The ''truth'' is a mental construct, nothing more

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

As I noted before, numbers such as 4 or 13, are
a mental construct… I put down a stick, then another stick
and then another stick and then, for fun, one more stick…
so, most people would say that we have 4 sticks, but in fact,
we don’t… there is no such thing as the number 4…or 13 or
one million… numbers stand for something else… they do not
exists on their own, because they are a mental construct,
one stick, one stick, one stick and one stick just are sticks,
the turning of one stick into 4 is a mental activity, not in reality…
and I have gone over this before… but let us expand this idea
into the idea of truth… my handy-dandy dictionary says this:

TRUTH: is conformity to reality, factual accuracy and the state of
being genuine… It spans empirical facts (proven occurrences)
logical truths (mathematical or foundational principle) and
subjective truths (persona experiences and perspectives)

so, what does this definition of the truth tell us in terms of
what I said in the very beginning, which is there are ‘‘truths’’
but those ‘‘truths’’ are really mental constructs, ideas or thoughts
that have no physical reality, but they exists within our own
mental construct… There are many ideas and ideas that
have no physical reality, but are taken as literally truths,
because they exists as mental constructs, not ‘‘true reality’’

So, we have numbers such as 13 that has no physical reality,
but we also have ideas like god, immortality, freedom, justice,
that don’t have a physical reality… they are really just mental
constructs… let us specifically take up the idea, the mental
construct of freedom… what exactly is freedom?
again, my handy-dandy dictionary says this about freedom:

FREEDOM: is the power or right to act, speak, or think without
external hinderance, restraint or control… it encompasses both the
physical ability to make choices without coercion and the possession
of fundamental civil and political rights, such as free speech,
religious expression and personal autonomy…

But this definition is clearly only half right, because it leaves out
the who and what is hindering or restraining our freedom…
but Kropotkin, it’s clear that what is hindering say free speech,
is the government… and what is the government? it is a mental
construct as to how we organize ourselves… the many different
diverse ways we can organize ourselves only lacks our imagination…
we have, literally dozens of ways we can organize ourselves politically…
let us take one such way, monarchy… and is the monarchy
a actual physical thing, or is it a mental construct? The answer
is quite clear that the monarchy is a mental construct that could
just as easily be removed or replaced… as America did
250 year ago…

Whereas the real problem lies with the fact that we have
mistaken our mental constructs as physical realities… we hold
that the Earth is 93 million miles from the Sun, but that isn’t
the reality… for the 93 million miles is a mental construct…
and as the Earth circles the sun, that number, that mental
construct of 93 million miles isn’t really 93 million miles as
the earth moves from 92 million miles to 94 million miles from
the sun… the number, the mental construct of 93 million miles
isn’t even the right number… it is a rough approximation… and how
are we going to turn a rough approximation into a physical
reality?

There is so much that we believe to be ‘‘truth’’ and that actually
isn’t the ‘‘truth’’… but they are really mental constructs we
pretend to be ‘‘true’’ but they are just approximations of the
‘‘truth’’…

a good example of this is this idea that the human body has
206 bones… and we take this as axiom… and yet, it
isn’t true… babies are born with about 275 to 300 bones
and as the child ages, those smaller bones fuse together
into 206 bones and yet, we can easily imagine adults
with more than or less than 206 bones…so, when asked
as to how many bones does the human body have, do we
say 206 or do we say 275, as both answers are the ‘‘truth’’…
which means we have to clarify our answers… and how
is something the ‘‘truth’’ when to get that ‘‘truth’’ we have
to clarify or interpret/or spell out the ‘‘truth’’… the ‘‘truth’’
shouldn’t need to be spelled out or clarified to make sense…
is a ‘‘truth’’ a truth if it needs to made clear as to how it
is the ''truth?"…

So, how exactly does science work? for science to work,
successfully, it must engage with universals… for example,
science cannot work if, if it only examines one dog…
that one dog may have a singular process that is different
than other dogs thus is not representative of all dogs… for
science to work, it must examine all examples of dog for
us to truly understand dog… but as we have noted,
there doesn’t seem to be a universal that is not
a mental construct… the universal idea of a dog,
is a mental construct… not a physical reality…
it has been said that we can only separate species
into separate species by whether or not they can
successfully mate… the very idea of species is tied into
their ability to mate… can wolves and dogs mate? Nope,
thus, they are separate species… So, are we to determine
species in terms of their ability to mate, or is there another
method to decide what the ‘‘true’’ nature of a species is?

