Absolute Truth?

[Kilgamayan]

There are plenty of absolute truths within humanity's definitions of, for lack of a better word, things.

One would be hard pressed to prove humanity's definitions themselves to be absolute truths, however, but one would also be hard pressed to find a situation where trying to prove such a thing would be worthwhile.

EDIT: Before devonin and Kilroy jump all over me for it, I suppose that last statement would depend on one's definiton of "worthwhile". >_>

[tsugomaru]

I find it hard to think that a universe can occur without some laws that govern it, but then again, that'd be as closed minded as thinking and believing the world is flat in this day and time.

Much of what we have determined as "laws" are based upon other statements that are not absolute. One day, some guy is going to come up with a theory that may disprove some of the laws we know today. A while ago, we didn't think it was possible to destroy matter and that all matter must be conserved. However, since then we've discovered that anti-matter, a once fictional concept, is real. Who's to say that some of the laws we believe the universe is governed isn't true?

~Tsugomaru

[devonin]

Originally Posted by Kilgamayan

There are plenty of absolute truths within humanity's definitions of, for lack of a better word, things.

One would be hard pressed to prove humanity's definitions themselves to be absolute truths, however, but one would also be hard pressed to find a situation where trying to prove such a thing would be worthwhile.

EDIT: Before devonin and Kilroy jump all over me for it, I suppose that last statement would depend on one's definiton of "worthwhile". >_>

Here's the thing though. Humanity is great at labelling things, sure, and our labels are not necessarily reflective of objective reality. I mean there's a different word for each "thing" in every single language. But the trick is, whether you're dealing with a cat, a chat, a gatto, or a chasul, you're still dealing with one specific kind of thing.

Our labels are subjective, and thus not subject to being "proven" as absolutely true or not, but there are certain intrinsic things, if you want to put it this way, the intensions of things, which seem like they are much more objective and absolute.

[Kilroy_x]

I'm not sure how a label can be subjective because a label doesn't seem to have truth-functionality at all. It can't be true or false, it's just a term. A preference for a label can be subjective.

As I said before, human beings have epistemic limitations. Karl Popper already more or less solved this one. We replace the search for verification with the search for falsification. Problem solved.

[devonin]

And it is my belief that eventually we'll prove false every Y but one for a given X, at which point we will have discovered its absolute.

[WillTalbot]

So basicly, we can't prove anything because we don't have enough information to support it. We can't say that there is absolute truth because because you can ask why or how to anything and constantly get an answer with another question to follow it. We can't prove that there is no such thing because we can't say that there will be an absolute answer. Which is why people have different beliefs. It's basicly like choosing a path. But if we eventually do find that there is or is not an absolute truth, it will lead to peace or chaos. If there is absolute truth and that it is of what we consider good in today's society, then no one would want to do wrong because it would go against what they know to be true and possibly pay for that price. But if the absolute truth is what we call wrong, then everyone would want to do evil and i dont think ... we would exist anymore. But if we disprove that absolute truth exists, i dont think anyone would have a reason to live in peace, and everyone being greedy and selfish at heart by human nature would want to live for the materialistic things of this world. So maybe in the end it is better off that we don't know if there is absolute truth or not, which leads me to believe that there is absolute truth because if there was no such thing I'm pretty sure we would have figured it out by now.

If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning: just as, if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes, we should never know it was dark. Dark would be without meaning.
C. S. Lewis

[devonin]

If there is absolute truth and that it is of what we consider good in today's society, then no one would want to do wrong because it would go against what they know to be true and possibly pay for that price. But if the absolute truth is what we call wrong, then everyone would want to do evil and i dont think ... we would exist anymore.

People do things they know to be wrong all the time. People do "the right thing" even when there are good reasons not to all the time.

I'm not sure how knowing that, say, objectively and universally murder was wrong would stop murder from happening, any more than knowing that there is -no- objective correctness to anything would suddenly make everyone commit murder.

[WillTalbot]

Originally Posted by devonin

People do things they know to be wrong all the time. People do "the right thing" even when there are good reasons not to all the time.

I'm not sure how knowing that, say, objectively and universally murder was wrong would stop murder from happening, any more than knowing that there is -no- objective correctness to anything would suddenly make everyone commit murder.

