What's stopping us from seeing the truth?

[SpheresOfBalance]

Do me a favor and expand the below quote. For instance explain the nature of the relativity you insist I have to separate myself from. And give an example of something that may not be relative.

How do you separate yourself from the relativity enough to know something that is not relative?

We have defined 'actual' truth of the universe.
Though there may be one, How can we know what it is?
How is it that you think, that we can't know what it is? Explain how we can't.

Everyone has their belief. Belief, we have said, is relative.
So you're saying that anyone's belief is relative to another's belief, right?

What of one's knowledge, or perhaps 'thinking' is a better term, is not belief?

Science? How is science not belief? Distortion ad truth - yes I know. Still, though science seems like Ab truth, how is it in our believing that we have gotten beyond it to find something that is not founded in our belief?
I agree that Science seems like absolute truth, or it seems like the closest we'll get to it, if done properly.

[lancek4]

Ok how can I not know

Here is a cup infront of me. I know it is a cup, but how shall I tell someone what it is? Though I may know if I know it by myself it really amounts to nothing, since I am in a world of my own. Evidently there are other humans I have to interact with.
So I move to tell someone what this cup is. But every time I use a term it beckons from them another question. If I say 'it is a vessel that we drink from'. They ask another question in the effort to narrow in their mind what a cup actually is.
This process continues until each human figures they are speaking of the same thing, but this is merely an approximation reconciled by the reliance that we are both human. Never do I adequately describe the actual cup, I only dscribe attributes of it that I think the other will understand. And I nver know what exectly he understands except that this object there between us we call a cup. Our agreement indicates a 'circumscription' of that object that never 'gets' to what it actually is, only what we have agreed upon.
Only on so much as we agree that our agreement Is the cup do we then also agree that That object there is a cup in Truth, as if we have totally described what the cup is. But if we had then I could say 'cup' and discussion would end. I would say 'reality' and everyone would know what I meant and we would move on.
The Fact that we continue to have discussions about every thing there is shows that we have not found any true object, but have only stabilized Truths for the moment for the purpose of having Truth.
Thus in that I say 'nature', do I mean 'my' nature or nature in general? Are they the same or different? Is not my natural basis of nature? But both these are merely temporary agreement, not any actual nature.

[lancek4]

So far as relativity:

Belief is relative, Baring that some may understand in an undestorted way the truth of things.

Is this not what you are saying? That what we individually think is true is just belief, but then some of it (but we don't know which) is not just belief but really actually True?

Please reconsile the contradiction.

[lancek4]

The point is that indeed I may know of a True universe: to me it is actually truely true. But then others have the same conviction but a different truth they know as true; thus, we say, truth is relative.

It is to easy for me to say: hey, your truth is wrong, it is based on a distortion of perception/ incomplete data or faulty knowledge. But all I am doing is asserting my truth as truth, avoiding that my truth is just as relative merely by my proclaimation that it is more true.

So what if I find someone who agrees with me, or in the case of science, a whole bunch of people; the best of truth that can be said is that we all agree, but it has no more basis in 'actual' truth than that we have agreed to situate 'actual' in the way we have. Even though you and me have defined actual, still, I have no clue about what it means to you, I have only an idea of what it means to me what it means to you. That is, unless I rely upon an assumption of truth between us - an assumption that is never articulated and never spelled out: it is assumed in a situating of knowledge around a stable definition which supplies for the moment an illusion of something actually absolutely true. And this explication here (this above paragraph) is an example of the shifting truth that is not seen, but which informs what may be an absolute truth of the matter.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Ok how can I not know

Here is a cup infront of me. I know it is a cup, but how shall I tell someone what it is? Though I may know if I know it by myself it really amounts to nothing, since I am in a world of my own. Evidently there are other humans I have to interact with.
So I move to tell someone what this cup is. But every time I use a term it beckons from them another question. If I say 'it is a vessel that we drink from'. They ask another question in the effort to narrow in their mind what a cup actually is.
This process continues until each human figures they are speaking of the same thing, but this is merely an approximation reconciled by the reliance that we are both human. Never do I adequately describe the actual cup, I only dscribe attributes of it that I think the other will understand. And I nver know what exectly he understands except that this object there between us we call a cup. Our agreement indicates a 'circumscription' of that object that never 'gets' to what it actually is, only what we have agreed upon.
Only on so much as we agree that our agreement Is the cup do we then also agree that That object there is a cup in Truth, as if we have totally described what the cup is. But if we had then I could say 'cup' and discussion would end. I would say 'reality' and everyone would know what I meant and we would move on.
The Fact that we continue to have discussions about every thing there is shows that we have not found any true object, but have only stabilized Truths for the moment for the purpose of having Truth.
Thus in that I say 'nature', do I mean 'my' nature or nature in general? Are they the same or different? Is not my natural basis of nature? But both these are merely temporary agreement, not any actual nature.

