My Truth, Your Truth, The Truth

The only way the concept 'the truth' can be plausibly denied is by rejecting the idea of an external reality. For sure, there are a number of ways of questioning the idea of a world outside of consciousness - but nobody actually believes an external reality doesn't exist for any kind of practical purpose. From the working assumption that this reality exists, it's a very simple leap in logic to say that 'the truth' exists and that individual perceptions partake of that truth to varying extents. It's about as clean-cut and direct as any epistemic argument can be - that these Platonic type forms of truth exist and that through our perceptions/interpretations we partake of that truth to varying extents. Your crazy aunt in a retirement home who thinks she's living on a cruise ship, probably partakes less than you.

wtfsvi: I'm not sure that Kant did prove that, but his failing to prove it gets at the root of all this. His positions on a priori knowledge are internally consistent, but unverifiable because he's made the assumption that these forms of knowledge exist. Which is the same thing, we have to make some sort of assumption to exercise logic, and if that assumption is going to be that a world external to us exists - that seems like a fairly sensible and intuitive assumption to me. I don't believe the universe being relativistic makes much difference here either, it's still external.

The only way, IMO, that the concept of meaningful truth can be challenged is to regurgitate the whole Cartesian doubt process as it applies to epistemology. Which is probably bottomless dealing as it does with axioms, but more to the point, is useless since the same rules would apply within that self contained frame even if we somehow discovered that all is consciousness.

[Trantor]

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I don't believe in a "the truth" of any kind. So I guess we disagree.

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Statement "a" a:"I don't believe in "the truth" of any kind."

Question: Do you believe in the truth of statement "a" as spoken by yourself?

[chezlaw]

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My statement is very basic, koolaid aside. There is one external, relativistic reality. Our individual reaction to it and representation of it is not a version of the truth, it remains a mere representation.

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I think the fact that the universe is relativistic, allows different "truths" based on the observer. I'd agree that usually, there is a "the truth" that is the real truth, and that individual "truths" are usually only part-truths. However, a relativistic universe means there may not always be "the truth".

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I think it was Eistein himself who pointed out the reverse is true and that the theory of relativity could have been better named the theory of nonrelativity. Whatever its called, the theory is showing that despite the appearance of different truths to different observers if they apply relativity they will get the same answers about the world and so there is only one truth of the matter.

chez

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Do you believe what you just wrote is the truth?

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I believe it is more true than the alternative, but I don't think it's "the truth," no. The implication of there being no "the truth" is that there must sort of be a "the truth." At the same time.

It's not really contradictory, it's just semantic. The english language doesn't work well with indefinite concepts. The verb "to be" implies existence, so anytime I say "is" I'm actually making a statement that is somewhat inconsistent with my actual beliefs. This includes the statement that there is no "the truth."

It helps if you think of each proposition as having some percentage of truth. This isn't really true, because it implies that there exists some ACTUAL percentage, but it gives a decent logical handle to the concept. For example, I might say that it's 90% true there is no "the truth" and 10% true that there is in fact a "the truth."

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I'm sorry but I can't make much sense out of what you wrote. Can you clarify it in simpler terms?

Let's just start with this: "I believe it is more true than the alternative, but I don't think it's "the truth," no. The implication of there being no "the truth" is that there must sort of be a "the truth." At the same time."

What does that mean?

The fact that I work within the framework of a presupposed external reality doesn't mean I believe in that reality. I function according to that reality because I know the consequences of acting otherwise can be painful. Occasionally I do something crazy to "test the boundaries," but the patterns of "my reality" remain consistent and so I continue to act accordingly.

Whether it's useless to think this way is arguable, but irrelevant. I don't think usefulness has any bearing on truth.

You might be interested in Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By, which, inter alia, argues against both objectivist and radical subjectivist views of truth. Instead, they view truths as true relative to a conceptual system. The fact that there are some things that everybody accepts as objectively true comes from the fact that all humans are embodied in essentially the same way and have innate ways of thinking about the world.

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My statement is very basic, koolaid aside. There is one external, relativistic reality. Our individual reaction to it and representation of it is not a version of the truth, it remains a mere representation.

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I think the fact that the universe is relativistic, allows different "truths" based on the observer. I'd agree that usually, there is a "the truth" that is the real truth, and that individual "truths" are usually only part-truths. However, a relativistic universe means there may not always be "the truth".

