What is truth?

[Avocado]

My benchmark is what the mainstream scientific peer review process has found true if I cannot test it myself. However, the older I've gotten, the more I feel surrounded by deluded fools. How can I trust anybody, even myself?

 

[five sounds]

truth is bigger than any of us. so it's something to intuit rather than something to try to fully define and comprehend. it's most important to me to find my place within the truth. i think about truth often, and believe in it. but i don't think any one human can understand the fullness of everything.

 

[Nicodemus]

http://www.typologycentral.com/forums/philosophy-and-spirituality/51301-varieties-truth.html

 

[gromit]

truth is bigger than any of us. so it's something to intuit rather than something to try to fully define and comprehend. it's most important to me to find my place within the truth. i think about truth often, and believe in it. but i don't think any one human can understand the fullness of everything.

This resonates with me, esp the bold!

 

[indra]

a concept never wrought in the phenomenal

 

[ndovjtjcaqidthi]

The truth is strange and frightening.

 

[Avocado]

truth is bigger than any of us. so it's something to intuit rather than something to try to fully define and comprehend. it's most important to me to find my place within the truth. i think about truth often, and believe in it. but i don't think any one human can understand the fullness of everything.

That makes sense, as our perception is limited to only here and now, and even then it is flawed.

 

[Tellenbach]

You are surrounded by deluded fools. Trust no one and question everything. If your beliefs can't stand up to scrutiny, they're probably wrong.

 

[johnnyyukon]

Whether you like it or not, and how much you do or not, it will almost always come down to you.

No matter what you believe, you can always find some "research study" to back it up. You can spin almost anything.

But what we believe and how we feel about the world ALWAYS comes down to personal experience.

 

[Stephano]

Truth is always variable. If we see a tree we only see the reflection of it and the picture that is processed in our brain. We have to believe that what we perceive is really there and not just an illusion. So, basically that means that we should be open to almost everything and not see anything as the absolute truth.

 

[johnnyyukon]

Truth is always variable. If we see a tree we only see the reflection of it and the picture that is processed in our brain. We have to believe that what we perceive is really there and not just an illusion. So, basically that means that we should be open to almost everything and not see anything as the absolute truth.

Well said.

I think just about everything we "see" is a reflection of ourselves.

However, 2 people of diametrically opposed personalities and/or life experiences are still going to get gored to death by a rabid bull if left enclosed with it in a small room.

 

[Mole]

But what we believe and how we feel about the world ALWAYS comes down to personal experience.

This is the Protestant practice of Personal Testimony. Yes, Personal Testimony is made in Protestant churches and meeting halls every Sunday. And if we live in a Protestant country, this seems to be right.

So naive Protestants think that personal experience is the measure of truth.

But the fact is that the easiest person to deceive is ourselves. And if we want to deceive others, first we need to deceive ourselves.

So Personal Testimony, or personal experience, is a religious practice with no relationship to true or false.

 

[Stephano]

Well said.

I think just about everything we "see" is a reflection of ourselves.

However, 2 people of diametrically opposed personalities and/or life experiences are still going to get gored to death by a rabid bull if left enclosed with it in a small room.

Yes, that's right and it's also why we have invented the tool of probability. If we got a space with clearly defined (physical) laws we will be able to calculate the outcome of such an event. The 2 people will likely be gored to death since we can't imagine as much reasons for a different outcome that are probable and it's also what our experience tells us. However, just take Einstein as an example. He turned the world of physics upside down and shattered pretty much everything physicists saw as the truth back then. The laws have to be correct in order to find truth, but how can we be sure that the laws are always correct?

 

[johnnyyukon]

Yes, that's right and it's also why we have invented the tool of probability. If we got a space with clearly defined (physical) laws we will be able to calculate the outcome of such an event. The 2 people will likely be gored to death since we can't imagine as much reasons for a different outcome that are probable and it's also what our experience tells us. However, just take Einstein as an example. He turned the world of physics upside down and shattered pretty much everything physicists saw as the truth back then. The laws have to be correct in order to find truth, but how can we be sure that the laws are always correct?

Is that rhetorical? Ha, it's late.

I mean, it's pretty cliche but "The only constant is change" is what I go with. Or in other words, you can't be sure.

Yes, those two people would be gored to death 99.9% sure. Or if you wanted to choose a similar "certain death" scenario with actual statistics, you could go with people surviving when their parachutes fail. It's a rather small percentage, haha.

But it exists, nevertheless. And if that shit's possible (to survive terminal velocity impact) then how can anything be set in stone?

It can't.

I don't mean to get hippy dippy, actually I do, but there's some Buddhist/Hindi word for spiritual scars, I think it's Saṅkhāra?

Anyway, I heard this guru talk about how even stone, when waves wash over it enough, it will smooth. That was the worst Sankara. There were scars made in the sand close to the tide, and scars in the sand far from the tide. And then the scars in the stone.

