Is truth relative?

[Alex K]

Yes. The speed of light c is constant. c+c is simply not the speed of light.

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Then c + c is indeed 2c. Course, we could get real strange with it, and the plus isn't addition at all (or anything mathematical) and c isn't a letter but a color. Course, all we have then is a statement in a foreign language with familiar notation, which we handle all the time between us. Things don't become less true or more true by being spoken in swahili or spanish, eh?

What if c means "constant," i.e. the speed of light? Is c + c still = 2c?

[The Grand Nudger]

What if c means "constant," i.e. the speed of light? Is c + c still = 2c?

Rounding out for brevity, yes Benny, 299mms+299mms=2*299mms.

If, instead, you mean that c stands for the concept of a constant but not that particular one...then I still don't see the problem. It becomes an issue of linguistics, not algebra.

[Brian37]

We know that some truths are relative. For example, the passing of time. In another thread, we talked about how a photon traveling from the sun will not "experience" time at all while it travels 1000 light years from our perspective to a distant planet. In this case, time has both really passed, and not passed at all.


But is it possible that ALL truth/truths are relative to their framework-- i.e. that things which are really true in the world people live in can be really false in another framework? Does this mean we cannot say, "X is true," but rather "X is true in our framework"?

Thoughts?

I always get a lip twitch when people do this. It is not lab thinking, it isn't that you should never question, yes you should question. I simply don't like the attitude that platonic thinking is alone enough to problem solve. You still have to take whatever thoughts and ideas you might have and set up a compare and contrast with control groups, test and falsify them and get them independently peer reviewed. Now unless science discovers some earth shattering method that makes scientific method mute, what you are doing really is still mental masturbation.

Dawkins if you do not know places blame on Plato for all the utopia political and religious ideology humans have suffered from since. Plato postulated that if you simply thought about something you could find it's "essence". His idea of questioning was good, but the fatal flaw is he did not have a good concept of why comparing and testing was really the only thing that could insure the best quality of data and most accurate answers.

I am not saying do not do what you are doing. I simply think it still means nothing until it can be tested and falsified.

[bennyboy]

We know that some truths are relative. For example, the passing of time. In another thread, we talked about how a photon traveling from the sun will not "experience" time at all while it travels 1000 light years from our perspective to a distant planet. In this case, time has both really passed, and not passed at all.


But is it possible that ALL truth/truths are relative to their framework-- i.e. that things which are really true in the world people live in can be really false in another framework? Does this mean we cannot say, "X is true," but rather "X is true in our framework"?

Thoughts?

I always get a lip twitch when people do this. It is not lab thinking, it isn't that you should never question, yes you should question. I simply don't like the attitude that platonic thinking is alone enough to problem solve. You still have to take whatever thoughts and ideas you might have and set up a compare and contrast with control groups, test and falsify them and get them independently peer reviewed. Now unless science discovers some earth shattering method that makes scientific method mute, what you are doing really is still mental masturbation.

Dawkins if you do not know places blame on Plato for all the utopia political and religious ideology humans have suffered from since. Plato postulated that if you simply thought about something you could find it's "essence". His idea of questioning was good, but the fatal flaw is he did not have a good concept of why comparing and testing was really the only thing that could insure the best quality of data and most accurate answers.

I am not saying do not do what you are doing. I simply think it still means nothing until it can be tested and falsified.

I'm not sure which is worse, your insulting tone, or the apparently absolute disconnect between what you just quoted and what you just said. Are you sure I'm saying what you think I'm saying?

[Brian37]

I always get a lip twitch when people do this. It is not lab thinking, it isn't that you should never question, yes you should question. I simply don't like the attitude that platonic thinking is alone enough to problem solve. You still have to take whatever thoughts and ideas you might have and set up a compare and contrast with control groups, test and falsify them and get them independently peer reviewed. Now unless science discovers some earth shattering method that makes scientific method mute, what you are doing really is still mental masturbation.

Dawkins if you do not know places blame on Plato for all the utopia political and religious ideology humans have suffered from since. Plato postulated that if you simply thought about something you could find it's "essence". His idea of questioning was good, but the fatal flaw is he did not have a good concept of why comparing and testing was really the only thing that could insure the best quality of data and most accurate answers.

I am not saying do not do what you are doing. I simply think it still means nothing until it can be tested and falsified.

I'm not sure which is worse, your insulting tone, the apparently absolute disconnect between what you just quoted and what you just said, or the fact that you've obviously been too lazy to read a couple pages into the thread in order to see what the fuck people are talking about.

