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Is the truth really of value?

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Is the truth really of value?
xzJoel
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Posted 06/16/09 - 10:45 AM:
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#31
The Truth doesn’t matter.


So often people speak of the Truth, but so rarely do they have it. How is it that we persist in the absence of Truth? What is it that makes Truth so important?


I think that use precedes truth. If you have a task to accomplish, you want to be able to accomplish that task. Does it matter if what you thought was true was actually true if you accomplished your task? No.


An example: You need to build a bridge to transport 2 men across it. You believe that it will last 100 years and be able to support 2 million men. Your 2 men cross it and the bridge is never used again. Why does it matter if you were right or wrong?


People can speak in grandiose terms all they like, but when is the last time that the Truth changed their day? Even nihilists live in the same way that everyone else does – food in mouth, feces out behind, find ways to pass time.


Things are useful or not. Perhaps you wonder, is it true that something is useful?


Take it for a moment that by “Is it true that something is useful” we can ask at least two questions: a) Was in fact that thing useful? (Did it accomplish its purpose) b) Is it true that there is a use?


In the case of a), we can never know what in fact happened. The truth may be of some great moment to us, but since we can’t know, it doesn’t actually matter. Our perceptions of it matter, but not the actual truth.


In the case of b), we have 1) subjective use and 2) objective use. If subjectively you had a use and that use obtained your purpose, then the thing was truly useful. If you need objective use, either there is no such thing or it can’t be known, but as in a), it simply doesn’t matter if there is truly an objective use because it is presently inaccessible to you in your deliberation.


Ultimately, b)1) is the question of truth with which you are primarily concerned. Perhaps b)1) being true brings you satisfaction/happiness, but if that is not your purpose, so what? However, the truth of b)1) may matter if you adopt a few additional considerations. The first is that you can learn something from prior occasions and the second is that you will have a future event to which to apply your knowledge. If either condition fails, then the truth of whether something was subjectively useful is greatly reduced in use.


If satisfaction/happiness is your concern, then the truth of b)1) matters – otherwise, the truth either may matter for future use or doesn’t matter at all.|
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Posted 06/16/09 - 10:50 AM:
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#32
Truth -- like everything else -- is, I believe, of no intrinsic value and is only valuable to those who find value in it.

I also believe that many misplace their value in truth and that it is not as valuable as many perceive it to be.

cosscos wrote:
Truth is value.


Then why does one not want to know exactly when they are to die?

Value is price,


Then why is life free?

[Value is] benefit,


Then why does one find value in the existence of sin?

[Value is] power,


Then why does one find value in charity?

[Value is] ability.


Then why do paraplegics find value in their disability when they compete in the "Special Olympics"?

Ability is humanity.


Then why am I not able to fly like the Bird?

Humanity is physis.


Then why do some things stay the same; why do we always have to have egg and sperm to reproduce?

Physis is nature.


Then why have leaves always tended towards brown in autumn and green in spring?

Nature is good,


Then why do we try and make it better? Why cut the grass, build the houses, form the streams?

Good is godness.


Then why do some run away from many of God's creations; why do they run away from sex, drugs and hell?

Godness is just.


Then what is just?

Just is laws.


Then how can the law ever have faltered as it has and continues to do?

laws is freedom.


Then why can't I kill you?

Freedom is moral.


Then why is there the zoo?

Moral is morality.


Then why is coca-cola not beverage?

Morality is will. Will is act.


Then how can we act immorally?

Act is justification.


Then why are martyrs not always successful?

Justification is truth.


Then why is there the white lie?

white lie
n. An often trivial, diplomatic or well-intentioned untruth.
james1951
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Posted 06/16/09 - 11:34 AM:
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#33



xzJoel wrote:
The Truth doesn't matter.





So often people speak of the Truth, but so rarely do they have it. How is it that we persist in the absence of Truth? What is it that makes Truth so important?





I think that use precedes truth. If you have a task to accomplish, you want to be able to accomplish that task. Does it matter if what you thought was true was actually true if you accomplished your task? No.





An example: You need to build a bridge to transport 2 men across it. You believe that it will last 100 years and be able to support 2 million men. Your 2 men cross it and the bridge is never used again. Why does it matter if you were right or wrong?





People can speak in grandiose terms all they like, but when is the last time that the Truth changed their day? Even nihilists live in the same way that everyone else does – food in mouth, feces out behind, find ways to pass time.





Things are useful or not. Perhaps you wonder, is it true that something is useful?





Take it for a moment that by "Is it true that something is useful" we can ask at least two questions: a) Was in fact that thing useful? (Did it accomplish its purpose) b) Is it true that there is a use?





In the case of a), we can never know what in fact happened. The truth may be of some great moment to us, but since we can't know, it doesn't actually matter. Our perceptions of it matter, but not the actual truth.





In the case of b), we have 1) subjective use and 2) objective use. If subjectively you had a use and that use obtained your purpose, then the thing was truly useful. If you need objective use, either there is no such thing or it can't be known, but as in a), it simply doesn't matter if there is truly an objective use because it is presently inaccessible to you in your deliberation.