in other words, the nature of species is a mental construct,
not a physical reality… and why? because we could have
found another means or method of establishing different
species from each other beside the ability to mate…
and the idea of the universal is a mental construct…
I have a cat, Bandit, and I see another cat in the window
in the condo next to ours… one cat plus one cat makes
two cats, right? as we noted with our example of
one stick and one stick does not make two sticks,
it is a mental construct to connect up one stick and one
stick to come up with two sticks… and so the idea
of a universal cat is also a mental construct, as there
is just one cat and even the term of cat, that is a mental
construct… even names themselves are just a mental construct…
and that very word ‘‘cat’’ only exists because we have all agreed to that
term… it is a mental construct… and as we cannot examine all cats,
too see if they are in fact, cats as we have defined them, we can’t
actually, know any universal including the term cat…
Much of our understanding of the world is really just nothing
more than the assumption that we are using terms such as cat,
the exact same way… are we? Who knows, certainly not me
and certainly not you… and the physical animal we call cats,
is a pretty standard assumption, but not an assumption we
can call reality or the ‘‘truth’’ because it deals with universals
and we can’t know universals because they don’t exist…
all we have or can use is specifics such a one stick…
there is no reality or truth beyond that…

but as usual, I ask, now what? What does this idea that
there are no universals mean to us? and that there doesn’t
seem to be anything that we can justify calling the ‘‘truth’’
or reality… because that idea of the ‘‘truth’’ or reality is
based upon assumptions that we cannot overcome…
which is to say, there is no universal idea of the ‘‘truth’’
or reality… so, when someone says, that is reality or the ‘‘truth’’
as there is no way to get to a universal truth or reality,
all truths and all realities are individual, subject only to
our mental construction of said reality or truth…

So, Kropotkin, is there a reality or truth that is not subject
to being judged by our own mental constructs?

You tell me…

Kropotkin

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Tiny note: dogs and wolves can procreate with fertile offspring.

Larger note: how does what you wrote here change, if it does, all your pronouncements about conservatives, maga people, etc?

Do you see your judgments of them as mere mental constructs? Did you before?

If you are right in what you say here, does that change what it means when you celebrate someone’s death because they are in group, and thus in a mere mental construct? Is ‘mere’ the right word here?

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Dogs and wolves are the same species :roll_eyes:

4

This is solipsism again.
Just because humanity’s relationship with reality will always be subjective, does not mean, does not conclude an does not suggest that there is or cant be an objective reality or noumenon.

You put down 4 sticks → humanity goes extinct → there will be nobody to see the sticks, count the sticks, name the sticks, acknowledge the sticks → and yet the 4 sticks will be still there because reality doesnt give a shit about your subjective perception. You are not god for which reality comes to be.

Its true that everything we do and create is a mental construct, but you conveniently forget that the construct has a basis. That when you say stick, then for some reason everyone understands what a stick is, because everyone interacted with the same real thing.

That basis is noumenon. Truth independent of subjective human interpretation.
There are three truths. yours, mine and the truth.

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And one problem then with this kind of solipsism is that he can no longer be talking about us. We/Humans is a universal. In his essay he denies that universals exist and he says all thoughts are mere mental contructs. If he believes this, how can he talk about other people. He has just eliminated the possibility of him generalizing about other humans. Perhaps only he is using mental constructs. He can’t tell us there are no universals then jump from that and universalize. He’s not listening to himself.

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You are correct that our subjective interpretation of reality cannot exclude objective reality. However, the question is, in this objective reality, is there one truth or multiple truths, with or without humans? To be more direct, my question is: is truth a relative concept?

Let’s talk about the stick. Let’s say that this is a wooden stick.

In the way that humans observe it, it is an unchangable object, with certain size and without any motion. If we shrink the observation window, the stick is seen as a bunch of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc atoms, floating around. Shrink even further and you can “see” spinning electrons and other subatomic particles. These most probably move in and out of a large area, even further than what we identified as stick.

So, what exactly is a stick? An unchangable object, or an illusion, created by moving particles/energy exchanges etc? To me, an objective reality construct should consider both as truths. In my example, the level of observation dictates what the stick actually is.

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In theory, truth needs to be absolute. It either is or it isnt.
If its not absolute, then its simply not objective and thus also cannot be “the” truth.

What would the color red refer to if it had multiple “truths” as an answer?
Red is red because its red. If red included green, yellow and blue, then the concept would have no meaning or point.

Frames of reference exist, but in a certain way the concept of the stick remains technically constant throughout it.
You zoom in, you see a bunch of atoms instead of a stick, but those atoms are interconnected in a way that they form a stick when viewed from far enough.

Its a question of boundaries and forms.
The stick can have a plethora of different properties. It can be made of different woods, it can be different age, dry, wet, shape, color, texture, taste, etc. But regardless of what you call it, it references a real world object that exists regardless of your subjective view of it.

And this is the part where you subtly slide back to the world of mental constructs.
What is a stick? What you call a stick. Any object you define as a stick.
The title, the tag, the name is meaningless.
You could call it anything.

