Does Truth Become Relative Without the Gods?

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Without all knowing beings, does truth then become simply an attribute placed on things/events, and not an inherent characteristic of them?
Example: I tell my friend I like his shirt, when, in fact, I do not. I tell no one else I dislike my friend’s shirt. I reason that what I said was not the truth, he reasons that it is. Is it?

For those of you who said no, keep in mind that we, in that example, are all knowing beings. What if I told you I liked your shirt? Would you then take that statement to be true?

What if I had died shortly after I told my friend I liked his shirt, and he told others how much I liked it? When all observers of an event take that event to be true, does it then become true? Keep in mind that with my passing there is no way it would ever be revealed I did not like his shirt. The only opinion ever after regarding that event is that I did.

I know it is not perfectly worded, and I’m sure my example/question has logical holes, but it is late, and I think you understand what I am trying to ask. I am not looking to argue heavily with everyone who posts here, although I will discuss and ask questions. The concept of relative truth has been a troubling one to me lately.

Discuss…

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It is not the truth. Your words do not correspond to the way things are.

However, this need not mean that truth is relative; it may mean that it is absolute, but not knowable with 100% certainty.

You could ask whether such truth is a noble, worthwhile or even relevant goal where the consequences are effectively zero. If you died and everyone believed you’d liked the shirt, what would that change? Truth is one thing, belief is another - it is belief that has consequences in the world. Beliefs that come close to truth tend to be a lot more useful in general, so we search for truth - that is, the closest we can come to it - to hang our beliefs upon.

Pragmatism takes this one step further and claims that the most useful belief is true. I’m not a fan of this approach, as it breaks the link with the way things are. There’s nothing wrong with the most useful belief being the most useful at all - claiming it is “true” is a move to give it some moral authority…

There is no practical difference between the claims “P”, “P is true”, ““P is true” is true” and so on - the assertion of “truth” is merely our assertion that we believe P is the case. We can be wrong, but P is our perception and our worldview takes it into account.

In short, truth is a description of a nominal, ideal state; a relation, no more, no less. In many cases we hold things to be true and are correct, in some cases we hold things to be true and we are wrong. But that we can be right or wrong about it shows it can’t be purely relative; that only applies to the conviction of truth.

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Actually no that not what pragmatism does… think of it this way: If there was no creator god who thinks like we do, in terms like us, then the world does not conform to any “thought”… rather it is our thoughts that have to conform to the world. How do we know our thoughts and ideas conforms to the world? We know If they are useful… and only to the extent that they are useful.

“Truth” is not an intrinsic property of any idea… unless the world is made by that idea or in the image of that idea.

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I admit to simplification; there’s James and Dewey and Rorty and so forth, all with their own perspectives. I’m also sympathetic to pragmatism.

James famously says "On pragmatic principles, if the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily in the widest sense of the word, then it is ‘true.’ " This is a pretty significant quote in Pragmatism, the book in which he defines and expounds his version of pragmatism. And he’s one of the flagbearers of the movement. A quick Google gives the following from Dewey: “The best definition of truth from the logical standpoint which is known to me is that by Peirce: The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the real”. I don’t know the context of the quote, but it doesn’t seem to be equivocal or sloppy.

The emphasis is on utility for James and consensus from Dewey. Taking the ‘nice shirt’ example above, there is a quality given to the initial statement (it does not match the state of things) and a quality to the consensus on the dead person’s opinion (it is the best we can know). Scientific knowledge is knowledge in the latter sense - as Bohr said, science isn’t the study of how nature is, just what we can say about it.

My preference goes to using ‘truth’ in the former sense, as even if we can never know 100% positively certainly for sure and for ever that our knowledge corresponds with the truth, it remains a reference; an anchorpoint by which to assess and compare our relative knowledge. In the pragmatic sense, new information changes truth, but more to the point - I’m not convinced that there is an opinion fated to be agreed on by everyone, or that anyone can make in any sense a case for a hypothesis working “satisfactorily” - therein lies a value judgement, and another masking layer between hypothesis and world. Truth is politicised, and with it we can no longer meaningfully talk about whether one theory is closer to things as they are, or even that they are closer to what we can say about things as they are. In any case, the two definitions can be seen in many cases to be contradictory or incomplete.

