Truth does not exist, except in our subjective minds. Psychonaut Terrence McKenna once said " If you believe something, you're automatically precluded from believing in the opposite, which means that a degree of your human freedom has been forfeited in the act of this belief." What is true to you, all ideals, religions, ideologies, concepts, and even thoughts are only based on experience, assumptions, introspection and subjectivity. Most people have a sense of morality, but again, that is subjective. If one can justify something in their mind, is it not justified? It is to them. This also brings up problems in society; doing things without remorse or fore-thought. We don't always consider the other side of the argument, or even someone's point of view in general. Luckily, I found that drugs, not just weed, but psychedelics and other hard drugs, have all not only changed my perspective, but broadened my mind and the way I see things. They have even made me more sympathetic and understanding of others, not just the world. Anyways, I would love to hear your opinions on truth, just to see from a different perspective myself. I hope you enjoyed dabbling in mine. PS. Smoking a joint before usually helps me think about this a lot better.
I agree in that context. If I see a square object, with pages and words, my mind labels it as a book. But is a book really what I am seeing? Or is it the manifestation of the ideas in the book form? Does truth have a form? does it manifest here? What form does it take? We know that Truth is, because there is fallacy. What is truth?
I posted this in an old thread a while ago and I think it relates. There are no truths in this world. We can't perceive anything to be true, because we don't know. Everything is about perception. Humans perceive and that's why nothing is true. Because perception varies from person to person. What you may believe is true isn't true to another person. You could say humans have free will, that's why we have perception, so free will must be a truth. But how do you KNOW that. I know for a fact that our governments control us to a large extent, but who's controlling them? Someone is I can tell you that. We could easily be being subconsciously controlled in your every action, by a divine entity or another HUMAN. If you can't say for sure then it's not true. Free will is perceived and that's why they can keep controlling us. If you don't get that, let's take a look at a REALLY freaky example... COLORS! Now you'll tell me that the font I'm typing in is black. You'll tell me that the heading of this website is green with white lettering (unless you've changed your computer's color scheme). I know for a fact you'll all tell me this. So you say, what are you getting at then? Here's what I'm getting at. Since we were little kids we were taught that green is green. But how do you know that the color I see as green isn't actually the color you call purple. You wouldn't know, because we've been taught that no matter what we see, THAT IS GREEN. It's the color of grass for all of us, no matter what we're seeing, because it's the same shade. But I call that purple. However if I could see through your eyes, and you held up something that you call purple, who know if I wouldn't call that green. We don't know. But it's a possibility that it's true. So if you don't know, it's not true. You can say God doesn't exist, but maybe he's subconsciously controlling you to say that. So then, he's real. But you don't know, so it's not true. It's tough to grasp but once you do, there's nothing that can stop you. You're now public enemy number one. It's not the talkers that worry the government, it's the thinkers. Why do you think Obama was rushed into the presidency, and Bush was booted out? Bush thought, Obama talks. See if you can grasp that...
love your thinking and agree...its very subjective and perspective based, whats true for me is false for another and so on. all i know is that i know nothing at all! a real cause to be humble eh?
Do I dare ask what Bush was "thinking" ? You're getting into subject-object dilemma which spans a multitude of what if's that you can't know to certainty. It's subjective, you define the rules for 'you'. You don't want to mind-bend yourself into a corner tho and develop anxieties, paranoia's and create delusions. Mind is so powerful that you can convince yourself of....anything really. Which, is about as real as any part of reality gets, so careful tredding when you come to find you believe something to '100%' certainty, for when you do that, I fear you've lost your mind completely because you no longer have the ability to change it. Keep the mind open. Can't argue with this:
Not always. People have different view points. Some view life through their own reality, but some can see life through others realities. For example from another thread: I believe that hope is a positive force for all, but I understand the opposing points which argue for its ignorance. So I guess there is no absolute truth in some arguments. But for numbers, proven theories, proven research, etc... there is truth. For example: Marijuana is a positive plant and that is the truth. I know all the other view points, but it has been proven that Marijuana is not harmful. Is that not the truth? The number 1 is equal to itself. That is the truth is it not? Hemp is the strongest natural plant in the world. That is true also. There is much truth in this world.
Proven to whom, and where does the 'truth' reside? Truth to the collective? But what if truth of the individual conflicts with the truth of the collective. Then whats the truth?
