run an experiment following the model and then present findings.  Hence the purpose of writing in that format so that an experiment can be repeated.

mj2002

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 11:33:05 AM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pam_Reynolds_case

Also, just because there is criticism of a study does not make the study invalid.  As Dr. Kauffman points out in his criticism there are a lot of variables in place that cannot be accounted for and Kauffman also does not list his own sources in his critique.  "His colleagues" is not a reputable source for a published article written in proper format.  The proper way to refute the other study is to run an experiment following the model and then present findings.  Hence the purpose of writing in that format so that an experiment can be repeated.
This might be true, and I personally can't be bothered to find actual studies that contradict the findings of this particular one because I can't access JSTOR or pubmed from my current location. I could point you to various criticisms from mainstream Dutch scientists that criticize this work as well. I'm not sure you're able to read Dutch though and you'll most likely complain that it's not peer reviewed research. However, even when we assume of all this to be true, the conclusions are still wrong. You can't say that NDE indicate towards an afterlife because they cannot be explained by current science (which is also wrong by the way, we have reasonably sound ideas of what NDE are. If your brain starts becoming short on oxygen, it'll start malfunctioning. It goes to show that this article is more than 11 years old), because that's an argument from ignorance. If NDE are supposedly an indication of afterlife, this needs to be proven first. Spiritual nonsense and fantasy explanation don't automatically become the best possible answer because  actual science hasn't found a proper explanation.

Lithos

#111
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 05:52:48 AM
In a world where there is truth, then these concepts have a right and wrong.

No, they do not. Photon for example acts both as particle and as wave and handling it as either is neither right nor wrong, different ways are right in different applications.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 10:50:35 AM
Not sure I ever stated that nor did I ever state that science was wrong.  I even pointed out when going down this path about the moon being made of cheese was more humor than anything.  That I pointed toward the subjective truth pertaining more toward the unmeasured and the unobserved.  Did I not make mention when answering Sabby’s question that if one believed in an absolute truth then I could not make a contradictory true statement and once more I just said if someone believes in an absolute truth for morality. 

Also, you likewise have to provide proof that there is nothing after death.

Two things are worth mentioning about this, first. Morality is social property that has no meaning at all when thinking in terms of truth. You will find that people from varied cultures tend to have some things very different and some things very much the same cause some things tend to be of common benefit in societies in general. There is no absolute truth for morality and there is no reason to waste time in trying to find one either.

Second, two people sprouting statements that have no verifiable scientific proof or even research based on more than just one or two cases is in no way shape or form science. Some person can say there is life after death, other can say there isn't. Both of them should shut up, it is not measurable, not observable so it does not really matter. Resources should not be wasted in researching it either.

Also there was discussion about our senses and reality. And yes, our senses certainly are unable to handle some facets of reality. Also our thinking is not able to comprehend some facets of reality due to our mental frame of reference, surprise surprise, having to do with the scale of things that we generally deal with and what is useful. Take solid matter for example, distances between particles compared to their size are vast, we are made of very much nothing but we do see and feel solid objects as solid. This is quite handy cause the forces that keep it together would cause us all sorts of damage if we tried to walk through solid objects. In same way some tested and proven facets of quantum mechanics such as particle being able to be in two places at same time and other weirdness is incomprehensible to common sense, if it had not been proven by experiments it would be  in same category as philosophical or religious debates.

Truth is what after observation and testing is found, truth is not what "feels" right. If it was we would still think that time always passes at same rate, speed of light is infinite and that world of quantum particles is just anomaly and currently known laws of physics explain everything.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:57:18 AM
Actually research begins with an observation and then a statement of opinion.  From that statement an experiment must be extrapolated making the statement a hypothesis, a well worded guess and/or opinion.  Once more though, the tea might not be tea at all to the other people but instead coffee.  Vt might suffer from a rare condition whereby his taste buds do not register the taste of coffee as coffee, but instead as tea.  So once more the connection Vt has with reality is through a sense that can be deceived and so can be wrong.  Vt’s concept of reality is then not what he would believe, but 500 people are not going to make that cup of tea into coffee for him.