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it is a very intelligent observation, to introduce one of the most relevant points that i suffer to know how noone can understand nor accept existing

truth mean of course you being existing always true, but you as always true because truth is mean also that everyone and everything is also always true, and this point is crucial when we have powerful livings that can pretend and lie and enjoy what truth is from others and never them, this is real hell, it surely contribute to create such opposites of infinity negative and positive one abstractions of infinity sources
those gods seem to market the argument saying that the present is still one then but not the present of anyone true
and this is inadmissible when the principle of truth is first present being, how all become present from lies mixture with truth and one point true cannot be present to itself there

you touch a crucial point, what others lie to you force you necessarly to be untrue, true is absolutely you, when others say things about you you are forced then to take it as an existing fact about you objectively as your move
so of course truth must force gods first which it would never happen and i really hope that all die and no existance would ever be

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  1. If you say to me you like me, but you don’t really, then there are two truths: the truth of spoken words, and the truth which you kept in silence.

  2. If we were all-knowing beings, then there would still be two truths, one which you’d speak out, and the other which you wouldn’t.

The difference between second and first case is, that in second case we’d both know both truths, while in first case you’d know both, while I wouldn’t.

My position on relativity is this:
Since relativity is a fundamental principle of our Universe, then we, human beings, being part of this Universe and arising out of it, are relative beings, then everything perceived via relative mind is relative too.

Absolute, or say, universal, perception is impossible for us, since we are relative beings, thus, all is relative.

Though, we could also say, that from the viewpoint of one doing the perceiving, everything is absolute in own relation, but relative in relation to others.

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you cannot apply the notion of relativity to what is never relative, truth is not someone or something so it cant be relative

what is relative is you in being not true, it is relative to what is not true existing as your genes your surounding shapes moves some forces on your resistance to move and relative is mostly applicable on your illusions of positive adds to get

if you are really true as a point yourself meaning objective positive you as a move out add confirming it and confirming its path for more free adds positive, while the concept of objective being the sense of move proove that you mean positive first and that is you meaning positive first, so it cant be negative or neutral what mean positive objective first
so if you are really true as a point like that, if another is lying to you you as true would know what is untrue but also can know the reality of lies a bit roots, but can move on and ignore others lies, if everyone lie to you it become the issue of gods lies, one like you can have interests in getting from you something to lie since you are in his spectre of perspective to benefit from what is there alive, but if everyone lies and to you it means absurdity that it cant be accepted when you know that truth is always, even if the explanation is the powerful livings above enjoying killing any true move success
but when gods are really liars and you reach to see it directly, this is a huge issue that kill any chance of truth life, even a point cant be true if gods are liars, even if gods say willing to allow it to move, it cant move out since moving out is as being true absolutely, and if gods are liars then all lies would determin its moves shapes life, and itself as living true is nothing without its objective realisation as out of itself

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Really you are starting a debate on the definition of “truth”, which in my opinion can get seriously convoluted.

My knee jerk response to your thread is to ask you if there is any truth which is not relative. If some all knowing being which has been observing us suddenly dies (similar to your example), does that change what we know on earth?

Let’s say you are locked in an insane asylum in a padded room, let’s say you believe you are Napoleon. According to you and the truth in your reach, you are Napoleon. It is relativistically true that you are Napoleon and any sort of objective truth is irrelevant.

If we both agree that a ball is sitting on a tree stump, we would call that observation “true”.

Then let’s imagine a micro-organism too small to be heavily affected by gravity and thus perceives of no up or down. It might travel downward on the balls surface toward the stump and feel it is ascending. The world would be sitting on the ball. Then we can suppose some super organism or all knowing being which understands how we understand gravity and the ball on the stump, but then at the same time understands everything in an overall way which makes our observation a limited over complex and circumstantial one.

