Is truth relative?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

-and in that case it's time, not truth, that's relative. You can still count on the clock in either framework to give you a "true reading" of time - that the readings are different is also true.

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"?

Firstly, isn't that all that's ever implied in the claim of truth? Secondly, whats not in our framework? Relativity and time, and all of the variable measurements that might be made are all still within our framework (or we wouldn't know about them). What does truth even mean in some other "framework"? Truth is in our framework as well. If we leave our framework then nothing means what it does - if it even exists there, in our framework, here. This is a deepity, "things would be different...if things were different".

Thoughts?

[Davka]

Yes, everything is contextually relative. That seems self-evident to me. I can imagine a context for any truth or fact in which they would be untrue, nonfactual. But just because I can imagine such a context, that doesn't mean that it actually exists.

I'm fairly certain that there is a narrow limit as to how much context can change truth.

[Mudhammam]

Yes, truth is relative in that we can all have different points of view that are equally correct in relation to others, but like the speed of light, there seems to be something of an ideal truth that all can in principle recognize.

[bennyboy]

--edit--

Changed my mind about responses. Will respond later.

[IATIA]

Right. So it is my opinion that God would be the antithesis of a being capable of interacting with us.

Then for all intents and purposes, god does not exist.

[bennyboy]

Right. So it is my opinion that God would be the antithesis of a being capable of interacting with us.

Then for all intents and purposes, god does not exist.

Right. Because a single entity could not exist both in our framework as well as a universe-less framework-- because that dual existence would constitute a dimension, a kind of gateway between them. And what is two universes joined by another dimension? A single universe.

BUT since I'm free associating right now, how about the Biblical description of God as the alpha and the omega-- the beginning and end rolled into one? Sounds like a singularity to me. And a singularity is the ultimate contextual break for us. Is it possible that Christian theology is actually non-sentient or ambiguous, in the same way that yin-yang are?

Hmmmmm. . . I'm doing surprisingly good weed philosophy today for a guy in a country with no weed.

[robvalue]

Sure, I'd say that we assume various logical absolutes as facts for starters. It seems absurd that such things could ever not be true, but in some other weird types of reality it might be possible that they are no true. Heck, it might be possible that our reality could change so that they are no longer true. I'm fucked if I can imagine that, but it would be an argument from ignorance to declare it impossible.

It's important to note that I said it might be possible. That doesn't mean it is possible. It may not be, but I don't think anyone could claim enough knowledge to deem it impossible either. (Thank you Tracie Harris.)

[bennyboy]

I can imagine one. c + c != 2c

[The Grand Nudger]

You can, but suppose that I were to form an equation like that one using my own "frame of reference" - which, in this case appears to be notation - then, the two of us pointed to a physical expression of that equation that were were both attempting to describe. What we'd find, is that it was simply an issue of defining variables in both cases. We'd see that the notation was what was relative, not the truth of what the notation expressed. We do this all the time - with the many languages we all speak to describe, for example..."a red car". Scramble, jumble, or invent as many symbols as you like (and the rules to go with them), but so long as we're describing the same phenomena and both of our models yield accurate data, all of the differences will be window dressing - or at least that how our universe appears to behave, eh?
(I can't see why your equation would be the antithesis of logic, or somehow demonstrate that you can imagine something that is counter to the basic principles of logic - that equation, after all, could be true, and most certainly is true with properly defined variables - all you did was add an exclamation mark to a statement that is already true on the face of it....... C plus C "undefined" -does- equal 2 times C.......)

-if a country exists, there is weed -in it-. Needs to be added to the rules.

@Rob, we didn;t assume those "logical facts" or "absolutes" -we discovered them. We haven't always had them right. No one woke up and said "I'm just going to assume this random shit here are the rules of the game". Logic is descriptive.

[Alex K]

My two cents about the relativity example: while the amount of time that passes depends on the reference frame, one can know the time that passes as seen from another reference frame. There are then "absolute" truths in relativity, you simply have to ask the right question. How much times passes: wrong question. How much time passes in the reference frame A? Well-defined question with a universal answer that is true in every other reference frame.

In a similar vein, I wonder whether you don't automatically recover universal truth again simply by acknowledging the "frame" dependence of certain truths in the widest sense, and by asking the correct question.

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?