Is it possible for any Truth to be Relatively ABSOLUTE?

[patrice]

If something is real,

because YOU KNOW it is, in fact, Real,

does that MAKE it universally real, at all times, in all situations?

No, it does not.

So, in (honest) social environments, the primary claim to Truth that you have is YOUR personal knowledge of it and that knowledge is YOUR "divine" responsibility, not someone else's. Responsibility means that it belongs to Y - O - U and because it does belong to you, it is not possible to say to others "I/we know X is True" without recognizing the legitimacy of their saying the same thing "I/we know Y is true."

What makes anything REALLY Real is what it does to the world, people's lives.

By their fruits you SHALL know them.

[Stinky The Clown]

1. Just a liiiiiiidddddddle too esoteric for a Saturday morning.

[patrice]

3. It's just logic. It's impossible to say " X is real BECAUSE I KNOW IT IS." without

recognizing that that very claim makes Y also true because so-and-so says it is.

Nothing's absolutely subjective unless you're "god".

[scarletwoman]

8. It's not "logic", it's semantic flummery.

[patrice]

22. If you say so. nt

[Stinky The Clown]

9. So ...... might 2 + 2 not actually be 4?

Excluding, of course, tax accountants.

[patrice]

11. In the 3 dimensions in which I live, 2 + 2 = 4. Don't know about those 8 other dimensions.

And I didn't include Time, because I'm not sure about "the future".

[patrice]

20. On second thought: Our Economy has given several examples in which 2+2 =/= 4 recently.

But then, maybe our Economy isn't just 3 dimensional.

[Stinky The Clown]

23. This falls into my comment about tax accountants

In their world, 2+2 almost never equals 4.

[baby_mouse]

13. I think you meant "absolutely objective"?

[patrice]

18. You got me on that. I was thinking as I wrote that that I haven't really

figured out how to talk about this.

Been thinking about it, off and on, ever since I taught highschool seniors.

[baby_mouse]

2. you might want to have a closer look at that. NT

[patrice]

4. ?

[baby_mouse]

5. The idea that nothing can be objectively truthful.

It's a little more awkward than it first appears.

[patrice]

10. I didn't say that. I said that the claim alone does not make it so.

The claim only represents a probability of one degree or another, a bet, depending upon empirical support, and even then it can be wrong and something else might be more true/real.

[baby_mouse]

14. THAT is TRUE.

We are in accord, sir, and I appear to have misinterpreted you. My apologies!

[BlooInBloo]

6. No, because the Prosentential Theory of Truth is basically correct.

This has been another episode of Simple Answers To Simple Questions.

Simple linky: http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/truthpro.htm

[CoffeeCat]

7. This is what bothers me about the MSM...

There is no truth anymore. There are two people arguing about what is truth. Climate change is a good
example. On one hand, you have a seasoned scientist laying out evidence that climate change is real and
is man made. Then, on the other hand--you have another "scientist" saying that climate change isn't
happening and if it is, it's not harmful and it's natural.

Both sides are positioned as equally important and valid. The viewer is left to decide.

No...overwhelming evidence proves that climate change is real, man made and that we're in serious trouble. But the
MSM distorts reality and creates confusion, when really there is no doubt about what the truth is.

Another good example was the Swiftboatting of John Kerry. Those bastards were legitimized when they were allowed
to speak their "truth" on various networks. By the time Kerry decided to fight back and have his own people tell
his side of the story--the damage was done. Both the Swiftboatters and Kerry's people looked equal--with different
"truths."

It's disgusting.

[Hydra]

12. Yes, there is such a thing as absolute truth

Here's one:

"Using nuclear weapons is a bad idea"

Here's another one:

"Polluting your environment is a bad idea"

It's not hard. The idea that truth is hoew we see it is an interesting idea, but has no bearing on ideas that harm others. They harm others- end of story.

[patrice]

16. Agreed.

Given limitations of both sides of anything and the NEED to have something to call "knowledge". No Harm is an excellent place to take a stand. Anyone who causes Harm needs to be called-out in Public, for the harm they do, calling them out on their beliefs is futile (incidentally, their Bible tells them they are saints when they are persecuted) and the more we do it the more we under-cut ourselves.

[Hydra]

19. I don't like arguing words

I prefer to argue actions. Bush says there are WMDs, his people cook the books, and voila! "Truth." Except that it isn't when they couldn't even be bothered to plant one of our warheads under one of Saddam's palaces for us to "find."

Truth doesn't exist in words- words are just an opinion. Things happen- that is where the truth is.

[patrice]

21. Agreed again: thus my reference to "By their fruits you shall KNOW them."

I'm very good with words. Have been all of my life. It's been kind of a handicap really, socially that is. But ultimately, I do get pretty tired and bored with them (unless it's good poetry or a really excellent movie script). Once, I seriously considered turning in several blank pages for a paper for which I had chosen the subject of "Nothing", in a college philosphy class, I wasn't even going to staple them . . . (didn't do it.)

Quite a bit lately, I have been longing for people to come together and DO things.

[rug]

15. Depends.

[snot]

17. My own philosophy:

Truth is always relative.

HOWEVER, in order to function, we need working hypotheses about the facts -- e.g., touching a hot stove can result in being burnt.

AND we have a responsibility to try to distinguish between better and worse working hypotheses.

A criterion I like for "better" is if one hypothesis seems to have greater predictive power than another; i.e., you do indeed get burnt less often if you avoid touching hot stoves than if you follow a contrary hypothesis.

And, I would argue, if you propound such a hypothesis to others that you knew or should have known really does not work very well -- i.e., you talk other people into acting as if there's no relationship between hot stoves and getting burnt -- then you have some responsibility for the consequences.

Just because truth is relative doesn't mean "anything goes"; on the contrary, it means we all have to take responsibility for the versions we choose to accept or propound to others.

[IsItJustMe]

24. For me, truth is something that can never be explained with words; whereby, someone else can get

their minds around it. The closest you can get with words, because words are an abstraction, is a direction of where truth lies.

I do believe that truth can be felt however, at the intuitive or instinctive level, but never absolutely described in words.