Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Club for Open-Minded Discussion & Debate

[heracleitos]

This topic focusses on absolute truth, but I think it's fair to say that absolute truth requires something approaching absolute knowledge too.

A claim could be true but have no justification.

It is sometimes even possible to prove that such true claim cannot have a justification. Therefore, such true claim is not knowledge.

Godelian sentences are a good example of that.

These sentences are true but not provable. Godel's first incompleteness theorem proves the existence of such sentences in arithmetic.

Truth is often divorced from justification. Hence, we cannot assume that truth, absolute or not, would necessarily have a justification and hence be knowledge.

[Raymond]

Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin.

How? What knowledge do you possess that allows you to reach this conclusion? And, from other comments you have made, I feel inclined to ask whether this information comes from a scientific or religious source? I have no problem with either, but the two tend to require different ways of consideration.

That's a good question. The cosmology and view on the fundamental nature of physical reality have no doubt a scientific source. Scientists might claim to be Popperians, but in reality they are as conservative as hell. They stick to the icon and standard (as the Standard Model testifies to and the means to defend it). They say you have to try to falsify and go deeper but if you do, like I do, they try to cut you off defending the standard as if it were an absolute truth (there you go!).

Doesn't this support my view that the search for absolute, universal, objective, certainty is a distraction and a waste of time?

But it's very clear that there are only two basic preons. In accordance with my theology. It's clear to me also that there must be a series of big bangs, also inspired by my god story. I think in the world of physics there can be an absolute truth. So can there be in theology, astrology, tesseract theories, dreamtime stories of the aboriginals, etc. It's only good if all cultures hold their stories for absolute true. They can get stronger in mutual competition. Sad fact is that science claims to have the only true story around. It might not reach that reality, as the idea of an absolute truth testifies to, but that's only false modesty.

OK, I accept that your spiritual beliefs are what they are, and that you accept and believe them. That I can respect. But you seem to be mixing religion and science indiscriminately, and that makes it difficult for anyone to comment, I think. For science, and the philosophical thinking that sits closest to science, can be approached in a strictly formal manner. And religion is not amenable to that approach.

I welcome your scientific, and your religious, views, but when you mix them together, they can become unapproachable. D'you see?

"Doesn't this support my view that the search for absolute, universal, objective, certainty is a distraction and a waste of time?"

Don't think so. Ŕather, not searching for it inhibits progress. In physics, that is.

"
I welcome your scientific, and your religious, views, but when you mix them together, they can become unapproachable. D'you see?"

No, I don't see. I think the universe reflects heaven and the reason the gods made it. If they wanna look at their creation eternally, they had to create a universe with recurring big bangs.

[Pattern-chaser]

This topic focusses on absolute truth, but I think it's fair to say that absolute truth requires something approaching absolute knowledge too.

A claim could be true but have no justification.

It is sometimes even possible to prove that such true claim cannot have a justification. Therefore, such true claim is not knowledge.

Godelian sentences are a good example of that.

These sentences are true but not provable. Godel's first incompleteness theorem proves the existence of such sentences in arithmetic.

Truth is often divorced from justification. Hence, we cannot assume that truth, absolute or not, would necessarily have a justification and hence be knowledge.

There, I was mostly trying to show that I was more-or-less on-topic. But your comments, of course, are correct and applicable to any/all humans.

However, this topic goes beyond humanity in its thought experiments. For humans have no direct and knowing access to absolute truth or absolute knowledge, assuming "absolute" carries the meaning of "mind-independent", in this context, discussion and topic. We can easily grasp the concept of absolute truth, but for us, it is no more than an intellectual and academic fantasy.

A hypothetical being that had some means of 'seeing' that which actually is would not be limited as we are, and as your comments describe. I rather think such a being could ignore the work of Godel, for what need has such a being of proof when they could simply 'look' for themselves and see the absolute truth, and know it as such.

Such a being has no need for proof, as we humans do. Even if we are aided by such a being, as raymond seems to be, we still would not have knowing access to absolute truth. We would have to take that being's word for it ... or fall back on proof, with its Godellian limitations.

[Pattern-chaser]

Doesn't this support my view that the search for absolute, universal, objective, certainty is a distraction and a waste of time?

Don't think so. Rather, not searching for it inhibits progress. In physics, that is.

Why would we waste our time searching for something to which we know we have no knowing access? Better to accept what we have, and learn what we can of that, surely? This is what we have always done. And despite the limitations of science/physics, it has served us well, and delivered much, by doing just that: investigating what is there and accessible to us. What's so bad about that?

