Absolute Truth, History, Etc.

@NeitherExtreme,

Quote:

I agree that we seem to lack absolute knowledge.

Knowledge is a construct. We create it. It cannot be independent of our perception and imagination. Knowledge is always absolute because we know what we assume that we know whether it is the truth/reality or not.

Truth and reality, however can be independent of our perception and imagination, although there is always the debate as to whether we can actually perceive reality or not.

This difference is where epistemological debates blossom.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

And perhaps not. Now that is a paradox (I suppose that is what you meant). And so, perhaps the paradox that paradoxes may and may not be absolute truth is the absolute truth. Now, is that ground-breaking or is it not?

That, indeed, was my point. I do have quite a large evidence for this. I think even that this "paradoxal shape" is one of the basic forms on which everything is based. It checks out in logic, math, etics, physics, ontology, epistemology and it seems to add to anthropology which makes it all the more likely. Are you familiar with logics (which is to me the most comprehensive proof)?

@GoshisDead,

GoshisDead wrote:

Knowledge is a construct. We create it. It cannot be independent of our perception and imagination. Knowledge is always absolute because we know what we assume that we know whether it is the truth/reality or not.

Truth and reality, however can be independent of our perception and imagination, although there is always the debate as to whether we can actually perceive reality or not.

This difference is where epistemological debates blossom.

I have to disagree with most of what you have written here. Truth; after being a form of relationship is also a form. It does not exist apart from people or apart from our imaginations. It does exist apart from reality in the broadest sense since truth is how we concieve reality much As a mirror reflects reality. Is it absolute? Does it have to be absolute to function, more or less, as truth? Water is wet. What else is wet? What is 'wet'?... Truth, is a form of relationship, and all truth needs to do, is feed the relationship. So long as the truth reflects reality, as every true concept does -it will not be false to human needs.

@NeitherExtreme,

I can get down with that distinction between truth and reality

@NeitherExtreme,

Fido, what you are saying is true for true things; not for truth itself. True things belong in actuality and truth in potentiality. You are mixing the two up and thereby creating some horrible paradoxi.

@Arjen,

Arjen wrote:

Fido, what you are saying is true for true things; not for truth itself. True things belong in actuality and truth in potentiality. You are mixing the two up and thereby creating some horrible paradoxi.

What kind of thing is a true thing? Are there also false things? There are true beliefs, or true statements, or true propositions. But true things? Have you one or two examples?

@NeitherExtreme,

I ment a true things in the sense of a quantification. A false thing would be a quantification which does not exist in this actuality; has not been quantified to become this actuality. Truth itself is something else, like the things-in-themselves. That does not exist in actuality; only in potentiality. I hope this is making some sense to you. Smile

@Arjen,

Arjen wrote:

I ment a true things in the sense of a quantification. A false thing would be a quantification which does not exist in this actuality; has not been quantified to become this actuality. Truth itself is something else, like the things-in-themselves. That does not exist in actuality; only in potentiality. I hope this is making some sense to you.

Truth is a form. It is a form of classification. It is a form of judgement, and a form of relationship between things, and people. A concept is true in relation to the reality it holds as a subject. A statue of a man is true to the man, true to all men, and true to human form. But, it is for particularly human reasons that we give such great value to truth. Communication depends upon truth, but so does knowledge depend, since nothing is known, or is knowledge that is not true to reality. And our lives depend upon truth, and upon our ability to concieve of reality correctly and exactly to the original. For this reason alone governments make a monopoly on truth so they can keep people both ignorant and powerless with the same cause.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

What kind of thing is a true thing? Are there also false things? There are true beliefs, or true statements, or true propositions. But true things? Have you one or two examples?

Our word thing, is the equivilant of the Latin word Res, from which we build reality. Linguistic truth is a small part of truth. Surely we should try to speak truth, but if colorful speech, or exageration will make an intended point, and the intent is true, then linguistic truth is expendable. The real truth upon which our lives depend all the time, and every day is a certain exact correlation between our concepts and the reality concieved. We know through the medium of concepts. For any thing we say to be true, or for any conclusion we may arrive at to be true we must first begin with true concepts.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Our word thing, is the equivilant of the Latin word Res, from which we build reality. Linguistic truth is a small part of truth. Surely we should try to speak truth, but if colorful speech, or exageration will make an intended point, and the intent is true, then linguistic truth is expendable. The real truth upon which our lives depend all the time, and every day is a certain exact correlation between our concepts and the reality concieved. We know through the medium of concepts. For any thing we say to be true, or for any conclusion we may arrive at to be true we must first begin with true concepts.

Well, I suppose that concepts are things in a wide sense. Can you give me an example of a true concept?

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Well, I suppose that concepts are things in a wide sense. Can you give me an example of a true concept?

