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-- humans and truth?

humans and truth?

what is true? as in, what can YOU, that little thing you think is a human that you think is sitting in your chair by the computer, discern as truth?

i've already figured it out, but would like to hear your oppinions:

it took me years and years of contemplation, but finally I narrowed it down to one simple truth.

I used to believe that the one truth was that "something exists", because something had to exist to create the illusion or actuality of me existening. or in other words, there is this experience that is happening right this moment, this feeling of typing on the keys and looking at the monitor. but what really is it? i don't know. I just know its an experience, whatever that entails.

I used to think that "something" had to exist, because effects always have a source. then I realized that even that is an assumption, the byproduct of human reasoning, which is a part of my experience as well.

What I now know is that all there is for me is this experience. everything else, religion, science, understanding, all takes assumptions to put into senses that form into ideas that form into "truths".

there is just an experience. truth could be staring me in the eyes, or it could be distant and unreachable.

/end of all religious debates :-)

"There are thoughts" - the logical extreme of Descartes reasoning.

Is there any reason why truth and experience are incompatible? Surely whatever I experience is, to me, truth?

quote:

Originally posted by trancaholic "There are thoughts" - the logical extreme of Descartes reasoning.

"I think, therefore, I think."

The true foundation of Cartesian metaphysics.

Renegade, that would be relative truth, instead of absolute truth. of course, anything could be made into a "truth", but thats the thing. if someone says something is true and another person says its false, is one of them wrong, or both of them wrong, or both of them right? You would say that both are right. I would say, who knows? If you get rid of all assumptions, then all you get is just the experience.

and tranceaholic, that's exactly what I was saying! of course, the term "thoughts" should be used loosely, because you can't define a "thought" without assumption. there is just the experience. what the experience is is a mystery. using reasoning and observation of the experience brings you an unknown distance closer or farther away to the actual truth, so it is irrelevant.

But does truth need to be "absolute" to be considered truth?

For all that we try to attain it, absolute truth is absolutely meaningless. Take away all that which is falsifiable and all you're left with are tautologies. Try creating a system stemming from the premise: "x, at the same time and in the same regard, always equals x". It's true, but I would hardly consider it "truth".

truth to me is anything that can be proven

quote:

Originally posted by davinox and tranceaholic, that's exactly what I was saying! of course, the term "thoughts" should be used loosely, because you can't define a "thought" without assumption.

Which assumption?

quote:

Originally posted by davinox there is just the experience. what the experience is is a mystery. using reasoning and observation of the experience brings you an unknown distance closer or farther away to the actual truth, so it is irrelevant.

Actually I wouldn't classify an experience as real as a thought, as the experience - by definition - requires the existence of an entity which experiences, whereas the thought requires no thinker.
As I percieve things I have a hierarchy of realness:
1. Thoughts.
2. Me, experiences, and something besides me.
3. Some temporal order on experiences, the concept now, and memories.
4. My body and my emotions.
5. Objects I am looking at and touching right now, i.e. objects that seem to be causes of a multiplum of my current experiences.
6. Objects I am looking at right now, or touching right now, i.e. objects that seem to be causes of one of my current experiences.
7. Objects I have experienced in the past.
8. That the relations of the future are of the same kind as the relations of the past, i.e. induction rests on a real basis.
9. The "laws" of physics.
10. "Facts" I've been told by someone reliable or have read.
11. "Facts" which have been infered from statistical material.
12. "Facts" told to me by someone I do not trust.

Of course not everything is included here, but you ought to catch my drift.
The hierarchy works like this: The higher on the list something, A, is placed, the louder my gasp would be if I found that A does not exists.
But the quality of being more or less "true" or "real" is not all that I am concerned with. There is also the aspect of how interesting something is to discuss with respect to my daily life. And in this context the list seems to work in reverse: The higher A is on the list, the less interesting questions can be asked of A (in some cases only "exists?" springs to mind). Thus, the higher A is on the list the less practical value I find in debating A. Furthermore, whether it's real or not, my daily life and my future is of utmost importance to "me". So even if I find what dj_ilan_yosef posts rather unreal, it is still more important to me than whether I exist or not.