What is exactly "insulting" to remind people that right now our best tool is to test and falsify?

I think you need to read. I said yes question. I never said don't question or think. I said you still need to combine that with the best tool we have currently in scientific method.

I see nothing wrong with reminding people it isn't enough to simply leave things at thought experiments.

Now I really would suggest you read the opening to "The Greatest Show On Earth" to understand why I am merely giving all reading this a reminder.

The point being you still have to take anything you serve as a hypothesis and put it through testing. No need at all to feel insulted.

[tantric]

First, understand this statement, which seems to be both true and self-contradictory: There are no absolutes.

[The Grand Nudger]

Zero Kelvin?

[Brian37]

First, understand this statement, which seems to be both true and self-contradictory: There are no absolutes.

True, there are no absolutes. But there are statistical probabilities and and bad claims that never were good data and simply not worth clinging to.

Certainly one could for example claim "Since the future is unknown, snarfwidgets might be found"".

It still would be a claim started on a naked assertion.

And even with something with some reality in it say for example, since I exist and Angelina Jolie exists then this claim is more plausible "I will get a hummer from Angelina Jolie". She is real and I am real, but what is the likelyhood even in that case?

Those thought experiments are still just that.

There certainly is an unknown future. But there are also things we can safely scrap without losing sleep.

I really do not think humanity is in any danger of scraping the idea of any god claim, when our best current evidence is saying it is not required and on top of tons of evidence that humans make them up.

But, even outside god claims, ultimately you still have to test and falsify. That is currently the best tool humans have come up with.

[bennyboy]

I'm not sure which is worse, your insulting tone, the apparently absolute disconnect between what you just quoted and what you just said, or the fact that you've obviously been too lazy to read a couple pages into the thread in order to see what the fuck people are talking about.

What is exactly "insulting" to remind people that right now our best tool is to test and falsify?

I think you need to read. I said yes question. I never said don't question or think. I said you still need to combine that with the best tool we have currently in scientific method.

I see nothing wrong with reminding people it isn't enough to simply leave things at thought experiments.

Now I really would suggest you read the opening to "The Greatest Show On Earth" to understand why I am merely giving all reading this a reminder.

The point being you still have to take anything you serve as a hypothesis and put it through testing. No need at all to feel insulted.

At what point in this thread did I say we should discard science? At what point did I say we should not do experiments? You might as well have entered the thread shouting "Fuck you, I like kittens. . . and you're mentally masturbating!"

No need at all to feel insulted? Except, you mean, for the part where you read the OP, completely misunderstood it, failed to read any of the rest of the thread, and then accused me of mental masturbation?

---

First, understand this statement, which seems to be both true and self-contradictory: There are no absolutes.

Yes, but are there absolutely no absolutes?

[Brian37]

What is exactly "insulting" to remind people that right now our best tool is to test and falsify?

I think you need to read. I said yes question. I never said don't question or think. I said you still need to combine that with the best tool we have currently in scientific method.

I see nothing wrong with reminding people it isn't enough to simply leave things at thought experiments.

Now I really would suggest you read the opening to "The Greatest Show On Earth" to understand why I am merely giving all reading this a reminder.

The point being you still have to take anything you serve as a hypothesis and put it through testing. No need at all to feel insulted.

At what point in this thread did I say we should discard science? At what point did I say we should not do experiments? You might as well have entered the thread shouting "Fuck you, I like kittens. . . and you're mentally masturbating!"

No need at all to feel insulted? Except, you mean, for the part where you read the OP, completely misunderstood it, failed to read any of the rest of the thread, and then accused me of mental masturbation?

---

First, understand this statement, which seems to be both true and self-contradictory: There are no absolutes.

Yes, but are there absolutely no absolutes?

*shakes fist*

Again, you missed my point.

This was just a reminder, and not even for you. It is more for laypeople and especially theists who might read this.

Those who accept science as our best tool so far, still need to accept that there ARE people who take "Oh, so you admit you don't know everything" and run with that to excuse the false idea that their god exists until we disprove it.

I think things like this should always go with a reminder that you still always have to get it into a lab. That shuts the apologists loophole down.

When you see theists and even new agers go "AH HA" after 14 years you realize that they do not treat logic or words the same way we do.

For the same reason they cant understand the way science uses the word "theory" and the way they stupidly use it.

Thats all, wasn't you at all, it merely my own bugaboo with how laypeople might twist this.