The truth and nothing but the truth

[thelerner]

Truth.. how do we separate it from opinions and bias's?   When does a preponderance of facts become the truth?  Is there absolute truth or shades of grey?   Getting very close, but not so much.

 

I suppose our best tools are the Socratic method and basic logic.  Truthfully, I have 10 fingers.  Not that you can be sure of it, but I do.  There are basic truths about my identity.  I'm a man, I'm a citizen of the U.S, where I live.  I can provide proofs of such.   These are small things, but I'm thinking small proofs are like platforms, building on top of each other.

 

Maybe we can get away from bias's and generalizations by keeping known truths stacked on one another.   Looking for proofs and internal consistency before adding each building block.

 

 Still, nothing wrong arguing opinion, but its important to know we're dealing with opinion and bias's not fact.  Course some opinions are more self evident and logical then others.  That's one thing I like about Buddhist philosophy; the tendency to keep things self evident and experiential. 

 

 

 

 

[Nikolai1]

Here's something from blog that speaks to this post:

 

All swans are white.

 

If we think this is a falsehood then this depends on how we define the swan. Once, swans were defined as large, white birds with long, S-shaped necks. Their whiteness was a defining feature of the swan, and if the bird wasn’t white then it wasn’t a swan.

 

Later, fashions for defining swans changed. We became more interested in their musculoskeletal characteristics then their plumage. If we encountered a bird with the S-shaped neck and the musculoskeletal characteristics then we started calling it a swan, even if the bird was black.

 

In the future, when the genotype of the swan is mapped we might, for reasons of heredity, find ourselves calling a bird a swan, even if it doesn’t have the S-shaped neck and comes in all manner of colours.

 

So, which is the better, truer definition of the swan? The plumage-based definition, the musculoskeletal definition, or the genetic definition? Or indeed any of the infinite ways in which we might define a swan? Call? Colour of eye or bill? Etc?

 

This is important to know because unless we know the best way to define a swan our opening statement ‘all swans are white’ is in a terrible logical limbo:

 

To the plumage-definer the statement is true; to the musculoskeletal-definer it is false.

 

This means that the statement is both true and false, depending on your perspective of what a swan is. In other words, all swans seem to be both P and not-P.

 

To resolve this intolerable contradiction it is necessary for us to explain what a swan really is – what is the definition of the true swan? How do you know?

 

If you can manage this then you may, with justification, go on to resolve the contradiction. If you cannot manage this then we are not logically permitted to step beyond the contradiction:

 

So, ‘swans are both P and not-P’ becomes the most illogical, and at the same time, logical viewpoint to hold.

 

I wonder where this leaves logic?

[Nikolai1]

Logical truth only comes after an arbitrary decision about what we take as the predicates. Logic therefore only has the power to demonstrate what we already believe.

 

 

Then we have truths like I have ten fingers. This type of truth may be false tomorrow after I tackle my woodpile with the chainsaw. It is therefore as shifty as provisional as the fashions that created the predicates in the logical argument.

 

 

There comes a point where truth loses its meaning for us, and like you said we are left only with experience.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Nikolai1

[Everything]

Well, whatever resonates with you the most, you feel that to be your truth, cause you recognize it and you resonate with it. And since you always change and your perspective changes, what you resonate with changes, and what you recognize as your truth changes.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Everything

[Marblehead]

All swans are white.

 

 

Except for the black ones.

[Marblehead]

Truthfully, I have 10 fingers. 

Could you perhaps have eight fingers and two thumbs?

[Marblehead]

I rarely offer truths.  However, I have no problem with sharing my opinions and understandings.  Sure, I have "my" truths but they may not be valid for anyone else.

[thelerner]

Could you perhaps have eight fingers and two thumbs?

maybe 20 if I include my toes . 

 

Often I think truth is best kept brief, othertimes it seems to achieve logical correctness its go to be very wordy. 

 

I've always liked the saying 'The opposite of a great truth, is another great truth'.  In Zen it often seems most truths are paradoxical. 

[Everything]

@Apeiron&Peiron

 

Wow, nice.

Edited April 13, 2015 by Everything

[ThisLife]

A & P,

That certainly is an impressive, tightly coherent, and well-nigh incomprehensible trainload of complex verbiage. Yet, after trying, (then eventually giving up) in my attempts to gather any meaning whatsoever from the things you wrote, the thought slowly came to me, ....

