One thing that bothers me quite a lot about modern religions, modern politics, and much of modern life in general, is the emphasis on what is "true," what is "right," and what is "good." Rather than addressing all of these topics at once, which would be quite a thing to take on, I have chosen to examine one of them, truth. Forgive the shortness of the entry, especially on a topic that deserves a longer treatment (although probably from someone more knowledgeable about it than I).
Mark Twain, that thinker of deep thoughts, gave us the oft-cited wisdom that "a lie can get halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." His cynicism is echoed in the works of countless others. Stephen Crane, novelist, poet, etc., writes in is poem "The wayfarer," of a traveler who stumbles upon the road of truth, but finds it choked with weeds, which he further realizes to be knives. Truth is a hard road to follow, and the cynics among us would be quick to tell us that it is, to quote yet another famous artist, "the road less traveled." The most difficult aspect of truth is that, despite its apparently answering nature, it leads to many deep questions. Questions of truth have plagued humanity since the beginning of its time on the planet: what is truth? What is true? Is there even a single objective truth? From the Greek Forms to Gandhi's bold statement "Truth is God," everyone from philosophers to slaves has mused about truth at some point.
So what is truth? Aristotle held that truth was in the relationship between a perception of something and the reality of the thing. Ibn Sina defined truth as the correspondence between thought and reality, that is, the way something is seen in the mind. Martin Heidigger in the 20th century redefined truth with the Greek word aletheia, the truth that is revealed when something that was once hidden is first brought to light. All of these thoughts touch on a common theme: truth is something beyond a simple statement of facts. Further, truth is new, truth is relative, and truth is about comparing reality to perception. From this, how can truth be objective? Truth is all about a subjective perception of something. As more things are revealed or as the subject changes, so does the subject's perception, and thus, so does what is true.
So, next time you're making in a discussion with someone and someone brings up "the Truth" (with a capital T), remind them that the truth is subjective: what appears obviously true to one person might be completely unknown to his neighbor. Truth, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.
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I understand where you're coming from, but, I get the feeling that you're speaking about moral perception and its veracity, instead of fact as truth, if you understand what I'm saying. What I mean is, it is the truth that President Bush was elected President of the United States, but who knows if it's true that he was elected fairly in 2000, or if he's a good president or not? I can pass my judgement, and make my own assumptions, but I would say that that is my opinion, and not the truth. Sure that kind of thing can get confused, and I hate that it does, but our own confusion does not change the actual definition of truth. It only affects our ability to discern truth for ourselves.
I believe what the author was attempting to demostrate was the relativity of what truth may mean to a person. Whether a perception of one's opinion or not, it is a truth to them. For example, if a person were to see the color "green" as your "blue", who is to say that this color is not actually their green? Perhaps when you speak to a person the sound "A" is similar to your "I" to them, but in the "truth" they have learned their entire life, it is their "A". I hope that makes sense, it's always been my existential view on life, it helps me be objective.
Never let the world get you further down, it already has the weight of gravity on your shoulders.
I've started collecting random Latin phrases. Obscuris Vera Involvens means "truth in obscurity" or "truth is enveloped in obscurity" and is a little something Virgil wrote. I would like to postulate instead that truth IS obscurity.
My reasoning involves another, albeit a bit more recent, bit of Latin from Descartes: Cogito Ergo Sum which means "I think, therfore I am." As a philosophy it states that the only thing anyone can know for sure is that they exist.
I know I exist because I am thinking, but everything else I may or may not know (more likely the latter) is based on my senses, all of which can be fooled. The only truth that is concrete is that I exist. All else is hearsay, possible illusion, and I can only make up my own rules based on the patterns my senses interpret.
Thus to know truth is to embrace that applying it to the world outside one's own mind is inherently foolish, for all the world outside one's own thoughts is obscured by the very senses we use to perceive it. Socrates was thus perhaps the greatest genius in human history for living by this philosophy: "I know only one thing, and that is that I know nothing."
Formal logic is my bitch.
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. " —Edward Abbey
"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
"No, not really. This is a different thing–it's spontaneous and it's called wit."
-- Blackadder II
That excited me. I don't have any complicated or stimulating quotes for you, but I can tell you that I am a mite bit confused, that i beg further explanation please, and that i still think that there are certain things that can be accepted by truth as everyone.
Are you saying that if there was a person with, say, MPD, and he thought that HE was the president of the US instead of Bush, then that would be his truth? Because then i think i understand. are you saying that truth is always a matter of perception, even if it is a matter of fact? so facts are still a matter of perception? cool!
so does truth exist, would you say? or am i getting this all wrong?
As much as I like the "truth is perception" vein of logic, I'm still sticking to Descartes.
The ultimate truth has to be realized in first person. "The only thing that I know for sure is that I exist." Everything else is based on perception, assumption, and hearsay, all of which filters through our easily-fooled senses to form an inherently distorted image. To go through this logic, I'm having to assume that the person I'm conversing with is also a being capable of human thought similar to mine, but there is no way for me to know. All I know is that I exist. Get it?
