Bill Wiltrack wrote:<snip>
Our highest achievement as an individual is to partially understand that we are trapped.
'If you say you can, or you say you can't, you're correct!'
--Henry Ford--
<snip>
Truth will set you free!Bill Wiltrack wrote:.
We cannot see the truth. Thus, we are unable to understand the nature of truth. Therefore we are unable to understand the nature of untruth.
We are literally trapped in the middle. We exist entirely in purgatory. There is no escape.
.
lancek4 wrote:It could be impatience.SpheresOfBalance wrote:Are you talking about a parallel universe, lance? I believe it is a falsehood to say "cannot really know" and that the truth is that we "do not currently really know" And of course that is in reference to things that we do not currently really know. Because there are many things that we do currently really know that we once didn't. History answers your question, Lance. It shows how we came to know that which we know. There was a program on television called "Connections." It was all about the interconnectedness of inventions and how they give way to newer ones in sequence. That is how it is with everything. We minutely find solution as knowledge, sequentially on the backs of previously understood truths as they permeate our consciousness. Each generation starts in the construct of knowledge of the previous generation and then builds their construct of knowledge for the next generation. There is a difference between coming to terms with knowledge in ones lifetime and being born into a world of pre-established knowledge as a foundation.lancek4 wrote:I am going to juxtapose two thoughts, for I think this this issue at hand:
The Actual, as our definition eariler, appears to me to be correspondant with evolution, science and the like, where humans are likewise determined by such knowledge.
The contradiction involved with an indication of Absolute, and belief of individuals.
How might such a unniverse of actual bring about humans that cannot really know but do know through not being able to know ? What is chemistry that is our 'actual' basis?
Or even, what is this elephant that is seeming of an opposite of actual?
Of course the same thing applies to your "not being able to know" which I believe is translated to "not being able to currently know."
I believe that the problem with your view is impatience. Your solution makes it all known now, now, now, now, now. Could you possibly be from the US?
But I think I evidence patience quite, in our continuing discussions.
I don't believe it to be patience, either you want to talk to me or you don't, it's that simple. To assert this idea between people assumes that one requires the others indulgence. I don't think that to be the case. It can go both ways.
See, I am referring to our discussion earlier in this thread. To sum, you have said that 'we currently don't know' and that we do not know to what extent we are knowing the absolute truth of any matter;
Well if I didn't have the word: "necessarily" tucked in there, then I should have. In the beginning I was speaking from my specific query of truth pertaining to the Cosmos, which if you remember correctly, I had mentioned. Now I have come to realize that you tend to address truth in broader terms. I see that this exchange has been used as a leveling device such that we of differing understanding can fully understand the others position.
to wit, that we cannot know what truth they may know in the future and that indeed they may know in the future, of our truth now, that it is/was non-sense.
Again, you and I have a distinction issue with this point: It goes without saying that we cannot currently know what it is that they shall know as truth, or if in fact it really shall be truth. And I didn't mean to say that it would be nonsense, but merely that what we had once considered truth would be understood as an untruth; that in fact it had been merely a belief.
For example, for all we know now, in the future they may say 'they used to think that the sun is the center our solar system, but we know no the moon is the actual center', that no matter how rediculous we might think it now, the future may have found out such truth; we can't know and to this extent our truth is relative.
I see truth as always absolute, so it never changes. What changes is the perception of truth. This is to say that humans don't always know truth yet the claim it to be truth. In the future as we find the actual absolute truth, it is finally understood that what we had previously asserted as truth had merely been belief. This then shows us that the only way we can be certain that a particular truth is absolute is when a multitude of other truths support it and it remains unchallenged for an extended period of time. And with this model, while one can see the room for potential error, still; I submit that it really comes down to a probably percentile, such that we'll never be 100% sure, unless of course I'm failing to consider the full extent of our mental evolution that might allow for 100% certainty.
