Truth or Truthiness?

La Sagna

La Sagna

I did it! I'm a butterfly!
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How do we know if something we believe is a truth or 'truthiness'?

truth noun \ˈtrüth\
the truth : the real facts about something : the things that are true

: the quality or state of being true

: a statement or idea that is true or accepted as true
plural truths

Full Definition of TRUTH

1
a archaic : fidelity, constancy
b : sincerity in action, character, and utterance
2
a (1) : the state of being the case : fact (2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : actuality (3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality
b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics>
c : the body of true statements and propositions
3
a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality
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1. truthiness (noun)
1 : "truth that comes from the gut, not books" (Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," October 2005)
2 : "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true" (American Dialect Society, January 2006)
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Yeah. If you have an open mind, you realize that you cant even trust what you see any more. What is truth?
 
Here's my take on truth.

There are things that are true and can be proven. An example would be that if a human being gets their head chopped off they will be dead. I think that can be proven. (I'm not suggesting anybody tries this, just believe me, it's true).

Many things though are considered true but cannot be proven without a doubt. That's why I like the scientific approach. I like that everything is a theory. Most scientific theories are probably as close to the truth as you're going to get but they are left open for new discoveries. That to me is intelligence in action. Intelligent people know that what you know now may not be what you know ten years from now, because you might find out something that changes what you know now.

It does not mean that because you don't have concrete proof of something that it is not true, but it also doesn't mean that because you really really really believe that something is true that makes it true.

I do believe in individual truths though. This is not an objective, provable truth, but something that is true to somebody's own personal and subjective experience. What I mean is that personal experiences are true for any individual and nobody else can tell a person that what they feel or experience is not true. It is true for them.
 
La Sagna said:
Here's my take on truth.

There are things that are true and can be proven. An example would be that if a human being gets their head chopped off they will be dead. I think that can be proven. (I'm not suggesting anybody tries this, just believe me, it's true).

Many things though are considered true but cannot be proven without a doubt. That's why I like the scientific approach. I like that everything is a theory. Most scientific theories are probably as close to the truth as you're going to get but they are left open for new discoveries. That to me is intelligence in action. Intelligent people know that what you know now may not be what you know ten years from now, because you might find out something that changes what you know now.

It does not mean that because you don't have concrete proof of something that it is not true, but it also doesn't mean that because you really really really believe that something is true that makes it true.

I do believe in individual truths though. This is not an objective, provable truth, but something that is true to somebody's own personal and subjective experience. What I mean is that personal experiences are true for any individual and nobody else can tell a person that what they feel or experience is not true. It is true for them.
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Yes!
 
La Sagna said:
I do believe in individual truths though. This is not an objective, provable truth, but something that is true to somebody's own personal and subjective experience. What I mean is that personal experiences are true for any individual and nobody else can tell a person that what they feel or experience is not true. It is true for them.
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"Truth is subjectivity" - Søren Kierkegaard
 
Truth is that which is independently true of our minds. If gravity woudn't had been discovered, the law of gravity would still hold true, independent of our minds. This is the nature of truth.
From a subjective perspective, I think in philosophy epistemic truth is usualy defined as a proposition that match the reality, that correspond to reality. Thus, one might call truth a realist perspective.
The natue of truth has nothing to do with belief as a truth-bearer. If one believes something to be true, it might be true or not, but not because the person believes it to be truth. The nature of truth is objective.


Søren Kierkegaard also proposed a very interesting philosophy, which is that truth is subjectivity.
 
I think there are many things that can be said about truth. But I think the most important thing about truth is that truth is objective, and is non-contradictory. There is this philosophy in our days that two propositions that directly contradict each other, like for example God exist -vs-God does not exist can both be true. It is called relativism I thnk. We may call it truth as a personal prefference, as a opinion, as something which is personal, a "like". So I think relativism can work as matters of personal prefferences or opinions, but it does not have objective meaning. And truth is always objective (except what Soren's philosophy propose), non-contradictory.
 
Truth is true when it is true and truthiness is something you just think is true.

"The sky is blue!" False. That blue field is only light scatter.
"The sun rises in the east" False. Earth's rotation makes the sun appear to rise.
"The sun doesn't move, and the earth rotates to make the sun appear to rise in the east" Also false! "But you just said -" No, I didn't say. I didn't say the sun doesn't move, because it does move through the galaxy, pulling the solar system along with it.
 
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
 
La Sagna said:
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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"Majority" of the time might be better?
 
