What is absolute truth?

[KingCoil]

Let me give you another example: A1) Knife is sharp, A2) Meat is soft, F) Knife can cut meat, by which A means axiom and F means fact.

They all three are founded on experience, and therefore experiential truths, not any absolute truths.

All experiences are connected because it is the same human who has the experience of them.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

Meaning is an explanation of truth but is not the truth itself since an explanation can be false.

Absolute truth cannot change in any way or it isn’t the truth.

Truth is not a substance except in God and so nothing is attached to it.

Beings that can change must be created, and do not necessarily exist.

As completely meaningless a statement as can be written.

Anything that can change must have a beginning, but it doesn’t necessarily end if God keeps it in existence forever.

I propose we talk about truths on the basis of experience.

So, as I said already several times, we have experiential truths and no absolute truths.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

I am adding the new axiom “Water can be soft or hard”.

Do you know what “binary arithmetic” means. In some contexts, 1 + 1 = 10 is true. In other contexts it is false. There is no absolute truth in the statement, instead the statement can be false, true or meaningless depending on the context in which it is found.

How can you find absolute truth in a statement which may, or may not be true? 1 + 1 = 2 is meaningless in binary arithmetic because the symbol “2” has no meaning.

rossum

1 + 1 = 2 is an experiential truth, 1 + 1 = 10 is also an experiential truth; it depends upon your language.

Language is reliable only on our experience of how we agree to understand our verbal symbols whether in writing or in oral speech.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

Relative to what?

I know binary arithmetic, linear algebra, set theory, etc.

You can define a set such as

{1,10,5} with one operator + such that 1+1=10, 1+10=5, 5+10=1, 10+10=1, etc. so the set is completely well defined as the elements and operator is well defined.

It all depends on how we experience how we will be concurring on one language, whether in writing or in speaking, or in both.

So, people who do not and will not experience the behavior of concurring on a language when they use words in written characters or in oral sounds, they will not understand people who are using a language they concur on in regard to binding themselves to a code of understanding.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

There’s no need. I won’t.
They were enough to point out that your points are not absolute truth.

Yes, there are only experiential truths, no absolute truths.

KingCoil

 

[KingCoil]

Look back to your post #10:

Relative to what were you using the word “soft” in your A2?

Soft may be relative to a scale of hardness, a scale of calcium carbonate content, a scale of integration into hardware (wetware, software, middleware, hardware), degree of erotic content of pornography and other meanings.

That is the problem with a human language. So many words have multiple meanings that you need a dictionary to express the intended meaning of every word or symbol used. Of course, the dictionary itself is composed of words and symbols, so you need a meta-dictionary to give the correct meaning of the dictionary. Now the meta-dictionary is also made from words and symbols and you have an infinite regress. You can never get to the absolute truth, because you always need another meta^(n+1)-dictionary to explain the meta^n-dictionary.

An operator is a person who operated a crane or other piece of machinery. You also need to include a complete listing of the set notation you are using.

rossum

Language works only on the common experience of humans who use it, namely, to have the same experience of keeping to the agreement to understand what written characters represent what things, and also oral sounds.

We have only experiential truths, no absolute truths.

Experiential truths are based on direct experience or indirectly by intelligent thinking (that is also experience) on direct experience grounded on logic and facts, all of which, thinking, logic, facts are all founded on experience.

If anyone has no experience then he cannot have any truths whatsoever.

KingCoil

 

[Bahman]

I propose that we first work on our experience, then we can talk on the basis of our experience.

What are some examples of our experience of truth?

This might sound silly but it is a genuine experience which any human can and does experience, we experience the truth of the nose in our face.

We experience lying in bed and relaxing.

We experience going to work in the morning and returning home in the evening.

These are examples of truths of which on the basis of our experience we are sure that they are facts.

Wherefore, truth is a fact we are sure to exist, to have existed and will exist again, in our experience.

My point is to bring us to talk on the basis of our experience, and not from an impersonal third person if any person at all, anonymously.

KingCoil

Please let me to revise my definition for clarity:

1. The experience is the awareness from the new subject matter or event conceived withing intellect or subconsciousness.
2. The truth is intellect certainty on trueness of an axiom deduced from similar experience.
3. Fact or sentence is a logical statement which allows us to explain the subject matter based on accepted axiom or truth.
4. Language or philosophical framework is a set consist of facts and axioms which can explain subject matter well.
5. Anomaly is inexplicable experience or problem that cannot be explained with language or philosophical framework.

 

[rossum]

What do you propose ultimately as the basis of truth if you do not accept experience to be the ultimate basis of truth?

Experience cannot be the ultimate basis of truth, since our experience is not ultimate. Our senses are imperfect. We cannot see as well as an eagle, so our sight is not ultimate. We cannot smell as well as a dog so our sense of smell is not ultimate.

