Truth in context vs ultimate truth

[bennyboy]

I've often talked about truth only being contextual. For example, in the context of everyday life, Aunt Ethel is definitely very real. In the context of QM mechanics, you'd be hard-pressed to find her anywhere. In the context of QM, things are intrinsically unpredictable. In the context of mundane reality, billiard balls bounce the right way every time no matter what.


But here's my question. Should something that we take as real in context, like love or beauty, be called real? Or must reality be based on an ultimate truth, something which holds true in ALL contexts?

[Pizza]

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"

[Mudhammam]

I've often talked about truth only being contextual. For example, in the context of everyday life, Aunt Ethel is definitely very real. In the context of QM mechanics, you'd be hard-pressed to find her anywhere. In the context of QM, things are intrinsically unpredictable. In the context of mundane reality, billiard balls bounce the right way every time no matter what.


But here's my question. Should something that we take as real in context, like love or beauty, be called real? Or must reality be based on an ultimate truth, something which holds true in ALL contexts?

Sure, within the framework of reality under discussion, love is only a word used to capture a phenomenon that is every bit as physically reducible to the same common stock of energy particles that other physical objects are arranged by.

[Marsellus Wallace]

ultimate truth, moral codes, principles and supposed to's are all over-rated terms coming from the ego of the humans and them thinking that there is a meaning to this meaningless life.

[Mudhammam]

ultimate truth, moral codes, principles and supposed to's are all over-rated terms coming from the ego of the humans and them thinking that there is a meaning to this meaningless life.

I think the bigger problem is that they're quite under-rated by people who don't care to think about the nature of reality on levels deeper than their everyday intuitions and experiences.

[JuliaL]

I've often talked about truth only being contextual. For example, in the context of everyday life, Aunt Ethel is definitely very real. In the context of QM mechanics, you'd be hard-pressed to find her anywhere. In the context of QM, things are intrinsically unpredictable. In the context of mundane reality, billiard balls bounce the right way every time no matter what.


But here's my question. Should something that we take as real in context, like love or beauty, be called real? Or must reality be based on an ultimate truth, something which holds true in ALL contexts?

Shouldn't we look at Aunt Ethel as a statistically probable structure of events which we would expect to be able to model in QM if only we had capacity to handle the complexity of the math?
I keep my own definition of truth, to wit:
A proposition is true directly proportional to the degree that it will be shown to have accurately predicted the future.

As such, nothing can be said to be true in the present (neural processing time & light cones involved here). Billiard balls have been shown in the recent past to have been accurately predicted in the farther past as to how they would bounce in the middle past. The most we can say about truth in the present is that some classes of propositions, say about billiard balls, have always been shown to be true in the past.

[Marsellus Wallace]

ultimate truth, moral codes, principles and supposed to's are all over-rated terms coming from the ego of the humans and them thinking that there is a meaning to this meaningless life.

I think the bigger problem is that they're quite under-rated by people who don't care to think about the nature of reality on levels deeper than their everyday intuitions and experiences.

My brain gets overloaded and shuts down when I think about stuff like that...

[JuliaL]

I think the bigger problem is that they're quite under-rated by people who don't care to think about the nature of reality on levels deeper than their everyday intuitions and experiences.

My brain gets overloaded and shuts down when I think about stuff like that...

Quite understandable, Marsellus, but it can be dangerous.
You have to keep up at least a little or you can't, with confidence, rebut those who make unwarranted claims.
For instance there are a couple of problems that NOBODY has been able to solve, EVER.
1) Is there actually a reality out there AKA the hard problem of solipsism.
2) Will the future be largely similar to the past; the problem of induction.

People who claim to have solved these problems (or make arguments dependent on their having solved them) are deluded or liars and should be confronted as such. You personally don't have to have a correct solution or feel inadequate that you don't. Just making shit up is uncool.

[robvalue]

(As far as I am aware...)

Love can be recognised as a physical brain state, as can the interpretation of beauty by the guy staring at the painting or whatever. But the painting is not inherently "beautiful" because it depends entirely on the reaction of the observer. It could be voted beautiful by a large group of people, but again it's a human thing.

[Alex K]

I have a hard time even coming up with a sensible definition of true to address the question concerning qm. But let's maybe separate love and such things, and the physics if possible.

My first try would be :In the and the quantum thing boils down to saying something true about probabilities, not something true about the outcome. This is also largely the case in non qm situations (bc of our ignorance) and not something entirely new...