Misconceiving Truth

[henry quirk]

"you have actally admitted that it can be confuseing, thus they have misunderstood the truth"

Nope.

[henry quirk]

Again, for Hex...

Truth is what is real (objective).

Symbols and perspective are takes on what is real (subjective).

[henry quirk]

"That would suggest that you are very intelligent to precisely define things"

I have definition for 'truth' (that which is real; that which corresponds to reality).

Let's have yours.

[Gee]

Cladking stated: "I am contending that humans once had a metaphysical language...(m)etaphysical language is more prone to name processes than things...(m)etaphysical language uses words with only one possible meaning"

Problem with your notions: there's no evidence of a single root-language (from which humans drifted away) and lots of evidence that many languages developed independently of one another among (pre)humans who had no contact with one another.

That's not true, Henry. All languages are in fact interconnected, and it is because of many tribes and peoples having an interrelationship with one another.

WanderingLands;

This may seem a tad off topic, but I think that it is relevant. I watched a documentary on the study of meerkats. This study regarded language, and it was discovered that meerkats have a very developed language. They could actually identify different persons walking by, and even had a "word" to define the same person walking by with a different colored shirt on.

This study is on-going and much more can be learned. But the team decided to study another group of meerkats in another State and found that although much of the language was the same, some parts were different. It was almost like this other group had a different dialect. So I do not find the idea of a root language within a specie all that surprising.

Then one must consider that there is an almost universal language that is deeper than verbal language -- body language. A smile is a smile, and a frown is a frown, no matter what language we speak or which continent we were born on, so there is evidence of a root communication.

It is also interesting to note that body language can be interspecie or intra-specie. Consider that if a man feels intimidated he may wave his fists in the air to show his anger, but so will a tarantula wave his front legs in the air, and so will a bear wave his front legs in the air, and so will my cat. So it appears that many species understand communication, even if they do not possess language, which implies a deeper root communication that is almost universal. So I think that Cladking has a point, but am not at all sure that our language developed by "having an interrelationship with one another". I wonder if there is more to this.

G

Edit: Where is says "meerkats" above, it should say "prairie dogs". My mistake.

[WanderingLands]

WanderingLands;

This may seem a tad off topic, but I think that it is relevant. I watched a documentary on the study of meerkats. This study regarded language, and it was discovered that meerkats have a very developed language. They could actually identify different persons walking by, and even had a "word" to define the same person walking by with a different colored shirt on.

This study is on-going and much more can be learned. But the team decided to study another group of meerkats in another State and found that although much of the language was the same, some parts were different. It was almost like this other group had a different dialect. So I do not find the idea of a root language within a specie all that surprising.

Then one must consider that there is an almost universal language that is deeper than verbal language -- body language. A smile is a smile, and a frown is a frown, no matter what language we speak or which continent we were born on, so there is evidence of a root communication.

It is also interesting to note that body language can be interspecie or intra-specie. Consider that if a man feels intimidated he may wave his fists in the air to show his anger, but so will a tarantula wave his front legs in the air, and so will a bear wave his front legs in the air, and so will my cat. So it appears that many species understand communication, even if they do not possess language, which implies a deeper root communication that is almost universal. So I think that Cladking has a point, but am not at all sure that our language developed by "having an interrelationship with one another". I wonder if there is more to this.

G

Interesting - I've always wondered about languages, especially if any animal species, beside us humans, have some form of developed communication with each other. I'll look into it.

[Gee]

Interesting - I've always wondered about languages, especially if any animal species, beside us humans, have some form of developed communication with each other. I'll look into it.

WanderingLands;

Sorry, I mixed up the documentary on meerkats with the documentary on prairie dogs. It is the prarie dogs that recognized color. I checked because it has been a while and my memory is not always that good. If you go to Wiki and type in "animal language" you will get a listing of many different species that are known to have language.

G

[HexHammer]

"That would suggest that you are very intelligent to precisely define things"

I have definition for 'truth' (that which is real; that which corresponds to reality).

Let's have yours.

You confuse truth with what you could easily copy and paste of those chinese words I presented you, and you didn't realize out in the real world it's impossible for tourists to copy and paste road signs, thus they can get lost if the GPS hasn't a map of that area.

http://www.downtheroad.org/Asia/imagesB ... C00775.JPG

Now, do you really think any tourists can know their way from a road sign when they can't read it?

[HexHammer]

Oh yes, according to your brilliant logic mr Henrik, gods, spirits, ghosts and other such supersticious stuff must exist, because some people claim they exist, and are documented in various paintings, litterature, etc.

WAUW!!

[henry quirk]

Hex, if you believe I've even hinted that synbols and placeholders always accurately depict reality, then you haven't understood anything I've posted.

And: I'm still waitin' for you to define 'truth'.

That you haven't is telling.

[the Hessian]

How about this?

1. The real is simply that, the real.
2. Truth (no the) is a quality of a statement one makes about the real such that there is something in the real that justifies the statement.

In this sense, none of the statements you guys are making about what the name of the city is are true. The true statement would be that people exist who call this place x, and there are other people who exist who call this place y. Reality justifies both of those statements.

The notion of a "subjective truth" starts to appear a little bit weird in this formulation, as I think it should.

Here's a story told by Michael Graziano, whose consciousness theory I've been test driving over in the Epistemology section.