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I think it was Eistein himself who pointed out the reverse is true and that the theory of relativity could have been better named the theory of nonrelativity. Whatever its called, the theory is showing that despite the appearance of different truths to different observers if they apply relativity they will get the same answers about the world and so there is only one truth of the matter.

chez

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Can you provide some resources for this? Just for example, there is no such thing as synchronicity: two events happening "at the same time" from different reference points. This is because there is no absolute time. Time is relative, and thus each observer can be right about his time, while not having the same time as someone else.

The statement "there is no actual truth" contradicts itself, because it is a statement of actual truth. That's all I'm getting at.

A common, almost overriding idea in modern society is that any essential proposition is either true or untrue. The idea that a proposition can be a little bit true and a little bit false is anathema to the western conception of reason. Therefore my belief that there exists no "the truth" violates one of the fundamental axioms of our culture.

If we do away with the law of the excluded middle, the entire structure of logic changes. Therefore it is hard to discuss the idea within a context of traditional logic. The implication, according to a conventional approach, is that everything is true and everything is false. Paradox and contradiction become acceptable, and everything whirls out of control.

I don't believe this conclusion is necessary, but most people are so used to looking for and then eliminating contradictions that thinking in any other way seems impossible.

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My statement is very basic, koolaid aside. There is one external, relativistic reality. Our individual reaction to it and representation of it is not a version of the truth, it remains a mere representation.

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I think the fact that the universe is relativistic, allows different "truths" based on the observer. I'd agree that usually, there is a "the truth" that is the real truth, and that individual "truths" are usually only part-truths. However, a relativistic universe means there may not always be "the truth".

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I think it was Eistein himself who pointed out the reverse is true and that the theory of relativity could have been better named the theory of nonrelativity. Whatever its called, the theory is showing that despite the appearance of different truths to different observers if they apply relativity they will get the same answers about the world and so there is only one truth of the matter.

chez

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Can you provide some resources for this? Just for example, there is no such thing as synchronicity: two events happening "at the same time" from different reference points. This is because there is no absolute time. Time is relative, and thus each observer can be right about his time, while not having the same time as someone else.

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Oh... one more thing... from what I've read, Einstein didn't like some of the implications of his theory... so it's quite possible that he said some things that didn't jive with his own theory. However, I'm pretty sure that his theory, and subsequent understanding and testing of it, show exactly what I said: often there is no "the truth", due to the relative nature of the universe.

Any subsequent detailed discussion of this, if you disagree, will definitely require one or both of us to define "the truth". I've had long drawn out conversations with you before, so I'd like to avoid a misunderstanding due to a difference in defintions or implied definitions if at all possible. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[chezlaw]

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My statement is very basic, koolaid aside. There is one external, relativistic reality. Our individual reaction to it and representation of it is not a version of the truth, it remains a mere representation.

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I think the fact that the universe is relativistic, allows different "truths" based on the observer. I'd agree that usually, there is a "the truth" that is the real truth, and that individual "truths" are usually only part-truths. However, a relativistic universe means there may not always be "the truth".

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I think it was Eistein himself who pointed out the reverse is true and that the theory of relativity could have been better named the theory of nonrelativity. Whatever its called, the theory is showing that despite the appearance of different truths to different observers if they apply relativity they will get the same answers about the world and so there is only one truth of the matter.

chez

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Can you provide some resources for this? Just for example, there is no such thing as synchronicity: two events happening "at the same time" from different reference points. This is because there is no absolute time. Time is relative, and thus each observer can be right about his time, while not having the same time as someone else.

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Oh... one more thing... from what I've read, Einstein didn't like some of the implications of his theory... so it's quite possible that he said some things that didn't jive with his own theory. However, I'm pretty sure that his theory, and subsequent understanding and testing of it, show exactly what I said: often there is no "the truth", due to the relative nature of the universe.

Any subsequent detailed discussion of this, if you disagree, will definitely require one or both of us to define "the truth". I've had long drawn out conversations with you before, so I'd like to avoid a misunderstanding due to a difference in defintions or implied definitions if at all possible. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

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As far as I'm aware the only problem Einstein had with the implication of relativity was the bizarre idea that the universe was expanding, this led to his 'biggest mistake' the cosmological constant. He did have problems with QM which he did so much to discover but that's seperate.

To try to avoid misunderstandings here's an Einstein quote to work on:

"Relativity teaches us the connection between the different descriptions of one and the same reality."

If by different truths you mean different descriptions of the same thing then fine but these descriptions are consistent with each other and hence are not different truths.

Are we on the same page?

chez