The point is that you as well as anyone else can point at it, because its there regardless of what you call it.

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Why is that? I am talking about relativity here, not objectivity/subjectivity. If time and space can be relative, why not also the truth? What makes us think that there are absolutes in nature and how can we demonstrate that?

If you are at the size of a subatomic particle, you do not see the interconnections and certainly you do not see boundaries or forms. Forms and boundaries exist at higher levels, so what exactly do you “see”?

Zooming in or out is something we do with microscopes, not through “real” experience. Humans or electrons do not zoom in or out, they “see” reality from their own perspective.

In our reality, when we are sitting on a chair we stay still, from planetarial perspective, we move with the earth. So, our movement is relative. Both statements are relatively true, due to different perspectives.

An object at the size of an electron cannot point to the stick. It is impossible to even conceptualize what a stick is. It is like I point arbitrarily and say: this is Milky Way Galaxy.

9

This is an equivocation.

In physics, when we say something is relative, we just mean its physical measurement—like time or speed—changes depending on where you are and how fast you are moving. But it is still 100% objective and ruled by strict math. Your opinion doesn’t change a thing; a clock physically ticks slower at high speeds whether you believe in Einstein or not. Once you have taken into account postion and speed, etc. the math is exact.

In philosophy, calling something relative means its truth or morality is just a matter of perspective, culture, or personal feelings. This version is completely subjective. It treats truth like a social construct where what is “true” for you might not be true for me, rather than a hard, measurable fact of the universe.

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Because if truth is relative then its also subjective. Ask yourself: What is it relative to?
And what happens when that relativity is removed?

Doesnt matter. Your perception is subjective and limitations on it are unrelated to noumenon.
The farthest known exoplanet is sweeps-11, located approximately 27,700 light-years away. Do you want to claim that there are no planets past it because we cant see them?

Refer to the above.

11

Position and speed at the subatomic level are not exact. Einstein physics do not work at the quantum level, they work on larger sizes.

Since we are talking about objective truth, I have excluded humans (which are insignificant part of the universe) and I speak about physical entities independent of them. Morality, culture, personal feelings and social construct are not what I am referring to.

I focus on actual physics and on objects that do not possess such characterisitics. A planet or a photon do not have these properties. And yet, I can still observe relative truths, like in my examples.

According to quantum physics superposition principle, subatomic particles possess multiple values of a property at the same time. For example, their position is not hard neither measurable fact.

At the fundamental level (subatomic level) we use probabilities, not absolute values.

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Exoplanet refers to a macrocosmos quantity. At nanosize, planets are illusions. In our human dimensions, we can observe it through a telescope, which allows us to identify the object that you call “exoplanet”. Yet, at every moment, a large amount of subatomic particles enter and exit the exoplanet (whose boundaries cannot be identified at the nanolevel).

And even at the macrolevel, there is not exact boundary of a planet, only an estimated one. What is the external boundary of the earth? What is the exact position where you can say that this is outside earth? It is only a rough estimate, based on photos.

At the most fundamental level in physics, only energy and mass exists. All the rest are constructions from the fundamentals. Thus, if you want to refer to “absolute truth”, you should focus on that level, not at macrocosmos.

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And yet, you are still appealing to your own lack of knowledge and perception.
And yet, given that reality is independent of your perception: None of this means anything.

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No, I am referring to a non-deterministic universe. A deterministic universe has absolutes. A non-deterministic universe cannot have absolutes, otherwise everything could be theoretically measurable and predictable.

We return back to the Einstein-Bohr question: is our inability to precisely identify physical quantities at the fundamental level just lack of knowledge, or a fundamental property of the universe?

Reality can be independent of our perception and still remain relative at the fundamental level. A particle can objectively have unknown and unpredictable physical property, independently of human perception. The fundamental particle itself can be a relative object.

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This is a red herring. You were talking about Einstein’s Relativity (which is classical physics). You asked: "If time and space can be relative, why not also the truth? So now you have jumped to quantum issues. ´Fine, we can look at those, but the issue of ‘if space and time are relative, why not also the truth’ is an equivocation on the word relative. IOW I point to a specific part of your argument, not your whole argument and pointed out a problem. That problem is not solved by jumping to QM. That may be a better place to argue your position, but the point about space and time being relative does not support you case, because it doesn’t mean what your argument there implied.

Again, this doesn’t support the use of Einstein’s relativity the way you did. I didn’t respond to the other parts of your argument.

And what is subjective or indetermined about planets? Photos are in qm levels, but not planets. Are you saying we can’t be objective about the location or speed of a planet?

