The search for the truth

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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so, how does one go about ‘‘seeking’’ the truth?

There are several bits involved here… One can be,
why are we seeking the truth? What are we going to do with said
truth? the truth will set you free… free from what or for what?
Indeed, why even seek the truth? what has the truth ever done
for us? or as the saying from a very long ago apply,

‘‘I have abandoned my search for the truth and am now looking
for a good fantasy’’

to what end are we searching for, seeking the truth? Why the truth
instead of a ‘‘good fantasy?’’ and what are we going to do once
we find the ''truth?"

These are some of the questions we should be asking ourselves,
not about some sort of Jewish conspiracy crap or illegal aliens,
but what is the truth?

Now within that sphere, we can sort out there are really two sorts
of truths, one is a personal truth, and one is a universal, one size fits
all truth… but what truth is a universal, one size fits all truth?
What truth is a universal truth? That all men die? we in fact, can’t
tell if that is indeed a universal/one size fits all truths, because
we cannot know if this is in fact true? Do all men die? We can certainly
suspect this is true, but we can’t know for a fact if this is true…
and how does one confirm this statement without knowing the
fate of every single human being? We cannot… it does appear
that for every single rule we create, for example, that all men die, there can
be exceptions to every single rule…
And within these exceptions, we find out that rules are basically
wishful thinking… that we hope they are true, but we can’t be sure
they are true… in other words, we act as if we hold ‘‘true’’ information,
but we can’t in fact know for sure…for example, people act as if god
exists, but we can’t know for sure if this is true? I hold, and have held
for years, that our understanding of there being a god, exists
because we are indoctrinated with that belief, not that that belief exists,
but we are indoctrinated with that belief…whether it is true or not,
is an entirely different situation…
But Kropotkin, what does it matter that we hold to truths, that
are suspect, at best, why worry about that? One of the things that
people always say about Atheist is this, if there is no god,
then everything is permitted… that we no longer have any
rules about ethics or morality… but that is clearly not true…
indeed, I hold that ‘‘WOKE’’ is a set series of rules of how
we react and interact with people… to be ‘‘WOKE’’ is to be
respectful of others, to treat them with dignity, and in practicing
‘‘WOKE’’ we are in fact practicing ethics/morality… and we
are being far more consistent that what Christians are
practicing…that we treat others, regardless of where they
are from or what their legal status is, we still treat them with
dignity and respect… something that Christians could learn…
instead of terrorizing illegal aliens with ICE/SS… so, how is
terrorizing illegals with ICE/SS, how is that being Christian?
and in returning to our original point, how does terrorizing
illegal aliens with ICE/SS, how is that bringing us closer to the
truth?

one might argue, that ICE/SS, is making America safer again,
but how is that true if ICE/SS is murdering Americans, 9 Americans in
Minnesota in January were murder by ICE/SS… and countless
laws were also broken by ICE/SS during that time… and how does
this constant breaking of the laws, local, state, federal and the
U.S Constitution, by ICE/SS, how does that make us safer?
One of the points to be noted, is that ICE/SS isn’t being held
accountable for their actions… being put on desk leave,
that isn’t how one is held accountable for their actions…
the basic argument made by conservatives seems to be,
we allow ICE/SS to break the laws to prevent illegal aliens
from breaking the law… so, two wrongs make a right?
and unlike the ICE/SS, we do actually hold illegals accountable
for their actions…as we should hold everyone accountable for their
actions… including certain presidents who have multiple
felonies to their name… and should be in prison for breaking the
law…

So, this question of the pursuit of the truth, it can lead us into
a lot of different areas…So, what is your truth and why that
truth instead of another? and just as importantly, is your truth,
actually your truth or is it just another indoctrination from your youth?
as most truths we hold are in fact simply indoctrinations from
our childhood… and that become our next search for the truth…

Kropotkin

1 Like
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I like this framing, because it forces us to ask what “truth” is *for* rather than treating it as a trophy.

One way to “seek truth” without drifting into either cynicism (“all is fantasy”) or dogma (“I already have it”) is to treat it as a *practice* with a few steps:

  1. Specify the domain.

A truth-claim in math, physics, history, ethics, or “meaning” doesn’t use the same methods.

  1. Specify the standard of success.

Do you mean: correspondence with reality, coherence, predictive power, explanatory depth, or “what lets us live better”? Different standards yield different “truths”.

  1. Stress-test your beliefs.

Actively look for the best counter-argument, not the weakest. If a belief survives your strongest objections, it’s earned more of your confidence.

  1. Separate *certainty* from *commitment*.

You can commit to a moral stance without pretending it’s a law of physics.

On your point about “universal truths”: you’re right that we often have *induction* rather than certainty. But that doesn’t make the claims “wishful thinking” by default; it just means they’re *fallible*. A good rule-of-thumb is: hold beliefs in proportion to the evidence, and keep them revisable.

And on “good fantasy”: fantasy can be healthy when it’s consciously chosen (art, play, meaning-making). It becomes dangerous when it masquerades as fact and starts licensing harm.

If you had to pick one concrete question where you most want “truth” (religion, politics, morality, selfhood, etc.), what would it be? The method depends heavily on the target.

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you say this then immediately start talking about woke and immigration.

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Anyway the point of truth is how to improve our lives. not knowing what happens in the afterlife does not improve our lives. its like saying that being a blind man walking around blind unable to see reality improves our lives.

We know that reincarnation exists, with 99% certainty, but how does this improve our lives? It says nothing of what we will reincarnate into, we could reincarnate into a dystopian alien planet for all we know or reincarnate into the dark ages.

For all we know if we die in the ocean then we reincarnate as a fish or something.

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Back to political since you wanted to make this about politics.

You hate ICE even though Leftists are a net negative compared to ICE. I get it: ICE plays fast and loose with the law and has made 2,000 or something unlawful arrests. Okay, but leftists open borders policy caused 250,000 deaths from fent overdoses. 4,000 additional immigrant deaths from immigrants trying to journey into America. How does that even compare to ICE.

My main issue with Trump is he supports Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. And he was even planning on making a resort on the remains of Gaza. Let’s so how that goes. Probably will be a repeat of WTC. Closed borders is the good thing about Trump.

In what way are Democrats a net positive. They want open borders. They want to pay low wages to immigrants. They want to deprive immigrants of worker rights, because they can deport them if they don’t do what they are told. Biden has a 1 trillion build-back-better, where does the money go? Into more DNC campaign funding, into paying for more illegals to come here. The money goes into making America worse.

In what way would Democrats make America better. The party that would make America better is Elon Musk and he would build high speed trains.

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Second in terms of WOKE. It is more than just being “polite”. Japanese are polite and not WOKE. WOKE is more than polite and demands you believe in open borders and unlimited genetic mixing. WOKE demands you believe in 72 genders when there are only 4 genders. Also, most wokes are not polite, but extremely toxic and ill-mannered and act demonic.