"But isn't the truth actually one of the simplest things in the world to define ? Surely it can be expressed perfectly, succinctly and inarguably by using just two simple words ?

Truth is,.... "What is."

Edited April 14, 2015 by ThisLife

[Stosh]

.how about just one truth,

Like Satan said in South Park..

Like whos not filling a fng hole ?

Edited April 14, 2015 by Stosh

[idiot_stimpy]

 I'm a man, I'm a citizen of the U.S, where I live.  I can provide proofs of such.   These are small things, but I'm thinking small proofs are like platforms, building on top of each other.

 

Are you content to be a sum of ideas?

[Astral Monk]

Truth is only one thing--Being, the Absolute. It is that which cannot be transcended or dissolved, the most final fundamental suchness.

 

Everything else is 'truth'.

 

All forms of perception of things are relative and polarizing. Statements are only 'true' relative to an assumed standard--a system of logic and a set of axioms. Change any of that and truth-value changes.

 

'Truth' is really just another human constructed value. Senantics and ethics are just applications of axiology. As such, the best rules for 'truth' are internal consistency and coherence.

 

Many 'facts' can be both 'true' and 'false' simultaneously just as acts can be both 'good' and 'bad' simultaneously--depending on your frame of reference.

 

This is the ultimate limitation of logic and the reason why language cannot lead to Truth, but only give us relative 'truths'.

 

8)

[Astral Monk]

The problem is further compounded by the fact that there is no way other than a leap of faith past epistemological skepticism and the reality that outside of pure Being we have no knowledge, only 'beliefs'.

 

8)

[the1gza]

You can't really find a "universal" truth when the parameters for assessing reality are relative. Even if we were able to find something we could all agree on, it would still only be "the truth according to humans", for our perceptual tools contain bandwidths and frequencies that are all different from other creatures. Therefore, the "truth" is always going to contain some form of relativity, no matter what tools we use to perceive things from.

 

There's really no problem with that, it's only a problem when people place security in "truths" so that they do not have to venture into realizing that we really don't know what the fuck is up. That's scary, and for most people, it invokes massive insecurity. However, if we truthfully could say we knew any truth at all, I feel this would be a very horrible thing, because from what we have garnered from the truths we have now... if this is what reality is all about, we're screwed. But if we managed to get this far being complete novices at existence... things aren't actually so bad. We do not have the skills, on a gen-pop perspective anyway, to discern any truth other than those that we feel are important. Again, nothing wrong with that, it only becomes a problem when folks try to force their relative truth on others as "The Truth".

[Nikolai1]

Yes to the Astral Monk posts,

 

Intelligence is the ability to be sceptical of truth. It leads you to see the emptiness of truth, or at least, to realise that truth is not a thing that exists in some situations and not others. We see that truth is something that has no opposite. Truth is always there.

 

Why is accepting this so terrifying? Why is it so depressing? Why do do many of us see the emptiness of truth and still spend years afterwards trying to prove ourselves wrong, and flail around still trying to intellectualy anchor ourselves in a sea that is too deep for our anchor?

 

Why have so many of forerunners been unable to live with this excruciating insight? Whether you go mad like Nietszche or die young like Kierkegaard and Camus, there is a very real possibility that you will not survive this crisis of the intellect.

 

Just living in the truth of the moment is difficult and very scary. It means that we must truly, truly go it alone. A life lived in the wilderness alone is positively companionable if you have the old belief in truth to keep you company. But this is properly going it alone. You must reconcile yourself to each and every moment and not deny nor run from any of it.

 

And you may not gain the comfort of like minds or belief in facts to justify your course through life. You must absolutely and eternally CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF and with ABSOLUTELY NO CRITERIA with which to make the choice.

 

It makes you feel sick just to think of it. I have days when I think I'll succeed and days where I think I'm not strong enough. I comfort myself that Nietszche went mad because he had no one to go before him. I at least have Nietszche's example as a cautionary tale. Nietszche sacrificed himself for me, a form of atonement. But I must not pronounce him holy he would have hated that

[Stosh]

No thing is both true and false ,nothing good or bad. And thats not some long winded bullshit confabulation. Though I like long winded confabulating myself . One imagines goodness badness and falsity. Based on likes and dislikes and errors. The human condition ,Its that freekin simple.

[GrandmasterP]

"There is no such thing as absolute truth.

And that's the absolute truth."

