Objective Truth

[Resha Caner]

There have been some good posts, and I even had one of those "Gestalt shift" moments where I could clearly "feel" one of the alternative points of view. It was fun. But, alas, I have switched back to my old ways. As a second "alas", it didn't seem anyone took me up on trying to express an opposing view in ones own words as a means for better understanding it.

Then as a third "alas", I said I hoped to avoid semantic arguments. Maybe philosophy is nothing more, and hence it can't be avoided. I'll make a comment on three tendancies I see, and then move on.

First, I see a game where the words "truth" and "reality" are being played off against each other. Whatever word one uses, there is a certain fixity to the universe. Manipulating relationships between words to allow a subjective definition of truth doesn't eliminate that fixity. Don't confuse definitions with things.

Second, I've seen the "infinity" argument before - that the weight of our "unknowing" drowns our "knowing". It's a clever, but empty argument. As an analogy, suppose I tell someone that I know 6 * 9 = 54. They then ask me what 312 * 615 is. I don't have that memorized, and so, in a sense, I don't "know" it. They follow by explaining that in this way, there are an infinite number of multiplication problems that I don't know. While true, that fact in no way negates that I know 6 * 9 = 54.

Third, "perception relative to our biology" is also an interesting, but flawed argument. It attempts to make truth relative by noting things such as the fact that a hot stove is only damaging to our biology. Maybe a biology exists where it is not damaging, or maybe a biology exists that doesn't even perceive "hot". Again, while that is a possibility, it does not make truth subjective. As Douglas Adams, points out, 6 * 9 = 42 (if one is working in base-13). This does not negate the truth that 6 * 9 = 54. It merely points out that I assumed common ground (base-10), and that assumption was flawed. It is easily remedied by stating the assumption. Given base-10, 6 * 9 = 54.

- - -

OK, now that everyone is blissfully happy and we all understand each other (I think I even saw a concession in one of the posts, but I won't assume that until after this next part) let's move on. The "Chinese Room Argument" has been in my mind lately, so I'll use that with some slight modifications.

We have a person (E) who only speaks English. He is sitting in a sound-proof room with a window. Sitting outside the room is a person (C) who only speaks Chinese. Since the room is sound-proof, they can only communicate by visual means through the window.

Person E inside the room receives audible instructions in English on how to manipulate a series of Chinese characters on cards. Person C responds with his own arrangement of Chinese characters.

From the perspective of C, he is having a conversation in Chinese with E. However, E has no idea what is going on. He doesn't even know if Chinese "exists". It is merely a series of meaningless symbols being flashed back and forth between himself and C.

Based on that scenario, does Chinese exist?

- - -

I can think of a multitude of qualified answers that in one form or another basically attempt to say "No, Chinese does not exist in an absolute sense."

But now suppose E asks a question of A, the person giving him the audible instructions.

E: Is this a language?

A: Yes, this is a language called Chinese.

E: Prove it.

A: Arrange the cards as I instruct you, and I will predict the response of C. I will ask the question, 'What is 6 times 9?" C will reply with the Chinese characters for 54.

E: OK.

They execute the experiment. If C replies properly, does this prove Chinese exists? Again I can find loopholes that allow me to deny the existence of Chinese.

What if, in classical Douglas Adams form, C replies with an answer of 42? Does this prove Chinese doesn't exist? Does it prove Chinese exists if, after further conversation, it is discovered that C uses a base-13 number system? Does it prove Chinese existed before the question was asked, or that it will continue to exist after the proper answer is given?

Who cares? What I ask is: is this just an attempt to avoid learning Chinese? Regardless of whether it "exists" as you chose to define "existence", everyone would be better off if they just buckled down and learned Chinese.

To all these questions, I give the following reply: There comes a point where it seems one is avoiding a distasteful answer rather than honestly seeking it. It is possible to refute any argument, but at some point the refutation becomes absurd. I'm not saying this discussion has reached that point, but it easily could, and I don't intend to take it to that extreme. If someone manages a momentary Gestalt shift such that they truly see this from my perspective, then I've accomplished what I hoped for.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

If a drunk thinks he perceives pink elephants, that isn't reality. Whether there are really pink elephants is independent of perception.

We percieve with our minds and not with our eyes. So people are required to check their perceptions in the form of conceptions against the reality we percieve, or think we percieve. When encountering a phenomenon we recognize it as one we have had experience with before, and have built up some knowledge of or we do not, in which case, we may not recognize it all. It is not perception that makes reality real. Perception is hardly separate from consciousness since we see often what we look for or fear even if it is not there, like a vision of the virgin Mary defined in black mold on a scanky wall. Sure, the mold is there, but what picture? In fact, we can only concieve of what we know, and can only know what we can concieve of. The only way something new can wedge in between these two so we can learn something is either to shock the pereception, or to be relatable to something we already know, and since all ideas are classifications, everything we can relate to something we know fits into a ready made system. To me that covers the physical world, but our world, the one we perhaps spend the majority of our thought and energy on is the moral world, and there, even well known ideas like Justice and Freedom defy proper conceptualization. It is so much of pure perception. If you have it, you feel it, and if you don't have it, you miss it.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Fido

