Refute this idea of truth please

Just to be pedantic, scientific laws break down at “ground zero” of the Big Bang. It’s more like they were converged to just after it - so we already have an example of truth, at least in the form of scientific laws, not pre-existing in the universe right there.

More generally speaking, just as dissecting the brain and finding no consciousness, finding no algorithms deep inside a circuit board, or manipulating a flower and finding no intrinsic colour, discovering no coldness at the essence of a snowflake, or drilling to the centre of the earth and finding no centre of gravity, we attribute truth to reality. We don’t find truth in it. We discover ways in which to model the world that describe and predict it to a certain degree of accuracy. Calling 4 “4” and 8 “8” is just seeing a shape, making a noise, and saying it and some arrangement of reality are the same. It’s then no shock that, given our association, we find our association is correct when 4 + 4 = 8. Circular.

Is human vision a perfect representation of what reality “looks like”? The culmination of all our senses seems to enable us to survive for some quantum of time, at least in the way humans happen to understand time. What if there was so much more to reality than we could apparently perceive of it? More than extra dimensions, but entirely revolutionary versions of perception that we could never even possibly conceive? What if we see only the very tip of the iceberg? If we have any access to “truth preexistent in reality” we are complacent beyond belief to think it’s anything more than an iota - if at all. In fact, a theory I have landed upon, and take really very seriously is that it’s lies and falsity that give meaning to anything - not truth. Truth says nothing, it’s tautology. But when we say “that is a tree” and point to a tree, the word tree isn’t what we’re pointing at, we’re not touching anything, you have to understand the gesture of pointing as following a line from the finger to the first general arrangment of presumed common sensation and pattern recognition as the intended subject of conversation… there are so many factors to distort the fact that “it seems like something exists” into something that means anything to anyone. The understanding of truth at all requires this, paradoxically, and it needs a mind for all the sense data to be passed into to even exist as a concept, nevermind relate to anything at all in the first place.

Another way of interpreting the data at ground zero is showing truth at work as the primary underlying force initiating the sort of composition from hot, dense unformed information into (in the case of empirical reality) the formation of matter and its governing laws. Rather than a chaotic, uncontrolled expansion, it seems reasonable to suppose that the information enclosed in the singularity would, in a reality in which truth is the underlying dynamic and primary organizing principle, proceed to an orderly convergence of patterning in a way that suggests design, as opposed to spiraling off into chaos.

Again, that’s just one interpretation of facts. Seems reasonable enough except the explanations lack an organizational standard. We can say the non-contact forces order matter, but what orders the non-contact forces and what does matter so-called have that it follows the direction of the forces acting on it in the same, specific patterns of operation ad infinitum?

A reason consciousness is not in the brain could be because the brain isn’t consciousness, isn’t the person. Lack of algorithms in circuitry itself ignores that those algorithms still play a fundamental role in directing the operation of various currents through the circuits in predesigned ways, and so on. How would you prove that the discovery of facts to model the world and make true predictions of it are not due to the compelling direction of a non-empirical force operating as a power to create the property of correspondence which directs and completes the discovery function? The rest of your inquiry into the mind’s computational operations with reality can be demonstrated by the same active principle truth imposes on the proper and sufficient operation of each example. If truth is the dynamic quality governing the proper operation of existents, it seems that saying in effect ‘this is just the way things operate’ would be circular.

At the end of the day I acknowledge the view of truth I hold is speculative. This has to be so of any non-empirical reality. But speculation prevails on all fronts. Do you have any basis other than the usual lack of empirical evidence to demonstrate that the view of truth I’m defending is false? Lack of empirical confirmation is evidence that I think grows weaker as logical evidence for a non-empirical proposition becomes stronger.

This is an interesting take on things. Agree readily with your implication that there’s possibly way more than meets the eye in the grand scheme of things, but will have to think though your idea that “it’s lies and falsity that give meaning to anything”. I agree too that truth in the way I understand and present it here says nothing. More accurately, it “does” something: it sets the stage for the conscious information of minds to do the thinking and saying in proper order and function with the informational content they work with.

I agree with Silhouette’s response to your points.

Re ‘I have argued elsewhere’ refer a complex web of arguments which is too tedious to repeat here. I believe we may have gone through this long long ago in this forum??

