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Topic: Is Truth Subjective?
creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 01:58 PM
So, you can leave your body, leave your brain, leave your central nervous system and observe things?

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:00 PM

So, you can leave your body, leave your brain, leave your central nervous system and observe things?



Yes, I have done that.


creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:01 PM
Only in your imagination.

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:02 PM

Only in your imagination.


Nope.

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:06 PM

I once found myself wide awake positioned in a point in the sky above the clouds. I could see in any direction. 360 degrees, depending on where I placed my attention.

It was as real as what you call "reality." I seriously thought at first that my body must have been with me and I was sure I would plummet to my death.

But I had no body with me.

This was not "in my imagination." It was as real as I feel reality at this moment sitting here at my computer.

Real.




creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:19 PM
The irony here is had in the fact that the notion of truth being put forth is a theory of meaning, Donald Davidson's as a matter of fact. Truth and Meaning. It is available for free. It does away with the semantic arguments stemming from personal meaning altogether. In other words the last thing being argued from my position is semantics.

If a listener knows what it would take for a speaker's statement to be true, then the listener knows what the speaker means.


creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:26 PM
Well then clearly the viewpoint of a beam of light must exist, because Einstein imagined viewing the world from that viewpoint.


So, according to this logic, if we can imagine it, then it must exist.


no photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:34 PM
Edited by Jeanniebean on Mon 07/18/11 02:35 PM
So now the truth is revealed.

Creative has probably been reading this book:

Donald Davidson's Truth-Theoretic Semantics
Hard cover $85.00



Abstract: This book examines the foundations and applications of the program of truth-theoretic semantics for natural languages introduced in 1967 by Donald Davidson in his classic paper ‘Truth and Meaning’. Its primary aim is to illustrate the promise of the truth-theoretic approach by laying out the philosophical foundations of it, and then sketching and discussing applications to a range of important natural language constructions.

A subsidiary aim is to clarify the concept of the logical form of a natural language sentence. Chapter 1 lays out the philosophical foundations of the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Chapters 2-9 consider a variety of topics in natural language semantics: quantifiers, proper names, demonstratives (including complex demonstratives), and quotation, adverbial and adjectival modification, tense, opaque contexts, and non-declarative sentences, that is, imperatives and interrogatives.

These treatments are intended to illustrate the sorts of resources we must invoke within a broadly Davidsonian framework in order to provide a compositional semantic theory and to illustrate the sorts of obstacles naturally encountered and which must be overcome. The book considers, where appropriate, Davidson's own suggestions, but often offers a different or modified account to deal with problems that arise in trying to carry those out.

Chapters 13 and 14 turn to more general issues: a characterization of sameness of logical form between any two sentences in any two languages, and the relation of the concept of truth employed in the semantic theory to various theories of it.



Here is a link to a critical assessment

Truth and Meaning in Davidson’s Philosophy: A Critical Assessment.

http://www.philosophie.uni-hd.de/md/philsem/kompaktseminar/kompaktseminarhd_programmundliteratur_ludwig.pdf

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:38 PM

Well then clearly the viewpoint of a beam of light must exist, because Einstein imagined viewing the world from that viewpoint.


So, according to this logic, if we can imagine it, then it must exist.




Yes. Now you are catching on!

If you can imagine it, then it does exist.

Somewhere.... in the implicate order.

***********

According to David Bohm's theory, implicate and explicate orders have a holographic aspect:

In the enfolded [or implicate] order, space and time are no longer the dominant factors determining the relationships of dependence or independence of different elements.

Rather, an entirely different sort of basic connection of elements is possible, from which our ordinary notions of space and time, along with those of separately existent material particles, are abstracted as forms derived from the deeper order. These ordinary notions in fact appear in what is called the "explicate" or "unfolded" order, which is a special and distinguished form contained within the general totality of all the implicate orders (Bohm 1980, p. xv).

creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 02:57 PM
So now the truth is revealed.

