The Nature of Truth

[Ummon]

Not necessarily. It may be said that mathematics is inherent to the laws of the cosmos.

[Tom Paine]

It may be said so, but an axiom of mathematics (ie a law) is that triangles have three sides; this is definitional, and not inherent to the cosmos.

[Ummon]

Inherent doesn't mean deterministically true in all conditions. The universe includes contradiction, in time, in space. This doesn't make the contradicting instances non-existent.

[Tom Paine]

That's irrelevant and fails to answer the point Ummon. Are mathematicl truths neccessarily true? Are they contingently so? Well, we don't know.

Oh, and saying that mathematical truths are inherent to the cosmos does nothing to explain how the mind interacts with the brain in your dualism.

[Ummon]

Because you're asking the worng question, and expecting the wrong answer.
Truth is not a rock. It's a mist. Or better a quantum foam.

[Tom Paine]

Because you're asking the worng question, and expecting the wrong answer.
Truth is not a rock. It's a mist. Or better a quantum foam.

Certain truth is a rock; it cannot be otherwise. "I am, I exist" to quote Descartes is a rock, is certain truth. It is not mist at all.

[Ummon]

No certain truth exists.

[Tom Paine]

Yes, it does; I can state with certainty that I exist. This is certain truth.

This is also all getting split off as waay off topic.

[Denny Crane!]

Yes, it does; I can state with certainty that I exist. This is certain truth.

This is also all getting split off as waay off topic.

It requires the extra premise of whatever has the property of thinking exists for it to be a proof.

Peter

[Manji]

Yes, it does; I can state with certainty that I exist. This is certain truth.

I disagree but mainly semantically;
to state that one exists based on the Cartesian principle is not a reference to a certain truth but rather to a partial/personal truth: you regard yourself as a existing entity because you can formulate the idea of yourself as a entity but, and here's the catch, that is your perspective, not the global and therefore "certain" (absolute) truth.
In my opinion there are no absolute truths, at least not perceptible by humans, mainly because "truth" encompassed moral barriers that force it to not apply in a universal way.

[Muizer]

Hmm concerning the meaning of truth in mathematics, it may be interesting to interject something a relative of mine, who is an accomplished mathematician, once told me: There are apparently different schools of thought in Mathematics with some believing its subject matter is created by human thought, whereas others believe it exists and is discovered by human thought. I remember agreeing with him that whichever you'd choose,the key word is "believe" because it shows neither provides an anchor for human thought in objective truth. We're adrift in "reality" and the best thing we can do is not seek what we can't find but to make do with what we can.

[Nurab Sol]

One can go on and on about reality and truth, but the reality of it is this: rejection of objective reality and the existence of things outside one's physical perceptions has no place in a society that couldn't function without objectivity. Almost no one acts on the philosophy that certain truth does not exist.

Why go to work if there is no knowable place in which it can objectively exist? At a certain point, all of you will act in a manner that is inconsistent with Ummon's idea (or lack thereof) of reality. You will go to work, you will be on time for the train, and you will act as though you can and do know that things do objectively exist in a knowable world. That is the plain truth of the matter. If we do not exist, why talk to us? Why not do something that you can be more sure of? Something that you can see, feel, hear, smell, and taste?

typical example: A man tells you that everyone is spying on him and that the whole world is arrayed against him. "I'm not spying on you" you reply. "That's just what a person who'd be spying on me say!" exclaims the man. You can't logically disprove this, because, for all you know, the world's population may very well exist for the sole purpose of observing this one man. Their sole purpose might also be to generate electric impulses in their brains to be used as energy for a race of homicidal machines who store human in giant farms to be bred as power generators! There is no way to know for sure with only the 5 senses at your command. He is a paranoid, and acts like one. He is miserable. You would be, too, of you acted on a skeptical philosophy.

At a certain level, there is no way to logically prove that one perception of reality is false and another true or that we all exist in a common reality that encompasses the universe and all those things we have and have not yet discovered. But who lives their lives this way? How many people who espouse this philosophy practice it? I had a short argument with a student in my gov. class last week. He said that reality was relative, and I contradicted him. We were both talking in raised voices and consequently chided by the instructor and ordered to return to our seats. As he moved away, i said, "wait, come back and argue with me a little more." He replied that our instructor had directed us to return to our seats. I countered by saying reality was relative and, therefore, there was no knowable existence in which our instructor could exist to chide us or otherwise influence us. Can you guess what he did? I can, and i was correct. He returned to his seat.