Note according to Popper, scientific theories are at best polished conjectures intersubjectively agreed by a group of scientists. Therefore there were no scientific laws before humans appeared on Earth.

4 + 4 = 8 is a priori, i.e. not a posteriori.
In this case, it is true before you or most people were born, but there no such truth without any humans [past and evolved] involved.

I agree with what you stated about reality so far, but that is limited to the common sense, conventional or scientific perspective which are limited.
To do philosophy-proper one has to go beyond the above perspectives to higher philosophical perspectives.

Note I regularly quoted Russell’s;

Russell went on to conclude what Philosophy is about, i.e. it has no certainty and final answers but rather a never ending drive of endless questioning;

Why you want certainty and final answers is due to some subliminal psychological drives which are naturally are triggered by some defense mechanism to reify something out of nothing. Thus I suggest ‘Know Thyself’ [Socrates] i.e. research and explore what is going on in your brain.

Okay, couple questions.

  1. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there exists in some galaxy in the universe an as yet undiscovered solar system consisting of a sun, four planets and two moons. According to the above, is the position you take that there is no such system with that number of bodies until it’s discovered by at least one perceiving mind?
  2. Some claim they believe it to be true that those laws developed at the beginning of the formation of the universe. If there were no scientific laws before humans appeared on earth, how did the universe form? What could have been the mechanism if scientific laws didn’t exist? I read some time ago that we haven’t yet discovered a lot of the universe because light hasn’t had time to reach us yet since its beginning. This seems to presuppose the preexistent truth of scientific laws doesn’t it?

Are you an idealist?

Note the points;

If you note the question you raised in 1 above, all bolded items are related to empirically-related variables which has proven to exist as far as observed and verified.
Thus it is possible for such an empirically-possible world to exist say 100 light years away from Earth.
To confirm whether such a place exists, it is the question of bringing in the empirical evidence.

If you insist God is that bearded man in the sky, I can agree that is a possibility, but to confirm, bring the empirical evidence [bolded are empirical] for verification.

However the ultimate God that is claimed by the Abrahamic is non-empirical nor rational, thus impossible to be verified as real.
See my argument; viewtopic.php?f=5&t=193474

Nah, not an absolute idealist.

If in this perspective, I am an Empirical Realist, i.e. there exists an external and independent reality [empirical rational] from my own self, but all these are subjected to the human conditions. In this case I am also a transcendental idealist.

You are more of an idealist if you think you are not one.
From what you have posted you are an empirical idealist and at the same time a transcendental realist.
From this perspective you THINK there is an external reality independent of your self [transcendental realist] but what is really real to you is only in your mind [i.e. empirical idealist].
Example you perceive and think [based on mind] there is a real table you can see but ultimately that is only in your mind via perception and as Russell stated, perhaps there is no real table at all.

But you’ve sidestepped my questions completely. Again:

  1. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that there exists in some galaxy in the universe an as yet undiscovered solar system consisting of a sun, four planets and two moons. According to the above, is the position you take that there is no such system with that number of bodies until it’s discovered by at least one perceiving mind?
  2. Some claim they believe it to be true that those laws developed at the beginning of the formation of the universe. If there were no scientific laws before humans appeared on earth, how did the universe form? What could have been the mechanism if scientific laws didn’t exist? I read some time ago that we haven’t yet discovered a lot of the universe because light hasn’t had time to reach us yet since its beginning. This seems to presuppose the preexistent truth of scientific laws doesn’t it?

Would you please limit your next post to answering these specific questions for the sake of forward-moving discussion?

I have no interest in discussing God’s existence. Not the topic of this thread.

I read your argument some time ago. The argument isn’t compelling on essentially the same grounds James S. Saint (first responder to that thread) noted.

Correction from a few posts back. I wrote this:

I meant this:
There is no possible world in which it is not always absolutely better to attain to higher truth states because the ultimate truth state is absolute perfection.

My bad.