We percieve with our minds and not with our eyes. So people are required to check their perceptions in the form of conceptions against the reality we percieve, or think we percieve. When encountering a phenomenon we recognize it as one we have had experience with before, and have built up some knowledge of or we do not, in which case, we may not recognize it all. It is not perception that makes reality real. Perception is hardly separate from consciousness since we see often what we look for or fear even if it is not there, like a vision of the virgin Mary defined in black mold on a scanky wall. Sure, the mold is there, but what picture? In fact, we can only concieve of what we know, and can only know what we can concieve of. The only way something new can wedge in between these two so we can learn something is either to shock the pereception, or to be relatable to something we already know, and since all ideas are classifications, everything we can relate to something we know fits into a ready made system. To me that covers the physical world, but our world, the one we perhaps spend the majority of our thought and energy on is the moral world, and there, even well known ideas like Justice and Freedom defy proper conceptualization. It is so much of pure perception. If you have it, you feel it, and if you don't have it, you miss it.

But what about the drunk and pink elephants? The drunk cannot perceive pink elephants unless there are pink elephants. But, since there are no pink elephants, the drunk only believes he is perceiving them.

[Fido]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

But what about the drunk and pink elephants? The drunk cannot perceive pink elephants unless there are pink elephants. But, since there are no pink elephants, the drunk only believes he is perceiving them.

Well what if, instead of pink elephants, the man was seeing God and speaking to God? People do not just percieve their environments in their minds, but remake their enviroments in their minds, and if the world seems strange it may be because alcohol and God have played a big part in the production. A mental perception does not have to be real (true) to have an effect, and what is real does not always have an effect for being real. Real is a certain meaning we give out of the store house of meaning we call life. Just as with truth.

[boagie]

Truth is biologically determined, there is no way to speculate about truth, no way to confim truth, no way of denying truth accept through ones biology, even the reading of results through artifical means is biologically determined, to consider the concept of truth or falsehood is meaningless unless it is through ones biology. Biology is the foundation of all human enterprizes, it is the begining and the end, as in man is the measure of all things. Subjective truth biologically determined, objective truth biologically determined.

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by boagie

Truth is biologically determined, there is no way to speculate about truth, no way to confim truth, no way of denying truth accept through ones biology, even the reading of results through artifical means is biologically determined, to consider the concept of truth or falsehood is meaningless unless it is through ones biology. Biology is the foundation of all human enterprizes, it is the begining and the end, as in man is the measure of all things. Subjective truth biologically determined, objective truth biologically determined.

No way to confirm that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen? Have you told chemists about this? And what if a chemist is not a biologist? I guess he is stuck.

[Holiday20310401]

Well I am sorry kenneth for bursting your bubble on this one here.

I view reality as the potential of the environment to the consciousness. So if someobody is perceiving pink elephants then they will act accordingly by saying "woah what am I on" or perhaps trying to touch it and so the pink elephant has potential because if you try to touch the elephant even thought it doesn't exist to somebody else so you might accidentally bump into somebody else in the process.

Actuality from what I thought anyways is the environment that can't be perceived because any perception is a means of being potential so we can harvest the environment to sustain our own lives. If we viewed the environment as waves then imagine the struggle to eat an apple.

So, since everybody is subjectively different, reality is different for everybody, by a little bit at least, and the only possible truly objective truth there is is actuality, which is questionable I think.

And so, objective truth in its purest sense is useless because the truth is in fact nothing, there is no truth, lol.
Maybe vide can correct using logic for this one if I'm wrong.

Objectiveness to me is when a view is in correlation to another one's view. Then it becomes absolute to the both of the two.

Objective truths exist but they are still pieces of a reality that are not in its entirety objective. As long as our perception is a means for potential there can be no objective truth. Just the little similarities like, I see an apple and so do you (if we are in the same room and are both not blind). So the objective truth for the both of us is the fact of seeing the apple.

So, objective truth only exists in the past because the past influences the present but in an intrinsic manner not directly related to the biased "experience" which is fundamental to "potential".

Well I hope that sums things up for me, I wrote it for me because it was about time .

Now I'll hear the corrections, thank you.

[boagie]

I might restate, as I may have not made it clear, all meaning is the property of a subject, thus, subjective or objective knowledge of reality can only be known through the consciousness of a subject. There is no knowledge out there in the physcial world, for that would be meaning, only a subject can possess knowledge/meaning, only a subject can apply meaning to the physical world. In the absence of a subject, the physical world is without meaning, and it is ALL, biologically determined.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by boagie

I might restate, as I may have not made it clear, all meaning is the property of a subject, thus, subjective or objective knowledge of reality can only be known through the consciousness of a subject. There is no knowledge out there in the physcial world, for that would be meaning, only a subject can possess knowledge/meaning, only a subject can apply meaning to the physical world. In the absence of a subject, the physical world is without meaning, and it is ALL, biologically determined.

You do not believe that any of our methods of perception, interpretation, and understanding could come from other non-biological sources. I certainly grant the biological roots of our actions, but certainly we have cultural factors as well.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by kennethamy

No way to confirm that water consists of hydrogen and oxygen?

Not without being circular.

We cannot deny that our modes of perception and understanding are influenced by our biology, and since these modes are virtually universal across the human race, we can do little to account for the biological factor, as it is an uncontrollable variable. We assume the truth of human perception and reason, but we do not confirm it.