Now, I will start to respond to the qm issues, but the following is tentative, because I am not sure exactly what you are trying to say: Here’s you are conflated the uncertainty aabout which of various possible values with the relativity of truth. Are you saying that qm doesn’t make objective certain claims about those probabilities? qm predictions have been replicated more than just about anything. Probablicitic is not the same as relative or subjective. It’s probablistic. The models work unbelievably well. The context in the thread is PK’s these are just mental contructs and we can’t generalize. There’s nothing non-objective about the probabilities. I see above you said it has nothing to do with objective or subjective. What are you trying to say here? What does the behavior in qm demonstrate about truth?

What is relative in qm and what does ‘relative’ mean in that context? and how does this show all our conclusions are relative? In qm, in general, the word ‘relative’ means 'has to do with the relation between two ‘things’.

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We are mixing things here. When I was referring to relative in space and time and the relative in the truth I was not mentioning the quantum mechanics. The qm came at different point on the discussion.

Relativity of truth analogous to relativity in space or time is on my example with the stick: it is unchangeable at macrocosmos, and it is changeable and not well defined in microcosmos. Both statements are true, depending of your point of reference (macro size or micro size).

The indetermined about planets is where they start and where they finish. Can you give a hard definition of the actual boundary, or only an estimate in km? More generally, how do you define the start and end of a macroscopic object? Also, a planet changes every second, since objects/particles enter and exit from it.

You measure your height. You can have a rough estimate in mm, but not in nm. Something looking absolute at one scale does not mean it is absolute globally.

In qm there is something non-absolute, the initial and boundary conditions used to solve the differential equations. The Schrodinger equation cannot be solved without an initial condition and the initial condition is non-deterministic: you need measurement/experiment to identify the arbitrary initial condition, you cannot presuppose it, as we usually do in Newtonian mechanics problems. The models in qm work only after the non-deterministic measurement.

Determinist physicists hide this detail under the carpet. In many scientific online videos I hear them saying “Schrodinger equation is deterministic” blah blah blah “given the initial condition”. This last sentence hides the actual non-deterministic feature of qm.

Granted, I was perhaps not clear at that point. Relative in the qm context means non-absolute. A probabilistically defined quantity based on non-deterministic initial condition does not have an absolute outcome (physically impossible to be defined apriori). If you disagree with the term relative, use non-absolute.

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The problem is that this is the exact moment where the argument becomes completely circular.
Where we rely on our own subjective observations to make objective claims about the universe, but in the process we cannot account for what we do not know or realize.
We do not know if its possible to measure or predict quantum randomness. We only know that we are not capable of doing it, at least right now.

To know whether or not the universe is deterministic, you’d first need to know the universe in it’s entirety, but since that amount of data is factually unattainable by humanity, you can only fall back on subjective conclusions and observations such as what is the current “most likely” scenario and theory within the scientific community.

So according to our current level of knowledge, its possible that the universe is not deterministic.
Okay. Aaaaaaaand what? The argument was lost the moment we said “our current level of knowledge”.

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Yes, and the same holds for the argument “the truth needs to be absolute in theory”. Only in deterministic universe this can be correct. Both arguments are circular, because we start from different perspective about the objective nature of the universe.

My point is simple: Due to our human nature and our subjective perspective, we cannot know if the objective truth exists. But I grand you for the sake of the discussion that it exists. Still, we cannot claim if it is absolute or not. I support the second option but of course I do not have hard proof.

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The chances of a non-deterministic universe are magnitudes lower than a deterministic one.
Causality and consequence are a thing. Universal laws exist which do not turn on and off at random. So even if there are inconsistencies at the micro level, they do not manifest in the macro world in any feasible form.
To suggest otherwise it one massive poison pill because rather than determinism and pre-destination where we are robbed of our agency, we would be now settling for an even lower claim where no laws exist, no consequences, no will, no nothing exists because everything is just farted into the wind at random, sometimes even in the reverse.

But with all of that being said: Sure. The lack of knowledge argument is a two way street.
The same way you cant make objective claims about the universe, so cant i or anyone else.

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Of course causality is a thing. I have repeatedly argued on this forum about that. I have Epicurean perspective, i.e. causality and randomness co-exist. The non-absolute phenomena is one feature of microcosmos, the other is the interactions between particles, which impose causality and favor determinism. An electron will be attracted by a proton no matter what, it is not random choice the electromagnetic interaction.

The randomness of microcosmos is reduced as we move at higher levels, because of the causal interactions. The universe at macroscale appears deterministic, since the non-deterministic features are suppressed.

Earth orbits around the sun at “specific” velocity and position. The specific in quotes because they are measured at macrocosmos units.

According to astrophysicists, our sun has around 4 billion years life left. If this prediction is inaccurate by a few million years due to non-absolute/non-deterministic phenomena, for all practical purposes it remains “deterministic” for the sun. Yet, for human lives, these few million years are like an eternity.

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