I do not deny that there is a sensibility, a logic to how knowledge is linked together. I merely propose that it is but one scheme, not an absolutely true scheme but one scheme which bases itself around a static absolute and that this absolute actually changes as the discourse changes, like 'the pot of gold is at That end'.
Communication cannot change the absolute truth. Language does not matter to truth: 'A rose by any other name, smells just as sweet.' I'm not familiar with your paraphrase above, but after reading it, I insist that it was never true. Such that for me it never changed, but that is not to say that some peoples perception of its truthfulness does not differ from mine. But I would assert that their insistence in it's truth, was a distortion, and that in fact, it was merely their belief, and nothing more.
You elude to multiple 'schemes,' give me an example of another one.
Such a position of which I indicate is not one of impatience but of huge patience because I endeavor to find this Truth, and have patience to look barring nothing, under and behind every sacred cow, every proposal (even mine), instead of having the 'impatience' that settles into 'hope' which are the catered absolutes, conveniently showing up at various discursive junctions as if indicating The One Stable Absolute.
I agree that searching and never giving up is the solution, on that point you only believe we disagree. But the absolute truth is the ends, not the means, It's logical to argue against a means, but it's not logical to argue against the ends as then you've negated what it is you're searching for. To indicate you query the resolve of truth absolutely indicates the solution is absolute.
And so I am asking you, addressing the present: if you right now, you who are proposing this 'actual/absolute truth', know the universe through a 'vehicle' of knowledge that shows up for you in a potential by which you cannot discern whether your knowledge is 'of the absolute' (since, as you have said, we cannot know what truth the future may have) or is of 'distortion', how can you say that any of what you know reflects the absolute truth of the universe?
Small things we can empirically test, for instance: at least some of earths composition, it's shape, percentage of water, highest mountain peak, axis rotation periodicity, lunar orbit periodicity, solar orbit periodicity, and there's more of course. Keep in mind that all, of course, are sequence (time) related. They are accurate (absolute) in their sequence.
If your positing of 'actual truth' and 'distortion' of truth is based upon a situation of knowledge where you cannot know what may or may not be actually true (or of the absolute), what is the point of asserting such an absolute that is known only through the potential to be merely relative? Hope??
Let me clarify. We know some truths that are seemingly absolute, if they are in fact, then they shall eventually illuminate those that are not as yet clear. Hope enters as the positive attitude that we shall eventually uncover the largest unknown truths or those that we have asserted without viable evidence, sometime in the future. this hope is what propels us, in a positive way. This positive mindset (hope) gives way to the understanding, whereas despair quells open mindedness and impedes the search.
Are you hoping that your arguments have veracity?
No, they're just 'love and miracles out of nowhere'
Actually I see my arguments as simply the accumulation of my life's understanding, during which I have listened and observed intently, and have absorbed, much like that of a sponge, while trying not to taint any new incoming data, with preconceived ideas of bias due to selfish desires, whereby my resolve considered everybody's interests equally.
I would say that it is the hope invested in the Absolutely True Object that is the impatient position.
That's because of the arrogance of asserting your now, now, now determination, which is actually the cause of distortion, and my challenge of it that you smite my position with a known falsehood, because in fact the 'hope' that we shall eventually understand the absolutely true object, in the face of not being able to now, is the epitome of patience. Because it shall probably take, millions of years to really understand the absolutely true object, that is the universe.
You are completely missing the point.MJA wrote:Albert Einstein : Nature shows us only the tail of the lion. But I do not doubt that the lion belongs to it even though he cannot at once reveal himself because of his enormous size.
The tail of the elephant is the elephant as the tail of the lion is the lion,
So then the people of the Universe are the Universe and One is truly All.
=
It sounds to me that you have summed up religion fairly well ,Bill Wiltrack wrote:.
We exist entirely in purgatory. There is no escape.
Our inability to see or understand truth is underscored by the fact that we are unable to understand the true nature of untruth.
Trapped.
Our highest achievement as an individual is to partially understand that we are trapped.
Truth or untruth will never be our domain.
.........................................................
