Our server costs ~$56 per month to run. Please consider donating or becoming a Patron to help keep the site running. Help us gain new members by following us on Twitter and liking our page on Facebook!
Current time: March 28, 2024, 6:45 am

Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
Is truth relative?
#1
Is truth relative?
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?
Reply
#2
RE: Is truth relative?
Prove me there is another "framework" (I don't even know what that is) and then we can talk.
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you

Reply
#3
RE: Is truth relative?
I'm comfortable with things being true only in my framework, as I'm unlikely ever to experience a different one. Thus, when I state, 'It is true that copper is a metallic element', I'm speaking from the framework of existing in a universe where copper is a metallic element.

I'm not really concerned with reality matrices where copper is a gas.

Boru
‘But it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods or no gods. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.’ - Thomas Jefferson
Reply
#4
RE: Is truth relative?
Not with my relatives.
Reply
#5
RE: Is truth relative?
Yes, but only in the sense that 'truth' is simply a value of 'true' given to a claim. If I say one plus one equals two, this is only true if we are referring to mathematics as we know them. If someone had a different version of mathematics, it might not be true under those circumstances. Or if in another language 'one' meant seven, then it would also not be 'true'.

However, I don't think this is what you're getting at. As for different frames of objective reality, I really can't comment.
John Adams Wrote:The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.
Reply
#6
RE: Is truth relative?
(January 24, 2015 at 7:34 pm)bennyboy Wrote: 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?

Yes.

In the macro Newtonian Universe, it is a truth that cause comes before effect, in the Quantum Universe this is not necessarily a truth and effect can precede cause.

MM
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions" - Leonardo da Vinci

"I think I use the term “radical” rather loosely, just for emphasis. If you describe yourself as “atheist,” some people will say, “Don’t you mean ‘agnostic’?” I have to reply that I really do mean atheist, I really do not believe that there is a god; in fact, I am convinced that there is not a god (a subtle difference). I see not a shred of evidence to suggest that there is one ... etc., etc. It’s easier to say that I am a radical atheist, just to signal that I really mean it, have thought about it a great deal, and that it’s an opinion I hold seriously." - Douglas Adams (and I echo the sentiment)
Reply
#7
RE: Is truth relative?
(January 24, 2015 at 7:45 pm)Blackout Wrote: Prove me there is another "framework" (I don't even know what that is) and then we can talk.
Okay, read this:
http://www.askamathematician.com/2013/04...it-travel/

"Coordinate frame" refers to space and time, but I'm also including other axes: scale, for example, as well as subjective experience. For example, it is true that my desk is solid, and that wood completely fills the volume of that desk; however, it is also true that the volume of the desk is 99.999999999999% empty space. The solidity as we experience it is dependent on the way we experience matter.

Maybe "framework" is not the best word-- perhaps "context"? But the question is clear enough, I hope: is there any kind of truth not dependent on the context in which it is established? Is it always true, for example, that x + x = 2x?
Reply
#8
RE: Is truth relative?
(January 24, 2015 at 8:56 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Maybe "framework" is not the best word-- perhaps "context"?

*wipes brow* For a second I thought you were going to say "intellect."
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."

-Stephen Jay Gould
Reply
#9
RE: Is truth relative?
(January 24, 2015 at 9:00 pm)Tonus Wrote:
(January 24, 2015 at 8:56 pm)bennyboy Wrote: Maybe "framework" is not the best word-- perhaps "context"?

*wipes brow* For a second I thought you were going to say "intellect."
lol

No. But let me say one thing about that-- I think if there WERE a God, the relative framework of such an entity would be diametrically opposed to ours. In other words, finding, measuring or comprehending such an entity would be as impossible as traveling at the speed of light.
Reply
#10
RE: Is truth relative?
(January 24, 2015 at 9:12 pm)bennyboy Wrote: I think if there WERE a God, the relative framework of such an entity would be diametrically opposed to ours.
Why?
(January 24, 2015 at 9:12 pm)bennyboy Wrote: In other words, finding, measuring or comprehending such an entity would be as impossible as traveling at the speed of light.
Anything that interacts with us would be measurable. (And we may or may not be able to travel at the speed of light. What we cannot do is accelerate to the speed of light.)
You make people miserable and there's nothing they can do about it, just like god.
-- Homer Simpson

God has no place within these walls, just as facts have no place within organized religion.
-- Superintendent Chalmers

Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends. There are some things we don't want to know. Important things.
-- Ned Flanders

Once something's been approved by the government, it's no longer immoral.
-- The Rev Lovejoy
Reply



Possibly Related Threads...
Thread Author Replies Views Last Post
  What Is The Truth. disobey 81 6486 August 21, 2023 at 2:15 pm
Last Post: GUBU
  What is truth. deepend 50 2888 March 31, 2022 at 10:18 pm
Last Post: Thumpalumpacus
  The Truth deepend 130 4552 March 24, 2022 at 8:59 pm
Last Post: Angrboda
  The Truth about Ethnicity onlinebiker 41 2606 September 2, 2020 at 3:03 pm
Last Post: BrianSoddingBoru4
  Does the head follow the heart in matters of truth? Angrboda 63 8779 March 19, 2018 at 7:42 am
Last Post: John V
  ...Truth? Definitely Disillusioned 93 18815 June 30, 2017 at 7:26 pm
Last Post: The Industrial Atheist
  The Nature Of Truth WisdomOfTheTrees 5 1043 February 21, 2017 at 5:30 am
Last Post: Sal
  Is there objective Truth? Soldat Du Christ 455 46507 November 7, 2016 at 5:39 am
Last Post: GUBU
  A question for those who believe truth is not absolute GrandizerII 92 7751 July 21, 2016 at 5:39 pm
Last Post: quip
  Liking your Truth henryp 39 8266 January 4, 2016 at 1:39 am
Last Post: Heat



Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)