What is Truth?

[Scarletfox]

7 minutes ago, Scout_Fox said:

Hmm again I think the other way around here. If it is a thought it is subjective by definition and not objective. That's because it is their thought, a subjective reality of their own creation rather than a universal truth. An objective truth is something that is without a doubt true for every single person and since we cannot verify any of this that's why Husserl got to there is no objective truth beyond or subjective reality.

 

How do we verify the truth claim that 'there is no objective truth beyond subjective reality'?

13 hours ago, Karger said:

You are operating on circular reasoning.  The Truth cannot exist because we all live in diverging realities informed by our own choices.  You could choose to live in a reality that operates according to rules you and someone else agrees on but until you do Truth will not exist.  By telling you this I am drawing you into my reality where my statements are true.

I think I finally realize what you meant when you said I was operating on circular reasoning (after thirteen hours of deliberation). I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I was just pointing out that a subjective truth claim cannot exist without admitting that there is some form of objective truth. For example, in the post I quoted from you above, you made quite a few statements which you think are subjective to you, yet you also think they affect the rest of the world... therefore, you believe in absolute truth. Here are your suggested truth claims:

 

1. Scarletfox is operating on circular reasoning

2. Circular reasoning is bad (inferred)

3. The Truth does not exist

4. We all live in diverging realities which are informed by our choices

5. Everyone determines the truth of their own reality (inferred)

Here's the problem, at the end you said that you were pulling me into your reality to show me that this is what is true for you, but if you had to pull me into your reality, would it not be true for me as well? You've placed rules and boundaries onto how subjective truth works, therefore, you have made it objective.The subjective truth claim depends on and needs the idea that there is some truth. Therefore any statement that claims that truth does not exist, is a statement that claims to be true itself, therefore showing that there is truth! One cannot say that 'truth is subjective' because they are saying that the claim (truth is subjective) is true!

Edited October 13, 2020 by Scarletfox

[Scout_Fox]

Just now, Scarletfox said:

How do we verify the truth claim that there is no objective truth beyond subjective reality?

The fact that you cannot prove it verifies that it is true. If you could prove it the statement would be changed to: there is objective truth.

[Scarletfox]

Just now, Scout_Fox said:

The fact that you cannot prove it verifies that it is true. If you could prove it the statement would be changed to: there is objective truth.

So you admit that some things are true?

[Scout_Fox]

Just now, Scarletfox said:

So you admit that some things are true?

Yes it is a universally accepted subjective truth. Different than an objective truth because you cannot guarantee that it is true and made subjectively true by that exact statement.

[Karger]

10 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

So you admit that some things are true?

What Starfox said.  It is a universally accepted axiom.  This does not imply that we are right.

[MusicalReader]

I enjoyed reading this post! This was so fascinating! I originally thought it was a (somewhat) simple question, but now I'm reassessing! This discussion absolutely captivated me and completely altered my thinking on the subject. Thanks to all for your thoughts! 

Edited October 13, 2020 by MusicalReader

[Scarletfox]

2 hours ago, Scout_Fox said:

Yes it is a universally accepted subjective truth. Different than an objective truth because you cannot guarantee that it is true and made subjectively true by that exact statement.

2 hours ago, Karger said:

What Starfox said.  It is a universally accepted axiom.  This does not imply that we are right.

This is a really fascinating answer that I haven't encountered, although I'm not super clear on the specifics of what y'all are saying, could I get a little bit of elaboration? 

[Karger]

13 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

This is a really fascinating answer that I haven't encountered, although I'm not super clear on the specifics of what y'all are saying, could I get a little bit of elaboration? 

We have all agreed it is true because it makes our lives easier to pretend it is.  This does not mean that it has to be just that not doing it makes our lives more complicated.

[Bearer of all agonies]

I think one person will know the answer @The_Truthwatcher

[Scout_Fox]

42 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

3 hours ago, Scout_Fox said:

Yes it is a universally accepted subjective truth. Different than an objective truth because you cannot guarantee that it is true and made subjectively true by that exact statement.

3 hours ago, Karger said:

What Starfox said.  It is a universally accepted axiom.  This does not imply that we are right.

This is a really fascinating answer that I haven't encountered, although I'm not super clear on the specifics of what y'all are saying, could I get a little bit of elaboration? 

Yay!! New ideas lols let me try to elaborate.

The way I learned it is that an objective truth is something that exists outside of anyone's perception or understanding or views. It just is. In literally every sense of its being there's no way it could not be true. It is the absolute truthful element that cannot possibly be refuted.