Creative has probably been reading this book:

Donald Davidson's Truth-Theoretic Semantics
Hard cover $85.00


You think that that is case, that I'm reading that book, and that my reading that book constitutes being "the truth".

What if I'm not, because that is the case.

Alas, we have yet another prima facie example regarding one of the many very good reasons to not objectify truth by prefixing it with "a" or "the". It causes one to confuse their own thought/belief with truth itself.


no photo
Mon 07/18/11 03:10 PM
Edited by Jeanniebean on Mon 07/18/11 03:11 PM

So now the truth is revealed.

Creative has probably been reading this book:

Donald Davidson's Truth-Theoretic Semantics
Hard cover $85.00


You think that that is case, that I'm reading that book, and that my reading that book constitutes being "the truth".

What if I'm not, because that is the case.

Alas, we have yet another prima facie example regarding one of the many very good reasons to not objectify truth by prefixing it with "a" or "the". It causes one to confuse their own thought/belief with truth itself.




No, what I think is that you get your ideas from somewhere and you don't think them up yourself.

So yes, I think you are reading books. Since you named him, I said, okay it is logical that you have read either his book, or some of his papers.

I really don't care where you are getting your ideas, I think they suck anyway. But what I do think is that you didn't think them up yourself.






creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 03:18 PM
Edited by creativesoul on Mon 07/18/11 03:41 PM
Well then clearly the viewpoint of a beam of light must exist, because Einstein imagined viewing the world from that viewpoint.


So, according to this logic, if we can imagine it, then it must exist.


Yes. Now you are catching on!

If you can imagine it, then it does exist.


What would it take for this to be true? It would follow that I could imagine anything and solely by virtue of my imagining, the thing would exist. I can imagine a God. That God is exactly like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It only follows that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. I can imagine another God that is exactly like the God of Abraham. It only follows that that God exists. I can imagine no God, it only follows that no God exists. These imaginings cannot all be true. At least one of these Gods cannot exist, because one is the negation of the other.

It is by virtue of the fact that we can imagine completely contradictory things - things that if one is true, then the other is false - that we know our mental imaginings do not necessarily equal the actual existence of the objects anywhere other than in the imagination.

creativesoul's photo
Mon 07/18/11 03:27 PM
No, what I think is that you get your ideas from somewhere and you don't think them up yourself.


What would it take for this claim to be true?

So yes, I think you are reading books. Since you named him, I said, okay it is logical that you have read either his book, or some of his papers.


And I have read the article that was referenced. I've read others' and been involved in good philosophical discussion(s) regarding Davidson's technique.

I really don't care where you are getting your ideas, I think they suck anyway. But what I do think is that you didn't think them up yourself.


What does your negatively expressed personal opinion of me have to do with the topic at hand?


s1owhand's photo
Mon 07/18/11 03:49 PM
So is the orbit of the earth around the sun subjective?

laugh laugh laugh laugh

drinker

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 04:00 PM

No, what I think is that you get your ideas from somewhere and you don't think them up yourself.


What would it take for this claim to be true?

So yes, I think you are reading books. Since you named him, I said, okay it is logical that you have read either his book, or some of his papers.


And I have read the article that was referenced. I've read others' and been involved in good philosophical discussion(s) regarding Davidson's technique.

I really don't care where you are getting your ideas, I think they suck anyway. But what I do think is that you didn't think them up yourself.


What does your negatively expressed personal opinion of me have to do with the topic at hand?





What does any source or authority or link named or followed have to do with the information or claim? It's about credibility.

markecephus's photo
Mon 07/18/11 04:07 PM

Hey guys,
Reminding you, personal attacks are not allowed. Please discuss the topic, and keep it civil.

Thanks,
Mark

no photo
Mon 07/18/11 04:14 PM

Well then clearly the viewpoint of a beam of light must exist, because Einstein imagined viewing the world from that viewpoint.


So, according to this logic, if we can imagine it, then it must exist.


Yes. Now you are catching on!

If you can imagine it, then it does exist.