 

 

[Everything]

Yes to the Astral Monk posts,

 

Intelligence is the ability to be sceptical of truth. It leads you to see the emptiness of truth, or at least, to realise that truth is not a thing that exists in some situations and not others. We see that truth is something that has no opposite. Truth is always there.

 

Why is accepting this so terrifying? Why is it so depressing? Why do do many of us see the emptiness of truth and still spend years afterwards trying to prove ourselves wrong, and flail around still trying to intellectualy anchor ourselves in a sea that is too deep for our anchor?

 

Why have so many of forerunners been unable to live with this excruciating insight? Whether you go mad like Nietszche or die young like Kierkegaard and Camus, there is a very real possibility that you will not survive this crisis of the intellect.

 

Just living in the truth of the moment is difficult and very scary. It means that we must truly, truly go it alone. A life lived in the wilderness alone is positively companionable if you have the old belief in truth to keep you company. But this is properly going it alone. You must reconcile yourself to each and every moment and not deny nor run from any of it.

 

And you may not gain the comfort of like minds or belief in facts to justify your course through life. You must absolutely and eternally CHOOSE FOR YOURSELF and with ABSOLUTELY NO CRITERIA with which to make the choice.

 

It makes you feel sick just to think of it. I have days when I think I'll succeed and days where I think I'm not strong enough. I comfort myself that Nietszche went mad because he had no one to go before him. I at least have Nietszche's example as a cautionary tale. Nietszche sacrificed himself for me, a form of atonement. But I must not pronounce him holy he would have hated that

If anyone sacrifices themselves for you, maybe they are very confused and lost. And if you follow their example, and enjoy it, you must be one special person. I certainly don't insist to change this world, I'm fine with the way it is. Let people live natural lifes and die natural lifes. Don't gotta speed up the process, or interupt the flow of life. Not that you can do that, but I mean for yourself. You can choke your own life, in the guise of benefiting others, which is very arrogant, since you're in that case being the wrong example for others and insisting that it is the right example, no matter how much it hurts.

 

It is rather much more natural to stop fighting everything and simply be your natural self, in harmony with life itself, and actually have some fun in your life too, this way. Going about your business, being yourself, is the easy and natural thing to do. Only the effort can go crossways to your own life. That's why meditation is a great way to release all things that don't belong to you, and just be yourself, you are ment to be. In ease and enjoyment of life. Hope that helps.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Everything

[silent thunder]

I seem to see two types of truth recently... 

 

Truths with a big T for me are experiential.  They not things, but a process of which I am part.  They can't be argued with and can't be broken, we break ourselves on them.  They're not an idea, thought-form, or a word.  These Truths seem very obvious and blunt, such as the Truth that touching fire is unpleasant.

 

Ideas, spoken words, written words, thoughts, images are truths with a small t.

These truths are relative to the people speaking, or thinking them and relative to the time, setting and the culture they are speaking, or thinking them in.  'I am a Norwegian', is an example.  It's true relative to me, in this time, in this setting.

But really, it's just an idea, supported by other ideas.  These are grammatical truths and they are unfixed.

 

Big Truth is a process that I am part of...

small truth is a process that is a part of me...

is sort of how I distinguish it.

 

Any time I get into any discussion about truth though, I have to pay homage to one of my favorite humans of all time, Robert Anton Wilson.   He often very succinctly quoted Husserl when refuting Naive Realism, or the great fallacy that we believe we see reality as it is and that we interpret what we see accurately.  Neither is the case.

 

All perception is based on gambles. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lO7tGOr2NU0

[Spotless]

Well, this is something I have spent a few years with. If you want to separate "truth" from opinion and bias, then there needs to be clarity. If there is to be clarity, then you need to know about what it is you are considering. More specifically, when you "consider" you are "considering" using systems of symbols---whether it is something highly specific (as in the conventions of natural language) or rather non-specific (mental imagery---which, by the way, can be formally described using semiotics).

 

The things that I have found out are that whether you are using words in a language, mental imagery, or anything at all to form an opinion or idea--the process you are undergoing is one where you have input information, a pattern that you are fitting to the input information (or discerning from the information), and an outputted symbolic representation of the pattern that you are presuming to have seen.

