What is truth?
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From: Clown John Burke on 7 May 2010 11:27 >What is truth? Here you go... _ /'_/) ,/_ / / / /'_'/' '/'__'7, /'/ / / /" /_\ ('( ' /' ') \ / '\' _.7' \ ( \ \
From: David Bostwick on 7 May 2010 12:31 In article <hs1a54$o6v$1(a)reader1.panix.com>, bks(a)panix.com wrote: > >Set your wristwatch to a random time. Ask the person >next to you to tell you what time your watch displays. >If the time that person says matches the time you >read it as saying, you've experienced objective reality >to the maximum extent possible. > > --bks > Obviously, it's brillig.
From: Peter Olcott on 7 May 2010 13:50 "Frederick Williams" <frederick.williams2(a)tesco.net> wrote in message news:4BE42762.4E39F019(a)tesco.net... > Peter Olcott wrote: >> >> "Frederick Williams" <frederick.williams2(a)tesco.net> >> wrote >> in message news:4BE3072C.E5964BCF(a)tesco.net... >> > Peter Olcott wrote: >> >> >> >> "rods" <rodpinto(a)gmail.com> wrote in message >> >> news:fb58bae7-2920-4b25-9887-0e4a5340b9bb(a)u31g2000yqb.googlegroups.com... >> > >> >> > there is no such thing as a empirical truth. >> >> > >> >> > Rodrigo >> >> >> >> You dip your hand in water, it feels wet, later on you >> >> remember feeling that your hand was wet, thus >> >> providing a >> >> single counter-example refuting your claim that >> >> empirical >> >> truth does not exist. >> > >> > The problem is: how does one classify truths as being >> > empirical or >> > logical? It is a matter of arbitrary convention. >> > >> > -- >> > I can't go on, I'll go on. >> >> Empirical truth is the direct first-hand memory of >> sensory >> experience, close your eyes and picture a red rose. >> >> Conceptual truth (of which logic is a part) must be >> represented in the mind using language. You can't close >> your >> eyes and picture the concept of square root. > > Claiming that truth (of any kind) is to be equated with > what one can > picture in one's mind's eye is clearly wrong. > > -- > I can't go on, I'll go on. No its not. here is an hypothetical example: "I remember seeing him shoot her" The words and concepts map to the memory of the physical sensation of eyesight which in turn maps to the original direct experience of the physical sensation of eyesight. If all of these mappings are correct then the above statement "I remember seeing him shoot her" is a true statement. Here is another much simpler example: The color of Bill's house is blue. Same sequence the words map to the memory of the original physical sensation of eyesight which in turn maps to the actual original direct experience of eyesight. You can close your own eyes and picture the color of your own house, and this picture truly represents the original physical sensation.
From: Peter Olcott on 7 May 2010 13:52 "Clown John Burke" <clown_john_burke(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message news:8fef768e-ec20-47e0-953b-9241a3fedff4(a)d19g2000yqf.googlegroups.com... > > > >>What is truth? > > Here you go... > > _ > /'_/) > ,/_ / > / / > /'_'/' '/'__'7, > /'/ / / /" /_\ > ('( ' /' ') > \ / > '\' _.7' > \ ( > \ \ That image has an amazingly accurate representational quality considering it is entirely constructed from ASCII text.