Well, in my perspective it is a positive plant, and others have to experience it to see what kind of effects it actually has. I could walk downtown and see myriads of potheads like me, and I'm sure they'll mostly all agree. Then there are some who say its bad for your health (cardiorespiratory endurance, etc.), but other than that it has good effects and is a harmless drug. Then there are some people who think its gonna completely screw up your brain, your lungs, make you paranoid, etc. Now some people do get paranoid and its said that it can trigger underlying mental/psychological issues. Who knows? I know some paranoid friends, but I sure am not. It's hard to say that it's not harmful. There are also other plants with containing substances that are used to synthesize medications so people can live longer and be healthier. Although the cannabis plant is useful for many things, and it is indefinitely a glorious plant, but I don't think we can say that it doesn't have some adverse effects in its use. In my opinion though, its adverse effects are outweighed greatly by its positive effects. Speaking of which, Im gonna have a wake and bake. Cheers
I like the way you put this, and I agree with it. In my mind, I am not controlled, but only limited to my mind. We may or may not be controlled by an external entity, but as long as we believe that we have free will, it's true to us. We are also somewhat limited to our conscience. By doing something we feel is right, we have no problem. Meanwhile, if we were to try to do something, but by methods that our conscience perceives as unjust or not moral, we experience problems when we think about what we did, later on, and even before and during our actions. Our mind is trying to rationalize the difference between right and wrong. But it's all in our heads; we don't know what right or wrong is. We see the shades of truth in thoughts, such as, murder is wrong, but some people still can justify that in their mind, and their conscience won't tell them not to. It's fine. It's just murder. I think I might have gotten a bit sidetracked but I hope what I said is comprehensible.
Hello GeckoBong, I would posit that "truth" describes only fact, i.e. "it's true that I talked to a friend earlier today." Plus facts that we all know, i.e. "it's true that the grass is green, the sky is blue, etc." Yes, everyone has their own "truth", or at least it is widely described this way, even tho when you scratch the surface it isn't "truth" at all, it is as you describe, a sum total of many various factors within an individual's subjective experience. I agree (at least speaking for myself) that I can justify many things in my own mind that, when given time and even further thought, see I was mistaken in my justifications. Seems to be thoughts in flux, when one is digging up ways to justify an action, a thought, an opinion, because if I quell the self-righteous attitude and step back into a place of objectivity, I see that I wouldn't need to look for ways to "justify" something that didn't bug the crap out of me. I only really learned this through time and experience, trial and error. Doesn't mean I won't keep trying to justify, but all the time I know that anything I have to argue with myself about over and over is thin ice territory. Hope that makes sense. As for doing things without forethought, I think that to be impossible. Every action begins with thought(s). Law enforcement discourages actions such as harming others or others' property regardless of one's thoughts. Most folks understand that there will be consequences perceived as good or bad to the actions they take, lawful or unlawful. A person may do things impulsively, passionately, with no restraint and little, if any, thought of the consequences, but thought always precedes any sort of action regardless. Remorse? I think it would be very, very few folks that haven't/don't experience this, although I understand there are sociopaths who appear to be conscienceless - but again, this is a minuscule percentage of the population, folks that most likely need lots of psychiatric help... but that is a whole other can of worms. Yes, I have also taken hard drugs in the past whose effects seemed to expand my mind. Only problem is that this expansion is temporary, and is simply the result of rearranging brain chemistry via the drug. Any great epiphanies perceived that occur with this sort of high, are, if a person is being entirely honest with themselves, only more subjective fodder for the brain to mull over. Personally, I never took drugs in an effort to expand my mind - I simply took them to feel good/better, but found a psychedelic drug high was more like a crapshoot for me. Years ago, I liked speed and coke because they improved my mood and gave me energy, but not without some bad crashes which more than offset the positive side of the drug, and I finally wearied of repeating that. I can't say that I've been fooled by them into thinking I have grasped some great "truth" simply because I took something that temporarily changed my brain chemistry. Or at least, I no longer think that But then, I've done all my experimentation years ago, and no longer use any mind altering drugs besides weed, including the all-around most destructive of all (alcohol). Other folks can go right ahead imo as long as there is no harm done other than to themselves, but personally I don't like crashes and hangovers one bit - and recovery time from a drug and/or alcohol binge became much longer and more miserable with each passing year. So here we have: the thought: I want this certain drug the action: I ingested it the immediate result: I feel better/good/high/happy/whatever (barring a bad acid trip) the extended result/consequence: I feel like sh*t Even when I'm extremely tempted to partake (the thought), I attempt to skip right on over to the extended result/consequence. Took lots of time and practice, tho. Fun chatting with you!
lol, I just posted a reply to gb using a similar concept as an example. But I think you are getting stuck on the name/label for things... regardless of varying degrees of color blindness/impaired vision or not, the word "green" is a universal label, which in our example serves as an adjective to grass. To say that "the grass is green (well ok, it can also be "brown" in the winter, and etc.)" is to state a fact, regardless of how an individual perceives it, or what it looks like to various people.
