Question Truth

[Σ]

I have been a life long "analyst". By analyst I mean that break down everything I perceive in a very systemic and logical fashion. This has set me on a path that exalts things like empirical data, the scientific method and a need for adequate evidence before spouting anything as truth. Now you may think this means I don't do a lot of spouting, but I assure you I do. I simply do not spout anything as truth. My method for achieving this is a personal philosophy along the lines of "Everything is true in some sense, false in some sense and meaningless in some sense".

It is apparent to me that in recent centuries the expansion of the human race is on an exponential curve. One century we are using steam or coal to power trains the next we are going nuclear. We are able to do so much with the knowledge we have gained in the fields of philosophy, biology, medicine, mathematics, chemistry, physics, psychology and plethora of other fields of study. The human race now has a fairly rigid framework of the world. We know that you cannot go faster than light, and that simply by cleaning ourselves regularly we can drastically affect the rate of infection in the face of epidemic. We know so very much! But we also know very little. With all the knowledge we have gained we have lost something. Something that comes from deep within. We have lost the sense of wonder. We are no longer left to ponder how a "god" or pantheon thereof has constructed the universe. We no longer ponder what new lands may be across the sea. We don't even need to wonder if our unborn children will be a girl or a boy.

There is such certainty in the minds of people and I argue that it has driven that sense of wonder away because it is easier to think we know than to question what we know. But where this leaves us is somewhat of a strange place. The people drift in a state of fear because they are so certain that the world will do what it does they give no thought to what they would do if it didn't. They have become complacent entities that simply fit a role. They fear deviation from the norm because the deviation is what makes us question ourselves and our understandings. We fear questioning ourselves and by fearing this we have been instilled with a fear of questioning others. Or the "wrong" kind of questioning because we don't want to seem silly, or stupid or divergent. This means that we will not only fail to question ourselves but we will most certainly fail to question our superiors.

What are we cheating ourselves out of you might ask? We are cheating ourselves out of the truth. The truth that the truth is constantly evolving and that we must constantly change and evolve with it. We are cheating ourselves out of a person truth in lieu of a broader more all encompassing truth. The problem with this so called all encompassing truth is that its very definition betrays the nature of truth since truth pertains to a particular. A force in society wants us to listen to the "truth" that comes from the powers that be and obey them, not search for a truth that is subjective and internal.

I believe that by not searching for that subjective, internal truth particular to their own experience a majority of humans are missing out on the experience of life. This majority takes the truth given to them and believes it rather than perceiving the world around them and forming their own truth.

If you can make your own truth, you can make your own world.

[Infinityshock]

that makes no sense.  'truth,' the way youre using it,  sounds like some word you made up with no definitive meaning other than to sounds flowery

[FON]

Well, sure, people use money and power to produce and influence discourses in society, but I don't think we should discount our ability to interpret what we hear and experience. I'd even argue that contemporary society is characterised by the existence of many different truths and norms. Obviously some discourses are more dominant than others, but individuals ultimately have the power to make their own choices.

[Lanny]

I believe that by not searching for that subjective, internal truth particular to their own experience a majority of humans are missing out on the experience of life. This majority takes the truth given to them and believes it rather than perceiving the world around them and forming their own truth.

I disagree with all of your value judgments but I'm not sure it's worth getting into that. I'm more interested in challenging your idea of the majority view (in the developed western world at least). Contrary to your claims of some kind of hyper-ridged society of determinists and adherents of sciencism, our society is actually quite tolerant of batshit insane ideas and will happily descend into relativism in all but the extreme reaches of the skeptic or religious communities (which is itself kind of funny). Consider that a majority of americans are moral relativists: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/5-barna-update/67-americans-are-most-likely-to-base-truth-on-feelings

Consider also that we're still a predominantly religious nation (that is most people are religious, even if the state attempts to remain secular). We're quite happy to let the people who we live with live under delusions that we take to be objectively wrong. Most people wouldn't even make the breech of etiquette to call someone else wrong, instead we use euphemisms like "difference of opinion" or simply ignore the fact that we hold fundamentally contrary worldviews.

Think what you want about subjectivist views, but there's no denying that it's the prevailing opinion in the US today

[Dionysus]

I think that it is important to try as much as possible to remove words like "subjective" and "objective" from your vocabulary when trying to talk about truth's. It is also handy to note the difference between a "fact" a "theory" a "law" a "truth" ect ect. I think that while I can abstract certain metaphysical or philosophical truth's for myself, it is usually either so relative as to be useless to most other people, or so abstract to be useless to me. Truth, unlike facts and theory's, are only as useful as they relate to power. The Athiest can scoff at the Christian all he wants, but if the Christian can get voted to a position of massive power while the Athiest writes arcane thesis's, what difference does it make? Truth is one of the means by which people can create or destroy realities, and they should be graded by their power rather than their correctness.

[Lanny]

Truth, unlike facts and theory's, are only as useful as they relate to power.

There's something wrong here regardless, but what it is depends on your definition of power. If power refers exclusively to political power then no, truth is useful for much more than that. "Stovetops are sometimes hot" is a truth that poses no risk of getting me elected but which is nonetheless quite useful. If you mean power more generally then the claim that truth is unlike facts and theories is off base because both those (like all useful things) are only useful in giving us some kind of power. There is no useful theory which fails to give us some kind of predictive or explanatory power. A positivist would claim that there is no theory whatsoever which does not give us some sort of generalized power of knowing/prediction because to do otherwise would preclude it from the the class of meaningful propositions and thus from the class of theories.

[Dionysus]

Truth, unlike facts and theory's, are only as useful as they relate to power.

There's something wrong here regardless, but what it is depends on your definition of power. If power refers exclusively to political power then no, truth is useful for much more than that. "Stovetops are sometimes hot" is a truth that poses no risk of getting me elected but which is nonetheless quite useful. If you mean power more generally then the claim that truth is unlike facts and theories is off base because both those (like all useful things) are only useful in giving us some kind of power. There is no useful theory which fails to give us some kind of predictive or explanatory power. A positivist would claim that there is no theory whatsoever which does not give us some sort of generalized power of knowing/prediction because to do otherwise would preclude it from the the class of meaningful propositions and thus from the class of theories.

I define power as the level of definition x factor has on someones life. Like the fire thing. The truth that "fire burns" is a more pertinent truth in most peoples lives over something more abstract like "a supernova could blow up the planet". If you were living in the middle ages, then the "truth" of that time that heretics must be burnt has more power over peoples lives than any secular humanist idea. So the only criteria by which truth can be measured is by the subjective power it has over your or other peoples lives.

[Lanny]

But that's conflating "my society believes heretics must be burned and failure to participate in that burning leads to bad consequences for me" or "I believe heretics must be burned" with "heretics must be burned or <wrath of god>". I'm not saying participating in heretic burning is not an operant mandate in certain parts of the world at certain times but the difference is that if god demands we burn heretics then we can't explain why we don't do that anymore. There's no reason to pick a meaning of truth that limits it to "social realities" when we can just acknowledge that societies coerce us into certain patterns of belief or behavior. Thus truths about societies are a special class of a more general sort of truth.

[Rizzo in a box]

Truth is always the sum of all opinions and facts, not any particular one.