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The Varieties of Truth

Nicodemus

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If Nicodemus doesn't have a problem with the present line of discussion dominating his thread as it is, then I suppose it does not matter; but I could understand why he might. In some sense, though, it's still an interesting discussion about truth. Nicodemus?
It's fine by me.
 

Zarathustra

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Hm. I tend to think there is either truth or falsity, while my friends think that human understanding can't access the truth, and that the more evidence there is for something, the more true it is. :thelook:

So your approach to representational/correspondential truth is binary, while there's is more by degrees?

I tend to prefer the latter myself...

:truthy:
 

Vasilisa

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You are more than welcome to keep up your on-topic discussion, gentlemen, I wasn't intending to put a damper on it. Be cautious about calling someone a dick, but questioning the ideas others put forth is part of what foruming is about. If you feel someone is pursing you a little too doggedly, we have the option of adding a user to your ignore list.
 

KDude

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You are more than welcome to keep up your on-topic discussion, gentlemen, I wasn't intending to put a damper on it. Be cautious about calling someone a dick, but questioning the ideas others put forth is part of what foruming is about. If you feel someone is pursing you a little too doggedly, we have the option of adding a user to your ignore list.

Ah yeah. I did call him a dick, didn't I? It was more in jest though, hoping he'd explain more things afterwards. I mean, I'd call my own dad and brother dicks, for similar reasons.

I have to remember that isn't the best approach. As for the rest, yeah, I don't know why he doesn't ignore me.
 
H

Hate

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:laugh:

I accept hugs.

Do you accept bro-hugs?

Can I give you a bro-hug?

903frq.jpg
 
H

Hate

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I do accept bro hugs, but I might go with up to 3 pats on the back.

Fair warning.

I can live with 3 pats.

And I promise not to make things awkward like John Mayer.

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upnOrDgWnX4"]-[/YOUTUBE]
 

Bamboo

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Welcome!

The purpose of this thread is to survey the various conceptions of truth that are ingrained in your minds. In order to participate and win a rabbit, please go by the following steps:

  1. Look into yourself.
  2. Feel, think about, grasp at the idea of truth that you find in there.
  3. Ponder the best way to put it into words.
  4. Put it into words.
  5. Submit it.
It is neither necessary nor requested that you think about how truth should be, could be, or is defined by others. It is all about you.

I hope your answer will in itself answer the following question; if it does not, however, please answer: According to your conception of truth, what is required for statement 'x'* to be true?

* 'x' could be anything, for instance, 'Yeshua of Nazareth died on the cross'.

Truth is a human construct, an abstraction. It does not exist outside of us, it's a perception. I'd relate it to the concept of 'reality' in the sense of 'truth is what is reflected by reality.' Reality exists outside us, although we can only see part of it due to limitations in our ability to operate*. There is also the option that reality only exists as a perception, but that doesn't effect whether something is 'true' or not - truth is reflected by reality whether or not reality is there as we perceive it to be. This all brings a bunch of useful (necessary!) qualifiers into the picture, because there can be subjective reality (and thus subjective truth) and empirical truth and truth that is consistent among members of a group.

For something to be true, it has to be an accurate and consistent depiction of reality. Accurate in the sense of describing reality as it is, declarative rather than normative. It has to be consistent in the sense of not conflicting with itself. Because "truth" is a mental model, the model should only be considered functional (in the sense of reflecting truth) if it doesn't contradict itself. If it contradicts itself, then something is wrong with the model, or something is wrong with the perception of reality.

*We can only gather information from our senses, furthermore, we can only conceptualize with our senses (even abstractions such as infinity have to be imagined with a sensory impression - like blackness, or endless sound, or imagery - for them to have any meaning). These are limitations. There exist things outside of our ability to recognize they are there. Some may call these things "reality" but I don't think they qualify if we cannot comprehend them. "Truth" and "reality" may be used as analogous terms to describe these things but truly we cannot describe them - that would require that we be something other than human, hence my initial limitation that truth is a "human construct."

Contradiction checks are welcome.
 
A

A window to the soul

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I'm just gonna post what I want to post when I want to post.

But you may be right. It might be better just to lurk.

This is tedious beyond belief.

Yes, you have made this very tedious.

More so than anyone else, so far.