My point of the story/parable, I bet you were wondering, is that nothing is permanent, buddhism 101, but I think that applies to Laws of Physics/Science. Sure there may be some that are pretty solid, but they do continue to change.

 

[Avocado]

You are surrounded by deluded fools. Trust no one and question everything. If your beliefs can't stand up to scrutiny, they're probably wrong.

This is true.

 

[Zangetshumody]

My benchmark is what the mainstream scientific peer review process has found true if I cannot test it myself. However, the older I've gotten, the more I feel surrounded by deluded fools. How can I trust anybody, even myself?

Truth in what sense? This is a very worldly approach to understanding the truth, devoid of any philosophical consideration (I don't know if your aware of that).

The scientific method is incapable of producing truth; it doesn't truthify things, it only falsifies them...
Falisfication doesn't allow one to make truth claims; just claims about something not being false (according to some particular style of rigor that will in some sense never be exhaustive).

Truth requires deduction;- induction is incapable of producing anything that can be known as true. So of course I will just assume, you have already forsaken real truth, and are interested in what the world should decide to call truth.

But your post suggests that you are at least on some level aware of the legitimacy issue that plagues the system to which you refer.

 

[Avocado]

Truth in what sense? This is a very worldly approach to understanding the truth, devoid of any philosophical consideration (I don't know if your aware of that).

The scientific method is incapable of producing truth; it doesn't truthify things, it only falsifies them...
Falisfication doesn't allow one to make truth claims; just claims about something not being false (according to some particular style of rigor that will in some sense never be exhaustive).

Truth requires deduction;- induction is incapable of producing anything that can be known as true. So of course I will just assume, you have already forsaken real truth, and are interested in what the world should decide to call truth.

But your post suggests that you are at least on some level aware of the legitimacy issue that plagues the system to which you refer.

Yes, that is the issue.

 

[Mole]

There is truth with a small t and Truth with a large T.

Truth with a large T is religious Truth. Truth with a large T is not statistical, it is certain.

Most of us crave certainty, as we see on this thread, and religious Truth provides us with a firm base on which to live our lives.

The truth with a small t is statistical. And is accurate to an almost unimaginable degree.

And interestingly, truth with a small t, and Truth with a large T, tend not to speak to one another, and when they do, they tend to disagree.

 

[Zangetshumody]

There is truth with a small t and Truth with a large T.

Truth with a large T is religious Truth. Truth with a large T is not statistical, it is certain.

Most of us crave certainty, as we see on this thread, and religious Truth provides us with a firm base on which to live our lives.

The truth with a small t is statistical. And is accurate to an almost unimaginable degree.

And interestingly, truth with a small t, and Truth with a large T, tend not to speak to one another, and when they do, they tend to disagree.

Your observation is quite accurate: there are those who use the word "truth" just as a label without being able to name it in their understanding, and there are those who believe truth can only mean certainty;- which does require belief that there is a perfectly clear way of doing things, and there is a certain style of life that is not in any error, and that truth and righteousness are in fact synonymous.

You get very clear glimpses of this level of understanding in alchemical thought; which was left behind when Science decided to "outgrow" philosophical cogency; the glaring mark of this would be Science's current incapability to understand mind (and merely generating endless descriptions does not mean you have accurately understood anything); when Science shows its ability to cure the mind, and not merely treat, then perhaps I would re-open the case of the endless materialistic accounting treadmill project.

I would advise you also to look at the article in the New Yorker (The truth wears off); and Bruce Liptons book on epigenetics (The biology of Belief) [or check out the DVD by the same name; it explores the philosophical knot (medical) science is in- but pretty sure this can be on some level generalized to most of Science that tries to put forward models that are incapable of actual understanding, albethem 'technically sweet'].

The Truth Wears Off - The New Yorker

 

[Avocado]

Your observation is quite accurate: there are those who use the word "truth" just as a label without being able to name it in their understanding, and there are those who believe truth can only mean certainty;- which does require belief that there is a perfectly clear way of doing things, and there is a certain style of life that is not in any error, and that truth and righteousness are in fact synonymous.

You get very clear glimpses of this level of understanding in alchemical thought; which was left behind when Science decided to "outgrow" philosophical cogency; the glaring mark of this would be Science's current incapability to understand mind (and merely generating endless descriptions does not mean you have accurately understood anything); when Science shows its ability to cure the mind, and not merely treat, then perhaps I would re-open the case of the endless materialistic accounting treadmill project.

I would advise you also to look at the article in the New Yorker (The truth wears off); and Bruce Liptons book on epigenetics (The biology of Belief) [or check out the DVD by the same name; it explores the philosophical knot (medical) science is in- but pretty sure this can be on some level generalized to most of Science that tries to put forward models that are incapable of actual understanding, albethem 'technically sweet'].

The Truth Wears Off - The New Yorker

I'm looking at it now.