I don’t really know what to make of this. Either you are using the idea of truth being reality as in

But then it is not in reality, it is reality.

or you are using truth more in the sense it is used in philosophy

which would be something like an idea or assertion or conclusion or belief about reality that is correct, that matches reality. In this case truth and reality are not in the same type of category. The truths are about reality. They point toward it and describe it. So they are not in reality ‘out there’ but in minds and in communication between minds. Of course minds are in reality, so truths would be in reality. But only that part. The mind part. The communication part.

I believe I have answered the above.

Note conventionally and scientifically, I am not saying “there is no such system until it is discovered by one perceiving mind”.
My take would be, it is possible [empirically] for such a system to exists.
The solar system is possible [empirically] to exists because the claim is made upon empirically possible objects and these can be empirically verified upon available evidence.

There is another higher philosophical perspective re ‘Is there a sound if a tree falls in a forest and there are no humans around’. That is a different issue from the above.

The universe was formed and is still forming based on the human-justified Theory of the Big Bang which is merely a speculative and is an untestable theory.

You cannot presume there are certain existing scientific laws before they are discovered by human scientists.
What is scientific is conditioned upon the existence of human producing those scientific laws.
Therefore if no humans, there are no scientific laws. Note Kant has argued strongly for this point.

There is no way humans will ever know the very beginning or the first cause. What we end up with is an infinite regression.

At Wittgenstein stated;
‘Whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent’

Therefore one must resolve to shut-up on this matter since there is nothing to speak of.

However theists and others cannot resist being silent, but due to subliminal psychological impulses jumped to conclusion there is something, a first cause, i.e. God without any logical and sound justifications for it.

The consequences of this psychological impulse is so desperate within SOME theists that they will not hesitate to kill to defend and maintain their secured psychological status. In addition there a whole range of evil and violent acts associated with theism by SOME theists.

Yes, I hypothesize that truth is real. Everything that exists is a truthbearer: matter, minds, universals, properties, etc. I understand the discord this idea raises in philosophy proper. It proposes that a non-empirical quality is essentially the “glue” that binds all of reality, empirical and non-empirical, together. I noted in the op the status quo idea that the “serious metaphysician” limits his inquiry to the natural sphere. I’m self taught and unqualified to be a serious metaphysician; hence my hypothesis.

[/quote]
Understood that philosophical orthodoxy keep empirical and non-empirical at arm’s length in separate categories. This seems based on the idea that matter is the primary reality—many call the material the “actual” world as you noted also. I take the position that abstract information is the primary reality because it occurred to me years ago that thing and attribute had to have some recognizable connection and only thing I could come up with is that both offer information to perception. So, I start there. From this perspective, “actual” reality and abstract entities are just different modes of information. Factual is “louder” and commands more of our attention, but is essentially the static stage dynamic consciousness plays out on.

The rule that the things and properties have to be kept categorically distinct seems too restrictive to me in light of all that’s not known and several things that are. Minds still interact with bodies. The idea that the mind is the brain seems to have suffered significant setbacks the last few decades. And evolutionary explanations for the moral sense lack compelling explanation.

On the other hand, a value-endued reality has a lot of interesting (to me anyway) connections. The notion of truth as just a feature of propositions or beliefs rises to a much larger role as a value mechanism for all existence. From the starting point “How would Avicenna’s idea that truth is a component of reality (essence) work? How would that play out?”, the conclusion I came to is that there are a number of interesting logical scenarios just on the secular side of things, probably the most significant of which is that value can be mapped to cognition as the prime mover of human behaviour. There are even more possibilities on the theological side. I can only imagine where the mechanism of value could go in the mind of an actual philosopher, but suspect no one dare buck the status quo.

So once empirically discovered, was it true that such a system preexisted its discovery?

Actually, it appears to me the BB has been mathematically tested and moved from “speculative” to “probable”. I find it revealing that you’re retreating from the assuredness of your faith in science to “speculative” and “untestable”. You’re quite a dancer.

I don’t presume this. We’re informed of it by science. It is suggested by empirically tested means that these laws were necessarily in place from essentially the beginning of the BB to form the universe that we see now. This seems to be the doctrine currently employed.

I leave this last quote as a testament and standard to those who still maintain that materialism isn’t a religion. Thanks for your participation, Prism.

I think we need a very clear definition of truth. Since you quote that definition of truth - one amongst a few - I need to repeat that truth is not in reality, but is reality, by that definition.