What Husserl was doing was saying like "wait, everything I do and see and say is subjective, it's all up to my or others' interpretation." And so what he tried to do is find like is there an absolute truth or fact that exists beyond any of us. Is there anything that we can say without a shred of doubt, beyond any human construct, "that is true." 

And what he found was that he could not. Every piece of evidence he could gather through reasoning or his senses were products of his consciousness, products of his subjectivity (his view on the world). He could not find any absolute external truth because the only way to do that would be by using his subjective senses.

This meant that the only thing that existed, that we could prove was there, was our subjective reality, our truth imposed upon the world (subjective) and not an absolute truth that was of the world (objective).

Edited October 13, 2020 by Scout_Fox

[Experience]

9 hours ago, Frustration said:

That is what you think happened, it is a fact that you believe I failed intentionally. It is not a fact that I failed intentionally.

Yes, but for me it is also true that you failed intentionally. It's fact that I believe it, and my belief is fact for me, if that makes sense?

[Snorkel]

I can't not share this Babylon 5 scene.

"What is truth? And what is God?"

[NameIess]

So @Karger Do you know for certain that you currently do not believe in objective truth? If so, would that not be an objective truth to you?

[Karger]

7 minutes ago, Nameless said:

So @Karger Do you know for certain that you currently do not believe in objective truth? If so, would that not be an objective truth to you?

OK lets do this.  I can't actually know anything beyond my own existence.  As has been pointed out any expansion on this paradigm leaves room for me being wrong.  So no I cannot say for certain that I do not believe in objective truth.  Even if I said yes to this question I would be stating that I believed I could prove a negative which is generally considered impossible under the expanded logical paradigm that most humans currently use to make decisions.

[Frustration]

35 minutes ago, Experience said:

Yes, but for me it is also true that you failed intentionally. It's fact that I believe it, and my belief is fact for me, if that makes sense?

But it isn't.

Just because you think something doesn't make it fact.

[Bearer of all agonies]

I. . . Am Truthless! 

[Experience]

2 hours ago, Frustration said:

But it isn't.

Just because you think something doesn't make it fact.

What I'm trying to say, is it's possible for me to... agh. I can't explain it well enough. I want to say it's where your belief is fact, but that doesn't really help my case.  

[Frustration]

11 minutes ago, Experience said:

What I'm trying to say, is it's possible for me to... agh. I can't explain it well enough. I want to say it's where your belief is fact, but that doesn't really help my case.  

Because belief isn't fact. Now you can believe something, and it is true you believe it, but just because you believe it doesn't make it true. You might think it's true, but perception can't change reality.

[Experience]

Just now, Frustration said:

Because belief isn't fact. Now you can believe something, and it is true you believe it, but just because you believe it doesn't make it true. You might think it's true, but perception can't change reality.

Ya, I'm seeing where that's coming from. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that someone's perception of a belief is truth, so I guess the reality of truth is always fact but the perception of truth isn't?

[Aspiring Writer]

On 10/12/2020 at 6:55 PM, Condensation said:

I think this is where this belongs. Today we were talking in Socratic, and I disagreed with everyone else in my class.

What is truth to you, and why?

Truth is what we think is an objective fact about an event, time, object, etc. The truth changes as society grows, as what we decide are objective facts can change over tie as our knowledge grows, but certain things will be true no matter, like your action of you typing on a keyboard, someone running for a few minutes, things that no matter how you look at them are true.

[Bearer of all agonies]

“Truthwatcher. Is good name. More people should watch truth, instead of lies.”

[Ixthos]

@Scarletfox I think you might be my new favourite sharder - you have been making excellent points, I think :-)

 

To avoid the semantic argument, as I have already covered that in my previous post - the semantic argument being about whether truth applies to belief or to fact - and focusing just on belief and fact, I would like to ask a question. Can everyone here clear up one fundamental point with regards to this discussion: Do you believe that things exist that are independent of our minds - indeed, that before humans existed the world in some shape or form existed, with properties and objects, and our coming into existence didn't make those things any more or less real? That is, there are things that exist whether or not their are human minds to understand them?

[Truthless of Shinovar]

Perhaps this is odd coming from me, considering my username, but here goes nothing (and I apologize if some of this has been said, countered, etc. before in the thread, I just skimmed through part of it):

One of my favorite sayings is “Truth is truth is truth is truth is truth.” Truth is the state of fact, the undeniable existence of something that you cannot say in any way, shape, or form is not real. Oddly enough, as I considered what is truly truth, I realized that meant very few things.

