The way of an Agnostic vs. The well trodden path of Religions

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by warriorofanart, Jun 10, 2008.

  1. CKava

    CKava Just one more thing... Supporter

    Done debating the first point. I will simply reiterate that I consider reality to be the source from which 'objective truth' is derived. Of course, without people concepts like true or false wouldn't exist because... well... it's spectacularly obvious that such terms are human constructions. At the same time I find it an utterly uncompelling argument that truth is entirely dependent on humans- which is where such arguments as the above ultimately lead. It isn't. Truth in the objective sense is a concept used by humans to describe how closely something relates to reality. Thus the concept is extremely related to the 'things' of reality in and of themselves. Humans use truth (in the objective sense) to gauge how closely their explanations relate to how 'things' actually are so I think it's perfectly justifiable to regard how 'things' are in and of themselves as being true.

    In regards meaningless things being potentially true. I don't see how your claims counter any of the points raised. A statement that is meaningless now may not be so in the future, said imaginary statement may well be meaningless to us now, doesn't mean that the statement is any less true now, it just means we can't recognise that it is true. This is also the case even if we are in a position wherein we can probably never ultimately know whether a statement is true or false. Outside the observable universe and natural laws a being of an entirely differen't composition than anything we can comprehend exists would be one such proposition. Such a being would be meaningless to us in the sense that any concept we would use to discuss it simply wouldn't apply except in the negative... it could however still exist. The statement could be true and still provide us with absolutely no information or capability of finding out about the being.

    To finish off with a nice quote...

    'Truth exists- only lies are invented'
    George Braque
     
  2. LJoll

    LJoll Valued Member

    That's a thoroughly awful argument. To be precise:
    Yes. That something is a statement about reality. As I said before, statements about reality can be true or false.

    Yes I agree. They are closely related. In the sense that statements about reality are related in some sense to reality itself.

    And then the conclusion comes, which follows in no way whatsoever from the argument. The logical steps seem to be:

    Premise 1: Statements about reality can be true
    Premise 2: Statements about reality are in some way linked with reality itself.
    Premise 3: Things that share any sort of similarities on any level must be identical in every way.
    Conclusion: Reality can be true.

    Totally bizarre argument, which completely ignores the precise and correct distinction I made.

    Also, I don't see how it follows that truth is dependent on humans me you agree with me. The truth of a statement depends on the meaning of the words in the statement and the meanings of the words in a statement depends on how the words are defined by people. However, the meaning of the statements that can be considered true are bound by reality.

    I think you are confusing "meaningless statements" with "statements that cannot be understood". They are two very different things.
     
  3. Topher

    Topher allo!

    Exactly. In my view you can only declare a statement true or false if it is meaningful to us, since true means the statement is meaningful AND true, and false means the statement is meaningful AND false. In order to say a statement is false, we assess the statement against the object of the statement. For instance, in order to say "squares have 3 corners" is false necessitates what we know something about squares (that they have 4 corners) and that we asses the statement to that knowledge of squares. Meaningless statements however are simply meaningless to us. If we cannot assess the meaningless statement then we cannot make any conclusions about it other than that it is meaningless.
     
  4. Topher

    Topher allo!

    I don't see this as representing his argument at all. Where did he say or imply "reality can be true" (what does it even mean to say "reality can be true"). I'll let him confirm his argument but this is how I understood it:

    - Objective statements are true if they correspond to objective reality.
    - Objective statements relate to reality in that the object of the statement is about reality.
    - Therefore, if the objective statement it true then what it is describing how reality actually is. For example, if the statement "light travels at 300,000 km/sec" is objectively true, then the object of the statement--the speed of light--actually does travel at 300,000 km/sec. So we can use objective statements that are true to make valid inferences about reality. Nothing wrong with that argument.

    He was talking about social truths here, which are dependent on subjects.

    The statement "ice cream is nice" is only true if there is a subject that finds ice cream to be nice. If there is not subject who finds ice cream to be nice then that statement has no truth value, thus it would make no sense to say the statement is true, false or even meaningful.

    So subjective/social truths are necessarily dependent on subjects in order to be true, false or meaningful.
     
  5. LJoll

    LJoll Valued Member

    Perhaps I misunderstood the argument. If what he meant was the same thing that you just said, it must win some sort of award as the most obvious thing ever said. Has any on here ever come close to disputing that (apart from maybe Fire Quan)?