I don’t know what this means. Some of this is empirical, some is not.

Some of it is non-empirical, some is.

I don’t know what a serious metaphysician is, but since what you describe is just one kind of metaphysics, I don’t see philosophy ruling out what you are saying, whatever it is.

If there was a philoosphical orthodoxy, then there would be a consensus. I don’t see this.

Some think attributes are empircal. Soem think things are. So you are not distinguishing your ideas from what philosophers might put forward as true.

So, I start there. From this perspective, “actual” reality and abstract entities are just different modes of information. Factual is “louder” and commands more of our attention, but is essentially the static stage dynamic consciousness plays out on.

I think, but I am not sure, that you are conflating truths with things like universals or laws.

Like with the latter that there are rules for the behavior of stuff we experience and we don’t experience those rules, we deduce them. But the truths would be the assertions of those laws, for example, not the patterns/rules out there in reality. I am not making a metaphysical assertion here and so disagreeing with you. I am making a language based criticism. I htink, but I am not sure, you are using the words poorly.

I don’t know his work, but I just read a summary and he seems to view truth as a propositional something. Like a stone is not a truth. Though it is real.

I think it’s probably not useful to posit yourself as raining rebellious notions that will feel threatening to the status quo. 1) I don’t think you are correct about the orthodoxy or that there is one in the way you mean and 2) there sure as hell isn’t one here. A read of anyone from Ecmandu, to Unwrong, to myself - when I venture into my own beliefs in metaphysics which I rarely do but have done - to Artimas and more…will show ideas that if there is anything like a set of ideas that are orthodox in philosophy, they do not control the range of ideas presented here. IOW I do not think it is useful to frame the issue as people are resisting your ideas because they threaten their need to back some philosophical consensus.

Note I qualified the above statement with ‘conventionally and scientifically’.
Yes, scientifically, such system pre-existed its discovery.
Albeit scientific theories are useful, according to Popper, scientific theories are at best polished conjectures.
Therefore we have to accept scientific theories with such qualifications and doubts to its degree to represent ‘reality’.

How was I SO assured of the above when I had qualified it within the restricted conventional and scientific Framework.
I quoted Popper re scientific theories as ‘conjectures’ many times elsewhere whenever Science is mentioned.
It is a fact, the BB is untestable and unrepeatable, thus cannot qualify as a full scientific law.

Surely you are not looking up to scientists as gods, do you?
Repeat, scientific theories at best are merely polished conjectures, albeit VERY useful.

The empirically based scientific approach is limited.

On top of the scientific perspectives, we have the empirical-rational-philosophical perspective to reach more-refined-polished-conjectures - note not God driven absolute truths. This is where we add more of logic, rationality, wisdom, ethics to scientific theories and practices.

Where did I ever indicate any pro for materialism which was trounced by Berkeley. I agree to with Berkerely’s first stage but not his second stage where he had to bring in God. Upon Berkeley’s counter to materialism, the opponents turned to Physicalism along with all Philosophical Realists.
Unknowingly you could be a materialistic-theist, i.e. accepting God’s created materials.

I am with the philosophical anti-realists along with the Buddha, Kant, Heidegger and others.

As I had stated, the most reliable and useful knowledge we have at the present are those from Science, but then these are at best polished conjectures, note conjectures!

What is of higher reliability and credibility are knowledge from philosophy-proper which encompasses the empirical [Science, etc,] the logical, the rational and the philosophical dealing only with possibilities.

Theology is based on faith [without reason-rationality and proof], thus clings on dogmatically to impossibilities [i.e. God which is like a square-circle]. Theology is driven by an underlying subliminal desperate existential psychology to the extent SOME theists will even kill [murder, genocide] to defend their theism.

I offered a definition in 3rd post.

Sorry, you’re losing me. Definitional deficiencies maybe?

Everything that exists is a truthbearer: matter, minds, universals, properties, etc.

This is part of my confusion. On the one hand you tell me If there was a philoosphical orthodoxy, then there would be a consensus. I don’t see this. But a couple comments earlier you make what I see as an orthodox distinction–empirical and non-empirical–in your post.