[Sculptor1]

Let's look at what absolute means...


1. not qualified or diminished in any way;

2. viewed or existing independently and not in relation to other things; not relative or comparative.


And what is "Truth"?
This was a little more hard to pluck from Google since entering "define truth" returned self referring definitions including the word true.
However it also offers this: -
What is the true meaning of truth?
truth, in metaphysics and the philosophy of language, the property of sentences, assertions, beliefs, thoughts, or propositions that are said, in ordinary discourse, to agree with the facts or to state what is the case.

So in other words what is true is statements that hold a relation with reality and are in accord with what is the case.
By definition 2., there can be no absolute truth since all statements of truth have to stand "in relation" to that which is the case, and are then not independant of each other; reality and the statement.
Clearly as all true statements can only represent what is the case they are qualified and diminished by the limits of language which is not the same as the thing such statements are hoping to represent. SO defintion 1., is also contentious.
Now when you add to that, that all statments of "truth" have an originator, a person or source which is distinct from the thrue thing, then all things true, stand in relation to the utterer of the truth.

Consequently no there is no absolute truth.

[Raymond]

Doesn't this support my view that the search for absolute, universal, objective, certainty is a distraction and a waste of time?

Don't think so. Rather, not searching for it inhibits progress. In physics, that is.

Why would we waste our time searching for something to which we know we have no knowing access? Better to accept what we have, and learn what we can of that, surely? This is what we have always done. And despite the limitations of science/physics, it has served us well, and delivered much, by doing just that: investigating what is there and accessible to us. What's so bad about that?

"Why would we waste our time searching for something to which we know we have no knowing access? "

If this were an absolute truth, then it would be a waste of time indeed. We could cling to any theory we'd like. Which is okay by me, but in physics we don't know if this is the absolute truth (the not being able to know). I think we can know, and I think if you're a physicist it's the only viable attitude. Every physìcist likes to know how nature truly looks like. Einstein once said, quite dramatically:

"Out yonder, is this huge world, which exists, independently of us human beings, and which stands before us, like a great eternal riddle. The contemplation of this world, beckons, like a liberation"

What's wrong with knowing how nature looks like at it fundaments?

[Greatest I am]

"We cannot see all the data as it is going away faster than the speed of light."

Do we need all data to know an absolute truth?

By definition, yes.

Regards
DL

I think you take too much the law approach of absolute truth. I take a more liberal approach. Without knowing each and every detail of the world I'm absolutely sure about its nature and origin. Knowing things about it is secondary, but necessary to arrive at the absolute image.

I agree that I stick to the true legalistic and more accurate definition in defining absolute.

Any absolute rendering or offering must pass the test before I will let it pass.

That is what seeking absolutes is all about.

No God of the Gaps allowed.

Regards
DL

[Consul]

Truth is absolute in the sense of being non-subject-relative, because…

"…being true is different from being taken to be true, be it by one, be it by many, be it by all, and is in no way reducible to it. It is no contradiction that something is true that is universally held to be false."
(pp. xv-xvi)

"Can the sense of the word 'true' be subjected to a more damaging corruption than by the attempt to incorporate a relation to the judging subject!"
(p. xvi)

(Frege, Gottlob. Basic Laws of Arithmetics, Vol. 1. 1893. In Basic Laws of Arithmetics, Vols. 1&2, translated and edited by Philip A. Ebert and Marcus Rosenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

So-called "subjective truth" or "truth-for-me" is nothing but belief, and what is believed to be true needn't be true.

[Greatest I am]

Truth is absolute in the sense of being non-subject-relative, because…

"…being true is different from being taken to be true, be it by one, be it by many, be it by all, and is in no way reducible to it. It is no contradiction that something is true that is universally held to be false."
(pp. xv-xvi)

"Can the sense of the word 'true' be subjected to a more damaging corruption than by the attempt to incorporate a relation to the judging subject!"
(p. xvi)

(Frege, Gottlob. Basic Laws of Arithmetics, Vol. 1. 1893. In Basic Laws of Arithmetics, Vols. 1&2, translated and edited by Philip A. Ebert and Marcus Rosenberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.)

So-called "subjective truth" or "truth-for-me" is nothing but belief, and what is believed to be true needn't be true.

Indeed.

Your "for me", is "me" looking at the reflection instead of the reality.

Thumbs up from Socrates.