(Pessimistic/Realistic view:) Scientific law, for example, is not necessarily truth. Many things have changed about science over the centuries that were once considered fact. Take a look at a scientist living in 1000 B.C. and a scientist living right now, and their scientific “truths” would vary greatly. I imagine the same would happen if you were to compare the knowledge from a scientist from 500 years from today to the greatest scientist of our age. Personally, I am inclined to believe that among the scientific laws there is a great amount of truth, but of course, I could be wrong, just as the many scientists before I was even born.

Through this reasoning, I can safely rationalize that if scientific law, the most “factual” thing known to mankind can be wrong, then among mankind, there is no way to know if truth exists. Among our specialized experiences that form our unique and individual lives, we each view “truth” in differing ways. People who have suffered losing a loved one might say that the truth is that there is no greater pain than that, while those who might not have had loved ones to begin with might differ, saying that in truth, loneliness is the greatest pain that mankind can feel. Hence why we have opinions. Even what we call fact (the sky is blue) is relative, and ultimately subjective (what if you are colorblind to the color blue? What about night time, aurora borealis, etc.?).

(Optimistic/Faithful view:)So does truth even exist? With all this evidence piled up against it, I say yes. Truth can, and does, exist. Why? Simple. Eventually, with enough time and patience, truth is made manifest. People, “facts”, some opinions will be proved wrong time and time again until there is only truth left (What proves these things wrong is described in the next paragraph). These “ultimate truths” are perhaps more rare than we would think. Think about my example about the truth about pain mentioned above. Maybe in this case, one truth does not exist, but both people are right, without question. They have both felt unimaginable pain, and for both of them, it is fact. They cannot, with their current experiences, deny it. What separates this from opinion, however, is that should we live the same experiences of that other person we would all know that truths sometimes deep and personal things that are consistent and existent with no way of opposing the facts. Both people can be right. So in a very odd, ironic sort of way, truth is inconsistent. I would not consider these “ultimate truths”, however, as the ultimate truths are the facts and reality that exist and are true regardless of whether or not one acknowledges them.

In regards to ultimate truth, there is an ultimate source. To be frank, that is God. He is a benevolent deity who knows and understands all ultimate truths, has created with these truths, perhaps even created the truths themselves. And while I cannot prove to you now that there is a God who watches over the universe and its truths, I can ask that you wait. Ultimate truth comes with the passage of time. In the end, we will know for certain whether or not I am right or wrong.

Dang. I feel like I kinda ran in circles there. I was trying to keep it logical, but I don’t think I’ve got enough practice to really convey what I mean. Hopefully you get the gist of it. TLDR: Really, to sum it all up, I mean to say that truth comes with time. Evidence can’t be found in this lifetime, so we’ll have to wait and see what truths are made manifest.

[Scarletfox]

21 hours ago, Scout_Fox said:

Yay!! New ideas lols let me try to elaborate.

The way I learned it is that an objective truth is something that exists outside of anyone's perception or understanding or views. It just is. In literally every sense of its being there's no way it could not be true. It is the absolute truthful element that cannot possibly be refuted.

What Husserl was doing was saying like "wait, everything I do and see and say is subjective, it's all up to my or others' interpretation." And so what he tried to do is find like is there an absolute truth or fact that exists beyond any of us. Is there anything that we can say without a shred of doubt, beyond any human construct, "that is true." 

And what he found was that he could not. Every piece of evidence he could gather through reasoning or his senses were products of his consciousness, products of his subjectivity (his view on the world). He could not find any absolute external truth because the only way to do that would be by using his subjective senses.

This meant that the only thing that existed, that we could prove was there, was our subjective reality, our truth imposed upon the world (subjective) and not an absolute truth that was of the world (objective).

Ok, I think I understand now. Am I understanding correctly to assume that your presented claim is: We cannot know the truth, but we can only know what we perceive truth to be.

57 minutes ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

(Pessimistic/Realistic view:) Scientific law, for example, is not necessarily truth. Many things have changed about science over the centuries that were once considered fact. Take a look at a scientist living in 1000 B.C. and a scientist living right now, and their scientific “truths” would vary greatly. I imagine the same would happen if you were to compare the knowledge from a scientist from 500 years from today to the greatest scientist of our age. Personally, I am inclined to believe that among the scientific laws there is a great amount of truth, but of course, I could be wrong, just as the many scientists before I was even born.

Through this reasoning, I can safely rationalize that if scientific law, the most “factual” thing known to mankind can be wrong, then among mankind, there is no way to know if truth exists. Among our specialized experiences that form our unique and individual lives, we each view “truth” in differing ways. People who have suffered losing a loved one might say that the truth is that there is no greater pain than that, while those who might not have had loved ones to begin with might differ, saying that in truth, loneliness is the greatest pain that mankind can feel. Hence why we have opinions. Even what we call fact (the sky is blue) is relative, and ultimately subjective (what if you are colorblind to the color blue? What about night time, aurora borealis, etc.?).