Moral attributes are non-empirical. The attributes of substances are empirical. Prescriptive truth pertains to normative reality and is dynamic. Descriptive truth is inert and applies to matter. Mortimer Adler identified these in his Ten Philosophical Mistakes (1985):
“In Book VI of his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, clearly cognizant of what he himself
had said about the character of descriptive truth, declared that what he called
practical judgments (i.e., prescriptive or normative judgments with respect to action)
had truth of a different sort. Later philosophers, except for Aristotle’s medieval
disciples, have shown no awareness whatsoever of this brief but crucially important
passage in his writings.”

I’m pretty sure I am.

I hold the rules for the behavior of stuff derives from the value content in the stuff and our deduction of these behaviors is itself brought to bear by a union of value between our minds and that content. To clarify, I don’t think value itself is the content or is the only factor in shaping realities, but is the dynamic within stuff that creates the principle of unity (in regard to t - t connections) or discord (t - f or f - t connections in the case of intellects) in both empirical and non-empirical stuff.

I claim only to use Avicenna’s statement in the Summa (Part One, Q. 16, A. 1, “Whether Truth Resides Only in the
Intellect?”) “The truth of each thing is a property of the essence which is immutably attached to it.” I only use this single idea as a starting point.

Thanks for the advice. I think your interpretation of what I meant is exaggerated though. I feel you’re presenting good advice that I can learn from if I can grasp completely what you’re saying.

I misspoke when I said, I leave this last quote as a testament and standard to those who still maintain that materialism isn’t a religion.

Should have said “…to those who maintain that materialism isn’t a doctrine of atheism.” You needn’t have identified yourself as a materialist my friend; you’ve stated in different ways that you only accept empirical reality as valid. This is a primary tenet of the doctrine of materialism. One can claim not to be a duck, but the waddling and quacking nonetheless tells the tale.

Yet one of the most interesting corollaries that develops from the hypothesis of value is its ability to present a feasible motivation mechanism for the necessity to voice unsought disagreement and contempt for a value system one disagrees with. Again, thanks for sharing your opinions, Prism.

This is confused. Materialism is a kind of metaphysics, with a position on what the real is. Empiricism is the belief that we gain knowledge only through experience, often sense experience. But one need not believe that one is only experiencing or sensing matter. Certainly most empiricists are materialists - though some are not - despite scientific challenges to the notion of matter being anything at all like what materialists used to think of as matter.

I just don’t know what to do with saying a chair or a stone or light is a truth or a bearer of truth. Truth is referential. Even universals. I could see saying that universals are real. Or I could see saying that a particular idea, like ‘the category of dogs exists and is real’. IOW I could see saying that assertions about universals could be true or false. Also that the statement universals exist, is a true one. IOW that formulation makes sense to me.

But to say universals are true, seems odd to me. Sometimes it sounds like you mean they are real, even though they cannot be experienced.

To put it another way it seems at times like you are saying you are a rationalist. That is we can know things not just via experience. Other times it seems like you are making reality to be (at least also) a set of statements or ‘letters’ - the latter as a translation of bearers of truth. Like they carry truths inside them.

That’s certainly a position and if it is your position, then it might be helpful to say what truth a stone bears. IOW what is stone and what is the truth it bears. The truth it would seem, from my end, would not be an assertion of some kind. So I am not sure what this means.

Some of it is stuff, not conceptual. Some of it refers to things, some does not. I don’t really care about the distinction between empirical or not. Some would argue that all those things are empirical, even. I am not arguing that things we experience are the only things. But what you refer to in the list seem like different kinds of categorizations. Not different kinds of things.

Some philosophers would argue with that.

Conflating is a pejorative term. So I assume you mean, you see them as the same. Or you are conceding a point here.

I don’t understand this section.

FAir enough. Though I can’t parse that sentence, it sure seems like he is using truth in some way similar to the way you are.

Great. I’ll try. I think I will come back later in the thread when I get a better sense of your position. Right now I am not sure.

I used a common generalization. You seem to want to pin what I say to a high degree of technical accuracy, but context, when appropriate, allows an everyday ‘peoplespeak’ of the common man, in which I admittedly hold membership. I expect 98% understand the non-technical relationship between atheism and materialism.