It kind of seems like self-defeating logic, but it really comes down to the fact that there is one truth every sentient being shares, and that is that they know they exist because they think they are. If they happen to think that a bit of visual information looks like a buffalo, but it is in fact a smudge of ketchup, that means that they have made an assumption or an observation, but it is not truth. Truth might be for them to think along the lines of "I think that looks like a buffalo" because it is based on their thoughts, which they can absolutely know to be true in their minds. However, if they tell someone "I think that looks like a buffalo" it is not truth to the other person, who may or may not exist.
In a way, the "truth is perception" idea applies only to one's own thoughts. Your thoughts are your truths, but they are not universal truths. As for what universal truth is, I would have to say reality, but no two sentient beings will ever agree on what reality is because they have to percieve it through sensory information and translate it into their own truth, which will be different from the truth percieved by any other sentient being because they are using a different vantage point and/or different senses.
Reality is not perception, but our perception of reality is what we accept at truth, because what else can we do? In my case, listen to Socrates and assume nothing to be knowable, but still retain information anyway for use when it might be useful.
I hope that helped a bit, because I feel like I made it a bit more convoluted somewhere near the end.
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. " —Edward Abbey
"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
"No, not really. This is a different thing–it's spontaneous and it's called wit."
-- Blackadder II
I've got it! Thank you for the Philosophy101. I feel armed and dangerous. lol.
With regards to FelixFelicis09, I see where you're coming from, but I'd argue that a lot of what we think of as "fact" is simply an accepted opinion. Think of it like currency: the dollar is based on faith. If the American citizenry stops believing that it has value, then it stops having value. Similarly, much of what seems to be completely objectively true is true only by consensus: if everyone in the United States were to start ignoring the president, would he still be president? Maybe to his perception, but what about the rest of us? Truths can change; facts can be rejected; thus, the state of things that constitutes "truth" or "fact" is subjective.
With regards to Like_A_Hurricane, I like that train of thought, so I'm going to twist it to argue my point. I would say that "truth is perception" and "truth is obscurity" are not necessarily contradictory. My train of thought, that truth changes depending on the subject's point of view, is merely a somewhat wider view of what you, Descartes, and Socrates have pointed out. The only thing we can know for certain is that if we think, we exist. Let's call this the internal truth. I'm then extending that train of thought: all of our senses can be fooled, it is true; it's for that reason that we can have no single objective truth. However, we can use our flawed senses to create a perception of the world which, for the purposes of living our lives, is the truth. It may turn out that, as what we perceive changes, or as our perception of it changes, our external truth changes. But that is the nature of this external truth: it changes and grows as we change, grow, and come to "know" more about it. The internal, unchanging truth that we exist serves as a center, and this external, changing truth changes around it.
The only issue I find in the "truth is perception" idea is the simple fact that the preception we make of the world through our flawed senses is iherently as flawed as our senses are, and thus merely a fallacy, not a truth. Perception is imaginary truth: rules that people have make up as we go along in order to play the game of life.
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. " —Edward Abbey
"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
"No, not really. This is a different thing–it's spontaneous and it's called wit."
-- Blackadder II
The inherently flawed nature of our perceptions does not necessarily make them invalid as far as they go: yes, they are rules that we have created for ourselves (thus, external truth: not able to be proven, subject to change on short or no notice, and completely subjective), and yes, they are more or less imaginary, but that does mean they don't mean anything. The internal truth is one thing, but that doesn't get you very far in whatever world you perceive. The flawed external truth is like a working hypothesis or equation: it seems to fit, so you go with it until it needs changing, at which point you change it. Real or imagined aside, the external truth defines the world for an individual, which to my mind makes it just as important in its way as the internal truth.
I do not mean to suggest that individual perception of the world is without importance, merely that it is to a large degree a creation of the imagination. Because we think something does not make it true, and we cannot change reality by changing our perception. Truth, to me, is not something malleable. Either something is the truth, or it is not. Perceptions are more than malleable, they are in a constant state of change. Truth is the real state of something, not just a partial view of it from one angle. Individual perceptions can be accepted to seem accurate, but not to be truth.
Our perception of the world around us is accepted by our minds to be the true state of the world because we have no other information to go on. Therefore we live based on perception instead of truth because we cannot truly discover what "the truth" is. It is possible that the truth is simply beyond the capacity of the human mind to comprehend.
(I can't believe I ended that arguement with a fancy version of, "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!" but, oh well. I am an absurdist at heart; although I tend to be more of a nihilist on my bad days.)
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. " —Edward Abbey
"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
"No, not really. This is a different thing–it's spontaneous and it's called wit."
-- Blackadder II
I take your point. I guess I'm agreeing with you, I'm just defining things a little differently. I'm defining two separate truths: one that is real and one that is imagined, whereas you're defining my imagined truth as simply a false approximation. Got it.
Good, we agree. ;-)
So if I gather everything correctly, this has almost come down to an existential debate on reality rather than a truth. With this argument in mind, it seems pertinent to bring up the ideas of an un-altered consciousness. I believe (my truth :) ) that it is fair to assume that in one point in our lives, we have all had a conversation with someone - be that a close friend, a peer, a family member, or even a total stranger - regarding whether or not this "conscious" life, is real; whether or not this life is a dream, or if this reality is an actual substantial thing.
