The Varieties of Truth

[Nicodemus]

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'.

 

[Qlip]

Truth, I guess is a way of saying something is valid. And the concept doesn't mean a lot to me without knowing the framework you're using it in. To say a couch is "Blue" is true for maybe when talking to your friend, but maybe not with an interior designer. 'Jesus died on the cross' is not true to a historian (the Romans didn't even really use crossess) , but it has a definite validity and meaning to a Christian.

I personally think of Truth as identifying what the 'scope' of an idea is, and everything has some sort of reality to nestle into and call home.

 

[Nicodemus]

I personally think of Truth as identifying what the 'scope' of an idea is, and everything has some sort of reality to nestle into and call home.

There is an interesting word popping up at the end. What role does reality play for you in determining truth?

If we have a christian and a historian, one claiming that Jesus died on the cross, the other that he did not, who is right?

 

[Totenkindly]

Nico, wow -- mentally provocative thread.
I'm still thinking about what my criteria for truth is.

I think, though, the first realization I have about my criteria for truth is that, for certain types of conclusions, the standards cannot be met.

I accept that units of quantifiable measurement (in the empirical sense) do provide what seems to be accurate feedback about the environment, which I find to be reliably true. I will get in a car or plane, I will take certain medications, I will do a number of things each day that show that I am relying on certain empirical data being "true." Still, my understanding of the data, while "reliably true," might not be 100% accurate -- the difference between Newton's view of the universe vs Einstein's for example. But it's still reliable enough to live by.

More abstract truth, to me, is far less quantifiable and thus I cannot say that it is certainly "true." I can merely say that I believe it to be true enough that I am choosing to live by it.

Maybe that's my standard of "truth," then. It's either reliable enough to live by, or it's not worth depending on. And my decision-making involves both quantifiable measures as well as preferential ones.

If we have a christian and a historian, one claiming that Jesus died on the cross, the other that he did not, who is right?

Since you mentioned this example in the OP, for me, part of that answer would be some sort of actual, non-arguable physical evidence that a person named Jesus died on a cross at the time and location specified. However, to answer the unspoken part of the question, I would need further evidence to accept that he is "God's son" and everything that has been claimed about him for centuries. That evidence is far more vague, so there are personal preferences mixed in on what level of evidence would be acceptable.

 

[Oaky]

A degree of faith in the trust that you give to whatever information you accumulate. Even direct sensation.

 

[Rasofy]

Something that can be tangibly verified through the five senses. Once the information is second handed it ceases to be a genuine truth. How do I make sure Napoleon existed? Can't be done. But hey, 99,99% is more than enough to call it a truth for everyday purposes. Oh, and even when the info can be verified through the five senses, there is still the possibility that we are trapped in some kind of virtual reality(see matrix), which would make all truths only valid within that environment. Far fetched? Hell yeah, but tell me, how would we know?
And if you just ''feel it'', is not a truth, it's just a dogma that may or not be a truth.

 

[Qlip]

There is an interesting word popping up at the end. What role does reality play for you in determining truth?

(keep in mind that anyhing I'm saying are things that I've discovered for myself, or stole from other sources, like a magpie and possibly took it out of it's original, academic, philosphical, or technical context and repurposed)

If we have a christian and a historian, one claiming that Jesus died on the cross, the other that he did not, who is right?

I probably should've used an archeologist as an example, because they're a better counterpoint, they try to identify things that objectively happened. Historians are actually a bit squishier as they are trying to take those things and try to make some sort of sense of them, create a narrative.

As far as reality, well, I guess I would call a reality some sort of domain in which something is capable of affecting other things within that domain. People invariably live in several domains. One is a type of 'story' world in which we have an understanding of how we relate to the world and to other people. I contend that this place is even more real to us as individuals than the world of matter. From our finely and later developed objective side, this place usually seems like a bunch of nonsense, but it does exist. This place is where Jesus Christ lives, and is true to everybody in some degree, but by different conceptions, some not anthromorphised or mythologized.

I think everybody is very mistakenly trying to use this idea of the 'really real'. The 'really real' is just facts sans value sans narrative. They're free radicals, they don't stay free naturally for long. Facts are only good as fuel to agendas, which are never objective.

 

[Anew Leaf]

Beautiful thread, Nico.

For me, truth will often have a blend of both facts and faith within. I don't feel or think that I need to have 100% evidence compiled for me to define something as being a truth. This, admittedly, provides many mistakes which might make it sound like a faulty system. However, it provides me with an ability to sift through more ideas to find truth within them. When I have made a mistake it allows me an opportunity to learn and grow from it. I find that I cannot think my way out of living, as much as I strive for that.

And in experiencing these mistakes I am better able to be more discerning and knowledgeable in the future.

 

[highlander]

A degree of faith in the trust that you give to whatever information you accumulate. Even direct sensation.

Seems like there may be two kinds of truth. The one above is "subjective". An "objective" truth would be one that is based on solid facts and evidence.

So, if someone were to believe the world was flat in the 1600s, that would be a subjective truth. The objective truth, which is verified by facts or evidence is that the world is round. People didn't know enough back then though.