The certainty of our uncertain life in purgatory.
.
You atheist are just as trrapped. You have not 'risen above' but indeed have 'fallen back'. Sarte is typically been incorpoarted into the ideology as meaning that faced with the existential dimlemma we have simply to revolt against it, and make a choice to not be submitted to that despar. But sarte makes clear, if one cares to understand him, that choice is but a limiting function of consciousness. And in that we make a choice we have merely 'chosen' to live in denial of our existance.Godfree wrote:It sounds to me that you have summed up religion fairly well ,Bill Wiltrack wrote:.
We exist entirely in purgatory. There is no escape.
Our inability to see or understand truth is underscored by the fact that we are unable to understand the true nature of untruth.
Trapped.
Our highest achievement as an individual is to partially understand that we are trapped.
Truth or untruth will never be our domain.
.........................................................
The certainty of our uncertain life in purgatory.
.
you are trapped , going nowhere ,
you seek to know the unknowable ,
you have accepted the certainty that you will never find the courage to rise above it ,
you have become submissive ,exposed your jugular ,
pulled them down and bent over ,
and I'm sure there are plenty of willing priests to complete the act .
But it's got nothing to do with Atheists , we aren't trapped ,
Atheists don't sit around waiting to be told the truth
they go and make that decision for themselves ,
they find the courage to shake off their shackles ,
man up and face reality , I believe it's called growing up ,
lancek4 wrote:I would summize that mja is alluding to this:
More that one scheme which posits Ab truth.
The fact that here is at least two of us debating about what it is makes my point.
How are these reconsiled? Again, at least two ways, but probably more:
An objective 'cosmos' way, like sob. And
A subjective way, like sob.
Each draws from a scheme which solves the problem.
Yet each, in that they will not budge, aggrivates the problem. Thus both cannot be truely true. Beilef, maybe but still belief does not fix it.
So when we say 'truth is' each is drawing from their own scheme to solve that problem, and draws upon examples from discourse, and then as we discuss 'is' we find, again, the discrepancy of Truths.
Wher I have inserted ">" above is where I see the discepancy actually occurring. Before >, I follow how that much can be said to be a good synopsis of what we may know as Absolutely true.SpheresOfBalance wrote:Those that believe in Theism know not truth, necessarily.
Those that believe in Atheism know not truth, necessarily.
Those that believe in the Object know not truth, necessarily.
Those that believe in the Subject know not truth, necessarily.
If we do not self extinguish, which is likely, the truth shall eventually be revealed as the reality of the universe unfolds. Only then shall any of those previously mentioned truly know anything about truth other than their potential ignorance of it.
You can talk about it, to death, but it still stands of it's own accord, because that's the definition of truth. It is that which is actual, the ultimate understanding of reality, that which pre/post exists us, That which does not require our understanding or knowledge that cannot be swayed to our belief. It is the final solution, the answer.
-->>>
It is out there and not in here, because in here was born of out there. Out there is believed to date back about 14 billion earth years and nothing only existing a mere 200 thousand years could possible have a clue, especially considering we were only able to see the smallest fraction of it a mere 500 years ago, and that man has only haphazardly navigated from 356,400 km to 406,700 km of the 93 billion light years of the 'observable' universe. Do you actually have any idea of the disparity?
It is premature, arrogant, impatient, and absurd for any human to even consider for a nanosecond that they have the definitive answer as to the truth of the universe. All one can truthfully say is to echo Socrates, when he said: 'I only know that I know nothing.' Only when considering this can you begin to finally understand anything else.
I'm not sure who you may have offended, Bill. I wasn't offended.Bill Wiltrack wrote:.
I only know that I know nothing.
I did not mean to confront or offend anyone in my above post.
I used the term purgatory which, as I look back at it, was a mistake.
I had no intent of invoking religion as opposed to atheism.
I was thinking of mankind in general. We are lost.
Lost between two extremes that we are unable to discern; truth and untruth.
That is what I meant to share.
I only know that I know nothing.
.
