What exactly is truth?

[DarrnBrey]

Fact, the widely socially accepted perceptions of truth.

Truth, what something's state is regardless of perception.

That's what I use. Short and sweet.

[RGMage2]

Fact, the widely socially accepted perceptions of truth.

Truth, what something's state is regardless of perception.

That's what I use. Short and sweet.

What if it were in a state of flux? Or in New Jersey but not from New Jersey?

[soulgamers]

The Truth is = that no one knows the truth. and that is the fact. " Take nothing at Face value- for the truth is hidden." and that statement in it's self is Truth. ( or the Truth of the matter.) . . . or is it?. :wallbash:. :teehee:

Edited May 10, 2015 by soulgamers

[Daedthr]

If you go back to Plato, you get some very interesting concepts of truth and for those who've looked at Plato's forms you'll already know what I'm talking about.

 

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So I can most easily explain the concept of forms using the idea of a cat:

 

Some basic characteristics of a cat might be that it is a mammal, it is furry, it has four legs and a tail, two eyes, etc.

 

Everyone who has ever seen a cat knows it, and even those who haven't could generally conceptualise a reasonably good-looking cat if it is described to them with enough detail in a cat's characteristics.

 

However, each cat is different, for instance it is not unlikely that at some point in one's life one will come across a cat that lacks a full-length tail, either because it was amputated or cut off, or because of a congenital disorder. Yet, a cat with a stumpy-tail remains a cat, and if we saw such an animal on the street, we would be able to identify it as a cat.

 

Now, the same can be said for a cat lacking one eye, or one leg, or without fur, which leads to the question of "How if something's characteristics are all variable and may or not be possessed, can we consistently identify said something as we are capable of doing?"

 

In other words, if a cat can lack a tail, an eye, a leg, or any other characteristic we have come to associate them with, what is it that makes them a cat?

 

Thus Plato developed the idea of forms, that is, that the world we live in is an imperfect reflection of the real world, the "true" world, the world of the forms. Plato believed that humans possess a soul, and that we once all existed in the world of the forms, before passing into the material world through some means, and that our ability to identify and associating things of the same type but with different characteristics is a remnant of our time in the world of the forms.

 

Now in theory, the world of the forms should therefore contain the true essence of everything, a form of everything, such as the form of a cat. It is from our knowledge of such a form that we are able to identify all cats as being cats, despite them not necessarily having all the characteristics we associate them with. Imperfections in our world come through the clarity of the forms being lost in the reflection of the world of the forms, and our ability to forget what we knew when we were in the world of the forms.

 

So to Plato and his followers, truth could be well be considered something that does not exist in our world, but rather that our world is a reflection of the true world of the forms, which is immaterial. It's worth noting here that I have had to oversimplify and leave out certain parts of Plato's theory of the forms, but it's all covered in Plato's Republic, and also in Plato's Analogy of the Cave.

 

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So that's one ancient philosophical take on truth. There are plenty more, for instance Aristotle (unlike his mentor Plato) was more concerned with the a posteriori (that is, the empirical, the material) and might therefore hold that the world in which live now and everything we can sense is an embodiment of truth, and that what is untrue are abstract concepts, that have no empirical place in the world.

 

 

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Personally, I don't think truth can be quantified by human logic, for instance take the phrase "Truth exists".

 

Now if the phrase is not right or incorrect, then truth does not exist.

 

However if you hold the phrase to be correct, then you are holding it to be untrue, and for you to hold a privation of truth to be such a thing you must first hold truth to be such a thing as to exist, thus in accepting the statement you are in fact begging the question (that is, your proof of something's existence relies on the assumption that it does in fact already exist).

 

Therefore we take the first statement to be true, that truth does not exist. However yet again we are begging the question, simply one step more quickly. We are saying the statement is incorrect and is therefore untrue and again to assert a privation of something we must first assert that this something exists, else there can be no lack of it because it itself is lacking. Therefore the first option is also disputing the existence of truth on the unaccounted for assumption that truth already exists.

 

Hence truth both exists and does not exist, is self-contradictory, illogical, and cannot be quantified by human logic.

Edited May 10, 2015 by Daedthr

[soulgamers]

Yup!.. exactly as I said.

in all you've written.

that truth is unknowable.

 

and that statement is in it's self. . " TRUTH."

 

Impossible to know, especially being beyond the range of human experience or understanding: the unknowable mysteries of life.

In that is " Truth ". :ohmy: ... :laugh: ... :wallbash:

[UncleRoe]

Truth is what people are offended by when hearing it bluntly after living in a life filled with sweet lies.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Uncle Roe

[Nozylation]

To me (and I'm no philosopher), there is just one and unique truth. One and only good anwser for every question. I'm not talking about subjective perspectives or points of views, juste the RIGHT consequence for the RIGHT causes. Truth is, to me still, impossible to reach for human beings most of the time but I guess if we had every tools, informations and capacities we could calculate any form of events or phenomenons that could happen, whether that being in the future, present, or past, since every cause leads to consequences, that will be causes too, etc... Dont call me Merv =p.

 

(sorry for the shitty english, i'm trying to fix that)

I completely agree with Genj0.

[Deleted1205226User]

Quoting a graffiti I saw today.

"Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off"

[RS13]

It would be really cool if there were like smart people who made a systematic study of this sort of thing. Oh wait... http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/

[HeyYou]

Quoting a graffiti I saw today.

"Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off"

There IS Truth in graffitti! :D