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What Defines Something to be True?

Discussion in 'Off-topic Discussion' started by SolitaryScribe, Nov 23, 2017.

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  1. How can we look for something that isn't there?
     
    truthseeker17 likes this.
  2. But if someone doesn't accept it, that doesn't make it not true... It just means they are rejecting truth and believing a lie. If I refuse to accept that the earth revolves around the sun, that doesn't make it not true.
     
  3. This just contradicts everything else you're said. Here, you recognize that truth is something that exists objectively, to be found, and that if someone ignores it, they are believing ignorance. i.e., a lie.
     
  4. Ah, okay. Here's the problem. What you're describing here is not a matter of "truth" it a matter of opinion and law and practice. Believing women shouldn't drive isn't a "truth," it's just something they decide to do. Believing women are lower than men is, I suppose, in the realm of a "truth," but there is an objective truth out there about that... either the truth is, women are lower than men, or the truth is that they aren't lower than men. And the belief of people in Saudi Arabia won't change that.
     
  5. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    Even if it exists, and we see it with our own eyes, if we refuse to accept it, it will never be true. I m speaking at the individual level. Just look at the world some people still believe that humans never visited the moon.
     
    Last edited: Nov 23, 2017
  6. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    I mean where there books that were brought by the big bang? Something that was created by nature?
    For example, when Muslims say that the Quran is the word of God. Knowledge is not there by "itself" we find it by observing, studying, evaluating, testing and analysising.
     
  7. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    You do not get my point. It is true FOR YOU, but will never be true for others. i m just answering the question, what "defines something as true" not what is the truth.
     
  8. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    Their ignorance is what they define as truth. I have over and over adviced people against a certain "wrong road" that they are taking, but they never listen until they fail and fall. So what i m saying is that at the individual level people will define truth as they see fit not as it is.
     
  9. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    For their society thats what define as trueand absolute. And doesn't our believes shape our truth?
     
  10. Yes, they do, and those people are wrong... Believing something doesn't make it true. If someone visited the moon, than anyone who believes that didn't happen is wrong, and that doesn't make the statement "nobody has ever visited the moon" true, it's still a false statement. They believe something that is false. That doesn't make it "true for them," it just makes it false and makes them ignorant.

    You just said the exact same thing and still don't understand what's wrong with the wording you're using. You just said "we find it by observing, studying, etc...." You can't find and observe something that doesnt exist. The truth already exists, we just haven't necessarily found it yet. There's a reason you say someone "discovered truth" rather than someone "created truth." Because they didn't create it. It already existed, and they have now discovered it.

    No, it is not true "for me." It's false, period. If I believe something is true, and in reality it is false, then it's still false, regardless of what I believe.

    But that's just not wise... defining truth as they see fit, rather than what's real. That's not reality. That's living in a fantasy world.

    You keep using the phrase "your truth" or "our truth" and that's just a complete misuse of the word truth. The word you're looking for is belief. You can add qualifiers like "your" or "my" or "her" to the word "belief." You cannot add those qualifiers to the word truth, because truth is truth. It exists outside of everyone's beliefs, and it doesn't change from person to person. Your beliefs can change, but what's true will always be true, whether you believe it or not.

    The definition of the word "true" is "in accordance with fact or reality." There is no such thing as "your truth" and "my truth." There is only truth, and your beliefs and my beliefs.
     
  11. Well we all have our unconscious bias so I don't how far we can trust what we think of being true as truth.
    I think if the one who you're trusting that is telling you the truth hasn't given you any reason to doubt their claims then maybe they're giving you truth. But we should be critical in our think, we should analyse everything and don't accept anything at face value.
    The trouble is some people have a god complex and they think everything they think is true because they think it's true.
     
  12. SolitaryScribe

    SolitaryScribe Fapstronaut

    I really like this quote... We all may have our belief's as to what the truth is, but in the end it does not actually change what the truth is. Meaning that in the end some of us will be right and some of us will be wrong... or even all of us may be wrong.
     
  13. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    Nevertheless, there will be people who define somethings as true differenly. I m not against what you said but there is a huge number of people like that. And the world works on that.
     
    SolitaryScribe likes this.
  14. Well... obviously there are people who are like that. I was never trying to argue that people like that don't exist. But the way you were talking seemed like you agreed with that, like you were one of those people. And I think people who are like that are delusional and not thinking logically, because it's very easy to see how illogical that line of thinking is.
     
  15. usef Abs

    usef Abs Fapstronaut

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    Its very easy to see, but it is very hard to fix it. Ignorance is a disease and without the proper knowledge and awareness people will hardly change the way the ydefine somethings as true. Even logic in many people is broken.