    That is an incredibly simplistic and naive analysis, but lets not argue this point in this thread. It is totally irrelevant.
     
  6. Topher

    Topher allo!

    Most of this thread has actually been about precisely this issue!

    Our point was that there are two types of truths:

    - Objective truths, which are statements that do not require a reference to a subject (human) in order to be true, false or make sense.

    - Subjective (or social) truths, which are statements that necessarily require a reference to a subject (human) in order to be true, false or make sense.

    I'll repost this from Socrastein as he explains the argument well:

    Why is what Ckava, Socrastein and myself argued "incredibly simplistic and naive"?
     
  7. CKava

    CKava Just one more thing... Supporter

    Dunno about you premises or what you find bizarre or so on. As I mentioned I'm done debating this. If you think it's bizarre that I describe things the way they actually are as being true regardless of humans that's your business. I don't think 'objective truth' is reliant on the human species. It's true the sun is a spherical thing. The fact that the words 'the', 'sun', 'is', 'a', 'spherical' and 'thing' are words we communicate via human language is irrelevant. What they are communicating is objective reality in human words. If we didn't have the words the sun is the same shape.

    Reality is true... it is the ultimate true in the sense that true means 'corresponds with reality'. I don't know how this could be anymore straightforward. I am out of debating this though. As I've been round the merry go round of defining words and straightforward concepts too many times in this thread and I'm tired of it. I don't expect you (LJoll) to accept any straightforward points though... so I actually take it as a kind of validiation when you disagree... so I'm content now.

    There is no logical way to boil an egg, there is no such thing as truth... cool. I'm glad I disagree.

    See the lengthy and extremely straightforward discussions on objective/subjective truth. I don't think language creates reality. To a certain imaginative extent it can do but it can also simply describe reality. The difference between objective/subjective truths clears this whole issue up but then I doubt you accept such a distinction.

    Statements that cannot be understood are meaningless to those who they are not understood by. When the people who could not understand them are the entire human race it is not much of a leap to designate them meaningless. Are you arguin that you could have any grasp of a being that exists outside of time and the entire natural world? Can you think of anyone who could say anything meaningful about such a being except by stating negatives?
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2008
  8. LJoll

    LJoll Valued Member

    Hahaha. I'm almost offended that you've posted this, considering that I've made the very point that Socrastein makes in that post a thousand times to you lot over the last few years. I do not deny the distinction between subjective, value based statements and objective fact based statements. If there has been one thing common in all my arguments on MAP, it has been that I've made this distinction and everyone else has ignored me.

    I said that in response to your post and not necessarily Socrastein's or CKava's views.

    Specifically:
    is a vast oversimplification of matters. The statements "ice cream is nice" is not true just because someone thinks it is. If one person likes ice cream and another person hates it we do not say, "ice cream is nice and ice cream is also not nice". The actual meaning and truth value of subjective statements is far more complicated than you seem to acknowledge.
     
  9. LJoll

    LJoll Valued Member

    For the sake of precision let's clarify this concept. If something is meaningless it does not say anything at all, which is different from simply not being able to understand something. Most of the world cannot understand quantum mechanics, yet it is not meaningless, it's simply difficult. Chinese is not meaningless. Binary code is not meaningless. Random squiggles are meaningless, because they no information. Until we all understand and appreciate the difference between the two concepts, there really is no point in continuing this debate.
     
  10. Topher

    Topher allo!

    Wow I didn't think anyone could have misunderstood this point!

    The statement "ice cream is nice" is a true statement for anyone who thinks ice cream is nice. That same statement is a false statement for anyone who does not think ice cream is nice. And if there was no subjects to place a value on the statement the it would simply be a meaningless.

    That is what is meant by a subjective truth... it is a truth that is not static, rather it is a truth that is subject to individual values, thus subjective statements can be both true and false relative to the individual valuer. This is what Socrastein was saying in that post, and what CKava and myself have been saying in this thread.


    Agreed. I think you and CKava probably do agree on this, but are looking at the terms from different perspective.

    Meaningless statements cannot be understood (by virtue of that fact they are meaningless), but statements that cannot be understood, may, but not necessarily, be meaningless. So it doesn't necessarily work in reverse.
     
    Last edited: Jul 30, 2008
  11. CKava

    CKava Just one more thing... Supporter

    Apologies if I was a bit snappy yesterday LJoll I wrote the response above on my return home after a fair number of drinks. May not have been particularly coherent I'll try and clarify later.
     

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