Is truth subjective or objective?

@nothingtodo,

Nothingtodo says to Imans that he is getting through to him. I strongly recommend a quick visit to a psyche crisis cliniic.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Re: nothingtodo (Post 5214290)
The truth is that there is no truth except for the notion we've invented. Reality, on the other hand, is a term for what actually is, whatever that may be.
Hi Frank.

Hi, JL.

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@Taliesin181,

Truth is that which exists. Both objective and subjective things exist therefore truth is both subjective and objective.

The way people feel about a piece of art is subjective but it Truly is the way they feel about it. These feelings are no less true then the presence of the object that is being experienced.

The experience of reality should not be mistaken for the whole of reality. It isn,t the universe that is made disputable by a different reality but rather the experience of it is disputable through other experiences of the same reality.

If I have a hallucination of an elf sitting in a chair I am having a real experience. The hallucination exists. It is a true hallucination that can be verified through others refuting its existence in the actual chair. If I assert that the elf is indeed sitting in the actual chair, beyond my experience, then that assertion can also be refuted in the same way.

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@Imgeorge,

Huh>?

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Facts, as tidbits of truth one can see for oneself, can be ascertained positively by several people being able to testify to them. Barring some form of collective hallucination, if enough people say the moon is full tonight, it's probably true.

Theories linking facts together in an explanation, such as 'the moon is earth's satellite and depending on its position relative to the sun and earth will appear differently to us, etc... ' -- theories remain theories forever. No matter how many time they 'prove' right, the next experiment / observations / facts could still conceivably contradict them.

But theories can have a probality value of 0.9999, which for most of us is close enough to truth.

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@Olivier5,

Most of us require some form of consistency in what we believe to be true to maintain our sanity and confidence in what we do. If our presumptions changed on a regular basis on any belief, there won't be any stability to our lives.

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Truth is a concept invented by humans. As such it is, as I've said before, BOTH a subjective (actually intersubjective) and objective reality.

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@cicerone imposter,

Sure, we need to believe certain theories are true. And maybe they are, but still they remain inherently unprovable. Like my belief that W was/is an idiot... Maybe he was, or maybe he was very very good at pretending to be an idiot.

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@JLNobody,

Truth is something that exists both as but also beyond the concept. Falsehood on the other hand is manufactured out of error within the mind. It would be more akin to simply a concept.

Take the following for example:

The sun is a sphere

This statement is not referring to the concept of the sun but rather the actual sun. The truth is the sun itself. The statement is said to be true if the truth agrees with it. This ultimate truth is what actually exists. It is said to be false if it does not.
As a concept the sun can be either spherical or a cube. If the truth where nothing more then concept then either could be true and it would just be a matter for us to chose. But this isn't what happens at all. Instead we gather evidence from reality and build a concept, an understanding of it, based on that evidence. The benchmark for its validity always stems back to existence itself.

For example:

The volume of the universe is infinite.

The statement is conjecture. It is a concept derived without evidence. As it stands it may or may not be a statement of truth. What ultimately decides it's validity as a truthfull statement is reality itself, what actually exists. You and many, many other people may or may not believe it to be true but that doesn't make it so. If false the statement is nothing more then an erroneous concept. If true it is a concept that the truth agrees with.

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@Imgeorge,

Quote:

The volume of the universe is infinite.

Without evidence to the contrary, this statement is true. These are simple true/false issues.

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@cicerone imposter,

Consider these two statements:

The volume of the universe is infinite.
The volume of the universe is finite.

There is no evidence contradicting either statement. Do we then presume both are true? Or do we just arbitrarily pick one?

It would seem to me the most truthful way to view them both is as unknown.

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@Imgeorge,

Since there is no way to prove

Quote:

The volume of the universe is finite.

, I prefer to error on the side of "the universe is infinite," although either answer would be correct - since it's totally a subjective judgement.

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@cicerone imposter,

Formulating a belief by utilizing a feeling won't make the statement correct. We are referring to one reality, a universe that has a volume that is either finite or infinite. Since both states cannot exist simultaneously one statement must therefore be incorrect. Just because we are incapable of proving which one it is does not render us incapable of knowing that.

I prefer not to err and side with the truth and since I don't know what it is I will side with "the volume of the universe is unknown".

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@Imgeorge,

That's your choice. My perceptions are different.

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@cicerone imposter,

While I agree it's a choice I also find my self skeptical that the difference in choice is a matter of perception because neither of us are actually capable of perceiving the limits or infinitude of space.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with choosing to believe in something despite the fact that it is actually unknown to us and quite possibly false. In fact at times it is advantageous and even necessary when coping with a reality of which we have great difficulty in being 100% certain. However there is something inherently erroneous in the notion, when presented with two opposing states of being, and the two separate beliefs in the actuality of one vs. the other, that both beliefs are in fact correct. They cannot be, because together they represent an impossible state of being. One must be true and the other must be false and therefore incorrect. It's not a matter of perception. We cannot rely on it in this case. Because of our limitations in this regard we are left to fall back on reasoning. Perception is not the only tool in the shed.

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@Imgeorge,

If space can keep expanding, that to me suggests it's infinite. You may determine anything you like including "I don't know."

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@cicerone imposter,

Actually it suggests only that space is capable of expanding eternally. A finite volume of space can expand eternally never achieving an infinite volume. There isn't a threshold to cross where the finite becomes infinite. Think of it this way. You build a tower out of Lego blocks by placing a block and then a new one on top of the previous one every second, from now and forevermore. You will forever and always have the first block on one end of the stack and the last block on the other with a finite number of blocks in between. It is the expansion that is denoted as limitless not the quantity. They are two different things.

That said. It is not the believe, that the volume of space in the universe is infinite, that I find erroneous. It's the one where you state that both the beliefs in infinite space and finite space are correct. They cannot be.

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@Imgeorge,

The example of leggo blocks doesn't do it any justice. Infinity does! We're talking about space that continues to expand with no end in site.

From Scientific American.

Quote:

Speed of Universe's Expansion Measured Better Than Ever
The newest measurements, courtesy of NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, come from infrared observations of distant variable stars

By Clara Moskowitz and SPACE.com

CLIMBING: The cosmic distance ladder, symbolically shown here in this artist's concept, is a series of stars and other objects within galaxies that have known distances. The Spitzer Space Telescope used this ladder to make the most precise measurement yet of the rate of the universe's expansion.
Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The universe just got a new speeding ticket.

The most precise measurement ever made of the speed of the universe's expansion is in, thanks to NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, and it's a doozy. Space itself is pulling apart at the seams, expanding at a rate of 74.3 plus or minus 2.1 kilometers (46.2 plus or minus 1.3 miles) per second per megaparsec (a megaparsec is roughly 3 million light-years).

If those numbers are a little too much to contemplate, rest assured that's really, really fast. And it's getting faster all the time.

American astronomer Edwin P. Hubble first discovered that our universe isn't static in the 1920s. In fact, Hubble found, space has been expanding since it began with the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. Then, in the 1990s, astronomers shocked the world again with the revelation that this expansion is speeding up (this discovery won its finders the 2011 Nobel Prize in physics).

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@cicerone imposter,

You do realize the the quote you posted still deals with finite quantities only.
But let's say for argument sake you are right, how then can the opposite as you suggest also be correct? You mentioned something about a 'subjective judgment'.

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@Imgeorge,

I can only project from what's known today into the future. As long as space continues to expand according to scientists, that's what I'm going to "live by" until such time they can declare the expansion has slowed or stopped.

You are free to choose any way you please.

1 Reply

Is truth subjective or objective?

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