Does absolute truth exist?

[Tom Sawyer]

Something that is factual in every situation.

How is that different from a simple fact?

It's not in any relevant way. It just allows one to be more pedantic. The OP was using it in such a way to distinguish it from any sort of context, etc and I'm using it in the same way. I don't see why adding those sorts of qualifiers to the more general usage of a simple fact somehow makes it invalid.

 

[Juma]

How is that different from a simple fact?

It's not in any relevant way. It just allows one to be more pedantic. The OP was using it in such a way to distinguish it from any sort of context, etc and I'm using it in the same way. I don't see why adding those sorts of qualifiers to the more general usage of a simple fact somehow makes it invalid.

But a fact needs evidens. We doesnt believe in a fact without some support and even then it is only probable, not absolute.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

It's not in any relevant way. It just allows one to be more pedantic. The OP was using it in such a way to distinguish it from any sort of context, etc and I'm using it in the same way. I don't see why adding those sorts of qualifiers to the more general usage of a simple fact somehow makes it invalid.

But a fact needs evidens. We doesnt believe in a fact without some support and even then it is only probable, not absolute.

Yes ... hence the entire OP and thread and the usage of a different word to distinguish it from this.

The fact (or absolute truth if you'd prefer) is something that's true in and of itself. Whether we have the evidence to recognize it as being true or whether we believe in it isn't relevant to it being a fact.

 

[Speakpigeon]

I think there is a confusion here. We do attach truth labels to ideas ("true", false" etc.) but that does not mean that truth itself is a label. What we usually mean by "truth" is a fact of the matter that an idea somehow does correspond to some fact in the world. That is, having a particular idea is dependent on a mind having this idea, but once a mind has a particular idea then whether this idea is true or not does not depend on any mind. It does not depend on anything. It's a fact.

Of course, that's just the common notion of truth as people use it in everyday life and various people can entertain their own notion of it but if you're not talking about the common notion then I don't know what you are talking about.

What is to understand? If the idea maps to reality, we slap the truth label on it. If it contradicts reality, we slap the false label on it. If you don't like using the word "label" then fine, but true and false are still properties of ideas, while absolutes are independent of sentient minds.

What there is to understand is my point, namely that while having a particular idea is dependent on a mind having this idea, once a mind has a particular idea then whether this idea is true or not does not depend on any mind. It does not depend on anything. It's a fact.

Truth is not a label and it's not a characterisation we make of our ideas. Truth is a fact of the world, i.e. the correspondance between an idea and some fact of the matter.

The fact that we don't know whether our ideas about the material world are true or not is not a license for you to arbitrarily redefine the notion of truth as it is commonly understood.

I would agree only for truths about the material world. For example, I accept that I don't actually know whether there is a material world. But I would disagree concerning truths about our minds. The thought "I think therefore I am" is a truth.

Substance dualism is an untenable position. Proponents of substance dualism have yet to offer a single good reason to need "non-stuff stuff" to explain anything.

Red herring. My point was not in the least about substance dualism.

"I think therefore I am" is merely an internal observation. Since at the moment you cannot show me your thoughts, you cannot prove any of your purely internal observations to anyone else. You know you think, but you don't know anyone else thinks, and no one else knows you think. This leads us to solipsism...

That's irrelevant. I don't need to know that you think. All I need is to know is that I do and as such I know that there is something real. And of course this reasoning can be used by every thinker for himself. Are you saying you don't think?

Lastly, we don't even know if reality is real. We can't know that. This is the only place that solipsism is relevant. Since we can't say that reality itself is real, we can't say that anything we know is an absolute.

Literally, I can't even imagine what it would mean to say that reality is not real. That's a contradiction in terms, right? Also, the Cogito gives an example of something real we know whenever we think so we also know that reality exists.

You could be a brain in a vat, and maybe the rest of the world is part of a sophisticated simulation fed into your brain by a machine.

And then it would still be true that I would be thinking and right to claim that I exist as a thinking thing and that I therefore know real things.

Or maybe even your brain isn't real. Maybe you're just a piece of software running on a vastly sophisticated computer simulation in the future, on an alien planet, or even another universe. If this is the case, then we don't even know if the laws of physics/reality are the same in the real world outside our simulation, since everything we know about "reality" comes from observations from within the simulation. Every single thing we know is therefore suspect.

So what? The running of the piece of software could still come up with the idea that it thinks therefore it exists.

It's not inconceivable that in the future humans will have computers sophisticated enough to simulate entire worlds full of sentient people. If so, it is not hard to imagine those future humans running a very large number of simulations of the past in order to better understand the past. If this is the case, then the number of simulated humans living in 2015 would vastly outnumber the real human beings living in 2015. Assuming that computer science continues developing at its current pace, aren't you statistically more likely to be a simulation of a human than a real human? How would you know if you were real or part of a simulation?

Of course solipsisms are absurd. That's the very nature of them. However, since we can't actually prove that reality is real, we can't really say that anything we know is 100% true even if it were possible (and I really don't think it is) for our flawed minds to grasp such a truth.

I know it's tempting to think in a binary way: everything is either completely true or completely false. After all, every single thing our teachers ever asked us to understand was treated as being absolutely true or absolutely false. However, our teachers had to deal with facts this way because they had to plow through a large amount of material in a short amount of time. Here in the real world, we have no choice but to accept that every idea we have is on a sliding scale between "almost certainly true" to "definitely false" and everything in between.


Aside: on the topic of solipsism, it's entirely possible that our entire universe is a 4-dimensional projection of a 2-dimensional surface of the event horizon of a black hole in another universe. If so, then reality definitely isn't what you think it is.

You are going on a tangent. Nothing in what you say here changes the logic of the argument. It is true that if something is done which is able to claim that something is done it is correct to claim that therefore this something exists.