How do you propose that we determine the “ultimate” detail of something when we only have our imperfect senses to work with?

You might also wish to have a look at my sig.

Axioms also must be tested on the basis of experience if they are to be accepted as truths, which truths on their turn must also be founded on experience.

Experience is not ultimate since it varies from person to person. Someone who is red-green colour blind has a different experience of the word. A bee can see polarized light. Some birds can see ultra violet. Compared to them we are equivalent to a colour-blind person.

Wherefore, there is no absolute truth, but truth founded on our experience.

There is truth, but there is no absolute ultimate Truth. Philosophical absolutes are in the area of reification, and I deny all reification.

Best we don’t qualify or describe any truth with the adjective absolute, just say that we have experiential truths; so that if any human contests a truth we can require him to present specific instances of the truth of which he has no experience, and observe how he answers our question.

Agreed. We cannot have ultimate or absolute truths. We can have experiential truths.

rossum

 

[KingCoil]

Experience cannot be the ultimate basis of truth, since our experience is not ultimate. Our senses are imperfect. We cannot see as well as an eagle, so our sight is not ultimate. We cannot smell as well as a dog so our sense of smell is not ultimate.

How do you propose that we determine the “ultimate” detail of something when we only have our imperfect senses to work with?

You might also wish to have a look at my sig.

Experience is not ultimate since it varies from person to person. Someone who is red-green colour blind has a different experience of the word. A bee can see polarized light. Some birds can see ultra violet. Compared to them we are equivalent to a colour-blind person.

There is truth, but there is no absolute ultimate Truth. Philosophical absolutes are in the area of reification, and I deny all reification.

Agreed. We cannot have ultimate or absolute truths. We can have experiential truths.

rossum

Well, if experience is not the ultimate basis of truth, what then is the ultimate foundation of truth?

Your problem all of you is that our experience is not all the time and everytime dependable.

That is a fact, but the common fact with everyone is that we can work together to come to concurrence whether a particular experience alleged by a particular human that he has experienced, we can work together (that is an experiential process) that he has in fact experienced the alleged event or not.

In order words, even though in a specific instance our experience is not all the time and everytime dependable, that is the exception; the normal course of events is that our experience is dependable, so it is the ultimate basis of truth.

Anyway, assuming for the sake of argument, that experience is not the ultimate basis of truth, then tell me what is the ultimate basis of truth?

But my point is that humans that is we all do not have absolute truths but only experiential truths.

KingCoil

 

[rossum]

Well, if experience is not the ultimate basis of truth, what then is the ultimate foundation of truth?

If there is one, then we can never know it. Even if we find it we can never be absolutely certain that what we have found is the real thing and not a deceptive copy. Humans can be fooled.

All that is left is for us to do the best we can within what we know, accepting that we may be mistaken and subject to error from time to time.

Rules of thumb rule!

But my point is that humans that is we all do not have absolute truths but only experiential truths.

Correct.

rossum

 

[KingCoil]

rossum:


That is very good, we are getting connected.

The trouble here is that humans use words whose concepts are not experientiable in actual life, like this term, absolute truth.

We are not absolute beings so we cannot access realities in an absolute manner.

What we have are experiential truths which we can and do experience.

Is that enough?

That is enough and we have no other choices, so we have to live and operate on experiential truths.

It appears to me that all such uses of the word an adjective absolute is not concerned genuinely with absolute things, but only with experiential things we have access to with our experience.

What then does absolute mean when folks use that word?

It means very very very but never absolute.

What about the term absolute zero in science and technology?

It means also very very very small but not zero in the sense of nothingness at all, for there is never ever nothing existing, not even anterior to the point of the big bang.

So, what is the practical advantage of not using absolute but experiential in regard to truths?

The advantage is that then we will not be insisting that we alone are right correct, as distinct to other humans, because we have the absolute truths, and they no.

And we will not be into eventually killing each other, and the survivors will be certain that now they have proven their being the only ones right correct, when they are the only ones around.

This can get to be most catastrophic as with humans who insist it is preferable to trigger a nuclear holocaust, and destroy all lives including humanity, for then only absolute entities will continue to exist, that means them who have proven themselves right correct by killing all lives, now they are in heaven with God.

I don’t think God will like that.

KingCoil

 

[laircy]

It is that which Is.

God said it better: "I AM that I AM.”

Truth = Being = God

 

[KingCoil]

It is that which Is.

God said it better: "I AM that I AM.”

Truth = Being = God

Do you have anything to say about experiential truths vs absolute truths?



God said I am that I am, who hear that today as an experience; we want to get them together and study their experience of having heard God saying I am that I am.