Is scientific law the most factual thing known to mankind? How did we come to the conclusion that science is factual?

58 minutes ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

(Optimistic/Faithful view:)So does truth even exist? With all this evidence piled up against it, I say yes. Truth can, and does, exist. Why? Simple. Eventually, with enough time and patience, truth is made manifest. People, “facts”, some opinions will be proved wrong time and time again until there is only truth left (What proves these things wrong is described in the next paragraph). These “ultimate truths” are perhaps more rare than we would think. Think about my example about the truth about pain mentioned above. Maybe in this case, one truth does not exist, but both people are right, without question. They have both felt unimaginable pain, and for both of them, it is fact. They cannot, with their current experiences, deny it. What separates this from opinion, however, is that should we live the same experiences of that other person we would all know that truths sometimes deep and personal things that are consistent and existent with no way of opposing the facts. Both people can be right. So in a very odd, ironic sort of way, truth is inconsistent. I would not consider these “ultimate truths”, however, as the ultimate truths are the facts and reality that exist and are true regardless of whether or not one acknowledges them.

In regards to ultimate truth, there is an ultimate source. To be frank, that is God. He is a benevolent deity who knows and understands all ultimate truths, has created with these truths, perhaps even created the truths themselves. And while I cannot prove to you now that there is a God who watches over the universe and its truths, I can ask that you wait. Ultimate truth comes with the passage of time. In the end, we will know for certain whether or not I am right or wrong.

To be clear, you are saying that we should have faith that truth exists, because eventually, things will prove it to exist? And then about the pain thing... if I felt like the greatest pain is emotional at 1:40 p.m. today, would it be true for all people at all time that at 1:40 pm on October 14, I felt like the greatest pain would be emotional, or would it (Scarletfox believes the greatest pain to be emotional) only be true for me?

1 hour ago, Truthless of Shinovar said:

truth comes with time. Evidence can’t be found in this lifetime, so we’ll have to wait and see what truths are made manifest.

How do we know that the statement "truth comes with time" is true? Or should we simply accept it on faith?

[Truthless of Shinovar]

8 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

Is scientific law the most factual thing known to mankind? How did we come to the conclusion that science is factual?

In my opinion, yes. It receives the most scrutiny, people have been studying it for millenniums, and generally across all civilizations (now at least), science is regarded as fact. We reached the conclusion that it is factual by experimenting and testing over and over and over and over again, looking for the little details, sequences, anomalies that make up existence. We compare and contrast, try to catch nature by cross examination, all using very logical and straight-forward methods; namely, the scientific method.

9 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

To be clear, you are saying that we should have faith that truth exists, because eventually, things will prove it to exist? And then about the pain thing... if I felt like the greatest pain is emotional at 1:40 p.m. today, would it be true for all people at all time that at 1:40 pm on October 14, I felt like the greatest pain would be emotional, or would it (Scarletfox believes the greatest pain to be emotional) only be true for me?

More or less. I’m saying that we, as limited beings whose sight is oh so constrained, who see just what is in front of us and nothing else, who are deceived by a perception of time, and who are part of the universe but don’t understand it have a very odd understanding of things like truth. We typically live for less than a century, and our knowledge of space, time, and matter is riddled with unknowns that we can’t explain and don’t have the truths to. So yes, faith is required to believe that there is truth, firm and definite, and that we may never known it.

In regards to the pain question, if somebody else lived through what you lived through, felt the pains, worries, and overall suffering, as well as felt the joy of life and experienced the good, they would understand you so completely and wholly that your truths would become their truths as well. Mortals are incapable of this, however, and so your truths remain tied to you. Because you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the pain that your felt at 1:40 PM today was the absolute worst you’ve ever felt in your life, and other people, they just can’t know it. They may have 100% faith that it’s true, but without the direct transfer of emotion, that truth is yours alone. So no, that pain would not be true for everyone else in the world, only yourself.

9 minutes ago, Scarletfox said:

How do we know that the statement "truth comes with time" is true? Or should we simply accept it on faith?

I would say accept it in faith, but I want to answer this logically... It would be to my knowledge that truth will either come with time or it won’t. One of these two things will happen without a doubt. Faith is required for us to believe that truth will eventually come. Otherwise, we may believe, with no faith, that answers will never come over time, and that truth will forever be unknown since complete knowledge of something is unattainable, simply because we are mortals, third-dimensional beings who do not have the capability to be intimately aware of the truths of the universe. Similar to how no mortal can truly feel what you have felt, because they cannot know exactly how you feel.