Truth and Belief

[kennethamy]

Originally Posted by Billy

Some have higher standards for establishing truth. Suppose she says: I love you very much. It isn't you, it's me. I'm not leaving you because I don't love you, it's just that I need my freedom.

Do we accept it as truth because she said it? If you define love behaviorally (hugs me, feeds me, hangs on my every word when I speak), you can determine the truth of the statement.

If we define in the deeper, inner meaning the word love generally connotes, we cannot. We cannot prove inner states.

My neighbor never gets angry, and insists there is no such thing.
Another neighbor has never experienced GOD, and insists there is no such thing.
Another neighbor has never experienced alien abduction, and insists there is no such thing.
And a cynical neighbor has never experienced love, and insists there is no such thing. Can you prove him wrong?

Quito is the capital of Ecuador, and Germany is in Europe are generally accepted truths, and they are demonstrable. Even if we were to speculate, we could soon confirm the truth of these statements.

We use words like axiomatic, established fact, etc, for generally accepted truths which, hopefully you believe. we use words like speculate, hypothesize, etc for yet-to-be-proven truths.

I can set high standards for establishing whether a person is tall. The standard I set for whether a person is tall is that the person has to be at least 10 feet tall. By that standard no living person is tall. But, so what? If my wife tells me she hates me, seeks to divorce me, and failing that, tries to have me murdered, I think it is reasonable to explain her behavior by the hypothesis that she hates me. Don't you? Or, if a person has just had his arm torn off by a machine he is working on, and is screaming, it is reasonable to explain his behavior by the hypothesis that he is in pain. Don't you think so?

[Swiven]

No one has ever chosen to believe anything. All belief is involuntary

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by Swiven

No one has ever chosen to believe anything. All belief is involuntary

Exactly.

Belief is the recognition that something is true, and we cannot consciously make something true.

[iconoclast]

Plato,

reality is truth,

all knowledge is less than a definitive account of reality,

therefore, to know truth is impossible,

knowledge is a more or less justified account of reality - never entirely justified.

belief is the consequence of this inadequacy.

iconoclast.

[beyond123]

Since only thinking beings have beliefs, it seems simple enough to distinguish the difference.

Truth constitutes all that actually is, has ever been, or ever will be.

Belief is simply what is thought about truth. Sometimes it is true; sometimes it is not.

[Mr. Fight the Power]

Originally Posted by beyond123

Truth constitutes all that actually is, has ever been, or ever will be.

This is circular.

[beyond123]

So?

And since existence is infinite and eternal, please explain, to yourself.

[Holiday20310401]

How do we know that existence is infinite? I mean sure, the matter we are made of endures, and then matter can be turned into energy. But then what is existence essentially? We are bound to something more intrinsic that is eternal but form isn't.

[beyond123]

i already said: "
Since only thinking beings have beliefs, it seems simple enough to distinguish the difference.
Truth constitutes all that actually is, has ever been, or ever will be.
Belief is simply what is thought about truth. Sometimes it is true; sometimes it is not."

that should explain how i know anything that i think.

simply put, i do not. but since an absolute nothing can not exist, space must be infinite.

how do i know that an absolute nothing can not exist?

since something dose exist, and since something could not arise from an absolute nothing, something must exist everwhere.

[iconoclast]

beyond123,

Belief is simply what is thought about truth. Sometimes it is true; sometimes it is not."

I don't agree.

Because truth is reality - (and reality the only truth) and because all formulations of knowledge are expressed in language that identifies - and thus seperates an aspect of reality from the whole, all formulations of knowledge are less than truth.

Belief is what's thought about a formaulation of knowledge - that because of it's derivitive character must be less that true.

Therefore all belief is false.

p.s. the logic you apply to 'know' that nothing cannot exist is the logic of the existing universe. ultimately the argument is cause and effect - but cause and effect require time and space in which to occur. Time - allowing for a before/after temporal-logic framework, only came into being at the big bang. 'before that' there was no before, because time itself did not exist.

this is just another way in which our understanding is ill-equipped to yeild truth in the non-trivial, absolute sense.

iconoclast.