Why?

Why should this be hard on someone's ego?

It would only be hard on their ego if they didn't understand what scientists and mathematicians mean when they say 'truth'.

If you have ever taken college courses in the sciences and mathematics you should know that everything that they call 'truth' is restricted by the domain of applicability.

If you pay attention to the details, they lay it all out. They tell you what they are ASSUMING to be true via UNPROVABLE premises and/or axioms, and so on and so forth.

When they proclaim something to be 'truth' they are speaking entirely within those limitations only!

They don't continually harp on this, and I will be the first to confess that they can indeed get pretty sloppy about. But none the less, the MOST PROFESSIONAL mathematicians and scientists fully understand the limitations of the 'truths' that their disciplines proclaim to have ascertained.

So there is absolutely no reason for anyone's ego to be bruised by those disciplines unless they fail to understand those preliminary premises and domains of applicability.

THAT is where people make their mistakes!

They don't pay attention to the details that limit where a particular 'truth' is applicable.

There is nothing wrong with their system other than people like you who don't fully understand that they do indeed recognize the domain of applicability where you seem to have totally missed that part.

You speak of "universal truth" which is an utterly absurd notion to begin with. That's a philosophical unicorn right there!

Relativity shows that no such beast can even exist, at least not in physics!



And nobody does that.

However what they will often do is place restrictions on what constitutes a valid 'correspondence'. Those are the limitations and domain of applicability that must be observed.



And all of that has been taking into account, so you're not stating anything that isn't already common knowledge.

In fact, as I have already shown some 'kinds' of correspondence with fact/reality are necessarily purely subjective.

That was what I had labeled "spiritual truth" or the truth of direct experience where a person actually experiences a state of affairs directly rather than trying to do it analytically via mere descriptions.

The experience becomes the 'description' part of the process.

And the experience can only be subjectively known. Everyone will have a different experience and thus they will experience a different 'truth' in this case.

~~~~~

What I don't understand about you Michael is why you continually act like as if you are the only person who understands this stuff and that everyone else must be "wrong".

Where do you get that idea? How did you come up with that "belief"?

~~~~~

It appears to me that for the most part we are indeed actually on the same page. The only difference between us is that I recognize how limitations and domains of applicability are used in the sciences and mathematics, and you're acting like they are just flat out 'wrong'.

They aren't wrong. The most professional mathematicians and scientists will gladly tell you precisely what the limitations and domain of applicability is for whatever they claim to be "truth".

~~~~~

What you are probably upset about it is that the general masses on the street. The laymen who don't pay attention to the details are confused and think that mathematical 'truths' and scientific 'truths' have no limitations! They probably aren't very well educated or they simply didn't pay attention to that part of the course.

So they run around acting like scientific and mathematical 'truths' are some sort of absolute truths that hold true under any and ALL circumstances.

That is wrong!

But don't blame that on the mathematicians and scientists because they DO pay attention to the premises, axioms, and domain of applicability of their 'truths'.

At least the most professional ones do. Unfortunately there are probably even sloppy mathematicians and scientists around too. Some people just seem to totally ignore all the limitations of these formal systems.

But those limitations are there if you PAY ATTENTION.

~~~~~

So there is nothing wrong with how scientists and mathematicians determine truth.

