Objective Truth

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

Just what would you consider "demonstrating objective truth"would consist of? Scientist, I suppose, can demonstrate that it is objectively true (or just true) that Mars is the 4th planet from the Sun. Don't you think?

Just because something cannot be proved does not mean it isn't true. We live our lives hardly able to think things over let alone think them twice. Does that mean that all that intensity followed by death is not true? You know it is true, and it is true, and proof wouldn't make it more true.

You know, I think it might be good to step away from truth as something that can be proved. First, it is more easily disproved, and is I suspect, sometimes wrongly so. Rather, the truth can sometimes be defended with evidence, but almost always works. If you have a certain number of gears and levers in your engine, and it works, then the engine and all its specifications, and manufacture, and assembly may be said to be true to the facts of reality. If you form any concept of reality and it can be used to produce a new working reality then the concept is true. And; on the other hand, if you test an institution like government, or any form and it does not work then the concepts that undergird it are wrong. That might force a sort of confrontation between what concept is said to be as the template of the social reality, and what actual concepts guide it in fact. We could say liberty and justice for all and mean first come first serve. You have to be willing to test without giving an objective grade. Thanks

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

Just because something cannot be proved does not mean it isn't true.

I did not say that if something cannot be proved it isn't true. I said that it is possible to prove that something is objectively true, and I cited the astronomical truth that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun which astronomers have proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

@Resha Caner,

Resha Caner wrote:

. . . . If you will not accept the non-physical, I have no recourse but analogies based on the physical. . . .

Most of our world is non-physical and we created all of it, group project. Name it: church, school, government, traffic laws, wealth, science, culture, history. We also have buildings, roads, cars, but these mean nothing in themselves. Point to physics. Point to academic credentials. Not easy pointing to non-physical things.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy wrote:

I did not say that if something cannot be proved it isn't true. I said that it is possible to prove that something is objectively true, and I cited the astronomical truth that Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun which astronomers have proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

I don't think you can prove anything of the sort. And it is not a problem with proof exactly, but with people. Truth is a form of relationship, and as a form it depends highly upon everyones acceptence of predicates and axiums. I would be inclined to agree that anything having general social acceptence is true. Many a fish has drowned swimming against that current. But, objective truth, if there is such a thing as an over arching, eternal fact as objective truth then it would be what reality is, true to reality, and true to itself. In this sense as we learn, and as we begin to know, what we know and learn is truth. But truth is not as we consider existence, and reality. Rather, it is a certain understanding and expression of reality and like all understanding and expression, it fails because communication usually fails. And yet, truth must be known and expressed, that is, shared, before it does any good or can do good. And ultimately it depends on us for its being; upon people who give it meaning, and share the meaning with the being they express. If truth does not work for us, if we do not have enough of what you call objective truth, then we will all die, and the truth will lose all meaning. Truth has meaning because it aids survival.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks wrote:

Most of our world is non-physical and we created all of it, group project. Name it: church, school, government, traffic laws, wealth, science, culture, history. We also have buildings, roads, cars, but these mean nothing in themselves. Point to physics. Point to academic credentials. Not easy pointing to non-physical things.

Non physical makes non-things. Thing is res, from which we get resality. reality. In any event, I call them moral realities, because they have no being, but a certain fluid meaning that is hard to nail down. And they all are built up out of our ethical senses, so moral reality fits those sorts of ideas that do not repesent any firm physical reality. And again, the concepts of that moral reality is so much of meaning, and no being. While we may try to realize these ideas in our lives a ton of them wouldn't weigh a pound. Or should I say: It is human beings who give them weight.

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

'Logic' (all rational discourse) is too flawed a tool to be of much use in the more 'metaphysical realms' of exploration and existence.

What tool do you use, then?

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

I don't think you can prove anything of the sort.

I can't, but chemists can. And it is done all the time in high school laboratories. It is a regular part of the curriculum. I am sorry you do not think that what chemists believe is a proof is not one. I wonder why.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;22523 wrote:

nameless wrote:

'Logic' (all rational discourse) is too flawed a tool to be of much use in the more 'metaphysical realms' of exploration and existence.

What tool do you use, then?

Were I to wish to explore fire and heat, I might first hear, intellectually, what other explorers have to say on the matter. But if I have never experiencedfire/heat, all that would now be is some vague intellectually based concepts. Nothing like an actual experience will provide. Now, I might get plenty of burns in my experiental explorations. No longer is the concept/understanding vague and intellectual, but a direct experience, a 'direct knowing'.
The language that we use, in itself is an artifact of 'logic' and ordered rational concepts, with linear and dualistic 'flow'.
Beyond 'dualism', words are outright 'lies/unreal' in and of themselves. Poetry, allusion, metaphor, mythology, symbols are the best that we can do to even point toward the place where even thought (dualism) must cease, to 'proceed'.
It cannot be communicated in words. There can be 'empathic' communication. That is a 'tool of communication' that is not limited by language or Perspective. Missunderstanding is impossible. It is a 'direct experience'...

on the other hand, given the correct time and place, even the words "Can I get more cheese on those nachos?" can have great meaning and pragmatic results.
A very 'locally' indexed tool, language.
Other means of 'communication' (finger over the flame) for other 'localities'.
Peace

@nameless,

nameless wrote:

It cannot be communicated in words. There can be 'empathic' communication. That is a 'tool of communication' that is not limited by language or Perspective. Missunderstanding is impossible. It is a 'direct experience'...

Peace

We were, I thought, talking about a tool for finding things out, and discovery, not a tool of communication. Logic is not a tool of communication. Speech is. So, you seem to have switched the subject.

I wonder how you are able to determine when empathetic communication is successful, and when it is not. I cannot think of any other tool than logic.

@kennethamy,

kennethamy;23115 wrote:

We were, I thought, talking about a tool for finding things out, and discovery, not a tool of communication. Logic is not a tool of communication. Speech is. So, you seem to have switched the subject.

Really? Try to communicate with nonlogical, nonrational 'speech'.
That might be, perhaps, poetry, perhaps... But that speech used here is quite logical, and the 'speech', concurrent with the thought, of philosophy is, again, rational and logical, often, to a 'cultish' and often 'religious' degree (a 'belief' in 'logic').
Even though i seem to have switched the subject, perhaps your assumption just needed a bit of educating (clarification)...

Quote:

I wonder how you are able to determine when empathetic communication is successful, and when it is not.

It is always 'successful'. There can be no 'misunderstanding, no 'miscommunication' in a 'shared thought/mind'.

Quote:

I cannot think of any other tool than logic.

As I said earlier (in the previous post, to which you neglected to respond, yet repeated the statement above), direct personal experience is another tool.
Like I said, put your finger over a flame and all sorts of direct understanding and insight will arise with the action. Logic has nothing to do with that experience. One can think it to death afterward with all the 'logic' one can, but that is still once removed from the direct perception of the moment of 'revelation'.

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