Hypothesis and research can also begin from completely theoretical grounds not related to observation. Also sometimes it can begin from data of experiment that was dealing with something entirely different if something in results rises questions.

The whole tea thing is fundamentally flawed cause true nature of tea is not defined by our senses but by what is in it. Put tea and coffee in homogenization machine and see what it actually has in it and you have answer, what senses observe does not matter. We have no idea if anyone even sees colors as the same yet they have accepted names and work just fine. What someone sees as blue might be what to someone else seems red for example, it is just what our senses interpret and does not matter as  long as it has common name. In just similar way it does not matter if tastes of things are different to different people.

Truth tends to have numbers, not labels. We see colors as different at different wavelengths of light. Red is simply a label for light whose wavelength range is  between 630 and 700 nanometers. It is a number, not a color and what it actually looks like behind different peoples neural receptors does not matter. What matters is that most people see distinct color at that wavelength range and our label for it is "red" ,so we can communicate it to others.

Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 09:48:35 AM
I also find it perplexing how an opinion is not true or false, but all research begins with essentially an opinion.

This would not be perplexing at all if people understood the fact that the point of research is to understand some phenomenon and its workings, and hypothesis behind some research might be entirely correct, it might be not correct at all or it might just as well be something in between. It does not matter till the research is done and there is actual verifiable understanding of what was researched. Research being done about something does not by itself validate or invalidate anything about the hypothesis, the results do. It is not valid scientific discovery till research results prove it to be. Many times technology getting better provides us to test theories that were impossible to really test before, and that way there can be long time between a theory coming up, and research results validating it.
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Oniya

Research begins with an hypothesis, which is a testable opinion.  If it can't be tested, it can't be used in scientific research.

See this sticky for the definitions.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Pumpkin Seeds

I was not aware a photon was a concept.  Though if I had used that example to show a contradiction in science then I would have been told this is simply a matter of categorization and lack of understanding.  Also as for the first two points, you’re wrong on both counts to be honest.  The first one stating matter of factly that there is no absolute truth is wrong because there is no proof offered either way.  That you further write there is no point in the discussion and no possible ability to identify or discover an absolute truth is also without proof.  As for the second point, I will pretend that Lithos did not just tell MJ and I to “shutup.”  The first experiment I posted involved several hundred cases and the second is an observational piece that is published.  Both have met the criteria for publication and research.

Once more the purpose of the tea was to highlight the problem of associating truth with reality and display the little understanding and differences held in reality.  That each person perceives reality differently and so carries a different correspondence with reality.  So stating that something that is true means that the something accords with reality does not mean anything, because the something accords with our reality.  Truth does not have numbers, the measurements used to quantify truth have numbers and measurements so that the scientific method can be carried out across barriers of language.

TaintedAndDelish

 I'd like to point out this post on logical fallacies. For those who haven't read it yet, its good stuff.

https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=24133.0




Lithos

#115
Quote from: Pumpkin Seeds on December 30, 2012, 02:35:33 PM
I was not aware a photon was a concept.  Though if I had used that example to show a contradiction in science then I would have been told this is simply a matter of categorization and lack of understanding.  Also as for the first two points, you’re wrong on both counts to be honest.  The first one stating matter of factly that there is no absolute truth is wrong because there is no proof offered either way.  That you further write there is no point in the discussion and no possible ability to identify or discover an absolute truth is also without proof.  As for the second point, I will pretend that Lithos did not just tell MJ and I to “shutup.”  The first experiment I posted involved several hundred cases and the second is an observational piece that is published.  Both have met the criteria for publication and research.

Once more the purpose of the tea was to highlight the problem of associating truth with reality and display the little understanding and differences held in reality.  That each person perceives reality differently and so carries a different correspondence with reality.  So stating that something that is true means that the something accords with reality does not mean anything, because the something accords with our reality.  Truth does not have numbers, the measurements used to quantify truth have numbers and measurements so that the scientific method can be carried out across barriers of language.