But if everyone knew that doing wrong or right was the absolute truth then no one would do it because they would fear the consiquences to follow. This would take away our free will, and I don't think a God would want a bunch of puppets that do whatever he asks, thats just no fun.

[devonin]

But if everyone knew that doing wrong or right was the absolute truth then no one would do it because they would fear the consiquences to follow.

What consequences? If we suddenly learned that say, murder was against the absolute and objectively TRUE laws of the universe...what consequences could we offer that we aren't already? I'm pretty sure -death- is about as hefty a consequence as we can inflict on someone, and plenty of places with the death penalty see plenty of murders.

How is absolute truth incompatible with people acting counter to what they know to be true?

[Kilroy_x]

We don't assign "bad" a false value and "good" a true value. That's an abuse of logic. Both are presumably positive properties, if they are objective properties, which they don't seem to be. "Murder is bad" could be a true statement or a false statement, just as "murder is good" could be. It is even possible, all things being equal, for both statements to be true simultaneously. Neither statement makes false one such as "john committed murder", since there is no T -> F here. Murder is both possible and actual. Hence murder is true. True doesn't mean good. This was a really stupid equivocation.

[slipstrike0159]

I think that as far as human psychology goes, one of the things that you can assume with a fair amount of evidence is that an absolute truth is most if not all of human actions thoughts and behavior is specifically geared for the attainment of happiness, whether it is for your own happiness or for someone elses (which in turn generally makes the person happy themselves to see others happy as a result of their actions)

So in such an example, yes, there are absolute truths. However there is not ONE absolute truth.

[devonin]

So in such an example, yes, there are absolute truths. However there is not ONE absolute truth.

Could you not then say that Absolute Truth is simply the compilation of all of those smaller absolute truths you are willing to say exist?

[slipstrike0159]

Well sure, but then you would be right back saying that it is an absolute truth that there are a bunch of small subcategory truths.

[Revolversaid]

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it? - Dogen.

Absolute truth is also when 1 + 1 = 2. Nothing can ever make 1 + 1 = 3.

[Kilroy_x]

I'm pretty sure an alternate base value can. There is common consent on the semantic value of "1", and given that value 1 + 1 = 2, but it doesn't inherently have to equal 2.

[devonin]

Though to that I'd say that there's also common consent on the semantic value of 2, and given that value 1+1=2

It is the case though, that 1+1=2 gets used as the standard "see, some things are just true" example so often that it becomes really tempting to point out the semantic quibble that makes it not so, but you could just as easily substitute anything tautological. However, I'd still say that these are truths not Truths. It is pretty difficult to actually point to a capital T truth without appeals either to an outside influence in the creation of the universe, or pointing to things that to us seem to be unequivocably true but that we can't necessarily state are absolutely true in all cases (ie. Just because nothing seems able to violate the second law of thermodynamics doesn't mean nothing ever can, necessarily.)

[Kilroy_x]

but you could just as easily substitute anything tautological.

1+1=2 is not tautological. Not formally, at least.

However, I'd still say that these are truths not Truths. It is pretty difficult to actually point to a capital T truth without appeals either to an outside influence in the creation of the universe, or pointing to things that to us seem to be unequivocably true but that we can't necessarily state are absolutely true in all cases (ie. Just because nothing seems able to violate the second law of thermodynamics doesn't mean nothing ever can, necessarily.)

There isn't actually a problem with the second. If a refutation presents itself, then it presents itself. Potential falsification is what enables us to be confident things are true, to say "this might be false therefore there is no such thing as Truth" makes no sense.

[devonin]

Except that I'm not saying "this might be false therefore there is no such thing as Truth" I'm saying "Whether there is Truth or not, the inherant possibility that things we've seen to be true in all cases so far might not turn out to be true in -all- cases means that we will basically never be able to identify a Truth even if we're very sure we have one."

And no 1+1=2 isn't tautological, but if you wanted to use a different example of a "universally true" statement, anything tautological would serve.

[Kilroy_x]

Of course we can identify truths. We might not correctly identify them, but that's beside the point. If we identify something as true, we identify ways in which it could be proven false, and then we don't find them, we can consider it true. Odds are it is true. The importance of epistemic uncertainty of the sort brought up by "skeptics" over and over again is actually very low.

[devonin]

See also, my use of truth and Truth. truth is easy, Truth, I'm suggesting, is nigh if not completely impossible to claim with certainty.