OK, I see that you have blown the problem waaay, and I mean WAAAY out of proportion. Because in your expression above, I believe that you are factoring in the fact of the limitations of this medium that we now find ourselves conversing in. Sure if you or I had something that the other had never seen before and it was not similar to anything we'd ever known, then in this medium and this medium alone, it would be extremely difficult to convey to the other what this new thing was, did, how it looked, felt, smelled, etc.

If you don't already realize it, and I'd say that I believe it's like 99.99% of our learning, comes from observation, the sense of sight, not sluggishly texting language equivalents which takes thousands of times longer, where we have to translate a physical object into the proper sequence of words, that the other understands, as I've noticed plenty of times in the past that different people compose thought extremely different with respect to language, I think it's got to do with the plethora of synonyms out there. If we only had a single word for every thing then people would be forced to use it and thus sentence structure would be forced into a common form of singularly original words and with repetition the human minds of all would always be on the same page, so to speak, because there would be no other way to say it.

Your argument falls flat on it's face as I sit before you, pull the cup out of my pocket, dip it into the spring to fill it up, place it to my lips, drink, remove it from my lips and say, "cup of water to drink," and hand it to you. The deed is done!!!!! You understand exactly what a cup is, and it only took how ever many 'seconds' it took for me to do that!!! I've been typing this, for what seems, an eternity, and what if you don't fully understand my representation, or I don't fully represent your understanding, crap it could take days seeing as how neither one of us is glued to our computers.

Sure it looks good on paper, with all the fancy jargoning, (<-New word I just made up, the act of using jargon), but your argument doesn't hold water, pun intended!

[SpheresOfBalance]

So far as relativity:

Belief is relative,
Relative to what, you fail to specify as to what it's relative to, such that I can only assume that you mean that belief is relative from individual to individual. I can see it being relative in different ways as well, which is why I ask.
Baring that some may understand in an undestorted way the truth of things.

Is this not what you are saying? That what we individually think is true is just belief, but then some of it (but we don't know which) is not just belief but really actually True?
To me, belief is one of three: unjustified, but still believed, justified true belief, but only as ignorance dictates, and justified true belief, as absolute truth dictates, thus it is absolutely true, whether one knows it or not.

Please reconsile the contradiction.
Did that do it, or are you still unsure as to my meaning?

[SpheresOfBalance]

The point is that indeed I may know of a True universe: to me it is actually truely true. But then others have the same conviction but a different truth they know as true; thus, we say, truth is relative.
I see this as incorrect, truth by definition is singular. It is the absolute singular answer of actual existence, there is never two different truths about a singular particular, ever. In the case you have outlined above one of four things are absolutely true:
1) Person A's truth is absolute, thus person B's truth was in fact not truth, but in fact belief, even though he believed it a truth;
2) Same scenario only A & B's roles are reversed;
3) Both A & B's truths are absolutely true and neither are belief, though they are obviously unaware of how that's possible. It's either a communication gap or their separate truths can be superimposed to form the greater truth.
4) Both A & B's truths are in fact false and thus merely belief, and they obviously are ignorant of the fact, and shall probably continue to call them truths, even though they're not.

It is to easy for me to say: hey, your truth is wrong, it is based on a distortion of perception/ incomplete data or faulty knowledge. But all I am doing is asserting my truth as truth, avoiding that my truth is just as relative merely by my proclaimation that it is more true.
Sure this can in fact be the case, but not necessarily.

So what if I find someone who agrees with me, or in the case of science, a whole bunch of people; the best of truth that can be said is that we all agree, but it has no more basis in 'actual' truth than that we have agreed to situate 'actual' in the way we have. Even though you and me have defined actual, still, I have no clue about what it means to you, I have only an idea of what it means to me what it means to you. That is, unless I rely upon an assumption of truth between us - an assumption that is never articulated and never spelled out: it is assumed in a situating of knowledge around a stable definition which supplies for the moment an illusion of something actually absolutely true. And this explication here (this above paragraph) is an example of the shifting truth that is not seen, but which informs what may be an absolute truth of the matter.
As I said above, this can in fact be the case, but not necessarily.

[lancek4]

Yes. I understand and comprehend what you are saying.
The truth of your faith cannot be breached; it can entertain no critique but critique that agrees with your basis of truth (that which allows for truth: singular).

There is nothing I can say to you that will allow you to see beyond what your truth is. You are oriented upon the true object. It cannot be taken from you; your faith will not allow it.

[lancek4]

This is the One ring; my precious.