At the moment there is no proven absolute truth anywhere, till that is proven there can be nothing true and objective about it esisting or not existing so you forgot to mention that by that definition i meant that also i should shut up about it, there is no sense in discussing what does not matter. The experiments you posted are interesting but do not have any scientifically conclusive results. This has also been touched on many related writings. Meeting criteria of publication and research does not mean that there is any scientifically valid result that comes out of the published research. Specially since publication is generally granted merely by one organization and not by scientific community as whole. 

Understanding reality is only way closer to the ideal of (what i personally believe is fantasy) absolute truth that there is. Our subjective perception of it is not what I would ever call objective truth, they might well be my subjective truth but that is concept that has nothing to do with things other than personal. And reality indeed is presented by clearly definable measures that can be communicated to anybody.

I can believe that a soup that my mother makes is best in the world, I probably could believe if i was misinformed or delusional enough that moon is cheese. You might believe in afterlife and god. They are all things that have some meaning for us but they have absolutely nothing to do with what actually goes on in the world around us. Until someone objectively proves that the soup indeed is best in the world, or that moon is cheese, it is all just our imagination. Imagination has a lot of power in making us feel better about something so imagining things is all good, children enjoy it and so do adults. Giving label of either truth or reality to it is something that can be very harmful and also very dangerous though, as it easily leads to conception of "this is true to me it has to be to those people as well". Actually proven findings are only way to be able to say "this is true" to somebody about anything.

This thread was about what good truth is for us I believe. And along those lines, subjective truth is only good for some peace of mind. Objective truth about how nature works has many, many applications and has helped us to get many of the things we are able to enjoy today. Subjective truth being completely personal is not very sensible discussion topic, and thus this discussion to me has been mostly about objective truth, things that can be said to be true to anyone. So far Scientific method is only way to find such things. I am already forced to repeat myself so at this point the thread I shut up, anything relevant I have to say about this topic is already in my posts.
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TaintedAndDelish

@ Pumpkin Seeds, I'm trying to understand your point of view on subjective truth or personal truth, which I assume is the same. I'm trying to see this from your perspective.

It seems that this notion of subjective truth would be valid only within the scope of ONE person's experience or perception. That it cannot be applied outside of that scope as a subjective truth many not necessarily be an objective truth. Likewise, it would seem that objective truth does not necessarily apply to this subjective bubble as the person in question may not be privy to objective truth. Similarly, it seems that one person's subjective truth would not apply to another person as the two persons in question exist within two separate scopes.

Is this accurate so far?

If this is so, then I have to ask the following questions:

What makes a subjective truth true?
* If due to a lack of education, I believe that 1==2, is that a subjective truth?

What would render a subjective assertion false?

What is the difference between a subjective truth and an opinion?

What value does subjective truth add? How is it useful?

Caehlim

Quote from: Oniya on December 30, 2012, 10:27:46 AM
Assigning the value of 'true' or 'not true' to a moral opinion is as inappropriate as assigning the value of 'good' or 'evil' to the statement that 'cheese is made from curdled milk'.

Nicely put. I agree.
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Pumpkin Seeds

One of the problems here is that people are trying to simplify a very complicated set of problems by “adding 1 and 1” to get 2.  Obviously if I were to set a block down and then set another beside it and ask how many blocks are those, whatever answer is given the person does mean there are two.  Unless of course the individual counting does in fact see more blocks.  We can never truly know if the person counting the blocks actually sees more than 2 blocks.  There is no current way to see through another person’s eyes or have their exact perspective.  Communication is the only way to connect with another person and well, people lie.

A subjective assertion is rendered false when the person making the assertion no longer holds that assertion to be true.

I have stated before and still hold that what is called an opinion is simply what someone calls another person’s belief or subjective truth.  People don’t die for opinions afterall.

I disagree that subjective truth and consensus have no bearing on reality.  If 99 people are looking at someone in pain and say, “that doesn’t hurt” then the one person that says “that looks like it hurts” will re-evaluate their definition and perception of pain.  Understanding what other people hold as truth helps understand the way other people will react, interact and manipulate the world around them.  Lack of understanding subjective truth and having respect for what other people hold to be true is at the heart of most global conflict.  That seems to hold a lot of value.