Ultimately, b)1) is the question of truth with which you are primarily concerned. Perhaps b)1) being true brings you satisfaction/happiness, but if that is not your purpose, so what? However, the truth of b)1) may matter if you adopt a few additional considerations. The first is that you can learn something from prior occasions and the second is that you will have a future event to which to apply your knowledge. If either condition fails, then the truth of whether something was subjectively useful is greatly reduced in use.





If satisfaction/happiness is your concern, then the truth of b)1) matters – otherwise, the truth either may matter for future use or doesn't matter at all.|


You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie


You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie


You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie


You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie


You scream fire .. people dont come running it was the truth


YOU DIE !!! The truth is important
xzJoel
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Posted 06/16/09 - 11:49 AM:
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#34
james1951 wrote:
<p><br />
</p>
<p>You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie</p>
<p>You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie</p>
<p>You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie</p>
<p>You scream fire .. people come running it was a lie</p>
<p>You scream fire .. people dont come running it was the truth</p>
<p>YOU DIE !!! The truth is important</p>



No, the truth wasn't important. Had it been a lie and they had sat still, they would have smuggly said, "Stupid kid." Even had it been a fire, if it was just a cigarette, who cares? What was important was the result - death.

Giving a utilitarian argument for why you should believe someone when they yell fire seems awfully self-defeating if you are trying to argue that truth matters for its own sake.

I yell "Fire!" and everyone runs out. The "truth" was a chemical tanker truck lost control at the top of the hill and was going to smash into the building resulting in the death of everyone inside. Everyone lives because the result of my statement was fleeing to safety - no one cares that I lied.
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linear_occurance
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Posted 06/16/09 - 05:40 PM:
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#35
in this situation the truth is only important if you place value in not dying, in which case, you have chosen to value the truth of the situation (as most people do). So truth has no inherent value. It only does if you choose it to.
james1951
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Posted 06/17/09 - 08:48 AM:
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#36



xzJoel wrote:






No, the truth wasn't important. Had it been a lie and they had sat still, they would have smuggly said, "Stupid kid." Even had it been a fire, if it was just a cigarette, who cares? What was important was the result - death.



Giving a utilitarian argument for why you should believe someone when they yell fire seems awfully self-defeating if you are trying to argue that truth matters for its own sake.



I yell "Fire!" and everyone runs out. The "truth" was a chemical tanker truck lost control at the top of the hill and was going to smash into the building resulting in the death of everyone inside. Everyone lives because the result of my statement was fleeing to safety - no one cares that I lied.





You are missing the point of the story. TYhe same point as the boy who cried wolf story.


 


If you do not tell the truth, you will lose your credibility and when you need someone to believe you are telling the truth they may not and it couold cost you your life. Of course if your life is not important to you then I guess the truth would not be either.


Would those people have run to safety had you yelled fire everyday for the last 3 weeks?


 


No they would have said there is that nut case again and they all would have died.
xzJoel
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Posted 06/17/09 - 09:24 AM:
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#37
james1951 wrote:
<p><br />
<br />
You are missing the point of the story. TYhe same point as the boy who cried wolf story.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>If you do not tell the truth, you will lose your credibility and when you need someone to believe you are telling the truth they may not and it couold cost you your life. Of course if your life is not important to you then I guess the truth would not be either.</p>
<p>Would those people have run to safety had you yelled fire everyday for the last 3 weeks?</p>
<p> </p>
<p>No they would have said there is that nut case again and they all would have died.</p>


I think you are the one missing the point. They don't care if there is a wolf, a fire, an avalanche, or a madman, they care that when they are alarmed there is danger. The truth of the sentence conveying alarm ("There *is* a fire!") is secondary to the truth of there being a danger of some sort.

If every time I yell "Fire!" people run outside and find someone handing out $10,000, they wouldn't care if there really was a fire or any other danger, they'd be glad to get their 10k. The truth of the sentence and the truth of the danger are secondary to the reward.

So how many levels and sorts of truth do you have to dispense with before recognizing that the truth is secondary to utility? At some point in the conversation, you leave the level of concrete benefits and enter abstractions. Is it better to get 10k so you can feed your family or to peaceably enjoy the movie you were watching? These higher truths are inaccessible and are settled well outside our ability to say whether one opinion or the other is true.

Yes, whether something is the case effects what ends up being the case, but does the truth of what the case is matter? Outside of use, the answer is "no." (Even if the use of the truth is to satisfy your desire to know. Things matter to someone, they don't matter in the abstract.)

Edited by xzJoel on 06/17/09 - 09:48 AM
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james1951
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Posted 06/17/09 - 11:30 AM:
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#38



xzJoel wrote:




I think you are the one missing the point. They don't care if there is a wolf, a fire, an avalanche, or a madman, they care that when they are alarmed there is danger. The truth of the sentence conveying alarm ("There *is* a fire!") is secondary to the truth of there being a danger of some sort.



If every time I yell "Fire!" people run outside and find someone handing out $10,000, they wouldn't care if there really was a fire or any other danger, they'd be glad to get their 10k. The truth of the sentence and the truth of the danger are secondary to the reward.



