What is the "truth"??

[FlamingoBlue]

Is it what I see or what you see??

blue

 

[Guest]

Might it possibly be along the lines of......there are three sides to every story....your side, my side, and the real story?

Each sighting comes complete with three different perspectives. I guess it all comes down to whatever each person is watching at that particular time. I can see what you can't, you can see what I haven't, and then there is what we both missed completely.

Now, I'm very confused.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Is it what I see or what you see??

Truth is what can be reasoned about reality by observation and deduction.

Your "truth" may vary from mine due to your different observations and reasoning processes. We can maybe reason together to arrive at a "truth" that we agree on. "Truth" should be in accordance with reality.

 

[Dixon Carter Lee]

Esoteric questions are actually very easy once you define your terms and focus on what you're really asking.

Ask an ambiguous question about truth and you'll get a million different answers. Define "Truth" in one sentence, and you get enlightenment.

 

[FlamingoBlue]

Truth is.....

my reality.

blue

 

[juicylips]

Wow...

I am way too blond for this thread...lol

Cassidy

 

[JazzManJim]

Just based on that post..

Might it possibly be along the lines of......there are three sides to every story....your side, my side, and the real story?

Each sighting comes complete with three different perspectives. I guess it all comes down to whatever each person is watching at that particular time. I can see what you can't, you can see what I haven't, and then there is what we both missed completely.

Now, I'm very confused.

On this alone, you'd make my "Unregistered Crush List". It was profound, funny, and completely, wholly, adorable, all in one.

But as for the overall question, I think Shy got it right. Truth, or at least Truth-with-a-capital-T, is what we can observe, measure, and deduce from our observations and measurements. That really does limit the realm of truth to a very narrow area, compared with the breadth of the human experience.

Anyone who would talk about things like faith or beauty and call it absolute truth is just seling something. It may be the truth as that person sees or believes it, but any more than that just doesn't work.

At least that the truth (Truth?) as I see it.

 

[Rambling Rose]

There's truth and there's perspective. They are not always mutually exclusive and not always absolute.

 

[Guest]

Great thread and thoughts.

I'm a follower of relativism, myself.

 

[celiaKitten]

Re: Re: What is the "truth"??

Truth is what can be reasoned about reality by observation and deduction.

Your "truth" may vary from mine due to your different observations and reasoning processes. We can maybe reason together to arrive at a "truth" that we agree on. "Truth" should be in accordance with reality.

But then you are assuming that reality is a solid thing. Perception twists reality and it's different from person to person.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Re: Re: Re: What is the "truth"??

But then you are assuming that reality is a solid thing.

Perception twists reality and it's different from person to person.

Reality is "something that is neither derivative nor dependent but exists necessarily" - in other words, reality exists independent of our perceptions of it. That is by definition what reality is, therefore we cannot usually "twist" reality by percieving it (except when you get into quantum states observations and the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but that is a specialized case and not really applicable here).

Our understanding of reality can be twisted by our perception of events and objects, but the events still happen one way, and objects still are what they are, even if we are percieving them incorrectly. A color blind person may not percieve that a certain frequency of light reflects off of, or is emanting from an object, but that light still reflects/emanates.

In short, the universe still exists even if there are no humans there to percieve it. We do not create reality only our perception of it.

 

[celiaKitten]

But we're talking about humans and truth - so you can't separate them from the question. Since our perception of reality can be so affected, who decides what is reality and what isn't? Kind of like the who decides what is history and what are lies? It's all affected by what pair of eyes are looking at it.

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

But we're talking about humans and truth - so you can't separate them from the question.

Agreed - when talking about "truth", not reality.

Since our perception of reality can be so affected, who decides what is reality and what isn't? Kind of like the who decides what is history and what are lies? It's all affected by what pair of eyes are looking at it.

But you will notice that when I used the term "truth" I put it into double quotes.

As such, I was trying to infer just what you are saying.

What is "truth" to one person will be to some degree influenced not just by their perceptions of a that event or issue, but also by all their other perceptions of past events and other issues. We can try to filter out our observational biases with our rational minds, and we can deduce what we believe is the truth. How close we actually come to reality is one measure of how well we can supress biases, how well we can reason, how much we cling to preconceptions, biases, and how open minded we are.

Ideally, out "truth" should match reality as closely as possible, but this rarely happens. Nonetheless, we should strive for that ideal and not cling to dogma when it conflicts with what we percieve reality to be.

 

[celiaKitten]

Nonetheless, we should strive for that ideal and not cling to dogma when it conflicts with what we percieve reality to be.

Well, I'll shout an 'amen' to that statement

 

[Shy Tall Guy]

Well, I'll shout an 'amen' to that statement

At the same time, we shouldn't be over anxious to say that some new revelations about reality negates all previous theories or beliefs. There are a lot of cosmologists that seem eager to deny the possiblity of a creator by pushing for a universe that collpases, the re-expands, in a never ending cycle - without answering the question of where it came from.

I prefer to keep such issues separate; the goal of science is not to explain why (on the theological level) so much as to explain how. Whether the universe goes on endlessly, or will one day collapse, does not negate what I believe about a creator, nor does it really support it either.

I said all that to make a point - if a person is to be true with themselves, they must be able to admit the weaknesses in their arguments, as well as claim the strengths - otherwise we are lying to ourselves.