I'm a bit raised right now - and I was thinking about the idea of truth. If it exists - how could you know it? If you believe something is true - what do you base the belief on? Does truth come from "revelation" - or do we learn it? How did the one teaching it to us learn it? What about the one who taught him? Etc.... Why do we believe what we believe?
Internalization through social norms is what causes people to believe what they do. I've actually thought about "right" and "wrong" a lot lately. Who says anything is "right" or "wrong"? Society tells us what to believe and often times we blindly follow it.
Truth would have to come from a source. It comes down to where do we come from. If the universe just exploded one day and all of a sudden out of the mist of a vast expance of nothingness, LIFE and then one day humans. Truth in this case would be only a mere term that we humans have invented to describe something that is ultimatley meaningless. If truth existed it wouldn't go against logic, reason, or evidence but isn't necessarily arrived to by those means.
Exactly my point. All we have to go by is society's view. For a lot of us, if society doesn't like it, chances are, neither will the individual (except for Mary Jane ) but there is no definitive "right" and "wrong". It's just based on our own sole beliefs.
I don't think it's about believing or knowing the truth. But experiencing truth. I mean what truth are you guys talking about?
If you find this kind of question interesting, you'll probably really enjoy this book. It's short and easy. I read it in the bathroom. The guy is a Princeton professor I think. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Truth-Harry-G-Frankfurt/dp/030726422X]Amazon.com: On Truth (9780307264220): Harry G. Frankfurt: Books[/ame]
Society contradicts itself. They tell us that in a civilized society violence shouldn't be resorted to for any reason. Then they send people over to fight all these wars. They send people to war in name of defending freedoms, but then don't expect us to exercise even are basic rights.
That's how I feel too. In my experience truth is sort of an unspoken understanding, not to be muddled up with words... An ongoing experience that can't be described.... only enjoyed in awe.
I think it's safe to say that everything exists in some form, so truth must as well. Even things that don't exist are still things, and things exist, if you know what I mean. Semantics aside, that's my view. If by "revelation" you mean, "is truth revealed to us", then my answer would be sometimes yes and sometimes we postulate structures by which we determine kinds of truths that aren't about the object alone but are about both the object and our experience of it. Believing something is true can be based on several criteria. There's the observe-->control--->repeat method of determining certain kinds of truth. There's the whole, "the only way everything can make sense" kind of truth that you just accept because it works for you. Then there are truths that are true completely by analytic necessity or self reference. For instance, it is true that a bachelor is an unmarried male, and that truth is without condition by virtue of the meaning of the terms.
Or horror!!! I agree to a point. I think it can be described in words. Society fails to find truth because they don't want to.
People describe "truths" like something can be true for one person and not true for others. In a since yes but truth doesn't defy logic. It is a LAW of logic that something can't be both true and non-true at the same time and in the same sence.
You can get around the law of non contradiction in logic by employing modalities and thinking of propositions in terms of sets.
True.... I guess that what I meant is it can only be conveyed to those who have experienced it, in which case it relies less on the words and more on the shared experience.
Truth exists because it makes you happy. Lies exist because they make you sad. You exist because you are.
There is no truth. The truth is based in what one believes in, which would be not true to others who dont believe that.
I think it's true that a person is a person and it doesn't matter what you believe in that instance. A person is a person. A table is a table. A dog is a dog. The truth of those statements isn't reliant on the perspective of anyone.
I like the idea in your first paragraph - but how can you find it? And, unless everyone else has found it, how would you ever know that what you found is actually "truth". Meaning, if someone holds another truth (different idea than you) - to them your truth is a lie? How would you know who is right since both hold that what they believe is true?
True, and how can you make it so that everyone knows the truth? Identify with the source of it, rather than the thing itself, and then there can be no divergence from it. And then it's clearly what it is!