From: rods on 7 May 2010 16:44
I somehow lost this good post about the subject. It pretty much give the options on how to deal with the subject. Some more comments inline ... On 26 abr, 14:37, Alan Meyer <amey...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > troll wrote: > > > Gradually, I have started getting the idea that goodness > > has no real meaning at all. Entropy and information > > has a clear definition in physics and mathematics, but > > goodness is just a nice sounding word and no one > > can ever agree on what it actually means. > > > > Recently, however, I have started to wonder whether > > truth has any real meaning. Is there a mathematical > > or physical definition of truth, and if so what is it? > > > > I get the idea that I am missing something simple, > > but I am not sure what it is. What is the definition > > of truth in physics and mathematics? At least a > > very simple web search ends up getting choked > > with meaningless drivel from philosophers. > > Trolls so often pose interesting questions - even when they > really think that the answers are meaningless drivel. > > Here are three possible approaches to a definition of truth, as > near as I can recall from the not so meaningless education I > received in philosophy. I make my apologies in advance to those > who understand these theories deeply and can see all of the > gross simplifications or worse that I am introducing here. > > 1. Correspondence to reality. > > This is the most straightforward definition and unquestionably > the one that most people intend when they say that a statement > is true. > > If I say "It is raining" or "The dog is wet", those statements > are true if and only if, in fact, it is raining or the dog is > wet. > > Problems only arise with this view when we get away from > simple observational statements and start to talk about > values, or about models of reality, or about objects which > exist within a certain body of theory but which are not > directly observable - like subatomic particles or infinite > quantities or states of mind. > > The other two theories given below are attempts to handle > cases where we need to go beyond observational reality. > However I don't think either of them denies that true > statements are statements corresponding to reality, although > the "reality" in question is not always an observational one. > > 2. Coherence within a self-consistent theory. > > By "coherence" I mean that a statement to be evaluated is > found to be consistent in all respects with a larger and > self-consistent theoretical framework. > > This is the kind of "truth" that seems to make the most sense > when discussing mathematics. 7 + 9 = 16 coheres with the > theory of arithmetic. This also happens to correspond with > reality when we discuss 7 apples and 9 apples, but the > definition can be just as easily applied in theoretical > frameworks such as non-Euclidean geometry, n-dimensional > spaces, etc., where "correspondence to observational reality" > becomes problematical or impossible. > > The coherence theory is also valuable in everyday life. When > someone tells us he saw water flow uphill, or a ghost, or a > perpetual motion machine, or anything of the like, we normally > reject such statements without having to investigate them. > Such statements are inconsistent with a body of theory that > has so much history and so much weight of evidence behind it > that it would be a waste of time to investigate purported > exceptions. > > Sometimes that gets us in trouble. Very occasionally someone > discovers something that is inconsistent with a very widely > accepted and supported theory and further investigation shows > that there really is a problem with the theory that no one saw > before. But in spite of such exceptional cases, the > requirement for coherence saves us from error vastly more > often than it leads us into it. Here is where I think Godel's theory plays an important role. I read Godel as (please comment/correct me logic experts): a theory can't have a rules that garantee that some "truths" are true, because if we do that this theory is necessarily incoherent. Notice the "if and only if" on the quote: Quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del%27s_incompleteness_theorems#Second_incompleteness_theorem "For any formal effectively generated theory T including basic arithmetical truths and also certain truths about formal provability, T includes a statement of its own consistency if and only if T is inconsistent." So a truth must necessarily be a consequence of "something" and never the cause. If we just assume that "something" is true I am OK with that. But if we say that "something" is "experimentally" true I think this is somehow paradoxal. Because an experiment is something thought to prove the consistency of a theory. It just have a definitive meaning when it is a failure, because this means that the theory is wrong (at least partially). But if it is sucessufully it just means "so far so good". Rodrigo I > 3. Forming the basis of accurate predictions. > > When we say that "the dog is wet", we are implying that > certain experiences can be predicted. For example, if you > touch the dog, your hand will get wet. If you stand next to > the dog and the dog shakes himself, you will get splattered. > If the dog lies down on the carpet, there will be a wet spot. > And so on. > > If these observations are made but the predicted events do not > occur, then the original statement "the dog is wet", is false, > or at least not completely true (maybe his feet are wet but > not his fur.) > > Where this theory of truth becomes particularly valuable is in > discussing empirical objects or events that cannot be directly > observed, such as nuclear particles and forces. We can't see > an electron or an x-ray, but we can make predictions about > observations which, if they are in fact observed, give us > reason to assert that statements about the electron or x-ray > are true. > > This theory, proposed by the American philosophers Charles > Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, is called the > "pragmatic" or "instrumental" theory of truth. > > Alan |