A perfect god can not exist?

@Extrain,

Extrain;157191 wrote:

I can agree with something like that. It certainly heads in the right direction.

But this is nonsense. "truth is relative" is inconsistent with the entire set of truths which are not relative. This is precisely the problem.

Consider Truths as the result of relations between objects, phenomenological truths, temporal oppositions, but not true fundamental oppositions...two sides of the same coin...although I get what you mean...it certainly is a very confusing problem in a classical perspective of what truth might be...remember that as a Determinist I above all must believe in a fundamental Truth, but I also must recognise oppositions and reconcile them...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157195 wrote:

Consider Truths as the result of relations between objects, phenomenological truths, temporal oppositions, but not true fundamental oppositions...two sides of the same coin...although I get what you mean...it certainly is a very confusing problem in a classical perspective of what truth might be...remember that as a Determinist I above all must believe in a fundamental Truth, but I also must recognise oppositions and reconcile them...

What does any of this have to do with whether or not "truth is relative" is true? It is purely a linguistic/logical problem, not a phenomenological, temporal, or determinism problem.

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@Extrain,

Ultimate Truth/Reality cannot be computed then its true because its length its final...if contextual truth, temporal truth, then its length its not final , thus computable and therefore contradicted by a bigger truth...its real dependent on something else...

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 02:17 PM ----------

We really are in need of a distinction between a final set and all other sub sets to understand how things work...
There must be a True set which is different in property from being sub-sets...this is I recognize very counter intuitive and awkward.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157198 wrote:

Ultimate Truth/Reality cannot be computed then its true because its length its final...if contextual truth, temporal truth, then its length its not final , thus computable and therefore contradicted by a bigger truth...its real dependent on something else...

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean.

Contextual and temporal truths are still objectively true, not "relatively" true. When I say "You are an atheist" to John my friend who is, in fact, an atheist, I am saying something objectively true, even though "You" is indexical term whose referent is provided by context and can be used to refer to different people.

When I say "Caesar crossed the Rubicon" I am still saying something objectively true about the past. The claim is not true today and false tomorrow. It was only false when Caesar was presently crossing the Rubicon because "crossed" is past tense. There is nothing "relative" going on here because there is a fact of the matter about Caeser.

Alternatively, there is no fact of the matter about "Milk tasting good" because "the milk tastes good" doesn't specify to whom the milk tastes good.

"The milk tastes good to you" is true--if, in fact, it tastes good to you.
"The milk tastes good to me" is true--if, in fact, you (and not me) are the one uttering this statement, and you happen to like milk.

And, "The milk tastes good to you" is still "true for me" since it is an objective fact the milk tastes good to you since it is a fact that you like milk (assuming of course you do).

Fil. Albuquerque;157198 wrote:

We really are in need of a distinction between a final set and all other sub sets to understand how things work...There must be a True set which is different in property from being sub-sets...this is I recognize very counter intuitive and awkward.

Well, I'm all ears if you can identify what the problem is with regard to the concept of "truth"...

1 Reply

@Extrain,

I am not denying that what is true is true...I am just saying that is not exclusively true.

So milk taste good is true alright, but milk is true that also can taste bad...

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 02:29 PM ----------

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157202 wrote:

I am not denying that what is true is true...I am just saying that is not exclusively true.

What do you mean by "exclusively true"?

Fil. Albuquerque;157202 wrote:

So milk taste good is true alright, but milk is true that also can taste bad...

? "Milk tastes good" is not true or false at all. That's the point. It doesn't specify to whom the milk tastes good.

And how can "milk be true"? What does that mean?

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@Extrain,

Milk has the property of letting itself be tasted, experienced...its nature its intertwined with other variables nature...its not a final nature...

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@Extrain,

Fil. Albuquerque;157202 wrote:

and? "Milk is distasteful to some alien species" would be true, just as "Milk tastes good to some human species" would be true.

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 01:33 PM ----------

Fil. Albuquerque;157206 wrote:

Milk has the property of letting itself be tasted, experienced...its nature its intertwined with other variables nature...its not a final nature...

That's fine to say something like that. Then "milk has taste-able properties" would be true.

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;157207 wrote:

and? "Milk is distasteful to some alien species" would be true, just as "Milk tastes good to some human species" would be true.

---------- Post added 04-27-2010 at 02:37 PM ----------

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157209 wrote:

But I don't see why this makes "truth" relative. The example is irrelevant unless you can specify something that is deeply problematic about our univocal concept of "truth." I don't see anything problematic at all.

Liking, prefering, tasting, loving, hating, fearing--are all subjetive experiences, and reports about those experiences can be true or false so long as you are referring to someone or some thing tasting x, liking x, experiencing x., etc.

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;157211 wrote:

But I don't see why this makes "truth" relative? The example is irrelevant unless you can specify something that is deeply problematic about our univocal concept of "truth." I don't see anything problematic at all.

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157209 wrote:

Sets don't say anything, so sets are not "true or false." They group objects, or just are groups of objects. Only propositions, statements, declarations can be true or false. Objects cannot be true or false. And either sets exist or don't exist. So talking about sets and sub-sets is a metaphysical problem about what constitutes a fact. But metaphysical objects cannot be true. I don't how the sky, the rock, the tree can be true, or a set, or a sub-set can be true.