“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”
― Albert Camus
 
“Seeking what is true is not seeking what is desirable.”
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays
 
La Sagna said:
Here's my take on truth.

There are things that are true and can be proven. An example would be that if a human being gets their head chopped off they will be dead. I think that can be proven. (I'm not suggesting anybody tries this, just believe me, it's true).

Many things though are considered true but cannot be proven without a doubt. That's why I like the scientific approach. I like that everything is a theory. Most scientific theories are probably as close to the truth as you're going to get but they are left open for new discoveries. That to me is intelligence in action. Intelligent people know that what you know now may not be what you know ten years from now, because you might find out something that changes what you know now.

It does not mean that because you don't have concrete proof of something that it is not true, but it also doesn't mean that because you really really really believe that something is true that makes it true.

I do believe in individual truths though. This is not an objective, provable truth, but something that is true to somebody's own personal and subjective experience. What I mean is that personal experiences are true for any individual and nobody else can tell a person that what they feel or experience is not true. It is true for them.
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You don;t know that you will be dead of you chop your head off. Your body will be dead sure but what is that anyway? It's just a vehicle in this reality
 
La Sagna said:
“Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
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What i've learned from debating with people irl and online is that generally people believe what they want to believe

There aren't that many people who have enough pieces of the puzzle to make sound judgement calls, but the number is growing

I'll give you an example. Lets say you know a person. You know this person is a kleptomaniac. You have seen them steal and you have heard other peoples accounts as well. You are working in a building that contains only 4 people. You are friends with the other two people and have known them for years and know them to have good characters

One day something goes missing from your desk. You remember specifically leaving it on your desk before you went for lunch but when you came back its gone. Only the 4 of you have access to the office.

Now you have no direct evidence to prove that it is the kleptomaniac who took it but you ask all the people and they all deny seeing it.

You know in your heart it was the klepto who took it and you know that they don't like you because of things they've said to you

So to suspect the klepto...to have an intutitive feel from all the experiences you've had and all the things you've heard and seen...is that truth or truthiness?

You know you get to a point where you have so many pieces of the puzzle that you can begin estimating probabilities with unearing accuracy and you make predictions and they turn out right again and again and with each correct intuitive judgement your confidence in your grasp of the puzzle grows

However those that don;t have as many pieces of the puzzle look quizically at you and your predictions and sometimes even call you mad as they cannot yet see what you can see with crystal clarity

Patterns...once you see the underlying patterns...things become more predictable
 
I think there is a lot of objective truth...many great examples...

but there's more subjective truth. we see the world through our own perspective, which is tainted by cultural, historical and personal experiences, therefore our perception of the truth is influenced by that.

I think truth is dependent also on that you're looking for the truth about.

The truth of an experience is much different than the truth of a physical action.
 
Great thread! Very informative.

I know because I'm hardwired that way. My feelings are much like [MENTION=9401]LucyJr[/MENTION]. Truth explicitly means representative of physical reality. What what one "thinks" or "feels" about it is sometimes fascinating and usually irrelevant.

In [MENTION=1871]muir[/MENTION] 's example, I would probably be convinced the klepto took my shit but I could never act on it because sometimes statistics lie and I didn't witness physical reality. Truthiness will alter my feelings about people and the way I interact with them but I couldn't rightfully go around and claim dude to be a thief or something. It comes down to a seriously anal retentive approach to qualification for truth. I can reliably label any notion of mine as truth or otherwise.
 
"The truth shall set you free" - Jesus Christ
 
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must keep mouth closed, must keep mouth closed .......:m192:
 
I know this isn't a religious discussion per se, and i'm not trying to put down any beliefs, but I was reading this article (based on my interest of this thread), and came across this post, which I thought summed up how I feel

Actually, a subjective truth is something that can be proven pragmatically or coherently. Pragmatically means that it generates desirable results. From this stance, it can be concluded that cheating is good because it gets good grades. This is not an effective measurement of truth. Coherently means that it is consistent with the facts present in its own paradigm, but that does not necessarily make it true either. A dragon is coherent with a fairy tale, but it isn’t true unless the fairy tale is true. On objective truth is truth by correspondence. That is to say that it is consistent with the facts that have already been proven methodically to be true. Saying Jesus is the truth is subjective, because it is coherent only within the context of religion. If you take Jesus out of that context, he is no longer coherent with any outside facts.
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I believe I'm a pragmatic, in my life and work...I thought it was an interesting way to outline how definition also plays into how we understand/discuss true


It's an interesting read: http://misterrichardson.com/?p=403

And, I hope I don't offend anyone! It's not my intention!
 
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