Philosophy of Truth ?

mindless, First of all, welcome to a2k. I disagree with your thesis, because look at religion. They have every conviction that they are right, but there are too many contradictions that enable the antagonist to poo-poo their beliefs. "Feel like" does not translate to "ultimate truth."

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truth
Mindless, I like your handle, very much like zen buddhism's notion of "no-mind." You seem in places just about to state a position similar to those of Twyvel, Focus and myself on the thread, The Philosophy of Self. But too often you say things that appear very inconsistent with our common and various positions. I really don't want to get into the details with you at this time. And I do appreciate the linguistic obstacles to the communication of mystically oriented ideas. The three of us have had that problem as well.

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JLN, yes, deception is a survival trait, but camouflage in the animal world is not a deliberate choice of lies over truth.

Hiding your assets from the IRS, pretending to be someone you're not to attract a mate, claiming to be of the same opinion as the majority even when it is wrong, and lying to get out of trouble are deliberate deceptions. Not that deliberate deception is necessarily wrong. :wink:

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c.i., agreed that many people believe falsehoods to be Truth because they don't know any better, but when given a clear choice between truth and fabrication, an astounding number of people accept religious and political beliefs that are contrary to fact. We are amazingly good at rationalizing inconsistencies instead of changing our core beliefs.

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mindless, Einstein showed us that there is no Absolute Time. Clocks can only tell us relative time because they run faster or slower depending on velocity and gravitational fields, and different observers may not even agree on which of two events occurred first.

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If I may--this discussion might be analogous to the terms hypothesis, theory and fact. Hypothesis is an idea as yet untested, a theory is a hypothesis under investigation. Once the theory has been rigorously tested and analyzed it then becomes a fact but the scientific world adds a qualification
for every potential fact:

For scientists, a fact is something which is assumed to be true, at least for the purposes of whatever they are doing at the moment, but which might be refuted at some point.

Absolute truth may be as elusive as absolute reality.

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truth
Terry, I don't like truth, error, good, evil, etc. as Platonic reifications of thoughts. They always lead us (as the pre-buddhist philosopher, Nagarguna, showed) to paradox. For example, the statement that there is no absolute truth is meant as an absolute (I know you were referring to absolute TIME--I just used your post to make this point). By the way, while deception and falsehood are SOMETIMES functional and sometimes not (showing the relativity of the matter), I DO believe that societies and relationships do better in the long run and on the whole when there is a sufficient amount of truthfulness. This promotes solidarity, trust, cooperation and reliability, the bases for collective and individuall survival.

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Terry wrote:

mindless, Einstein showed us that there is no Absolute Time. Clocks can only tell us relative time because they run faster or slower depending on velocity and gravitational fields, and different observers may not even agree on which of two events occurred first.

Terry may I remind you that Einstein's work on relativity is still called "The Theory of Relativity.

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Religion becomes dangerous when it turns to fact. Anyone who needs facts to support everything understand about the universe, physically and spiritually, is in for a boring life. I let my philosophy roam with my imagination. It always comes back and sometimes it brings valuable pieces to the puzzle back with it. I accept facts as facts, but understand that all facts were at one time crazy ideas. This has been happening since the beginning of consciousness and will continue. Anyone who dares think we are at the apex of human development and understanding has been careless in their examination of human history.

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I need facts. I consider finding the truth to be more interesting than making up fantasies. Subjective truth can never become objective truth, so you shouldn't be worried.

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Subjective truth becomes worrisome when our president claims he is following god's wishes. We must worry.

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Well, I think that's more a matter of a human being attempting to control the lives of others than of truth. The truth isn't responsible for Bush's actions, Bush is.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

... isn't that another meaning altogether? To tell the truth may not be exactly the same as to be truthful. The first deals with the accuracy of one's statement and the other deals with the sincerity, honesty or trustworthiness of the speaker.

No, not at all.

I was talking about a "truthful answer." Such answers are truthful to the extent that they are "true" (according to whatever definition you choose), and are not dependent upon the speaker's reputation for veracity. A "truthful answer," in sum, is an answer which imparts the truth.

Now, as I obliquely suggested, the proper response to Ideal's question is the one I gave:
Ideal: Does Truth matter?
Joe: That depends. Do you want a truthful answer?
Now, if Ideal responds "no," then clearly that's the answer to the initial question as well. If it doesn't matter that a truthful or non-truthful answer is given to the question, then "Truth" doesn't really matter either. On the other hand, if Ideal were to answer "yes," then it is equally clear that "Truth" does matter, at least insofar as one prefers truthful answers over non-truthful ones.

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mindless wrote:

You will know when you experience Ultimate Truth because you will feel like you are finally observing the world in its natural state for the first time.

How do you know that?

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joefromchicago - I speak only from experience. Interestingly enough, Absolute Truth can only be described in terms of how the experience feels. The types of absolutes that one observes are not directly represented in any language I have studied. It is though our linguistics are flawed. The feeling of observing nature for the first time is one of my favorites. I particularily like observing the time in between time or making my mind think that everything that it is experiencing happened 10 minutes ago. That is fun too. My Absolute Truth experience is different from these others, you don't really learn from it, it just changes you without any discussion.

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joefromchicago - my absolute favorite mind experient is playing with what I call the gravity of mind force. The human mind has a natural tendancy to discern stimuli. This is evident on many levels; biological, cognitive mechanisms, logic and reason, all throughout psychology. This tendancy exists everywhere without question in nature and science, it essentially is accepted as truth. But what about is tendancy to discern stimuli, what is the force behind this tendancy? And why do the developmental patterns that human minds have exhibited over the course of tens of thousands of years resemble that of our expanding universe? I don't mean this as a metaphor but mathematically they bear amazing resemblance. More than time and matter seem to be influenced by the force we call gravity.

But this is only in my imagination and in-so-being is fantasy, not fact, and is not worthy of further speculation or discussion. Right?

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mindless wrote:

I speak only from experience.

And how do you know that someone else's experience of "Ultimate Truth" will be similar to yours?

mindless wrote:

Interestingly enough, Absolute Truth can only be described in terms of how the experience feels.

Then how do you know it really was "Absolute Truth"?

mindless wrote:

But this is only in my imagination and in-so-being is fantasy, not fact, and is not worthy of further speculation or discussion. Right?

That's what I'm trying to figure out.

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Since your Absolute Truth is different from other people's, doesn't that make it your subjective Absolute truth then?

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truth
Joe, of course we are playing with definitions. MY definitions say that to be truthful is to tell the truth AS ONE KNOWS IT, but it may not be the truth in fact.

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Frank Apisa wrote:

What makes you suppose the Ultimate Truth can be known?

And since your questions intimates that it can be known, perhaps you will share with us the names of anyone you suppose KNOWS the Ultimate Truth.

How do you know that Ultimate Truth can never be known ? that means you too know the ultimate truth...

The name of the person who knows the 'Ultimate Truth' is, ofcourse, IDEAL Singh... Very Happy

coz he knows that the 'Ultimate Truth' is that

'Ultimate Truth' can never be known Exclamation

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Philosophy of Truth ?

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