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;157215 wrote:

Sets don't say anything, so sets are not "true or false." They group objects, or just are groups of objects. Only propositions, statements, declarations can be true or false. Objects cannot be true or false. And either sets exist or don't exist. So talking about sets and sub-sets is a metaphysical problem about what constitutes a fact. But metaphysical objects cannot be true. I don't how the sky, the rock, the tree can be true, or a set, or a sub-set can be true.

The knowledge of what is can be true or false of course, I agree, yet it refers to something that must have the essential fundamental property of relation with other objects...its nature/reality depends on the potential a priori of this relation that the object itself must have to support interconnections with others...it, the thing, is a sub-set of something else...and all that comes finally to a set of what can potentially relate a priori...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157214 wrote:

Contradictions can be true just because they are circumstantial, smaller, apparent, contradictions but not absolute contradictions...although they might to us "smaller creatures" very much resemble deep structural oppositions...

(P and ~P) is an absolute contradiction. It is necessarily false.

Fil. Albuquerque;157214 wrote:

Milk is "good" or "healthy" for some people and not "good" or "healthy" for others. That's fine. So "good" and "healthy" can be relational properties between a person and a thing. But those relational properties exist, and any statements made about that person and his relation to the substance in question would be objectively true or false.

But again, what does this have to whether or not the concept of "truth" is relative? It is not.

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@Extrain,

see above final edited part...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157216 wrote:

The knowledge of what is can be true or false of course, I agree, yet it refers to something that must have the essential fundamental property of relation with other objects...its nature/reality depends on the potential a priori of this relation that the object itself must have to support interconnections with others...it, the thing, is a sub-set of something else...and all that comes finally to a set of what can potentially relate a priori...

I am not sure what you are saying. We were discussing whether truth is relative or not. I am not interested in discussing sets since I don't understand what this has to do with the concept of "truth." You are harping on metaphysical worries, not logical/linguistic ones. Sorry.

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@Extrain,

If final, Truth is not relative I thought I told you this already...although final truths hardly have any possible meaning to our understanding...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157221 wrote:

If final, Truth is not relative I thought I told you this already...although final truths hardly have any possible meaning to our understanding...

I've never heard of the logical/linguistic notion of "final truth." What is "final truth"?

You are presenting metaphysical worries, not logical/linguistic ones.

Sometimes people colloquially say "truth" is just "how the world is." But that's false. "true" is a property of propositions. It is a very technical notion. Now there are theories in philosophy which try to specify in what truth consists, such as being a relation of correspondence between a proposition and a fact. And this is sufficient for me to specify truth. So there are correspondence, coherentist, and pragmatic theories of truth. But these theories don't exactly define the concept of "truth." We need to look to linguistics/logic to do that.

Moreover, you are discussing the question "what is a fact"?--which is a metaphysical question. This is not the same question as "what is truth"?--which is a logical/linguistic/semantic question which takes everyone quickly down the rabbit hole of other technical linguistic questions...

1 Reply

@Extrain,

Extrain;157222 wrote:

I've never heard of the logical/linguistic notion of "final truth." What is "final truth"?

You are presenting metaphysical worries, not logical/linguistic ones.

Sometimes people colloquially say "truth" is just "how the world is." But that's false. "true" is a property of propositions. It is a very technical notion. Now there are theories in philosophy which try to specify what truth is, such as a relational property consisting in a correspondence between a proposition and a fact. And this is sufficient for me to define "truth." But you are discussing the question "what is a fact"?--which is a metaphysical question. This is not the same question as "what is truth"?--which is a logical/linguistic/semantic question which takes everyone quickly down the rabbit hole of other technical linguistic questions...

1 Reply

@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil. Albuquerque;157224 wrote:

I don't think so. "Truth" doesn't "refer" to anything. You might say rather, "truth consists in the correspondence between a statement and a fact and, without this correspondence, statements about the world are either truth-valueless or false." That would be fine. And we certainly sometimes don't know if a proposition is true or false because we are not sure if it correctly says anything about real states of affairs or not. There's nothing problematic about that. We would then be concerned with the epistemological question of "how do we know our theories and models of the world correctly reflect how the world really is"? So that's another question.

Fil. Albuquerque;157224 wrote:

Some properties might be what's called "relational properties" or even "emergent properties"--which is fine with me. But not all properties are relations. I just think about the property of "being human" in terms of my genetic code. Sure, the property of "being human" is defined by the structures and relationships between various proteins and the organization of their parts, so it is an emergent property from these other microstructures which give rise to it. But the definition of "being human" has necessary and sufficient conditions that make humans the way they are. A thing is either a human, or not a human--being human is a non-relational property since it doesn't depend on other non-human properties or things to be the property of being-human which it is. So my being human is not dependent on anything other than having a specific genetic code coming from my parents. But it is still a non-relational property. My parents can die, but I'd still be human. So most properties are monadic properties, not relational ones. All relations are between one or more things, and if one of those things ceases to exist, then that relation no longer holds for those things. Properties are typically intrinsic to things that have them, whereas most relations are extrinsic to things that have them.

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A perfect god can not exist?

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