-grabs preacher spurgeon by the collar and throws him up against the wall-

Tisk, tisk, tisk, KDude didn't deserve that little guilt trip [quoted above], did he? [MENTION=9214]KDude[/MENTION] is making sense.
 

Betty Blue

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Truth can change, and may only be temporary.
I suppose everyone has their own sense of internal truth, that which will (usually) always remain the same.
I think this will stem from a combination of things...our experiences with the world around us, the things we are taught and social influence.
For me my own truth is deep set and seems unchangable at the root.
What it is is not so relevant but it's like a knowing, a feeling.
 

the state i am in

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"an ecology of mind," or

i think of the immanent typological mind, and self-organization, and defining life as a communication system with emergent intelligence, and the ongoing construction of reality which is only to say that information is always emerging and being created and becoming more complex and capable of meaning new things in newly emerging contexts to new selves which recursively learn from and adapt to and change the world around them all the while identifying consciously and unconsciously in innumerable, complexly distributed ways with whatever the fuck is somehow being orchestrated through it all at so many intricate scales and paths of subjectivated experience but with intense gratitude for the imaginary whole who we somehow serve and who provides the most complete grounds for all other contexts to evolve through which we somehow ascend to a higher state of gratitude through a more complete identification with that imaginary

as i was writing this, i think i picked up some spinal tap feedback, because truly i did not know my amp went up this high, but truth is clearly distortion, or maybe electric guitar is just too excruciatingly passe. in an alternate universe, eckhart tolle and deepak chopra are dueling fusion guitar players in a band called the enlightened ponytails and the chariots of fire & ice.
 

violet_crown

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Great thread, Nico.

I had to think about my answer for a while. I believe there's an entirety to truth. At it's most essential state, truth has to go beyond a simple correspondence to reality in order to encompass meaning (which is what truly interests me). I'm reminded of O'Brien's story about the water buffalo where the facts of the story turn out to be incidental to it's meaning, but the meaning can't be stated without those facts.

The precise nature of the relationship between objective fact and subjective meaning seem to be something like a fluid dance. One leads at certain times, another at others, and what we hold as truth seems to be the pattern that arises in the movement. Truth doesn't come from passive observation: analysis is required, or you'll only come up with empty-handed facts. Having said that, analysis doesnt guarantee the whole picture.
 
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Because existence is always changing, truth could not be static, therefore it is active.
Because truth is active, the definition must be dynamic, in other words living. (now I confess, there are many things actively changing which are not alive, but in the scientific view of things, they will eventually stop moving, so do not meet the definition of being actually alive)
Because the definition of truth is living, it must be a being and not an intellectual concept.
Because the truth is not an intellectual concept, it is not a matter of majority agreement.
Because it is not a matter of majority agreement, it must be one living being and not many, lest truth contradict truth.
Because truth is one living being and not many, truth is a superior being.
Because the being that is truth is superior, all actual truth comes from truth.
Because all actual truth comes from the being, truth, and truth is living, all living also comes from this being.
Because the being that is truth is the source of life, this being is itself life, just as it it truth.
Because life always comes from life, this being is the creator of life.
Because this being is the creator of life, this being is God.
Because this being is God, God is true.
 
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http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/25300000/His-Laugh-crazy-stupid-love-25311666-500-500.gif

Flippancy is the allusion to knowledge without the evidence of it. What girl doesn't like to laugh, after all. Next to experience, it's the vanity of someone who hasn't yet experienced why they ought to get serious about something.
 

Nicodemus

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I am sorry, but your argument is so obviously unsound and unfounded that the appropriate response is laughter.
 

Nicodemus

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Dear moderators,

if I added a clause to the opening post forbidding idiotic statements, could I then report certain evidence and have it removed from my thread?
 

Patches

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Dear moderators,

if I added a clause to the opening post forbidding idiotic statements, could I then report certain evidence and have it removed from my thread?

I'm not sure 'idiotic' can be objectively measured given that everyone has their own subjective interpretations of what idiotic is. One man's genius is another man's idiot. So probably not.
 

Nicodemus

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I'm not sure 'idiotic' can be objectively measured given that everyone has their own subjective interpretations of what idiotic is. One man's genius is another man's idiot. So probably not.
Given that it is my clause, I should be able to dictate the meaning of the word.
 
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