It's a lazy man's argument because the point can be argued forever and requires no actual feat of intelligence. Eventually, though, reality would intervene, you would cease to argue, and go off to work or a doctor's appointment, or to act on some other "perceived" need. This, of course would be a total rejection of the point you had just spent hours or days arguing in favor of.

[Manji]

One can go on and on about reality and truth, but the reality of it is this: rejection of objective reality and the existence of things outside one's physical perceptions has no place in a society that couldn't function without objectivity. Almost no one acts on the philosophy that certain truth does not exist.

It's a lazy man's argument because the point can be argued forever and requires no actual feat of intelligence. Eventually, though, reality would intervene, you would cease to argue, and go off to work or a doctor's appointment, or to act on some other "perceived" need. This, of course would be a total rejection of the point you had just spent hours or days arguing in favor of.

I disagree, though not entirely. Just because you fail to act accordingly to your logical assumptions that doesn't mean they don't exist or that their nature is not different from what you can perceive.

For example, have you ever had a vivid dream? I have and so have many others. In a vivid dream you are dreaming but somehow you gain partial consciousness and you can perceive the dream to be just that, a dream, and not reality. More, with practice you can even "manipulate" the dream and as long as you remain in that state of partial consciousness you can change the "dream world" as you please. The issue is you know you are in a dream but if you fail to control your subconscious it will "take over" and your perceived "dream" becomes "reality", even if a reality created by yourself while sleeping.

My point is that even though I consider myself fairly objective and I tend to shun relativistic views I know that relativism and objectivity are terms that, in themselves, are relative and attributed meaning by humans using a common logical device (say, the dictionary's description, an encyclopaedic definition, etc) but even there the logical device mutates itself within each one; it's a bit like defining "wrong" and "right", "good" and "evil", it becomes a messy discussion because those definitions can never be universal seeing as we can't achieve a "universal consciousness" state.

[Nurab Sol]

I disagree, though not entirely. Just because you fail to act accordingly to your logical assumptions that doesn't mean they don't exist or that their nature is not different from what you can perceive.

But when people who act on this assumption are classified as crazy, it definitely says something about the assumption's relevance and applicability.

My point is that even though I consider myself fairly objective and I tend to shun relativistic views I know that relativism and objectivity are terms that, in themselves, are relative and attributed meaning by humans using a common logical device (say, the dictionary's description, an encyclopaedic definition, etc) but even there the logical device mutates itself within each one; it's a bit like defining "wrong" and "right", "good" and "evil", it becomes a messy discussion because those definitions can never be universal seeing as we can't achieve a "universal consciousness" state.

But, let us be "realistic" about this. We cannot even have a sane discussion without agreeing on some common rules, laws, standards and definitions. This is the reason most all people who play the relativist game are not serious about it. None of the major contributors to this forum act on a skeptical philosophy that disavows the existence of objective existence. This just doesn't work. It has no place in society. Logically, it is impossible to argue against, but that ceases to matter at a certain point.

The overwhelming majority will always choose sanity. You may say all things are relative, but you obviously wouldn't act on it. There is a name for people who act on fundamental skepticism: lunatics. I don't see any lunatics here. I see people who use words and terms and phrases as though they are objective. Even those who profess faith in their skeptic ways discard them as soon as reality butts in.

How do you communicate with other people if the debate is reduced to arguments over definitions of "good", "bad", "tall", or "short"? The world we "perceive" around us doesn't work like this. Once you go down that road, anything is fair game. Logic itself can be discarded using this tactic. You would be a fool to actually act as though nothing really existed.

No matter how long you go on with the argument, you will, eventually, bow down before reality and succumb to the objectivity that allows human beings to live and work and thrive in civilization. Regardless of what the skeptics say they will almost always act in a manner contradictory.

It is a worthless belief and an even more worthless argument, because it eradicates the basis of all human interaction and communication that allows us to even have an argument in the first place! You divorce yourself from sanity and reason by acting on such a philosophy. One doesn't need to use logic to argue against relativism, because the proponent doesn't necessarily need to agree on what logic is or that it even exists! All one can do is appeal to sanity. I'll take sanity over logic any day.