    There are many examples that I can show you and i have already provided ones with what i said before.
    The reason why i m sticking to the argument that truth is something on the individual level is because there a huge example out there. Two countries that tricked people for many years and is currently ruining the world.
    Ignorance is a disease, we all start having it when we start talking about things we have no knowledge about. You might think you are well educated and your defintion of truth "about something" is right, but it isn't.
     
  16. Buzz Lightyear

    Buzz Lightyear Fapstronaut

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    What I have discovered, in my various readings, is that people, by and large, do not know how to think properly. And the problem lies in thinking itself, not the object of thought. Under the illusion that all must be burning bright, as if in the greater light of day, they will only admit to their mind what is clear and distinct to them, such as a simple mathematical proposition. Their mind-sight is ill-adjusted to anything dimmer and more subtle that might be lurking in the shades. All is supposed to be held bare and naked in the burning light before them, and anything undisclosed is simply consigned to nonsensical oblivion, ignorance or mystification… as if the world could never be a mystery. This is the problem of thinking today.

    And then, after having looked at the sun too long, a blindness sets in, to the point that all objects of thought are lost altogether. Mind-sight now fades as it would before the blackest night. A weariness develops, and we soon become somnambulists to live our lives in the senses solely. We leave the intelligible world altogether to the world of dream, or of nightmare. Instead of cultivating thought, we cultivate the avoidance of it in a manifold of entertainments which can distract and hold our attention for the moment; and where that moment becomes anxious of coming into contact with the infinite, it serves to breed anxiety itself.

    This is not only alienation against our intelligence, and some intelligible world to which it might correspond, but also an alienation against the instincts of the infinite self within. But there were always a few who see by the lesser light of night, and, as was said, with the eyes of the owl of Minerva. This was the true initiation into the infinite. Mind-sight, out of the glare of day, became well-adjusted to the waxing and waning shadow world that eclipses the other one, the intelligible one, with its model of day. Where philosophy was represented by the sun, the initiation of art was represented by the moon, and notice both the passive and active elements of this - we are initiated into something. Here is the true dialectic, one between the inner self, deeper than a superficial and identifiable ego, and a reality beyond itself, all mediated by words and images. In art, we now see fleeting glimpses as through a dark glass. Words themselves, now freed from the glare of a frozen sun, recombine in a misty murky world in flux, which in momentary conglomerations and triangulations manage to frame a meaning, one dependent on context and time. What’s significant here is no timeless, static and abstract truths to be pinned down and classified in a catalogue of facts, but a living world behind this world, that breathes meaning through the words, which the more peripheral sight of the imagination might perceive, as they appear briefly and momentarily, as if on the swell of an oceanic tide.:rolleyes:
     
  17. We have approached this question completely differently. I approached it by answering what I believe "defines something to be true." You approached it by answering how you think the majority of the world "defines something to be true." That seems pointless to me if the majority of the world is wrong. And you don't even seem to agree with that yourself, so I'm confused as to why you answered this question in that way. But whatever, you do whatever you want. You don't need to talk to me like I'm dumb, though.

    I'm just really confused by the way you talk... many times you have said things that make it sound like you agree with me and that the people who believe that truth is determined on an individual level are ignorant and wrong. But then you do a 180 and say that my definition of truth isn't right and I have no knowledge of what I'm talking about. I'm having trouble determining what YOU actually believe, which is what I want to know. I don't need you to tell me what most of the world believes, I can see that for myself.
     
  18. SolitaryScribe

    SolitaryScribe Fapstronaut

    Not taking sides here, however! If truth is subjective/relative at what level do you call someone ignorant? Ignorance is the lack of knowledge or a belief outside of what has been proven to be true. If truth is only based on what is held by the majority, how is that truth? Wouldn't that just be merely popular opinion?

    If you really hold the view that truth is relative, it's nonsensical to call someone or a group of people ignorant. Simply ignorance cannot exist in a world where truth is relative.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  19. Absolutely right, that's a great point. This is why I said how simple it is to disprove that theory that truth is relative. Almost anything a person says or does can be used to illustrate truth being absolute.
     
  20. Dont know if a simple answer will do here but, truth is the way things are, doesn't matter how we try and define it cause no matter how many facts we bring truth is still truth, the way things be is the way things are. People have had facts that they say is the truth and it has seemed like it really was that way, but in the end they where wrong.

    So the answer to the question is, the way things are defines what is true. To me i find a lot of truth in feelings, what i know in my heart to be true.
     

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