Uncovering the Truth: A Discussion

[BicycleTree]

There is no absolute truth as my post earlier in this thread demonstrated. Also your brain is just a computer, and at any time you could suffer spectacularly unlikely system error, perhaps even though quantum effects, that prevents you from coming up with the right answer no matter how reliable your methods seem.

 

[Pensador]

Absolute truth exists, but it cannot be communicated in an absolute way. In order to prove that a sentence such as "I am typing" is absolutely true, you'd need to have everyone agree on the exact meaning of the words "I", "am", "typing" and, worst of all, "true" itself. That is just impossible.

On the other hand, it is a flawed proposition to think that because we cannot communicate facts about the world, that such facts do not exist. That would be ascribing to reality what is simply a limitation of the speakers who talk about reality. The real issue is that we are all alone, and most of our knowledge about the world cannot easily be shared with other people, despite the fact that it is absolutely true from the perspective of our own understanding of our language.

To me the sentence "I am typing" is absolutely true, and it's foolish to doubt it. I may, in the future, find out that "typing" is not the proper word to describe what I'm doing; that will never change the past, it will only change the way I talk about it.

 

[BicycleTree]

You're just making unsupported assertions, pensador. Your brain could become hopelessly confused at any time over what seems like the simplest of matters, simply because it is a physical computer and is subject to random physical effects.

 

[Icebreaker]

You have just given me an example of a subjective, not an absolute truth.

Then we simply have different definitions for "absolute truth".

 

[BicycleTree]

There is no absolute truth that any human can reasonably be sure of because of computational uncertainty within the human brain.

 

[Pensador]

You're just making unsupported assertions, pensador. Your brain could become hopelessly confused at any time over what seems like the simplest of matters, simply because it is a physical computer and is subject to random physical effects.

You can only become confused over the simplest of matters if you are in fact confused and the matters are really the simplest. In the absence of simple matters, there's nothing to be confused about. In the absence of absolute truths there cannot be illusions.

The best way I saw someone put it was, in order to discover your first lie, you must already know a lot of truths. You call that unsupported assertions, I call it simple logic.

 

[BicycleTree]

I don't understand what you're saying, pensador. How does it relate to the fact that quantum effects could result in your brain being in a totally different arrangement the next moment compared to this moment?

 

[Pensador]

I don't understand what you're saying, pensador. How does it relate to the fact that quantum effects could result in your brain being in a totally different arrangement the next moment compared to this moment?

Is it a fact that quantum effects could result in your brain being in a totally different arrangement the next moment compared to this moment?

 

[BicycleTree]

Yes, from my popular science understanding of it every particle has a nonzero probability of being found anywhere at all. I'm no physicist but I think the physicists here would confirm that.

 

[Pensador]

Yes, from my popular science understanding of it every particle has a nonzero probability of being found anywhere at all.

Well, then congratulations, you found your first absolute truth.

Look, this has been discussed over and over, I just dropped by because no one had mentioned it. The claim that "absolute truth does not exist" is what is called a self-falsifying proposition. It can only be true if it is false. It's a philosophical dead-end.

 

[BicycleTree]

It's not an absolute truth, it's a scientific truth. To disagree with it you have to disagree with the science.

 

[Pensador]

It's not an absolute truth, it's a scientific truth. To disagree with it you have to disagree with the science.

I'm not disagreeing with anything, just trying to point out that your reasoning is incorrect. If your brain starts to rot it doesn't mean absolute truths don't exist, it only means you're losing your mind. For one thing, your brain cannot rot if it's not absolutely true that brains can rot.

 

[BicycleTree]

I'm not saying absolute truths don't exist, I'm saying we can't be sure of any of them.

If you ask yourself any question at all, your answer to your own question has a nonzero probability of being anything at all. So you can never say with 100% certainty that the answer you gave is the correct one.

 

[Jameson]

Hmm... It seems a bit of a contradiction to say "There are no absolute truths". Isn't that an absolute as well? I think many people are talking about different kinds of truths. I saw in the first topic "truth" was defined, but the definition still remains slightly unclear. Saying truth is "a fact that has been verified; reality - actuality" seems to me to be three different definitions.

Pensador mentioned this already:

Look, this has been discussed over and over, I just dropped by because no one had mentioned it. The claim that "absolute truth does not exist" is what is called a self-falsifying proposition. It can only be true if it is false. It's a philosophical dead-end.

Jameson

 

[BicycleTree]

You may not understand the logic behind it, but it is a well-recognized fact that any computer, including the human mind, can make virtually any computational error at all due to quantum effects. Call it a "Dead end" if you like, but it's the way the physical world works.

Jameson, I already said this:

I'm not saying absolute truths don't exist, I'm saying we can't be sure of any of them.

 

[moving finger]

Absolute truth exists, but it cannot be communicated in an absolute way. In order to prove that a sentence such as "I am typing" is absolutely true, you'd need to have everyone agree on the exact meaning of the words "I", "am", "typing" and, worst of all, "true" itself. That is just impossible.

Hmmmm. I'm not sure of the "reality" of truth if you say the statement "Absolute Truth Exists" can never be proven to be objectively true... that means the statement is an axiom or assumption at best.

MF

 

[IntellectIsStrength]

Any statement in reference to the non-existence or the possible existence of truth is contradictory within itself. Consider "absolute truth does not exist". This sentence is, in my opinion, the height of contradiction.

Absolute truth does exist. And it IS possible to discover and grasp it.