 

And so, when I started thinking in these terms, I really began to see why a lot of the best philosophers (in my opinion) concluded that philosophy ought to be similar in structure to mathematics: mathematics is just a system of highly specific symbols and highly specific rules about how one symbol relates to another. In this way, there is extreme control of the stuff we use to present an idea. In fact, mathematics (as a field) is a subset of the field of formal languages. So, all the cool things we have going on with languages (natural and formal)---such as semantics, pragmatics, lexics, morphosyntactics, and other fields that relate to how it works--we have these also for things like mathematics. In fact, in you follow C.S. Peirce in his thought: all symbolic systems inhere in the symbolic system of semiotics---so: all symbolic representations are mediated by a near infinite set of rules for how meaning is to be generated.

 

So, with a situation like this, how is it that we can arrive at ideas that are true instead of opinions? Well, they always start as opinions. It is when they endure through time and repeated use that they acquire a notion of truth. And, when you understand what this means in terms of a process: the specific manner of use is the non-technical backdrop for the formal semantics of the idea; the way that you use the idea is the non-technical backdrop for the morphosyntactics of the idea; the conventions that you adopt to express the idea are the lexics of the idea; the existing conventions in language and culture constitute the non-technical pragmatics of the idea: and so on.

 

So, as a summary, in order to deal with truth we need to understand that truth is self-coherence and the correspondence of an idea with reality. You could overload the notion of "truth" with more ideas and over-specific features but these are the things that are fundamental for an instrumental account of truth in ideas and how we present them. That being said, the vast majority of the factors that allow "truth" to exist and be communicated inhere in the fact that there are other sentient beings that share some of your experiences; a lot of the foundational experiences are having a body (and all the relational datathat accompanies living as an embodied thing) and existing in the same culture (which fine tunes the general capacities that exist for purely physical reasons). With this in mind, the notion of truth and opinion is somethwat blurred. On the one hand, we have a very rigid notion of truth that exists in the mind and can immediately be checked if circumstances run contrary to our expectations. On the other hand, truth (in a functional sense) only exists absolutely for things that have endured through time---and so, it depends upon a somewhat erratic process that we only control a small section of.

 

With this in mind, if you consider the outline of knowledge (input information, pattern recognition, outputted idea about what the information represents), there is always an inherent non-zero truth value. An idea is a truthful attempt at describing a perceived pattern. The general task of determing truth and falsity ends up being a matter of communal usefulness. In the case of the black swan: the statement that "all swans are white", though false when we find a living Australian counterexample, is true enough for a limited geographic area. ---In general, our claims to knowledge and truth get muddied when we use a universal quantifier like "all" because, in practice, "all" is applied to a finite collection of things but, in concept, "all" means "everything seen and unseen".

If you have taken in the details above, then the main issue, in practice, is not absolute truth and falsity of an idea but whether or not the domain that the idea is applied to had relevance beyond the local instance that prompted the idea.

A great many things all neat and tidy and a good summation for the most part of a fair amount of thought on the subject but falling very short of the reality. This is a very good example of the fundamental problem of "mind" and monkey mind thinking on an almost higher order. This is what is so deadening - a clean well lit jail. The promising University product. It contains enough supporting non-ideas to make for a reputable summation and would receive a C+ from most professors.

 

Here are some of the problems:

 

The general perspective is a cardboard perspective - no seeing behind the thought - all the feel of the atheist perspective as well.

A sort of behaviorist perspective as well.

 

If we are here looking at Spirit and how we might find "truth" in this plane of existence - which is what the original poster in my assumption is looking for - truth of a higher order and not just the mundane relative or the defined - then cardboard will not work.

 

In a quote from above:

"So, with a situation like this, how is it that we can arrive at ideas that are true instead of opinions? Well, they always start as opinions. It is when they endure through time and repeated use that they acquire a notion of truth."

 

This is the crux of the problem - and it appears true but it is quite unwise.

 

They do not always start as opinions - but the idiot monkey mind wants all the credit and so we follow the idiot in a parade to our cell door.

 

We all have intuition - knowing - it comes through the back door so to speak because ours is a plane for the most part not admitting to our greatest asset - our being - but relying on the leadership of a fool. The grand opinionated throughly identified pompous ass representing humanity in all its wars and factions.

 

Ask Einstein if he thought all ideas started as opinions - he would laugh in the face of the quote above were he not far more considerate than me.

He took little credit for what came out of him because he was well aware the ideas were not "his".

 

"And certainly we should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. It cannot lead, it can only serve; and it is not fastidious in its choice of a leader."

 

 

In the original post the idea is offered up I think as a starting point that the Learner "knows he is male, a U.S. citizen" and so forth, yet all for whom the personal history has dropped away come to know very clearly that nothing of this human form is "who" they are but more a case of what wrapping they are presenting currently.