It will be a report of their experience of hearing God saying I am that I am.

Now, we will ask them what is their concept of God, and the circumstances of their hearing God saying I am that I am.

That is what I mean by experiential truth, we want to examine the experience and determine whether it is an experience like for example eating, then feeling full in our stomach and then later getting hungry again, and not something like eating in a dream.

So, what kind of an experience did they have, like in a dream or in actual reality similar to as I said, eating a full meal and feeling full, and knowing from previous experiences that in time perhaps eight hours later we will feel hungry again and will need to eat again.

KingCoil

 

[jimmy]

Here are a couple truths.

1. I exist, and it is good that I exist.
2. Others exist, and it is good that they exist.

Everything else can be based on these two statements.

 

[Bahman]

Well, if experience is not the ultimate basis of truth, what then is the ultimate foundation of truth?

Experience per se is not the ultimate basis of truth since you are ignoring the effect of intellect. An Experience might be meaningless for one intellect but meaningful to another one. So experience is necessary condition for knowing ultimate truth but it is not sufficient.

 

[bobcrawford]

1. It is complete meaning it does not need any axiom
2. It is constantly changing in its form on the surface but not underneath meaning that the forms are free where as underneath is solid and without change
3. It is not divisible hence the existence in general is attached
4. Existence of beings is essential intrinsically, nothing is created or is borne
5. Everything exists but it solely appears depending on necessity of subject matter to guarantee the changes which is necessary, so called time, which is what happens on the surface
6. There is neither any beginning nor any end

Not sure the wording is correct.

I don’t see a difference between absolute truth and truth.

However, TRUTH is absolute. There can be only one truth.

 

[Bahman]

The trouble here is that humans use words whose concepts are not experientiable in actual life, like this term, absolute truth.

We are not absolute beings so we cannot access realities in an absolute manner.

As I mentioned before the sole experience is not enough since we are ignoring the presence of intellect. In another word, an experience per se cannot lead to the knowledge.

What we have are experiential truths which we can and do experience.

We receive experience unconditionally, but we can build our knowledge framework based on a set of concepts which could explain the subject matter well, in another word we could use knowledge to see what we should expect to experience.

Is that enough?

No.

That is enough and we have no other choices, so we have to live and operate on experiential truths.

That is not correct, You are basically denying the role of knowledge building which deny the role of intellect. An animal sees the sun shine and rise but it never conclude that it is the result of rotation of earth around its axis.

It appears to me that all such uses of the word an adjective absolute is not concerned genuinely with absolute things, but only with experiential things we have access to with our experience.

That is not correct.

What then does absolute mean when folks use that word?

Absolute means that it is independent of experience yet it could explain any single experience. Needless to say that the process building knowledge is sole a conceptual process otherwise we could never have more than what we experience.

So, what is the practical advantage of not using absolute but experiential in regard to truths?

Again you are forgetting the presence of intellect. Could you please first define intellect?

 

[KingCoil]

KingCoil:
Well, if experience is not the ultimate basis of truth, what then is the ultimate foundation of truth?

The act of our intellect is an experience itself.

Now, different people you say have different experiences which can be meaningless to one another’s evaluation.

In which case they should get together and seek to locate the common strands of their experiences, and thereby come to what is the core in their experiences that is the basis of the experiential truth they are concerned with.

And it is all by way of experience whenever we are using our intellect or will or our emotions.

You state that experience is not the ultimate basis for truths, but you have not presented what for you then is the ultimate basis for truths.

Suppose you present what for you is the ultimate basis for truths, and we will work on how to reconcile your ultimate basis and my ultimate basis.

My ultimate basis for truths is experience, that is why I call all truths, experiential truths, and they are the only kinds of truths for humans.

KingCoil

 

[laircy]

Do you have anything to say about experiential truths vs absolute truths?

http://i61.tinypic.com/339k9l4.jpg

God said I am that I am, who hear that today as an experience; we want to get them together and study their experience of having heard God saying I am that I am.

It will be a report of their experience of hearing God saying I am that I am.

Now, we will ask them what is their concept of God, and the circumstances of their hearing God saying I am that I am.

That is what I mean by experiential truth, we want to examine the experience and determine whether it is an experience like for example eating, then feeling full in our stomach and then later getting hungry again, and not something like eating in a dream.

So, what kind of an experience did they have, like in a dream or in actual reality similar to as I said, eating a full meal and feeling full, and knowing from previous experiences that in time perhaps eight hours later we will feel hungry again and will need to eat again.

KingCoil

Did the universe exist before there were was anyone to experience it?

 

[KingCoil]

Did the universe exist before there were was anyone to experience it?

There are fossils attesting to the existence of the universe prior to the appearance of anyone to experience it.