Truth is a means to an end. So long as the truth you employ functions for your purposes, why doubt it?

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If I have a gun that we all agree is loaded with blanks and decide to fool around with, is the truth of its being loaded with live ammunition irrelevant?

In spite of scepticism about attaining truth, it can’t be universal; it can just only be certainly known of our experiences. I know the truth of whether I am in pain. I simply can’t be sceptical about this, it makes no sense. I can conceal this truth from others, but cannot be misled or mistaken.

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I don’t call what you’re talking about “truth” I call it “reality”. “Truth” has to do with statements, propositions, beliefs, ideas… meaning that those things “match” reality in some way… the question is should they match “perfectly” or is it good enough that they match reality only for certain purposes?

For exmaple: is the statement “The earth’s is spherical” true or false? Is it good enough? do I need to describe every single montain and ditch to capture the actual shape of the earth? Would anything short of that perfect description be “false”?

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I agree truth != reality - as I said earlier, truth in the former sense is a quality of a statement, and how that statement relates to reality. The Pragmatist alternative is that truth is about how the statement relates to other statements about reality.

It’s clearly context-specific. Language always operates in context; it’s not cut-glass and precise like mathematical relation or logic. We have mental constructs, models, we raise certain information above other. So in talking of external reality, truth is an aim, not a practice.

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I’d want to say you’re misrepresenting pragmatism, here… but I suppose that’s a semantic issue.

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the difference between reality conceptualisation and truth is the movements, truth always imply the movement for a future that become because of the move for a present assertion of an existing fact reality abstraction that we call true

truth is always to abstractions realisations that are by definition then always in moves, since what is abstract cannot be a finite fact, while what is objective existing should be seen as definitive facts reality that ones should relate also abstractly to visualize the logical move inn as true ones

so it is an interesting argument you gave there about the gun, what makes it true reality is the guess of a move outcome, but here where i can see the different that i am in perceiving truth and that what made that example interesting to me

first, how abstract is superior to concrete then how concrete is superior to abstract

abstract is what is not real but it is moving then existing superior, for what it is related to the fact of free living that is superior to existing fact, and that is how it get the quality of existing superior as undirectly from living fact freedom that is superior to what exist but cant then be free and limited of its existance facts realities
now that notion of free moves introduce another concept value, what moves cant mean but betterment itself, because it cant mean itself since not existing real and it cant mean less since it is itself always moves, so here futur is introduced from truth as positive value absolutely in observing truth reality being moves means

now conscious that is an abstract existance since there without moving, while can conceptualize its whole reality objectively and subjectively as one itself that could move for betterment fact existance, but not for willing to exist since it exists already as abstract fact, but for better existing fact or better living fact from up i guess and better existing fact for us down, so that conscious could mean some realisations facts of those means and here where concrete can become superior of abstract if it is in truth, when the present move realized objectively a fact of futur always better

the concrete reality of abstraction value which is futur positive value, is the actualization of truth being living, and here is the sense of my happiness, imagine the value of a sense that understand truth being always for better without moving itself at all, the sense of peace certainty value to free betterment always, imagine then taht sense witnessing and experiencing that truth is living concretely too, it cannot accept then at all any wrong move out of that it is killing the picture of absolute living happiness actualisations but also the absolute truth value being alive

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We use what we think is truth to achieve or arrive at a goal more than using our logically ascertained propositions and suppositions to be the truth.

If I say I have no true certainty about the meaning or purpose of reality, it does not mean that I am lost. I would be lost only in relation to what would be assumed to be the certainty …. still, reality would be irrelevant. It is the questioning of a totally elusive ’reality’ that causes a disruptive state of affairs in our thinking.

If I say that I have truly discovered the answer to my question concerning truth, reality, and so on, it does not follow that I am not lost consensually . It only means that I have found my answer unilaterally, but my findings could very well be confusing and misleading in relation to your answer or the other chap’s.