 

Truth can come forth with no evolution - words are found for it in this plane and it did not evolve from opinion.

 

Decarte is famously misquoted as having said (according to the monkey mind):

I think therefore I am.

 

What he said was: I think - I am.

 

Monkey mind added "therefore" and turned it into an opinion rather than the self-evident truth.

 

A great many inventors will tell you "their" idea was not an opinion - it was "a certainty" (often for many - out of nowhere) that only needed to be formed, though many opinions may have been utilized and assessed as to its formation and bringing it to formation.

Edited April 14, 2015 by Spotless

[forestofclarity]

I don't know if I would say these are basic truths about your identity, perhaps more like temporary truths. If you lost your hands, your citizenship, or had a different gender, would you no longer be you? 

 

 

I suppose our best tools are the Socratic method and basic logic.  Truthfully, I have 10 fingers.  Not that you can be sure of it, but I do.  There are basic truths about my identity.  I'm a man, I'm a citizen of the U.S, where I live.  I can provide proofs of such.   These are small things, but I'm thinking small proofs are like platforms, building on top of each other.

[Perceiver]

There is a grain of truth in most beliefs, but some beliefs are more complex than others.

[Nikolai1]

On any given subject there are four stages in the apprehension of truth.  What prompts the growth to the higher stage is a complete mystery in normal empirical terms.  It is prompted by a spontaneous intuition.  So broadly speaking:

 

Stage 1

 

This is where the person is aware of only one interpretation of the situation.  This is therefore an absolutely indisputable fact, so ingrained in everyday perception that it isn't even noticed.  Though there are always alternative perspectives to their own thesis, these neither occur to themselves nor are they witnessed as the opinion so of others.  For 99% of the population terms like 'time' or 'space' are still understood at this first stage.

 

Stage 2

 

In addition to the thesis of stage 1 the person becomes aware of the antithesis - an opposite view - usually through the interaction of another person.  This person, however, is still strongly attached to the notion of 'truth'. (It is ironic that those most passionate about the truth are not the philosophers, but rather the unintelligent).

 

The reaction to insurrection of the antithesis into consciousness is either total rejection, or total acceptance (which includes the total rejection of the stage 1 thesis).

 

Their response to the antithesis is justified by some kind of appeal to an outer agency.  This is either the convention of their society, or the opinion of some societally sanctioned 'expert' e.g."time is an illusion, Einstein said so"

 

Where this appeal fails to silence the exponent of the antithesis, anger and aggression must ensue.

 

Stage 3

 

A person at this stage is able to generate the antithesis to any given thesis, within themselves.  This shows high intelligence, but at the same time the person is left in a state of limbo.  The see the thesis and antithesis as equivalent.  The notion of 'truth' becomes inoperable.  Truth and falsehood become two sides of the same coin; one not only presupposes, but actually requires the other.

 

This is a very difficult stage for many reasons.  This level of intelligence is extremely rare in society and so there is a feeling of both alienation and a very often an attitude of aloofness.  Furthermore, most of the world's activities and occupations are based and inspired by opinions formed at stages 1 and 2. This person's intelligence is generally regarded as something quite useless, and so they are often dismissed as being in some way unintelligent.  intellectual truth and practical expression are always side by side, but at this stage there is a noticeable divergence.

 

Stage 4

 

This is the stage I think spotless was referring to.  The person no longer expects their behaviour to be rationally based. They no longer try to ascertain the truth about reality and then act in accordance with it.  It is the opposite of the scientific approach respected at the lower levels.   Behaviour is spontaneous, and, because not based on any putative laws of reality, is unpredictable and unfathomable.  Truth is expressed directly as a behavioural response to the moment.

 

Just to clarify: we do not ascend through these stages as one integrated self.  Most people are at different stages for different issues.  For example, even the unintelligent don't intellectually debate whether the coffee mug is an intrinsically right-handed tool - they just use it, and if the handle is on the wrong side they unconsciously swivel it. But the same person might be at stage 2 when it comes to the best brand of coffee and get angry when people disagree.

 

The highly intelligent, on the other hand, are able to spontaneously express stage 4 truth concretely through their behaviour in a very wide variety of circumstances.

Edited April 15, 2015 by Nikolai1

[roger]

I think people believe what they want to believe.

 

The question is, do you want to believe the truth?

 

When the willingness to see the truth is there, it is seen.