A middle ages' philosopher Aquinas, essentially defined truthfulness as that which corresponds to reality, or reality as known. I'm going to expand his defintition to truth in general, and say that it is that which corresponds to reality.
Although what is real may be different to two or three different people, it is their perception that distorts reality. Let me give some examples to what is real:
1. The earth revolves around the sun, and rotates about its axis.
2. All triangles have three sides.
3. Energy is conserved.
4. George Washington is dead.
5. I recieved an 'A' in American History.
Reality has many dimension. What I mean by that is that what is real varies from scientific fact to definitions, and to the exsistence of beings. These realities are absolute; triangles never have four sides, except perhaps in upper mathematics where one and one can equal three.
Although scientific theories can be wrong, it is how we precieve reality that is wrong; reality itself never changes.
Truth is the correct description of reality. Truth exists is absolute, but can we know it?
The answer is yes. We can at least partially know truth. We can know of our own existence, we know that apples grow on trees, and we know that George Bush is our President.
If truth exists and is absolute, logic and reason must also exist. Reason or logic is the path that we use to discover or understand truth. Since there is only one truth, there are certain logical arguements that are in accordance with truth, and thereby valid; (does a semi-colon belong there) while there are logical arguements whose conclusion deviates from truth, and are therefore invalid.
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The problems with saying a truth is absolute means that there is no deviation, ever, from that which is stated to be true. Yet in your very argument, you said that the fact that a triangle has three sides may not apply in upper mathematics, thereby it is not an absolute truth nor is it a distortion of reality, but remains a scientific fact. Thus, it must be a relative truth to apply to the relative reality you are participating in. Therefore, if truth can then be relative, logic and reasoning are also relative, making it much more difficult to determine if an argument is valid or invalid.
However, some truths are absolute, just as some are relative. There is a balance that creates our world.
I wrote a paper on this for one of my classes, but it is far too long to post. This is about the gist of it.
See what no one else sees. See what everyone chooses not to see... out of fear, conformity or laziness. See the whole world anew each day! ~Patch Adams
Relative to what? The individual? Or just the branch of Mathematics?
There is both Euclidean and non-Euclidean geometry; certain things that are true in Euclidean Geometry are not true in non-Euclidean Geometry, but both are untrue attempts to model the universe. They are only true when you make limitations, for instance, make every object inhabit a place in a plane.
There are only two types of reasoning in geometry: incorrect and correct.
Leaving mathematic aaside, just because things are differnt in differnt places does not mean that truth is relative. If I am on Mars, the gravity field strength would be different then here on Earth, but the absolute truth does not change.
The gravity on mars is (blank) strong, while the gravity on Earth is (blank) strong.
By the way, I would not call everything constructed in mathematics a scientific fact.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis
I believe that there are no exceptions to the absolute truth. If there are exceptions to something, it is probably because we don't fully understand it yet.
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So how about uncertainty principle and the effect of the observer on the system? It may not affect whether or not there is absolute truth, but if everything we observe is affected by us observing it then we can only determine truth when we are observing it. Things may act completely differently when we aren't "watching."
We can only determine the truth of things we observe, and by observing we change. Logic plays a certain role in truth, but it is hard to come up with a starting point for logic without observing.
Take the simple position of an electron. We can't determine where it will be. Not by math, not by observing, and not by logic. We can't tell if the elctron even has a set position at any particular time, so maybe it doesn't. We can only work out probabilities.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
Say I take a penny, and everytime I drop it, it falls to the ground. I could do this a thousand times, and everytime it ill fall to the ground. It is possible that if I throw a penny behind myself, and I refuse to watch it that it will not fall to the ground, but I would bet Bill Gate's fortune that it does fall.
We also know that certain scientific properties in the Universe always exist, or bad things would happen. For instance, if hotosynthesis stopped, we would run out of oxygen.
Although we cannot determine the position of an electron,it has one (unless we would want to argue that the electron doesn't exist).
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis
but we could never settle the bet until we turned to observe the outcome. The bet would never be settled with 100% certainty.
You believe the electron has a true, fixed position at any frozen moment in time, but you can't be sure, so you can't really say that it does. It could be in two places at once sometimes, or perhaps nowhere at all for infinitesimal moments of time. We already know that electrons "jump" between places without traversing the space in between.
Electrons do their work outside of our ability to determine where exactly they are, so there is no evidence that they have to be "exactly" anywhere. All of our equations dealing with electrons work just fine without knowing where the little guys are, so maybe the universe doesn't need to know exactly where they are. That isn't the most precise language, but I hope you get the point.
Particle wave duality demonstrates the effect of the observer perfectly. Take a piece of paper with two very tiny holes in it, so tiny the light waves halo out around them when projected through. Light would only do this if it is a wave. Now place a particle counter by the holes to count any particles coming through. Suddenly the halos disappear. Particles squeeze through the hole in a straight line, so no halos. Take the particle counter away, and the halos come back. Light exhibts itself as a particle or wave depending on how we are looking for it to exhibit itself.
Obviously I am not a quantum or particle physicist. If I am greatly mistaken in my thinking, please correct me.
It doesn't mean that there is no absolute truth, it just means people may not be able to find it. While certain principles must operate all of the time, they aren't all like that.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
I would agree that we cannot know all truths.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis
How do we decide which truths we can know and which truths we can't? Not to say that this means we can't know any truth at all, but what criteria do we use to decide that we have found the entire, whole, absolute truth at the center of a particular, law, mechanic or issue?
It is probably a whole other problem, for a whole other blog, but I figured I'd write the little kernel of thought out anyway.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.
If we limit ourselves to a single plane, or a particular type of equation.
When it comes to philosophy, it probably depends on whether or not it is possible to prove or disprove God's existence. If God exists certain things follow, and if he doesn't other things follow.
But we also would have to prove God's nature. Is He all-good, all-powerfull etc.?
There is an Ontological proof for God's existence, as summed up by Gould
God is perfect.
It would be imperfect not to exist.
Therefore God exists.
But it could always be asked if perfection is not in exisistence, but nonexistence.
"Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil."-C.S. Lewis
I always had two major objections to that ontological proof.
1. I can use the same idea to create anything I want. Blogtopia is an island, perfect in every way. Existence is a perfection. So there is an island, Blogtopia, somewhere.
2. You can't define things into existence. Making up definitions for things and including, "and they exist" in the definition doesn't make it true. "Brownies are tiny forest spirits that exist in English forests." Doesn't mean they exist.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memor mori, mahalo.