It's just your misunderstanding of their formal limitations that appears to be the problem here.

~~~~~

And like I say, your idealized philosophical unicorn of 'absolute universal truth' is just a dream.

It's utterly meaningless in any practical sense.

It's just a lofty idealized notion that can never be achieve.

In fact, with the discovery of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, we have no reason to believe that states of affairs themselves can be consistent.

If the states of affairs themselves cannot be consistent then certainly no correspondence with those same states of affairs can hope to be consistent either.

Thus 'truth' as such a correspondence also loses its consistency as well.

If truth is linked to the state of affairs, then it can't do any better than the state of affairs itself.

I really only have a problem with the first one.



Science has this covered as I stated in my previous post.

They only proclaim their 'truths' to be "known" within the limitations of the process by which they have concluded it to be a 'truth'.

This is why scientists have no problem with previous scientific 'truths' being discovered to be 'wrong'.

That doesn't surprise a scientist in the least. Because they understand the premises, postulates, axioms, and domain of applicability.

New techniques of investigation constantly expand that domain of applicability. So scientists expect scientific 'truth' to expand right along with it.

It's simply not a problem.

It's totally COVERED.

All that presupposes that truth is a manmade product of language.



Unworthy of much of my attention at this point. You're treating the situation as if you wrongfully believe that I have some inadequate grasp on how science treats truth. I understand that better than you. I mean afterall, who is dogmatizing it?

Truth is correspondence to fact/reality.

Period.

A description cannot correspond between itself and fact/reality.

--

Is that clear enough?

Shoo, and please take the dogma with you.

Fer f1uucks sake.

Jeez. Some people.

Deep breath.... hooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooold...


















Exhale...

Learning to exhale.

Demonstrably false belief has no place being draped over an otherwise illuminating discussion.

Falsehood sufficates truth by sheer will alone.

Without setting truth out properly, humans lose the original utility of that which necessarily grounds our very thought/belief/knowledge.

Let us not confuse truth with belief just because there are those who do not, or cannot, tell the difference and call their personal beliefs "truths".

It does not follow from the fact that some people call their spiritual belief "truth" that truth equates to belief. It certainly does not follow that truth is subjective. It follows that that person has confused their belief with that which makes it true, and with that which falsifies it.

Truth is correspondence to fact/reality.

No book's worth of words changes that.

Why not?

Apparently that's what you do.

You confuse your belief that only you have an understanding of truth whilst everyone else does not, with a correspondence to fact/reality.

You've obviously convinced yourself that that's the true state of affairs.

And that's all that belief amounts to. The delusion that you think that your views represent the true state of affairs.

Maybe belief is all that exists and that IS the true state of affairs.

Did you ever think of that?

Perhaps I should ask you this same question.

I've just looked over a few of the threads you've started. In every case, you start a thread by asking a question, and in every case, you claim to be the only person who has the correct answer.

Have you ever been wrong about something?

What is a Definition?
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/307223

You have the correct answer, everyone else is wrong.

What is thought?
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/307324

You have the correct answer, everyone else is wrong.

Is truth subjective?
http://mingle2.com/topic/show/306298

You have the correct answer, everyone else is wrong.

Seems like a pretty well-established pattern to me.

I see the discussion now.

You are talking about absolute truth, I am talking about the "truth" people "know." Notice the quotation marks.

Absolute truth is what philosophers like Socrates sought in vain for ages. It exists as it is because it is the truth.

The "truth" people perceive is subjective to their experiences and knowledge. The absolute truth is probably (hey, I don't know) wrapped in shrouds of human "truths." This makes it hard to see the real truth of whatever as people cling to their "truths."

I don't think the human mind can understand the absolute truth yet. I don't think we would know it if we discovered it. JMHO. That is why I am subject to change my beliefs, no way in the world do I know the absolute truth of things.

Abra,

Are you saying that at the places where our views conflict with each other, that you've been wrong?

I do not hold the belief that only I have an understanding of truth whilst everyone else does not.



Seeing how the phrase "the true state of affairs" is nonsensical on my view, I certainly have not convinced myself of anything of the sort.



Agreed.

Who's delusion is it?

Truth is central to thought, belief, and knowledge. Does better reason exist to get it right?

While I can understand where one could arrive at such a conclusion based upon the last few pages. I do not hold a Platonic view of truth. Truth is not an object. Prefixing it with "the" is a mistake in thought because it objectifies truth.



Are you referring to what one comes to hold as true?



Truth cannot be false, therefore, there can be no false truth. If there can be no false/fake truth, then there is no need for positing "real truth". Setting truth out correctly to begin with avoids this unnecessary linguistic overcomplication.



Agreed. I don't even know what "the absolute truth of things" is supposed to mean. The label "absolute" implies immutability. Science dogmatists calls findings "immutable", much like religious dogmatists hold unshakable certainty in their spiritual beliefs. The former qualify the dogma by further claiming that the findings are being taken on a "provisional" basis. Bah. Drop the absolute, drop the "immutable", and there is no need to invoke the liability waiver of "provisional".

--

In all cases, truth is presupposed in thought/belief, argued for with justification methods, and proven wrong by neither.