 

[Oaky]

Seems like there may be two kinds of truth. The one above is "subjective". An "objective" truth would be one that is based on solid facts and evidence.

So, if someone were to believe the world was flat in the 1600s, that would be a subjective truth. The objective truth, which is verified by facts or evidence is that the world is round. People didn't know enough back then though.

I'm also speaking of objective truths. The belief of facts in itself bears faith in that the facts themselves are true. We put faith in what scientists find, what they theorise, what explorers explored and told... and our depictions of what we see as facts. But really, all we ever have is information perceived and how much faith we put in it. What we see as a solid fact is simply an abstract categorisation of that information.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm also speaking of objective truths. The belief of facts in itself bears faith in that the facts themselves are true. We put faith in what scientists find, what they theorise, what explorers explored and told... and our depictions of what we see as facts. But really, all we ever have is information perceived and how much faith we put in it. What we see as a solid fact is simply an abstract categorisation of that information.

Yeah. That kind of undergirds what I was saying about 'reliability' playing a part in the acceptance of something as true, since we can't ever really confirm any fact (to me) as 100% certain. At some point, the balance tips from something we trust enough to depend on to something we're hesitant to rely on.

 

[Nicodemus]

SmileyMan told me that the pragmatic approach to truth is silly. You better rework you ideas, Jennifer, Oakysage, Nicodemus.

 

[Anew Leaf]

I'm also speaking of objective truths. The belief of facts in itself bears faith in that the facts themselves are true. We put faith in what scientists find, what they theorise, what explorers explored and told... and our depictions of what we see as facts. But really, all we ever have is information perceived and how much faith we put in it. What we see as a solid fact is simply an abstract categorisation of that information.

So even objective truths are based in faith.

I like it because it helps prove my theory.

 

[uncommonentity]

Truth is truth.

That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

True = 1
False = 0

No need for 0.5

I believe people are able to create thus create truth.

It's all about fidelity.

There's universal truth and personal truth.

 

[mmhmm]

truth can be so enchanting or just something
that's constantly putting me in a state of defense.
and at times, offense. but it just sorta lets me
make sense of the world.

but then again a lot of things that i've thought of
as truths, they also have room to kinda fall apart,
but you know, there's always fragments of it behind.

 

[Qlip]

Truth is truth.

That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality.

True = 1
False = 0

No need for 0.5

I believe people are able to create thus create truth.

It's all about fidelity.

There's universal truth and personal truth.

haha, your first version sounded so decisive.. then you revised and it kinda got muddy. Everything gets muddy, and that's the truth.

 

[uncommonentity]

haha, your first version sounded so decisive.. then you revised and it kinda got muddy. Everything gets muddy, and that's the truth.

Fuck yeah!

Our personal truth is what we really say to ourselves when our social mask is off. Once you decide what your personal truth is, then you'll be less vulnerable to what others say. The stronger you feel about yourself and the more confidence you have, the more susceptibility to what others say will decline.

 

[Qlip]

I'm going to throw this comment out there: Nobody really cares about Universal Truth.

 

[King sns]

Great topic, though apparently I misunderstood compared to some of the responses.

Anyway, I didn't even think about truth in the physical world at first, I was thinking about spiritual and unknown truths. On Earth, truths are that which "sane" minds almost universally call the same. If I see a mouse, and you see a mouse, and Saturned sees a mouse, and everyone else on the planet who is considered of sound judgment sees a mouse, than that is a truth to us as humans. (Though I think our subconscious weeds some details out, if we let go of that, I'm not sure if we would all still see the same thing.)

Anyway, pretty simple. Spiritually, for me, it is about what comes from within- probably a combination of my religious background and values, ethnicity, current information, etc. etc. At the end of the day, though it likely comes from a variety of different sources, it feels uniquely me, as if I pulled the truth out of my own mind. I think for a lot of people nowadays it is the same. But then there are a whole lot of other people who don't try to personalize the truth to themselves- and I think, if you can't understand your own truths deep within your heart, then you have not found truth.

I think that minds seek to find tidy, unified truths. They want everything to fit in like it's this giant one million piece puzzle, and theories that seek to complete that puzzle are going to be theories that are comfortable for us.

 

[Zarathustra]

Three different kinds of truth:

• representational (or "correspondence"): the utterance accurately represents (or corresponds to) reality.
• internally consistent (or "coherence"): the utterance accurately follows the established rules of its system.
• pragmatic: what is said in the utterance, from our experience/observation, seems to work/get the job done.

Based on the definition of pragmatic you gave earlier (in another thread), which gave more grey area to the pragmatic position than I have seen in the past, I could be called a pragmatist. But that's mainly because I thought some of the grey area you built into the pragmatic position left room for some representational/correspondence ideas of truth, the absence of which in previous definitions of pragmatism I had seen left me wanting. As such, my conception of truth is probably rather similar to yours, but, depending on your further elucidation of your position, I may (or may not) allow for the possibility of greater amounts of representational/correspondential truth in my understanding (with the caveat being that, even if the truth does accurately represent/correspond to reality, we can never actually be certain that it does [except, perhaps, in certain a priori arguments, or even when we "really just know" and do actually happen to be correct]).