As to the "relative" vs. the "absolute" truth, the distinction seems to me to be rather academic. The very concept of relative implies a distinction between an I (and its percepts) and a something else. But as an I is not an absolute truth the discussion seems to go around circles.

Hope I have been clear - it's a difficult topic to talk about.

yes, i know what you are talking about.

i know exactly what you mean, but calling the thing that I have right now (whatever I may be) as thoughts is misleading. thoughts entail that a brain is functioning. an experience could be anything (i use the term loosely.) you cannot say "something" because the concept of things is a human assumption. experience is the best term i can think of for the one absolute truth.

I guess you could say, the phenomenon that is occuring right now that using the assumption of neuroscience is called "thinking", is the only thing I know is true. What this is, I do not know.

quote:

I used to believe that the one truth was that "something exists", because something had to exist to create the illusion or actuality of me existening. or in other words, there is this experience that is happening right this moment, this feeling of typing on the keys and looking at the monitor. but what really is it? i don't know. I just know its an experience, whatever that entails. I used to think that "something" had to exist, because effects always have a source. then I realized that even that is an assumption, the byproduct of human reasoning, which is a part of my experience as well.

Shouldn't this bring you back to the same spot you were? To believe that "something" does not necessarily create "the illusion or actuality of you existing" should bring you back to the very spot that you left. Since you do exist, whether it is in "reality" or "unreality," and you are "something," then why does "something" suddenly have less bearing than it did before?

Re: humans and truth?

quote:

Originally posted by davinox what is true? as in, what can YOU, that little thing you think is a human that you think is sitting in your chair by the computer, discern as truth? i've already figured it out, but would like to hear your oppinions: it took me years and years of contemplation, but finally I narrowed it down to one simple truth. I used to believe that the one truth was that "something exists", because something had to exist to create the illusion or actuality of me existening. or in other words, there is this experience that is happening right this moment, this feeling of typing on the keys and looking at the monitor. but what really is it? i don't know. I just know its an experience, whatever that entails. I used to think that "something" had to exist, because effects always have a source. then I realized that even that is an assumption, the byproduct of human reasoning, which is a part of my experience as well. What I now know is that all there is for me is this experience. everything else, religion, science, understanding, all takes assumptions to put into senses that form into ideas that form into "truths". there is just an experience. truth could be staring me in the eyes, or it could be distant and unreachable. /end of all religious debates :-)

Good shrooms or just the normal pot tonite??

i never understand the point of these debates.

its pointless.

if you want to argue whether we are living or not go ahead.

I prefer to live. You can speculate whehter I am or not.

quote:

Originally posted by davinox i know exactly what you mean, but calling the thing that I have right now (whatever I may be) as thoughts is misleading. thoughts entail that a brain is functioning.

No, a thought does not need a brain to function - if it did Descartes would be right in concluding that he existed. A thought can be totally self contained (e.g. "does this thought exist?"), and having some thing to "think" it is just an extra circumstance with no influence on the thought itself, just as we may imagine a light photon with no light source.
The idea of a thought requiring a brain takes outset in taking the laws of physics as granted, and assuming everything which cannot be described by these as non-existent. But even if this is true, we could imagine a (very) complex computer program which simulates a brain and which takes outset in some state of an actual brain. Then there could be "thoughts" in the absence of brains.

Yoepus: The great thing about debates such as this one, is that they sharpen your ability to distinguish between proven, assumed, and merely desirable. Futhermore, they help you realize that you do not *know* what you think you know, which in turn helps you not being a stubborn dogmatic conservative.

Re: Re: humans and truth?

quote:

Originally posted by emander Good shrooms or just the normal pot tonite??

lol

yeah i know, it was hopelessly incoherent. it was 5 o'clock in the morning when i wrote it.

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