"A friend of mine, a psychiatrist, once told me about one of his patients. This patient was delusional: he thought that he had a squirrel in his head. Odd delusions of this nature do occur, and this patient was adamant about the squirrel. When told that a cranial rodent was illogical and incompatible with physics, he agreed, but then went on to note that logic and physics cannot account for everything in the universe. When asked whether he could feel the squirrel — that is to say, whether he suffered from a sensory hallucination — he denied any particular feeling about it. He simply knew that he had a squirrel in his head.

We can ask two types of questions. The first is rather foolish but I will spell it out here. How does that man’s brain produce an actual squirrel? How can neurons secrete the claws and the tail? Why doesn’t the squirrel show up on an MRI scan? Does the squirrel belong to a different, non-physical world that can’t be measured with scientific equipment? This line of thought is, of course, nonsensical. It has no answer because it is incoherent."

In my view, the statement "the patient does not have a squirrel in his head" is true. The statement "the patient has a subjective experience of a squirrel in his head" is true. The statement "the pateient has a squirrel in his head" is false.

[HexHammer]

Hex, if you believe I've even hinted that synbols and placeholders always accurately depict reality, then you haven't understood anything I've posted.

And: I'm still waitin' for you to define 'truth'.

That you haven't is telling.

You are wrong, I know perfectly that you are an delusional old man, that babble all day and accuuse others of not able to understand your ramblings. That's not hard to comprehend.

Truth is in itself a undefineable concept, as there's too many abstract things, thats why science doesn't deal in absolute truths, and infact doesn't really labe anything as a truth these days, because they'r been proven wrong over and over.

U'll see many science articles be rewritten because newfound evidense will contradict the standing postulate.

[HexHammer]

1. The real is simply that, the real.
2. Truth (no the) is a quality of a statement one makes about the real such that there is something in the real that justifies the statement.

Religious people claims god exist, yet atheists claim that he doesn't, who is right?

Some will claim beer is better than wine, other will claim the contrary, what is true?

[the Hessian]

Religious people claims god exist, yet atheists claim that he doesn't, who is right?

Some will claim beer is better than wine, other will claim the contrary, what is true?

You are forumlating questions in a way that makes any answer incoherent.

Did you even read my post?

Some people claim beer is better than wine. A statement that is true.

Atheists claim that god does not exist. A statement that is true.

Who is right? Nonsense question.

[Gee]

Mebbe every one should pony up his or her definition for 'truth'.

My definition is simple; truth is that which is real and true, as opposed to that which is made up and/or false.

Mine (stated a few times in-thread) seems at odds with some other folks' definition.

I believe that you stated that truth is real (objective) whereas subjective truth is really opinion or perspective. I suspect the problem lies in your definition of "real". It seems that you think that something is "real" if it is physical or agreed upon (objective). This would be a better definition of "fact" than it is of reality or "truth".

The problem with truth is that nothing can be known to be real except subjectively. I know that a door is real because I can touch and see it. My senses will send messages to my brain that will translate these messages into thought, which will let my "subjective" mind know that the door is real. I know that math is real and valid because I have been studying it since the first grade. I have all the information that I need to validate the reality of math in my "subjective" mind. But if we remove the "subjective" mind from these scenarios, then nothing can be known, real or otherwise. So although we believe that reality is objective, it can not actually be known objectively. Each person has a subjective mind, so as far as we know, there is no objective communal mind.

Gee, you write "we can not know their truth, which is what makes subjective truth "elusive"."

"their truth": if truth is, as I say, what is real, then there is no such animal as "their truth".

Instead what 'they' have is a perspective on what is real, what is true (on truth).

Bluntly: what you call "their truth" is really just 'their opinion'.

No. It is their experience that their opinion is based upon. If experience were not real, then there would be no such thing as testimony in a Court. A Court does not ask for a person's opinion or perspective, it asks for a recitation of the true and real experiences in testimony because experience is real.

Example: Lil Jane was bit by a dog...Lill Jane now fears dogs...you might say Lil Jane's 'truth' is that dogs are bad...I say Lil Jane had a bad experience and now has a particular opinion extending out from that experience...'dogs are bad' is her perspective, not a fact (truth).

The above is a good example of why I stated that it is a bad idea to mix truth with facts, or mix truth with rationalization. There are only two truths in the above scenario; Lil Jane was bitten by a dog and Lil Jane is now afraid of dogs. The first truth is considered objective, the second subjective. Her opinion that dogs are bad is a rationalization based on her experience and her truth. She has rationalized a "fact" that is not factual nor is it true.

But neither should Lil Jane's truth be ignored, as it is real. If Lil Jane is walking down the sidewalk and sees a big dog, and in response she tries to run away, she may actually instigate the dog into chasing her and maybe biting her. Or she may run blindly into the road and be destroyed by a car. Life does not get much more real than this. If Lil Jane were mine, I would accept her truth (fear) and teach her how to handle it or dispose of it.

Learning to see the difference between truth and fact can be very challenging, but that is probably why I like philosophy so much.

G

[Gee]

How about this?

1. The real is simply that, the real.
2. Truth (no the) is a quality of a statement one makes about the real such that there is something in the real that justifies the statement.


In my view, the statement "the patient does not have a squirrel in his head" is true. The statement "the patient has a subjective experience of a squirrel in his head" is true. The statement "the patient has a squirrel in his head" is false.

I am impressed. I like it. You apparently have done some studying on the realities of truth.

G