The phrase "reality is not real" is a nonsensical phrase. Work on it and come back with something we can discuss sensibly.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

Something that is factual in every situation.

How is that different from a simple fact?

How is a simple fact different from a fact?
EB

- - - Updated - - -

How is that different from a simple fact?

It just allows one to be more pedantic.

More absolutely pedantic.
EB

 

[Speakpigeon]

It's not in any relevant way. It just allows one to be more pedantic. The OP was using it in such a way to distinguish it from any sort of context, etc and I'm using it in the same way. I don't see why adding those sorts of qualifiers to the more general usage of a simple fact somehow makes it invalid.

But a fact needs evidens. We doesnt believe in a fact without some support and even then it is only probable, not absolute.

No. A fact is a fact is a fact.

What needs to be evidenced is a claim that something is a fact. It's our beliefs that need support, not the fact themselves. Whatever they are they are independent of us. You are confusing the epistemology and the ontology. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and if so necessarily independently of us. So a fact is always an absolute, just as a truth is always an absolute. People using useless modifiers like "absolute" just weaken their own message and show how much illiterate they are. A fact is a fact is a fact.
EB

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Is that a fact?

 

[Juma]

But a fact needs evidens. We doesnt believe in a fact without some support and even then it is only probable, not absolute.

No. A fact is a fact is a fact.

What needs to be evidenced is a claim that something is a fact. It's our beliefs that need support, not the fact themselves. Whatever they are they are independent of us. You are confusing the epistemology and the ontology. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and if so necessarily independently of us. So a fact is always an absolute, just as a truth is always an absolute. People using useless modifiers like "absolute" just weaken their own message and show how much illiterate they are. A fact is a fact is a fact.
EB

But also the reverse is true: a fact needs evidense to be believed. A fact with no evidens is something we should not believie in. There may be a teapot in orbit around mars but we will never know. And we should not believe in it.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

But that wouldn't stop it from being a fact. Our belief in the teacup is irrelevant to the existence of the teacup.

 

[WAB]

It seems to me that absolute truth is only non-absolute when insofar as A is minus A in particular to the apex of the cat box.

 

[WAB]

and...now...

anyway, I think EB is correct to cast aspersions on the modifier "absolute". If something is true, it's true. We don't need it to be absolutely true.* That's just a waste of breath, finger-tapping, bandwidth, what have you.

*edit: I should have tapped: if something is true, it's absolutely true.

 

[Juma]

and...now...

anyway, I think EB is correct to cast aspersions on the modifier "absolute". If something is true, it's true. We don't need it to be absolutely true.* That's just a waste of breath, finger-tapping, bandwidth, what have you.

*edit: I should have tapped: if something is true, it's absolutely true.

But then what does "truth" mean? Or that something "is true"?

 

[tupac chopra]

Absolute truth is a truth that is true in all contexts.

Except the contexts where it is not relevant

 

[tupac chopra]

But a fact needs evidens. We doesnt believe in a fact without some support and even then it is only probable, not absolute.

Yes ... hence the entire OP and thread and the usage of a different word to distinguish it from this.

The fact (or absolute truth if you'd prefer) is something that's true in and of itself.

How can anything be true "in and of itself"?

That sentence doesn't actually mean anything.

 

[Random Person]

If absolute truth exists there is no reason to believe that any of us could discern it. If you have faith that it exists then you might have a hard time explaining how it would manifest it self. If you have faith that there is no absolute truth then why argue the point?

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Yes ... hence the entire OP and thread and the usage of a different word to distinguish it from this.

The fact (or absolute truth if you'd prefer) is something that's true in and of itself.

How can anything be true "in and of itself"?

That sentence doesn't actually mean anything.

hey, welcome to last week in the thread!

 

[WAB]

and...now...

anyway, I think EB is correct to cast aspersions on the modifier "absolute". If something is true, it's true. We don't need it to be absolutely true.* That's just a waste of breath, finger-tapping, bandwidth, what have you.

*edit: I should have tapped: if something is true, it's absolutely true.

But then what does "truth" mean? Or that something "is true"?

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know"

- John Keats, from Ode on a Grecian Urn

 

[WAB]

If absolute truth exists there is no reason to believe that any of us could discern it. If you have faith that it exists then you might have a hard time explaining how it would manifest it self. If you have faith that there is no absolute truth then why argue the point?

That my given name is William is absolutely true. We don't need the 'absolutely', however, as EB says. That my given name is William is true. Faith doesn't enter into it.

Most of this discussion is hilariously silly.

*Edit: if you want some really hilariously silly reading, check out the arguments about Keats' lines about beauty and truth among highly overpaid scholars and academics which has been going on for a couple of centuries.

 

[tupac chopra]

How can anything be true "in and of itself"?

That sentence doesn't actually mean anything.

hey, welcome to last week in the thread!

When you get a life you'll understand
Until then keep up the good work

 

[Speakpigeon]

No. A fact is a fact is a fact.
What needs to be evidenced is a claim that something is a fact. It's our beliefs that need support, not the fact themselves. Whatever they are they are independent of us. You are confusing the epistemology and the ontology. Just because we don't know something doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and if so necessarily independently of us. So a fact is always an absolute, just as a truth is always an absolute. People using useless modifiers like "absolute" just weaken their own message and show how much illiterate they are. A fact is a fact is a fact.

Is that a fact?

A reasoning is a fact all of its own. When Descartes is reasoning that he is thinking therefore he is, his reasoning is a fact, and we accept this for the very reason his reasoning suggests. So, yes, it is.

However, a reasoning is often used to claim the reality of other facts than itself and that's where you need justification, evidence and ultimately convincing.
EB