Truth or Truthiness?

[say what]

You have a 'belief' that humans can fly under certain circumstances. That doesn't make it a truth. It is a theory that if certain factors are in place the result would be a human flying. It may be the truth but unless there is proof it cannot be considered an objective truth. The lack of proof doesn't make it untrue but without proof you also cannot discount the possibility that it is untrue.

It's the same with any belief system. There is an objective truth but without concrete proof it cannot be called an objective truth because it would be objective only if there was a consensus that it was true, otherwise it is subjective. The truth may be that there is a God, and anybody can adopt this belief as a subjective truth, but without a consensus and concrete proof you cannot call it an objective truth or 'the truth'. That is why it is called 'faith'.

Sorry if this is word picking! But, is this not the idea that if we believe in a truth enough, it becomes true? If we all believe the pig can fly, and that's the common consensus, would it be true?

 

[La Sagna]

Sorry if this is word picking! But, is this not the idea that if we believe in a truth enough, it becomes true? If we all believe the pig can fly, and that's the common consensus, would it be true?

The terms “objectivity” and “subjectivity,” in their modern usage, generally relate to a perceiving subject (normally a person) and a perceived or unperceived object. The object is something that presumably exists independent of the subject’s perception of it. In other words, the object would be there, as it is, even if no subject perceived it. Hence, objectivity is typically associated with ideas such as reality, truth and reliability.

The perceiving subject can either perceive accurately or seem to perceive features of the object that are not in the object. For example, a perceiving subject suffering from jaundice could seem to perceive an object as yellow when the object is not actually yellow. Hence, the term “subjective” typically indicates the possibility of error.

I would say that if everybody believed in something then there would be a consensus but that would not make it true. I don't believe that a group of human beings can have complete objectivity. Certain people may be more objective than others but I can't imagine that they can be truly objective. I don't believe that humans are capable of complete objectivity. You could never get a consensus from any large group and certainly not from the entire population of the earth. If somebody were to propose that human beings need to be able to breathe and intake oxygen to survive there will always be some person who has a belief and an explanation of why this is not true. You may have 99.9% of people who agree about this but even if only one person disagrees then there is no consensus.

Objective truth exists but is outside the capacity of human beings to know without a reasonable doubt.

Here's a thought, if there is a God, maybe that is what God is, Objective Truth.

 

[Cornerstone]

Yeah. I don't actually believe in objective truth, come to think of it.

 

[LucyJr]

From truthnet.org:

And thus, by logical necessity, if the nature of truth is objective, then also the nature of morality is objective.

 

[LucyJr]

I would say that if everybody believed in something then there would be a consensus but that would not make it true. I don't believe that a group of human beings can have complete objectivity. Certain people may be more objective than others but I can't imagine that they can be truly objective. I don't believe that humans are capable of complete objectivity. You could never get a consensus from any large group and certainly not from the entire population of the earth. If somebody were to propose that human beings need to be able to breathe and intake oxygen to survive there will always be some person who has a belief and an explanation of why this is not true. You may have 99.9% of people who agree about this but even if only one person disagrees then there is no consensus.

Objective truth exists but is outside the capacity of human beings to know without a reasonable doubt.

Here's a thought, if there is a God, maybe that is what God is, Objective Truth.

God has been called the point where the subjective meets the objective, thus becoming The Absolute.

Edit:
God is a person, which implies subjectivity, but also God is the sole objective foundation of existence, reason, logic, beauty, truth, morality, order, whcih implies the very "heart" of objectivity.

 

[sprinkles]

Sorry if this is word picking! But, is this not the idea that if we believe in a truth enough, it becomes true? If we all believe the pig can fly, and that's the common consensus, would it be true?

It would be considered true. To be considered true is not necessarily actually true.

Real truth doesn't have to be considered or believed or spoken.

If it were the case that if you believe something then it becomes true, there'd be no such thing as a successful lie. If somebody lies to you and you believe it, and it becomes the truth, then how are they still lying to you?

 

[La Sagna]

“Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood, on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.” - Albert Camus

 

[Matt3737]

I think the majority of people, when discussing the concept of truth, will generally argue from a correspondence theory of truth.

I think that not acknowledging the context of its use is prepatory to being misled:

It is worthy of notice that the sentence "I smell the scent of violets" has the same content as the sentence "it is true that I smell the scent of violets". So it seems, then, that nothing is added to the thought by my ascribing to it the property of truth. (Frege, 1918).

Truth is a semantic adjective. As an adjective, it is used to describe aspects of communication such as sentences or statements that indirectly refer to a correspondence theory of truth. We can create sentences or statements such that we explicitly know (or believe) they are true, false, or half-truths, yet we cannot independently verify a 1:1 isomorphic correspondence between language and reality.

Language, with its recursive ability to self-reference, has the ability to form logical antinomies:

Contradictory phrases, such as "There is no absolute truth" can be considered an antinomy because this statement is suggesting in itself to be an absolute truth, and therefore denies itself any truth in its statement.

Alfred Tarski is renowned for his work on his undefinablility theorem of truth in formal languages and his development of a semantic theory of truth.

 

[lillyith]

That's why I like the scientific approach. I like that everything is a theory. Most scientific theories are probably as close to the truth as you're going to get but they are left open for new discoveries. That to me is intelligence in action. Intelligent people know that what you know now may not be what you know ten years from now, because you might find out something that changes what you know now

Not to nitpick, but not everything in science is theoretical. Most things are, but laws do exist in science. They're physical laws though so exceedingly obvious to anyone who can observe anything. Most people will be able to tell you that if you drop a ball from the 12th story of a building it will fall down. This things are then objectively facts, or laws. They are acknowledged to be true so that in experiments you don't need to prove that gravity works before you can start running your actual experiment.

Examples:
Law of universal gravitation
Laws of thermodynamics
Stoke's law

Another thing about science that contributes to its overall ability to be truth over truthiness is that it is peer reviewed. You have to have other people be able to set up the same experiment with the same results, otherwise the veracity of your work is questioned. There isn't just one person putting forth evidence for evolution (because what sort of science thread would it be if nobody brought it up), but several people over several centuries contributing to and strengthening one idea.

To me truth is this: if it can be proven over and over again to exist in the same or similar fashions then I accept it as true for the moment, but since I am biased and only human I leave myself open to the possibility that I am wrong.

 

[sprinkles]

Unless the building is in space. Or in the ocean and the ball happens to float in water (quite a more legitimate possibility I must say)

I'm just joking of course, but even by doing that I referred to laws to find the exceptions for laws.

 

[LucyJr]

I think the majority of people, when discussing the concept of truth, will generally argue from a correspondence theory of truth.

I think that not acknowledging the context of its use is prepatory to being misled:



Truth is a semantic adjective. As an adjective, it is used to describe aspects of communication such as sentences or statements that indirectly refer to a correspondence theory of truth. We can create sentences or statements such that we explicitly know (or believe) they are true, false, or half-truths, yet we cannot independently verify a 1:1 isomorphic correspondence between language and reality.

Language, with its recursive ability to self-reference, has the ability to form logical antinomies:



Alfred Tarski is renowned for his work on his undefinablility theorem of truth in formal languages and his development of a semantic theory of truth.

So there is the suggestion that truth is just semantics?