Regards
DL

[Consul]

The truth-value of a proposition is relative if it contains indexical terms such as "here" and "now". The sentence "It is now raining here" can be true at one place and time and false at another place and time. In order to avoid indexical relativity, Quine prefers to use "eternal sentences", whose truth-value isn't relative to places, times, or people, because they don't contain indexical terms.

"[T]hose eternal sentences themselves can serve as the truth vehicles. Just think of 'I', 'you', 'he', 'she', 'here', and 'there' as supplanted by names and addresses or other identifying particulars as needed. Think of tenses as dropped; we can use dates, the predicate 'earlier than', and the like as needed. Think of ambiguities and vaguenesses as resolved by paraphrase—not absolutely, but enough to immobilize the truth value of the particular sentence. The truth values need not be known, but they must be stable. …Declarative sentences thus refined—eternal sentences—are what I shall regard as truth vehicles[.]"

(Quine, W. V. Pursuit of Truth. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992. pp. 78-9)

"Any casual statement of inconsequential fact can be filled out into an eternal sentence by supplying names and dates and cancelling the tenses of verbs. Corresponding to 'It is raining' and 'You owe me ten dollars' we have the eternal sentence 'It rains in Boston, Mass., on July 15, 1968' and 'Bernard J. Ortcutt owes W. V. Quine ten dollars on July 15, 1968', where 'rains' and 'owes' are to be thought of now as tenseless."

(Quine, W. V. Philosophy of Logic. 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press, 1986. p. 13)

[Pattern-chaser]

Why would we waste our time searching for something to which we know we have no knowing access?

If this were an absolute truth, then it would be a waste of time indeed.

We could cling to any theory we'd like.

Oh no, that simply isn't true. Abandoning the search for certainty does not mean embracing chaos and randomness; that's called 'binary thinking'. It only means abandoning a pointless and impossible quest, and using the energies so freed in a more constructive manner. Serious, even critical, thought is quite possible outside a guaranteed-certainty environment. Science itself has no truck with certainty, offering its latest theories as 'the best answer we currently have' (pending the arrival of better ones).

Which is okay by me, but in physics we don't know if this is the absolute truth (the not being able to know).

That might be because physics, a science, is not the right tool to investigate or understand Objectivity, and its ramifications. You need metaphysics for that.

I think we can know, and I think if you're a physicist it's the only viable attitude.

If that is so, then physics is unviable.

You keep repeating that you think we can know, but you don't explain just how we could achieve or obtain that knowledge.

[Charlemagne]

How can we be certain of our being certain?

[JackDaydream]

How can we be certain of our being certain?

Interesting to see you have dug up one of my earliest threads. Some of the discussion in it may be different because the group of posters has changed since that time. Some of the issues in it relate to many other thread discussions of my own and of others. Certainty is a matter of degree and even the idea of the unknown may shift, and there may be some known unknowns, like the spark animating consciousness itself.

Also, the division between real and unreal may be almost illusory because nothing is solid at the quantum level. The boundaries may be fuzzy and at the phenomenological interface of mind and body, resulting in consciousness/unconsciousness. Many may adhere to realism, which is based on trying to reduce everything to what is perceived by the senses. However, even the senses are reductive themselves, as there are 5 and subject. This means that all that is not perceived is hidden as the consciousness and each person's moment to moment experience is simply an angle of infinite possibilities.

[JackDaydream]

How can we be certain of our being certain?

Interesting to see you have dug up one of my earliest threads. Some of the discussion in it may be different because the group of posters has changed since that time. Some of the issues in it relate to many other thread discussions of my own and of others. Certainty is a matter of degree and even the idea of the unknown may shift, and there may be some known unknowns, like the spark animating consciousness itself.

Also, the division between real and unreal may be almost illusory because nothing is solid at the quantum level. The boundaries may be fuzzy and at the phenomenological interface of mind and body, resulting in consciousness/unconsciousness. Many may adhere to realism, which is based on trying to reduce everything to what is perceived by the senses. However, even the senses are reductive themselves, as there are 5 and subject. This means that all that is not perceived is hidden as the consciousness and each person's moment to moment experience is simply an angle of infinite possibilities.

I am sorry that I replied to your post, claiming that the thread was one of mine. I also apologise to the author of it as well, because I mistook it for my one on 'absolute reality. They are interrelated anyway, so I am glad to see the thread be resuscitated back to life and as I have replied it may be that I will join in the discussion.

[Pattern-chaser]

How can we be certain of our being certain?

Since we can be certain of almost nothing, the question doesn't really arise, does it?