A question about Truth

[Fidel_Castronaut]

As far as people are considered, the only knowable truth is the stuff which is established by the context of our existence.

For example, I know it's true that gravity makes stuff fall. In this context, truth is defined by a body of memories, and of the ability to currently validate it by picking up a rock. Is the rock "really" there? Yes, as an experience. No, as I experience it. Maybe not, as an object with an existence independent of my experience of it.

Take a hammer. In the context of everyday life, a hammer is (sometimes dangerously) real. In the context of spacetime and quantum mechanics, the hammer as I experience it-- solid, flat, shiny-- doesn't really exist-- I'm really looking at 99.9999999% empty space, and the surface uniformity is an illusion.

In the context of ultimate truth, then the only answer is-- who knows? We don't have access to that.


So I'd say, yes there's truth, but no truth that can be independent of some context. Relativity ftw.

It's good because you support your own thesis through your example (knowingly, I presume, for you Benny).

I refer to your point regarding gravity, and the truth of knowing that a given item will fall once dropped.

Of course, the truth of the statement 'it will fall' is entirely subjective depending on the understanding and relative position a given observer has in the universe.

Fall to earth? If one is on or in a position relative to the earth to observe such an occurrence. But we know gravity is simply the result of a mass inhabiting a region of space time. No mass would indicate no fall, so the perception of truth changes, but is no less accurate as a result. A you say, context.

[Whateverist]

Our entire being is interacting with reality all the time and is an integral part of it all.

Hmmmmm. That's a very confident statement. How do you arrive at such confidence?

Simple. I just don't go following language down every hall of mirrors it can create. I experience whatever it is I experience. I don't ask if my experience is 'true', only language can be true. When I describe what it is I believe about my experience I can word it poorly or I can misconstrue causal relationships. But there is no hypothetical consideration about the nature of 'truth' which will make the slightest dent in my confidence in my experience of reality or the beliefs which arise as a result.

[Coffee Jesus]

I don't agree with what BennyBoy wrote.

Is the rock "really" there? Yes, as an experience. No, as I experience it. Maybe not, as an object with an existence independent of my experience of it.

Take a hammer. In the context of everyday life, a hammer is (sometimes dangerously) real. In the context of spacetime and quantum mechanics, the hammer as I experience it-- solid, flat, shiny-- doesn't really exist-- I'm really looking at 99.9999999% empty space, and the surface uniformity is an illusion.

Our concepts of "solid" and "99.9999999% empty space" can be reconsiled, otherwise they couldn't both be true of the hammer.
We come to better understand things as we inquire into their composition, behavior, or origins. When you discover that the hammer is made of subatomic particles, the meaning of "hammer" changes so that "hammer" and "that mass subatomic particles" can still have the same referent. Changing the meanings of words is what inquiry is all about. If we couldn't do that, then discoveries such as "dolphins are actually mammals" or "birds are actually reptiles" would necessitate that we invent completely new words.

[Whateverist]

Yeah, obviously the hammer really does exist as it appears to us .. at the level of magnification from which we view it. Greatly enlarged, what we see at our level of magnification, will seem to disappear. But which level of magnification is the 'real one'? Is there a correct level? I don't think so. Our bodies are massive colonies of trillions of individual cells, each of which carries on its life functions just as independent one celled animals do. Somehow the whole becomes more than the sum of the parts. At the level of magnification at which we live, these trillions of cells give rise to our individual sense of self. Thinking about things at the microscopic level does not erase the reality of our own level of experience - as we can all attest.

[bennyboy]

But there is no hypothetical consideration about the nature of 'truth' which will make the slightest dent in my confidence in my experience of reality or the beliefs which arise as a result.

Experiences are intrinsically true-- as experiences. It is attributions about the source of those experiences which is in question.

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Our concepts of "solid" and "99.9999999% empty space" can be reconsiled[sic], otherwise they couldn't both be true of the hammer.

It is reconciled by realizing that our experience of things and the actual nature of those things are not the same. Solidity, uniform surfaces, and the other properties of objects as we perceive them exist only as ideas.

Don't believe me? Describe what a plane is, in geometry, then describe what the surface of a desk looks like, close up. So where is the flatness of the desk? Its context is not defined by the collection of (possibly real) particles, but by the nature of human perception.

[MindForgedManacle]

Experiences are intrinsically true-- as experiences. It is attributions about the source of those experiences which is in question.

That made no sense at all. Experiences aren't the bearers of truth, propositions in language are. This is why there is a conceptual difference between "fact" and "truth". The latter is a human construction intended efficiently convey the former to others. Experiences are experiences, truth has nothing to do with them intrinsically. After all, people can have mutually exclusive experiences, but not truths (assuming the sqme definition of truth is being employed by both parties).

[Coffee Jesus]

It is reconciled by realizing that our experience of things and the actual nature of those things are not the same. Solidity, uniform surfaces, and the other properties of objects as we perceive them exist only as ideas.

All of our ideas about the world are based upon sensory perception. All of our ideas about the world are ideas.

You're trying to describe and distinguish our understandings of the world from the world as it really is, but everything you're capable of describing falls into the former category. Nonetheless, our understandings of the world are presumably descriptions of the world as it really is, so they all fall into the latter category as well.

Solidity, uniform surfaces, and the other properties of objects as we perceive them exist only as ideas.

