Agnostic.com

11 1

Does truth exist?

Does truth exist?

  • 20 votes
  • 1 vote
skado 9 Sep 13
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

11 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

1

What is truth?

  1. b. Reality; actuality.

[ahdictionary.com]

.

@skado Whose reality/actuality?

@KateOahu
Nobody owns reality. Reality owns us.

I think what you’re referring to is “Whose perception of reality.” And none of those are reality.

@KateOahu
Nobody has expressed it more comprehensively and usefully and succinctly than the wordmaster, Godolemicist:
“Objective truth corresponds to reality.
Subjective truth is beauty and beauty is truth.
Soteriological truth is the way.”

1

Objective truth corresponds to reality.

Subjective truth is beauty and beauty is truth.

Soteriological truth is the way.

❤️❤️❤️

1

Truth is in the mind and eye of the beholder. It is also in textbooks that solve (or cause) many problems. Today the Internet makes truth harder to discern. Understand that I am talking of only objective truth as real truth.

2

It exists, though it is not always discernible. And "my truth" is a nonsensical concept.

Wins the thread!

3

If objective truth means claims concerning factual matters which can be verified as true or false, then, truth exists, I guess.
E.g. Tokyo is the capital of Japan. Sharks are mammals.

Ryo1 Level 8 Sep 13, 2023
3

Truth exists. People just want to play with the truth, in order to further their cause. Like objective truth vs subjective, vs all other bs. But facts are facts. whether you believe them or not is irrelevant and does not change the facts.

@FvckY0u

I think you're talking about knowledge of facts - not facts themselves. There was probably a time when every human alive thought the earth was flat, but the truth was different from anything anyone knew.

@FvckY0u
Yes, you understand me correctly. And yes, determining what’s fact, and what’s not, is a problem, and one that we might never completely solve, but I don’t think reality presents different appearances to different people. I think reality presents the same appearance to everyone, and every person perceives it through their own unique lenses, depending on their unique genetic inheritance, their own unique life experiences, and their own unique knowledge set.

If this were not the case, science would never work at all.

I understand the linguistic construction “different people live in different realities” and that’s fine for casual communication - we all understand what is meant - but it’s metaphorical language. Not to be taken literally.
At least that’s the reality I live in! 🤣🤣🤣

4

Being truthful as opposed to lying would mean telling the truth. Proven facts are truth. Faith is not truth. Religion is true to believers but is definitely not truth. Strong evidence is probably truth. Belief without evidence is most likely not truth.

@FvckY0u Credible evidence, not something written in a book of fiction. Belief without evidence is called faith. It's nonsense.

@FvckY0u You're arguing theism on an atheist website. Fairy tales are for children. We don't believe in god because there is no Credible Evidence! Passages from the buybull are not credible evidence, except for by fools of faith.

2

Of course it does. What a silly question.

Tejas Level 8 Sep 13, 2023
2

Truth does not exist, but truth seems to exist, which is close enough...

Is this statement true?:

“Truth does not exist.”

Yes, it seems to be true. (It seems to be true that all truth is only the subjective truth of the beings that classify what they encounter to be true. Transcendental Truth does not exist as nothing is truly transcendental.

@racocn8
Are you saying there is no objective reality?

Objective reality may exist, but we can only perceive miniscule slices of it and those slices are extremely processed to be used. Objective reality is likely to be radically different from what we perceive.

"The Dragon. A beast of such power that if you were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance, it would burn you to cinders." Merlin/Excalibur

@racocn8 did you quote a fictional character?

@Tejas Yes Although sometimes tedious, I like the Excalibur movie, especially the Merlin character.

2

It depends on how you define truth. There is no single universal definition. The fascist definition of the truth is that it is anything that furthers the cause.

A reputable dictionary should suffice.

2

By default there must be.

Because if there is no truth, then the statement. "There is no truth." Must by default be true.

A much better question to ask is. "Is it possible to have truth ?"

“Have” as in “know”?

I think we can know some truth, but not all.

@skado Yes I would agree with that. But then is " I think. " any guide to truth ?
But I deliberately chose "have" as something weaker than "know", because you may have truth without knowing that you have truth.

@Fernapple

Same reason I chose "I think". Possibly nothing we feel we know is known perfectly or completely, but neither is it completely unknown. So I think we can know to a degree.

@skado Our minds and cultures, can only ever exist in a world of partial and approximate truth, both because our minds and cultures are imperfect and limited, and also because some truth may not be ultimately discoverable.

Which is why, there are two foolish extremes to avoid. The absolutism of the fundamentalist. "There is perfect truth, and I/we have been gifted it." And the immaturity and avoidance of personal responsibility of relativism. "I can not have perfect final truth, therefore there is no truth, or reason to seek it."

Yet. Because we can not have perfect final truth, and falsely believing we have it is harmful, does not mean that there is no perfect final truth, nor any reason why there are no benefits in seeking it. We will always live with partial and approximate truth, but we can, almost certainly, achieve larger parts, and closer approximations. Not all partial and approximate truths are proved equal.

(Actually I suspect, though without certainty, that we may have just a few perfect truths, about very basic things, which would still be true in another universe. Such as the laws of maths and logic. But I hold that view with only slight conviction. )

Which is why I think that the philosophy of science, is the best middle ground that we have between those two extremes, and the best guide to how thinking should be done. With its acceptance that any theory or belief may need adjustment, or even overturning, its belief that better approximations to truth can only be achieved by greater rigor more evidence and harder work, that we need to bow to maths and logic, and most of all, that we will still have something imperfect. ( It suits my faith in hard work.)

Science therefore, is not merely a technology, nor even an alternate method of thinking, but the best guide that we have to how to think well, and do good thinking. And why it is important however, to be sceptical about all but the most rigorous and hard of science, and especially of drawing conclusions based on science, which go beyond the immediate experimental proofs and hard evidence.

@Fernapple
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree wholeheartedly with every word of this.

The challenge comes when, in this state of partial knowledge and rightful skepticism, we find ourselves in a situation in which a consequential decision must be made, and adequate knowledge to do so isn’t yet within the grasp of long-form science, or perhaps not currently within our personal knowledge base. Having a reason-based, science-informed, process-oriented protocol to follow is more useful than succumbing to chaos.

@skado Agreed. I have never accepted that science could answer all questions, and have therefore always respected and seen the need for philosophy. Or moderate reasoning beyond science, as you could also call it, whenever it bowed to science, as it should, as science does to maths and epistemology. Science in the end being only, what was once called, "natural philosophy" or philosophy refined with added tools for safety, to be used for extra verification, in areas where greater safety measures can be applied.

I have never however encountered a question which required more than those two, and which was not either trivial, or obviously unanswerable, the real failing of religions and cultural tradition, is that they often pretend to have answers to such questions. Thereby damaging truth, when the honest truthful answer is "unknown" or "unknowable" and also thereby, helping to promote human narcissism and hubris.

@Fernapple
Humans are a troublesome lot, aren’t they.
I, for example, have never felt a need to dance, and yet so many continue to do it, as if it is a necessary part of being human. I am only left to make my best philosophical guess as to why they do it.
Live long and prosper. 🖖

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:730816
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.