[lancek4]

Belief is relative to other belief. If one does not know to what our belief is true, what else can be said of belief? All one can say of the A truth is 'it is', anything more is speculation- as you yourself have said in past posts. That I can't know if what I believe as true now won't be seen as myth later, regardless of what actual knowledge I may think I'm coming upon.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Yes. I understand and comprehend what you are saying.
The truth of your faith cannot be breached; it can entertain no critique but critique that agrees with your basis of truth (that which allows for truth: singular).
It's not about faith, but if it were then the same could be said about your side of the argument. Because the world is full of absolutes. They're everywhere, you've just talked yourself into a corner; you love words don't you? But the truth is that all the words in the world won't change the absolute truths. Here's one: The boiling point of an element or a substance is the temperature at which the vapor pressure of the liquid equals the environmental pressure surrounding the liquid, such that water boils at 212 degrees Fahrenheit at sea level. You or anyone else can say otherwise but that is an absolute truth. If you think not, explain why, I doubt you can.

You know whats funny? The fact that you side step the issue when I formulate a great counter point. All that was said in my previous three messages you fear to address specifically so instead of countering you make a statement about my person, ego, spirituality, etc as the reason you don't address the issue, thus indicating that your thoughts are correct and mine are BS. Well I'm now doing the same thing.

There is nothing I can say to you that will allow you to see beyond what your truth is. You are oriented upon the true object. It cannot be taken from you; your faith will not allow it.
An I can say the exact same about you except of course that you are oriented upon the subject.

Edited: typo

[SpheresOfBalance]

This is the One ring; my precious.

What a lame analogy that bears no similarities to me whatsoever. I am not a schizophrenic.

[chaz wyman]

This is the One ring; my precious.

What a lame analogy that bears no similarities to me whatsoever. I am not a schizophrenic.

What about the other SoB?

[SpheresOfBalance]

Belief is relative to other belief. If one does not know to what our belief is true, what else can be said of belief? All one can say of the A truth is 'it is', anything more is speculation- as you yourself have said in past posts. That I can't know if what I believe as true now won't be seen as myth later, regardless of what actual knowledge I may think I'm coming upon.

Sure, it's true that we don't necessarily know what it is, that we may learn tomorrow, that might someday disprove or somehow augment, what it is we know today. But that does not mean that we cannot know any absolute truths. It may mean that we may not realize that they are in fact absolute truths.

How do you see this quote of mine:

1) Person A's truth is absolute, thus person B's truth was in fact not truth, but in fact belief, even though he believed it a truth;
2) Same scenario only A & B's roles are reversed;
3) Both A & B's truths are absolutely true and neither are belief, though they are obviously unaware of how that's possible. It's either a communication gap or their separate truths can be superimposed to form the greater truth.
4) Both A & B's truths are in fact false and thus merely belief, and they obviously are ignorant of the fact, and shall probably continue to call them truths, even though they're not.

Not knowing that we know absolute truths does not preclude the knowing of the absolute truth, It's simply that we don't know that we know an absolute. And of course the opposite is true.

[lancek4]

I would tend for the 3rd option: both are absolutly true though they cannot comprehend how that could be. And 4: both are merely belief - but we cannot comprehend how both 3 and 4 could be true.

I will attempt another description of the situation:


Your Ab truth of water boiling example:
Indeed water boils; our description of the phenomenon has only accidental correspondence with our terms of it. Keep in mind I am refering to a scheme of truth; water boiling is a description of a portion of that scheme we refer to as science - as if I can segregate my self into different arenas of knowing that do not inform one another. .

But this all goes to my point:
We answer only to our scheme; it is our consciousness functioning in correspondence with the actual motion of the universe; the universe is either granting us total knowledge of itself at all times (because we are actual-natural-universal at all times) or what we have as knowledge is entirely self contained in itself, as an effect of our being an actual-natural-universal aspect of the universe functioning -- consciousness as the effect of our adaptated- developed behavioral-mechanism called the brain/neurological system of humans. Human Consciousness 'does what it does', and its 'doing' is to 'make sense' of the world. This making sense is just what it does. The sense made has only the correlation to any object within the making of sense.
Thus I say again: in that we think we are getting somewhere or going nowhere we are effectively contained within our 'sense-world' through an active denial that allows us to know and understand the universe as some 'actually absolutely true' Thing that we are learning more of everyday. Thus: we are indeed separate from the universe sufficiently enough to 'know' that we are harming our envoronment, and
At the same time, separate enough to 'create' our own World, to 'make' sense, to have truth-value.

And, having such an idea does not ethically compromise me, on the contrary, it makes me more ethical becuase I am not cooerced by fear nor concerned with speculation, but only in doing what I can to benefit myself, family and humanity in general as we all are living at this moment, as I am able to comprhend this moment of humanity (which is admittedly limited despite my best efforts).