A "property" is actually a way of grouping things, but the instantiations of those properties (as individuals or as a group) really do exist, hence we're still talking about reality. Furthermore, the continuum of likeness upon which those things are being evaluated must be a continuum derived from some real principle or principles in order to have any usefulness.

Don't believe me? Describe what a plane is, in geometry, then describe what the surface of a desk looks like, close up. So where is the flatness of the desk? Its context is not defined by the collection of (possibly real) particles, but by the nature of human perception.

A plane is a flat two-dimensional surface.
The flatness of the desk is a feature of the border of the space defined by the particles that compose the desk. "Flatness" might not ever be absolute, but it still objectively true that some thigns are flatter than others.

[bennyboy]

Experiences are intrinsically true-- as experiences. It is attributions about the source of those experiences which is in question.

That made no sense at all. Experiences aren't the bearers of truth, propositions in language are.

I think this represents a shallow understanding of what language is. Language is the organized presentation of symbols for communication. But it is not the words that are subject to a truth value-- it is the symbols themselves.

So where does the symbolic representation of fact begin? I'd argue it begins right with the awareness of the relationship between subject (self) and object (others). This is surely the first layer of interpretation of raw sense data. In other words, "cogito ergo sum" is the first truth that any person can be aware of, and it is not dependent on communication with others.

---

A plane is a flat two-dimensional surface.
The flatness of the desk is a feature of the border of the space defined by the particles that compose the desk. "Flatness" might not ever be absolute, but it still objectively true that some thigns are flatter than others.

What's a "thing," and what's its relationship to the myriad particles of which it is composed? It is true for us that things exist, but is their nature more than an arbitrary division and categorization of the properties of color, form, etc. of which our ideas are composed?

If a truth proposition represents a consistency between symbols, and if we are now all aware of two levels of reality-- the mundane perception of things, and the knowledge of particles-- then the truth is paradoxical: things are real as we perceive them, and they are not real as we perceive them. You cannot find "flat" anywhere in the universe. You can only find particles that are aligned in space, and refer to this relationship as "flatness." To me, that's a symbolic relationship. But since this is how we actually experience the universe, flatness is only untrue when we try to make it coexist with ideas about particles.

[MindForgedManacle]

I think this represents a shallow understanding of what language is. Language is the organized presentation of symbols for communication. But it is not the words that are subject to a truth value-- it is the symbols themselves.

Er, no. The symbols of language have no intrinsic meaning whatsoever. And yet it is meaning that is a prerequisite for truth. Hence, truth is something we create as a pragmatic means of conveying things about the world.

So where does the symbolic representation of fact begin? I'd argue it begins right with the awareness of the relationship between subject (self) and object (others). This is surely the first layer of interpretation of raw sense data. In other words, "cogito ergo sum" is the first truth that any person can be aware of, and it is not dependent on communication with others.

Not sure about that. I do think that the differentiation between the "self" and that which is not the self is most probably where we start, but it's certainly not by means Descartes' cogito, which is a circular argument. It's by recognition of the incorrigible knowledge that there are phenomena called thoughts. Yes, I'm nitpicking here.

[Coffee Jesus]

That made no sense at all. Experiences aren't the bearers of truth, propositions in language are.

I think this represents a shallow understanding of what language is. Language is the organized presentation of symbols for communication. But it is not the words that are subject to a truth value-- it is the symbols themselves.

So where does the symbolic representation of fact begin? I'd argue it begins right with the awareness of the relationship between subject (self) and object (others). This is surely the first layer of interpretation of raw sense data. In other words, "cogito ergo sum" is the first truth that any person can be aware of, and it is not dependent on communication with others.

I like this. Many propositions are subjective. For example, "It is here." has a different meaning depending on who is saying it. However, I'm supposed to translate the subjective into objective, which is why I don't respond to "It is here" with "No, it's not here. It's over there, by you." "Here" said by you translates into "over by you" for me.

If a truth proposition represents a consistency between symbols, and if we are now all aware of two levels of reality-- the mundane perception of things, and the knowledge of particles-- then the truth is paradoxical: things are real as we perceive them, and they are not real as we perceive them.

A truth proposition expresses the likeness or unlikeness of some state of affairs to other states of affairs. If it didn't, then we would have no common understandings by which to know what the truth proposition expressed.

You cannot find "flat" anywhere in the universe. You can only find particles that are aligned in space, and refer to this relationship as "flatness."

Direct Response:
"Flat" is not an entity, but an expression of likeness between objects. The word "flat" still expresses something about reality that can be true or false.

Inferential:
I think you are separating materiality from its principles. Materiality is nothing without the principles by which it influences our mental perceptions, thus we cannot think of materiality as separate from those principles. We are only capable of talking about principles and instantiations of principles. Matter involves instantiations of the principles by which some places operate differently than other places, and the principles by which these operations move from place to place.

You cannot find "flat" anywhere in the universe. You can only find particles that are aligned in space, and refer to this relationship as "flatness." To me, that's a symbolic relationship. But since this is how we actually experience the universe, flatness is only untrue when we try to make it coexist with ideas about particles.

Direct Response:
It does coexist with ideas about particles. It expresses a pattern formed by the particles.

Reductio Argument:
If the word "flat" does not express some truth about the particles' relative positions, then no particular alignment of particles should necessitate that the surface is flat. Certain alignments of particles do necessitate that the surface is flat, thus the word "flat" expresses a truth about the particles' relative positions.