What would it take for this to be true? It would follow that I could imagine anything and solely by virtue of my imagining, the thing would exist. I can imagine a God. That God is exactly like the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It only follows that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. I can imagine another God that is exactly like the God of Abraham. It only follows that that God exists. I can imagine no God, it only follows that no God exists. These imaginings cannot all be true. At least one of these Gods cannot exist, because one is the negation of the other.

It is by virtue of the fact that we can imagine completely contradictory things - things that if one is true, then the other is false - that we know our mental imaginings do not necessarily equal the actual existence of the objects anywhere other than in the imagination.



What would it take? I don't really know. Possibly a holographic universe. Its a theory or model offered by David Bohm. For details, ask him.

I would guess that contradictory things would cancel each other out.

To exist in the implicate order is not the same as existing in the explicate order.

All inventions first exist in the implicate order (which I envision as something like the universal mind) before they exist in this reality.

One has to first THINK before they can create or manifest something.




Abracadabra's photo
Mon 07/18/11 05:05 PM

Well then clearly the viewpoint of a beam of light must exist, because Einstein imagined viewing the world from that viewpoint.


So, according to this logic, if we can imagine it, then it must exist.



What would be "logical" about jumping to such an unrelated and erroneous conclusion?

I certainly never even remotely suggested that jumping to such unwarranted conclusions would be "logical".

All I pointed out is that the point of view that Albert Einstein used (i.e. the point of view of being a light beam) gave him profound insights into the true nature of physical manifestation.

His insights have since been observationally confirmed to be correct. And his is why we know that the point of view that he imagined turned out to be a valid point of view.

Hey, if he would have taken a point of view that had no validity with respect to physical manifestation then his predictions and conclusions would have been incorrect with respect to the nature of physical manifestation.

However, all this demonstrates is that there probably exist many points of view which have nothing to do with physical manifestation.

In fact, just look at mathematics which has to be the epitome of 'logic'.

I can easily write equations that describe things that cannot possibly physically exist in the physical manifestation of our universe, yet mathematically speaking they are perfectly "logical" constructions.

Therefore we must conclude that many things that are actually 'logical' don't even exist, insofar as we can tell.

This shows us that both logical and illogical things can be imagined, as well as becoming manifest.

Not long ago most people would say that it's illogical to think of time as being physical. In fact, probably most laymen today would feel the same way. Yet based on Einstein's General Relativity it's not only logical, but the rigorous logic of mathematics actually demands it within the mathematical framework of General Relativity.

But no, you jump to conclusion that have absolutely nothing to do with anything that I've said. In no way did I ever even remotely imply that if something can be imagined it must exist.

Clearly it would exist in imagination. But that's no guarantee that it will exist in physical manifestation.

Dragoness's photo
Mon 07/18/11 05:11 PM
Even as bullheaded as I am, I recognize that my truth is subjective.... It is the best and most effective truth you will ever run into though...:wink: so you should consider adopting it....:thumbsup: I will share it more than willingly.....waving

Abracadabra's photo
Mon 07/18/11 05:14 PM

So is the orbit of the earth around the sun subjective?

laugh laugh laugh laugh

drinker


According to Relativity it is. At least in shape and velocity. That will indeed depend on the velocity and position of an observer.

But those kinds of things miss the point don't they?

I mean pointing to something that is extremely simple like the orbit of an object around a second object is about as simple as we can imagine.

Consider the 3-body problem. Imagine three bodies of nearly equal mass orbiting each other and you have a mathematically unsolvable problem. In fact, we can actually solve those differential equations, but the solutions show us that the system is ultimately chaotic.

In theory it could be "predicable" if and only if, you could guarantee the starting positions of the bodies to infinitely many decimal places. But in practice that's impossible. Not only for humans, but for the universe herself. The Heisenberg uncertainty principles forbids that kind of precision to even exist. Once you precision gets out to the Planck limits then the universe herself has to round up or down using the property of quantum complementarity.

So chaos prevails. It's obviously a property of the universe that cannot be made to go away. Thus while it may be misleading to say that the orbit is subjective it's just as misleading to say that it's objective in any sense of being determined.


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