It is not that concepts are things but that they are judgements on the nature of reality; bit of true knowledge, catagories, relationships, and that sort of 'thing'.
We have words for all of existence, but we can only concieve of life in bits, called concepts. And no, I do not have any example of true concepts, though many examples of truish concepts. Some clearly untrue concepts are race, which explains nothing, or the Ptolemaic Cosmos, which was always cumbersom, and could not explain many details of observable reality, like the appearant retrograde movement of the planets. The best we may hope for from any concept is that it helps to explain reality. Since we reproduce reality using concepts as a template, like a builder beginning a house with the idea of a house, we can improve upon reality in the process of reproducing reality. Just as an artist begins his art with a concept, if the concept is known to all, the result can be measured against the concept, so that everything we do tests our concepts, and everything we concieve becomes a model for creation.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

It is not that concepts are things but that they are judgements on the nature of reality; bit of true knowledge, catagories, relationships, and that sort of 'thing'.
We have words for all of existence, but we can only concieve of life in bits, called concepts. And no, I do not have any example of true concepts, though many examples of truish concepts. Some clearly untrue concepts are race, which explains nothing, or the Ptolemaic Cosmos, which was always cumbersom, and could not explain many details of observable reality, like the appearant retrograde movement of the planets. The best we may hope for from any concept is that it helps to explain reality. Since we reproduce reality using concepts as a template, like a builder beginning a house with the idea of a house, we can improve upon reality in the process of reproducing reality. Just as an artist begins his art with a concept, if the concept is known to all, the result can be measured against the concept, so that everything we do tests our concepts, and everything we concieve becomes a model for creation.

So, it is not concepts that are true, except in the sense that they are judgments. So it is judgments that are true? If that is what you are saying, then I think that is nearly right. But judgments are expressed in the form of statements or propositions.

So take the concept of cats. It isn't the concept of cats that is true (or false) but the judgment that cats exist that is true or false, or the expression of that judgment in the form of the statement that cats exist.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

So, it is not concepts that are true, except in the sense that they are judgments. So it is judgments that are true? If that is what you are saying, then I think that is nearly right. But judgments are expressed in the form of statements or propositions.

So take the concept of cats. It isn't the concept of cats that is true (or false) but the judgment that cats exist that is true or false, or the expression of that judgment in the form of the statement that cats exist.

If I say as Kant seemed to say, that knowledge is judgement, then to say there is a Cat, as a statement or a proposition, whether that be the statment of an infant or of a biologist trained in every distinction of catanality -is a judgment made possible because one has a working concept of 'Cat'.
Now, we can only make rational statments of knowledge in relation to what we can concieve, but whether we make or do not make statements regarding what we concieve, we do make judgements in order to arrive at a conception, and these judgements can almost always be reduced to statements. Which may be their essential purpose since we are what we know, and know what we can converse about, and we are remade by the very concepts we talk over, since we first talk, and then act; unless you are god or the president, and you can do without the formality of discussion.

@Arjen,

NeitherExtreme,

The classical definition of 'true' is such that a statement is either true or false, and nothing else. This is called the principle of bivalence. Furthermore, a set of statements is true, if and only if, every member of that set is true. Therefore, any set of statements with a false member is false, even if every other statement is true. The point which I am trying to make is that there is no difference between 'absolute truth' and plain old 'truth', since any statement which is not absolutely true must be false, by definition. In other words, there is not 'absolute truth', 'truth' and 'falsity', but only 'truth' and 'falsity', since if something is not false then it is true, absolutely so.

Regards,
Lee

@Nocturne,

Nocturne wrote:

NeitherExtreme,

The classical definition of 'true' is such that a statement is either true or false, and nothing else. This is called the principle of bivalence. Furthermore, a set of statements is true, if and only if, every member of that set is true. Therefore, any set of statements with a false member is false, even if every other statement is true. The point which I am trying to make is that there is no difference between 'absolute truth' and plain old 'truth', since any statement which is not absolutely true must be false, by definition. In other words, there is not 'absolute truth', 'truth' and 'falsity', but only 'truth' and 'falsity', since if something is not false then it is true, absolutely so.

Regards,
Lee

Your reply is food for thought, so let me hazzard a reply.

Your definition of reality, as I assume true and false considered together are, is like space without time, that is, a snapshot where a movie of some sort might express it better. Only if you can fix time can you arrive at a truth that will never be false, so you must start at a false point to arrive at truth as an ideal. I don't think in those terms. There can be many levels of truth that are not necessarily true, like social truth often is. Survival often means not trying to lead the crowd, but to get yourself and the crowd if necessary closer to survival. Now, truth is survival as a practicle matter because it is very often essential to survival. So, truth is not something we say, but something we are, that we incorporate into our being. If we want to think of linguistic truth, then we should consider it only vaguely the opposite of false. The truth is like the South pole. We know North is the opposite of South, but if asked to point North on the South pole no one would ever point down, which is the opposite of up. Rather they would point out any place on the horizon which are all more northerly. The object of the pointing is to reach the destination, and to arrive at an understanding of truth in regard to false, it is not a destination, but a direction that will get us there. Truth is one thing, but reality is all mixed up. False is not one thing, but all things, even mixtures of truth and false. What we have to be contented with here, is the fact that our conception of truth is as an absolute, but as an absolute, it cannot be arrived at, so is like the North pole from the South, a direction expressed as a destination. Language and logic are methods of approaching truth, but I take it as a mistake to think we can actually arrive at truth with their help. It is our understanding of truth that leads us to logic and math and language for definitions, and not the reverse. All life has a natural understanding of truth as what is needed to survive, and out of that we create logic, out of what is natural. Instead of science and precission, we should always look for the most general definition of truth, and realize that we are moving in time and space with few fixed points of reference, and from that perspective always try to determine what is more true, or less true, and be aware that social truth with a common acceptance is as deadly as any poison, and if it cannot be known because it is false, then is should be memorized, because the only test of truth is survival. It is the living who say what the truth is.

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