Is the truth really of value?: Philosophy Forums

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Is the truth really of value?

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Is the truth really of value?

Legion
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Posted 06/17/09 - 12:52 PM:	#41
I think the value of truth (as with anything) depends on the needs of people. If I encounter a woman who is freezing to death then she doesn’t need the truth; she needs heat. Call me captain obvious.
We sense. We reason. We predict. We don't always get those right.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 06/18/09 - 07:54 AM:

#42

james1951 wrote:

All we actually have is a perception of the truth based on our own personal reference point or perspective.

While me may or may not be in possession of the facts, we all have an interpretation of those facts, concerning the whys and wherefore irregardless of the validity of the fact.We can be very honest and still be wrong according to the facts.

We can be dishonest and submit true facts with distorted reasoning which is what purportedly the serpent did in regard to god and adam.

You could have noted that I said "Truth is a property of humans"

You could have also noted that the facts of the apriori world and its embedded phenomenology are always correct, It is our dissemination of those facts that comfuse us. When we are confused we interpret information incorrectly. However we choose to interpret gravity, the facts remain intact. When people are not confused about the apriori world then the truth implies valid information about thephysical world.

WHen you broach the topic concerning "validity of facts", you speak only about human experiences and not about those objects extant in the world.

Admittedly, humans can once again be confused concerning the information released by factual entities, especially those that remain existing in the world, but the validity of those facts are there for public viewing. However experiences where phenomenology has been in play for short periods of time, do tax the human identifying processes, again leading to confusion and doubt. This is one of our own personal shortcomings, but it does not deny the "fact" that truth is a property of the human.

Let me refresh your memory with an example. We have an experience that lasts five Earth seconds. Someone takes an item off a shelf, puts it in a bag, takes it out again and replaces it on the shelf, then furtively puts their hand in the bag and slinks away. Alice and Bob both see different parts of the five second event. Neither sees the person putting the item in the bag in the first place. Alice believes the item is still in the bag whereas Bob cannot be sure. However they both have their "personal truths", that corresponds to direct mental experience. No one can change what Alice saw neither can they remove the confused data Bob carries around in his head. (I will pause the episode at this point).

What I wrote should lead me to say that personal truth, the truth of the human, the direct correspondence betweenv the information stream and mental identification processes, is beyond doubt. Further interpretation is doubtable, but the truth of the human has no real correspondence to the facts of that case, and no truth of that matter can show "it to be the case".

It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 06/18/09 - 08:07 AM:

#43

James1951, as per my post #42,"when you stated that: "All we actually have is a perception of the truth based on our own personal reference point or perspective.", I would not actully put it that way because there is no perception of the truth. Truth is the referent of a statement which when proposed evaluates to "valid" or" correct, and we nominally use the Boolean indicitive "true" and not(false), where the universe of discourse is only {true,false}.

It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

nousPLOTINU
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Posted 06/18/09 - 08:10 AM:

#44

Legion wrote:
I think the value of truth (as with anything) depends on the needs of people. If I encounter a woman who is freezing to death then she doesn't need the truth; she needs heat.

Call me captain obvious.

Very cute, but her truth is "she continues to freeze if ", and it could have been said, Capital my dear Watson,for she is indeed freezing, which would have lead us to believe you do have an eye for the truth.

It is not that I think I know, it is that I know when I think.

Incision
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Posted 06/18/09 - 01:03 PM:	#45
james1951 wrote: The only thing other than true beliefs, are false beliefs. Do you really think false beliefs are preferable? Some say ignorance is bliss , so maybe you are right in a way. In general, false beliefs are not preferable; there's a presumption, probably a strong presumption, that we're all looking for the truth. I just think that you can imagine exceptional cases where it would be better to believe something false, such as when that's the only way to save lives. (I'm kinda losing track of the discussion, but I wanted to reply to this.)

james1951
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Posted 06/19/09 - 07:02 AM:	#46
Legion wrote: I think the value of truth (as with anything) depends on the needs of people. If I encounter a woman who is freezing to death then she doesn't need the truth; she needs heat. Call me captain obvious. Unless the reason she is freezing is because she has failed to see a truth that would keep her out of that predicament in the first place. She still needs heat, but she also needs to know the truth of why she didn't have heat in the first place. The old idea of you can give a man a fish and feed him for a day or you can teach a man to fish and he can feed himself for a lifetime. Edited by Incision on 06/19/09 - 11:59 PM. Reason: coding error

james1951
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Posted 06/19/09 - 07:08 AM:	#47
nousPLOTINU wrote: You could have noted that I said "Truth is a property of humans" You could have also noted that the facts of the apriori world and its embedded phenomenology are always correct, It is our dissemination of those facts that comfuse us. When we are confused we interpret information incorrectly. However we choose to interpret gravity, the facts remain intact. When people are not confused about the apriori world then the truth implies valid information about thephysical world. WHen you broach the topic concerning "validity of facts", you speak only about human experiences and not about those objects extant in the world. Admittedly, humans can once again be confused concerning the information released by factual entities, especially those that remain existing in the world, but the validity of those facts are there for public viewing. However experiences where phenomenology has been in play for short periods of time, do tax the human identifying processes, again leading to confusion and doubt. This is one of our own personal shortcomings, but it does not deny the "fact" that truth is a property of the human. Let me refresh your memory with an example. We have an experience that lasts five Earth seconds. Someone takes an item off a shelf, puts it in a bag, takes it out again and replaces it on the shelf, then furtively puts their hand in the bag and slinks away. Alice and Bob both see different parts of the five second event. Neither sees the person putting the item in the bag in the first place. Alice believes the item is still in the bag whereas Bob cannot be sure. However they both have their "personal truths", that corresponds to direct mental experience. No one can change what Alice saw neither can they remove the confused data Bob carries around in his head. (I will pause the episode at this point). What I wrote should lead me to say that personal truth, the truth of the human, the direct correspondence betweenv the information stream and mental identification processes, is beyond doubt. Further interpretation is doubtable, but the truth of the human has no real correspondence to the facts of that case, and no truth of that matter can show "it to be the case". This is the same concept as the blind men and the elephant. Each have a perception of the truth equally valid to the individual yet none have the whole truth leaving their descriptions of the elephant, invalid. The key for humans is to come together in the spirit of truth and cooperation listen to each other and come up with a much more true description of the elephant or in your case the bag and shelf incident. That is how we can "remove the confused data Bob carries around in his head" Edited by Incision on 06/19/09 - 11:58 PM. Reason: coding error

throng
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Posted 07/01/09 - 06:05 AM:

#48

If truth were known there is no trust, for one can only trust an unknown.

If one holds a belief to be true he does not trust his faith.

My signature below is as close as I've come.

I know that I don't know, so I don't know if I do.

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