Yes! And really, there are lots of little inane "truths" too, in a way, life is chock full of them, and they all just simply boil down to facts - i.e. "I can satisfy my hunger by eating." "I weigh 136 pounds." "I just finished smoking a joint." Endless.
I don't think the truth "resides" anywhere - facts have no life of their own, they are simply facts. The fact that I'm sitting here writing this post is the truth, and as such is about as mysterious and baffling as a box of rocks.
The term "truth" by it's nature and usage, must be defined in such as way as to have an existent referent. Maybe there's a dissatisfaction amongst people with the definitions that work. But to have, and use a term to which there is no referent would result in a situation where any definition would be vacuous and therefore the term itself meaningless in language. Sooooo......yeah. Truth exists in some form, it just may not be an eternal and unchanging form. I mean, think about this statement... If and only if all parties involved stipulate the self-evidential nature of certain axioms, then things which necessarily follow, or which can be analytically derived from those axioms are equally true within the scope of the considerations being made by said parties. That's fucking true any way you slice it. The truth is that truth is conditional or reliant on a premise not proven by the system derived from the axioms themselves. Many truths can be derived from the classic example of the "moorean fact". Other truths are considered truths because they only reference properties of themselves or properties of other objects with which they share identity. Certain applications of logic and mathematics are true by virtue of self reference or recursion. There's alot of truth out there. You know, just because no thing has been discovered to unify all theories in all disciplines doesn't mean that there aren't things which are evident in and of themselves, and it doesn't mean that things don't exist like tautologies and godel-numbered complete systems which we can use as a sort of logical lens through which things in the world can be measured and accounted for, (given certain conditions of course).
Absolute truth does not exist, but relative truth does. Nothing has to be absolutely true, it just has to be true enough. What boggles my mind is that whenever we sense something, we are inevitably sensing the same thing. When I skim my fingers down a irresistibly attractive woman's gentle skin and when someone else does the same, we can describe our experience using the same words. This points me to think that senses are all linked together, sort of like we are all sensing the same reality. We just perceive what we sense differently, but even that may not be true. A lot of people share the same perceptions they have about a particular person, and this shared perception seems to be more true than just any one person's perception. Like everyone verifies the same feeling they get from someone, and in which everyone came to the same conclusion separately and alone. Not to say that shared perceptions are ever right, but they tend to be more true than non-shared perceptions, I think. I mean, there are infinite amount of ways of perceiving the same sensual input and when there are so many people it starts to get complicated. I believe that there is no one "right" way of perceiving if all ways are "wrong". Or there is no one "wrong" way if all ways are "right". As in, I'm sure everyone's perception in the world is in a constant array of contradiction, and that is what makes perception so true. That 5,000 people can look at the same thing but yet have so many varying opinions, feelings and thoughts toward this object. The subject-object dichotomy doesn't truly exist, because the object is the subject and the subject is the object. That the object is a reflection of the subjects inner world. The perceiver is the perceived. Soft skin will always be soft skin to the perceiver, that in reality what we perceive and what others perceive is constant. The only true difference lies in how we perceive it, and this almost detonates a bomb hurdling into thousands and thousands of planets and worlds all within this same planet. I think perception lies in what we have been conditioned into feeling about what we are sensing. It's like we intercept vibes that "some"thing gives off and we ride those waves back to the source from which the vibe originated. From there, we can determine whether the source is emanating vibes of purity or impurity, evil or good, love or fear. We feel to see what we feel and how we feel about it. To think that everyone's perception never syncs up with anyone else's seems to me far away from what is reality. We're all locked in with the same tools and gadgets, it's just some of us get a more accurate reading than others. Some of us just see differently than others, and there is no changing that. The question that gets me is what causes us all to feel so differently? Why are some of us more susceptible to reading in this way than another way? Or do we all generally feel the same way about some thing, but we have been convinced and deceived otherwise? Just something to ponder about.
It's absolutely true that: If and only if two people decide that the symbol "=" means a statement is correct given equivalent symbols on both sides of the "=" symbol, that the statement "1=1" is correct in the eyes of those two people.