Some people believe that the exsistence we seem to believe we have hold of in this life is something that we are actually dreaming about. Everyone around us cannot always be accounted for, so we are usually left to assume that they are off doing normal things: driving their car, eating a hamburger, picking their nose. These people that believe that their life is a dream believe, however, that these people are merely actors in the ultimate design of their dreams destiny. (whew, say that three times fast.) When these actors are not actively enrolled in the persons life, they are simply put into a dormant state of their own... So to speak... Slumber. Personally, I think that it would be a difficult task to act for someone in their dream, but that's just me. :)
However, without the complete approval of every living being on every tangible existence, it seems like it would be impossible to decide on an actual "Truth" (yes, with a capital T.) so how's about that?
Never let the world get you further down, it already has the weight of gravity on your shoulders.
So if I gather everything correctly, this has almost come down to an existential debate on reality rather than a truth. With this argument in mind, it seems pertinent to bring up the ideas of an un-altered consciousness. I believe (my truth :) ) that it is fair to assume that in one point in our lives, we have all had a conversation with someone - be that a close friend, a peer, a family member, or even a total stranger - regarding whether or not this "conscious" life, is real; whether or not this life is a dream, or if this reality is an actual substantial thing.
Some people believe that the exsistence we seem to believe we have hold of in this life is something that we are actually dreaming about. Everyone around us cannot always be accounted for, so we are usually left to assume that they are off doing normal things: driving their car, eating a hamburger, picking their nose. These people that believe that their life is a dream believe, however, that these people are merely actors in the ultimate design of their dreams destiny. (whew, say that three times fast.) When these actors are not actively enrolled in the persons life, they are simply put into a dormant state of their own... So to speak... Slumber. Personally, I think that it would be a difficult task to act for someone in their dream, but that's just me. :)
However, without the complete approval of every living being on every tangible existence, it seems like it would be impossible to decide on an actual "Truth" (yes, with a capital T.) so how's about that?
Never let the world get you further down, it already has the weight of gravity on your shoulders.
sorry about that, my niece clicked the post button twice :)
Never let the world get you further down, it already has the weight of gravity on your shoulders.
"Everything we see or seem is but a dream within a dream"
But, if we're gonna talk about reality...
I may have already stated my philosophical beliefs and their tendency to switch between absurdism on my good days and nihilism on my bad days. Allow me to briefly extrapolate.
If there is an ultimate design it is beyond human comprehension and is on a universal scale upon which we are infinitesimal and insignificant to the greater workings. If there is some ultimate answer to life, the universe, and everything, it is probably something like "42", which means nothing to us, but what do we really matter to the universe?
Or, as I tend to think when I get really cynical, there is simply no grand design, no structured reason or answer, no man behind the curtain. We create meaning, but the meaning applies only to ourselves and our own minds, thus still making us an odd but generally insignificant bit of organic matter on a little blue-green planet orbiting a smallish yellow sun that is one of billions of stars in our galaxy, which is, in turn, one of billions or trillions of other galaxies out there.
And yet, both of these are based on the agreement that we live in an infinite universe that science has begun to explore with tools that measure much more precisely than our own senses ever could. Telescopes, microscopes, so many new devices to take in information about the world and about our universe: improvements on our own easily-distorted senses. This would seem to be the way to truly discover a concrete truth, a definite reality, but we percieve these measuring devices and their data with our natural senses, thus making it, from a "Cogito Ergo Sum" standpoint, impossible to prove that they truly exist.
Going back to that one truth that a sentient being must have in order to be sentient, but which cannot truly be shared because sentient beings experience other possibly sentient beings through their senses, our perception is essentially our dreams. They are made of the same substance: thought, memory, distortion of both. Our lives are viewed through perception, which we glean through our senses: minor distortion magnified by more grand distortion. We cannot tell if the people around us are real, or dreams, or lying to us, but we sense them and percieve them and their intentions based on logic that we make up as we see patterns in our world over time and decide them to be laws of the world. Nothing can be proven real if we take it in through our senses, but we sense it, and because we live and percieve and think through and in the language of our senses, we must act upon what we sense. We have no other choice, save for madness.
Or enlightenment, or nirvana: states that go beyond the senses. States that we cannot prove exist until we go there, but for now we are too busy reacting...according to our senses.
"Better a cruel truth than a comfortable delusion. " —Edward Abbey
"You've really worked out your banter, haven't you?"
"No, not really. This is a different thing–it's spontaneous and it's called wit."
-- Blackadder II
I find it interesting. The idea that an ultimate design is beyond human comprehension, if there is one, I completely agree with.
Now I'm going to take the idea of our infinitesimal insignificance and move in a different direction. In her short story "Uptown Local", Diane Duane makes the following statement: "Minds that perceive themselves as one tiny speck in the immensities tend to cherish the speck too much to blow it up." If more people found the perspective that you have on humanity and this planet, they might be more inclined to show a bit of respect for it. Note also the perception reference. Regardless of the ultimate truth of it, the all that matters in this case is the perception.
Just a final thought that came to me.