So how many levels and sorts of truth do you have to dispense with before recognizing that the truth is secondary to utility? At some point in the conversation, you leave the level of concrete benefits and enter abstractions. Is it better to get 10k so you can feed your family or to peaceably enjoy the movie you were watching? These higher truths are inaccessible and are settled well outside our ability to say whether one opinion or the other is true.



Yes, whether something is the case effects what ends up being the case, but does the truth of what the case is matter? Outside of use, the answer is "no." (Even if the use of the truth is to satisfy your desire to know. Things matter to someone, they don't matter in the abstract.)


Okay I am missing your point, I will continue to read your message until I finally get it, I am sure I will eventually. This is a much deeper study of the truth issue than I am used to.
james1951
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Posted 06/17/09 - 11:37 AM:
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#39

Your example reminds me of an Anthony Robbins talk where he says if you say you want to be a millionaire and sit around watching tv all day, then the truth is you don't want to be a millionaire, you want to be a couch potatoe, of course I am paraphrasing. Is this a bit closer to the point you are making?


 


By entering abstractions are your refering to the idea of doing the right thing because it is right as opposed to doing the right thing because you get a reward of believing you are a better person because you do the right thing without material reward or even in spite of punishment (martyrdom)?


Why should we do the right thing ? What reward do we get? We are suppose to do it just because it is right. But do we really ever?


 


 
xzJoel
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Posted 06/17/09 - 12:30 PM:
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james1951 wrote:

Your example reminds me of an Anthony Robbins talk where he says if you say you want to be a millionaire and sit around watching tv all day, then the truth is you don't want to be a millionaire, you want to be a couch potatoe, of course I am paraphrasing. Is this a bit closer to the point you are making?

By entering abstractions are your refering to the idea of doing the right thing because it is right as opposed to doing the right thing because you get a reward of believing you are a better person because you do the right thing without material reward or even in spite of punishment (martyrdom)?

Why should we do the right thing ? What reward do we get? We are suppose to do it just because it is right. But do we really ever?



I think Anthony Robbins is saying that wants are expressed in actions, not in words. What you actually want is what you actually do/make efforts to achieve. He is saying that your sentence "I want to be a millionaire" is false unless you are actually doing something to be one.

I am not taking issue with something like that.

When someone says, "There is a fire", what do we mean when we say, "That is true."?

We evaluate the statement "there is a fire" by comparing the statement to a fact. If a fire exists, then the statement that "there is a fire" is true. If a fire does not exist, then the statement that "there is a fire" is false. Some people might call this the correspondence theory of truth. A statement is true if it corresponds to an existing fact.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#CorThe

A proposition can be true or false. A thing cannot be true or false. A thing exists or it does not.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#TruLan

This is not a lecture on “what is truth”, but what truth is has some role in whether or not we care what is true. I, for instance, am suggesting that truth may be pragmatic.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/#PraThe

In any event, when someone asks, “Is truth really of value?” (as the OP’s title does) or “What really makes truth better than fallacy or reality better than illusion?” (as the OP does), we don’t have to focus on what the truth is, but can focus on ideas such as “better” and “value.”

A typical example of the value of truth: (Lying to protect)

Your brother (or other loved one) runs up to you and says, “There is a man chasing me. If he catches me, he will murder me. Don’t tell him where I go.”

Your brother then runs to the left.

A few minutes later, another man runs up to you and asks, “Which way did your brother go?”

Do you lie or tell the truth?

If we assume that the truth is of highest value, we would be obligated to tell the truth with no further consideration. If the truth is not of highest value, we might make a different decision. (I am not interested in either game theory or arguments for which answer you should chose, only in illustrating a typical truth problem.)

Another example: (Lying to make happy)

Your grandmother (or other loved one) lies dying in her hospital bed. She turns to you and asks, “I will die soon. What would make me happiest of all is that you tell me that you have never smoked.”

Assuming you have smoked, what would you tell her? (Again, the answer doesn’t matter, only the point that we are considering the value of truth telling.)

A final example: (Volitional ignorance)

You come home early from work one day. You see two cars in your driveway: that of your spouse and that of his/her former lover. You have been suspicious for sometime.

You love your spouse. You know you would love him/her no matter what, but knowing that he/she cheated on you would crush you and make you sad for the rest of your life.

Do you go inside unannounced?


These examples illustrate that knowing/sharing the truth can help or hurt. If truth is valuable, there is a suggestion that you should both make the truth known to others and to yourself. The questions are designed to illicit a response (or at least the thought) that sometimes the truth is better off unsaid or unlearned.

My initial post was designed to highlight the point that truth may be useful and that the value of the truth must be weighed in accordance with the value of its use. Sometimes we care if something is true, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we are better off not knowing one way or the other.

When you pursue truth as if it matters first and foremost, you end up endangering things that may be even more important. One such example is the “illusion” of freewill. Are you better off knowing that you aren’t a moral agent? Another example is god. Are you better off knowing that you are an accident?

There is an old saying, “Ignorance is bliss”. I attribute such saying to those who have learned too late that once you know something horrible, you can never go back to being happy.
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