Well, guys, I have found people who agree with me, and people who disagree with me in a way that it feels like we're living in different realities and talking past each other, so I rest my case :wink:

It seems different people have different ideas about truth, objectivity, reality, what can be known and what can't be known. There are statements I strongly disagree with, and I attempt to explain why I disagree, but then the back and forth shows me that my point doesn't get through. But I'm sure that on the other side it must feel like their point isn't getting through either.

Which leads me again to the idea that truth is personal, we all have our own world view, and when we don't understand each other we realize that we don't have the same world view. But I think it's fine to let world views coexist, rather than attempt to convert the other guys and say they are wrong or stupid if they don't agree with our own view.

My world view has changed profoundly over the years, I used to be a naïve realist, and back then probably no discussion could have shaken me out of that view, I would have seen idealists as a weird bunch who got lost in their mind, but then some experiences and observations made me realize I was mistaken. And sometimes words aren't enough to provoke these experiences in others. I wouldn't say that I'm right and they're wrong though, we just have a different reality.

Personally, I am convinced that we can deduce from the cogito - despite problems with "Who is this 'I'?", and so forth - that something has actual (Objective) existence. Therefore Objective Reality exists, and that something is all or part of it. — Pattern-chaser

I agree that I can say that something exists, but I wouldn't call that existence necessarily objective. Because to me, objective existence means existing independently of minds. Now, if there are only minds, there is nothing that exists independently of minds, so in this case nothing has objective existence (not even minds, which wouldn't exist independently of minds).

If instead we say that what is objective is what everyone agrees on, I agree with you that something exists, but I'm not even sure that everyone would agree on that. There are people who claim that consciousness doesn't exist, so it wouldn't be such a stretch for them to claim that nothing exists. Also, it is an experience in itself to have the realization (or reach the conclusion) that something exists: if someone hasn't had that experience, if they have never thought about it, then in a sense "something exists" doesn't exist to them. The concept of existence might not even have a meaning to some people, in a way that we couldn't understand without living in their reality. So even there I'm tempted to see "something exists" as subjective, it's probably not a popular point of view, but it's mine :)

Re my views, they have nothing to do with certainty, proof, etc. Those things are red herrings for empirical claims. — Terrapin Station

The question as to whether there are mind-independent objective facts is not en empirical question. Empirical questions are decidable by observation and experiment, whereas the question in question is not.

Because something can match another thing regardless of anyone thinking it does. — AJJ


How would that work? We'd need to be able to describe/detail the process.

What I'm challenging is that there's no way for it to work outside of minds. That's one of the primary unique things about minds--intentionality, the "aboutness" ability, the ability to think about something as denoting other things. — Terrapin Station

If you extend your logic here you will realize that there's no way to match what we see with any purported mind independent existence of the things we see. All that suggests the mind-independent existence of objects is the internal consensus between our different senses, the more or less invariant persistence of the objects of the senses and the external, inter-subjective consensus among percipient subjects that tells us we are seeing the same things.

There do seem to be only two explanations for those facts, though. First there is the idea that the objects of the senses are mind-independently existent, and second there is the idea that all minds are, despite appearances, somehow connected. We have no direct evidence for either of these views, or even to definitively guide us as to which view we should adopt, though I know which one I find most plausible.

It's interesting to speculate which view a genuinely unbiased ( in the sense of unmoved by their own wishes) thinker would adopt; I suspect it would be the view that things do indeed enjoy mind-independent existence, but it is very hard to argue cogently for that. So, I say it just comes down to personal preference and that it doesn't really matter what you believe. It's good to be honest and admit that it comes down to personal preference, though. You, to be consistent with your subjectivism, should be totally on board with that, I would have thought.

I didn't actually say that. With my pragmatist's hat on I might say 'truth' is 'what works for you'...'objective truth; is a claim about 'what works for everybody'.

If we say that objective truth exists out there but we can't access it or not all of us can access it, then how is that an objective truth? If no one can access it then it's an idea, not a thing, and if only some can access it then it is personal, not objective. — leo

Usain Bolt (and many others) had/have achieved certain running speeds that some people (not necessarily unfit) cannot. Michael Jordan (or Vince Carter among others) have jumped to heights that some people (not necessarily short) cannot; Albert Einstein (and other geniuses) had/have levels of intelligence that some people (not necessarily stupid) do not, etc, etc.

My point is:

First, truth is not relative. Otherwise, there would be no possibility of objectivity whatsoever. (Also, subjectivity does not negate objectivity, and vice versa. Because, again, there would be no objectivity since subjectivity is an ever-present aspect of an individual consciousness.)
Secondly, objectivity does not imply ubiquity. Objectivity is just a perspective in relation to certain collective agreements of interacting consciousness.
Lastly, like anything else, truth is there for all those who wish to avail themselves of it depending on how they apply themselves and their capacity to achieve.

However if we say "There is only personal truth", then we are not stating an objective truth, we are stating a personal truth, and that way we can remain coherent. — leo

Then, there would be a collection/multitude of personal truths and which still maintain 'coherence'. I prefer to think there's just truth and which we refer according to our limited perspectives.

While they might be accounts for why a belief is held, neither is an account of truth.

There is no account of 'truth'. Its an ineffable abstraction....a word contextually used where agreement is being saught about 'certainty of what is the case'. But a shift of focus to is-ness just takes you further round a language loop...a point recognized by the philosophical,'Eprime' movement, which attempted to eliminate the verb 'to be'.

with some of that I might agree. But why did you pretend there was?

I don't think I did. I gave the pragmatists reaction to those who do/

then some experiences and observations made me realize I was mistaken — leo

Just curious what those experiences and observations were.

If instead we say that what is objective is what everyone agrees on — leo

How are you encountering other people to agree with, by the way?

The question as to whether there are mind-independent objective facts is not en empirical question. — Janus

Yes it is. Maybe look up "empirical" in a dictionary? Let's settle this part before moving on to additional issues.

Sorry......I’m missing halfs. For my benefit alone, and for no particular reason other than peace of mind....what are the halfs you had in mind? General idea will do; no names needed. — Mww

The one half is saying that there is an existence that is independent of human cognition at all, and that that existence doesn't disappear when humans do.

The other half is realising that, for the reasons you outlined very well, it doesn't follow that specific entities, like "a rock on Mars" exist in and of themselves outside of human cognition. That would be going from one extreme (solipsism) directly to the other extreme (naïve realism).

So the apparent absurdity: "why would this rock wink out of existence if humans died" is something of a strawman. The substrate for both rocks and minds will still exist, but this isn't the same as "rocks" existing. A "rock" is a combination of human perceptions and as such cannot be imagined as mind-independent.

What's stupid about it is that it's believed despite the complete lack of any cogent support for it. It's as bad as religious belief.

Come up with a good reason to entertain it, and then it might be worth bothering with it. — Terrapin Station

By "no congent support", do you mean to say that no idealistic philosopher ever advanced an argument that convinced you, or that they are all fundamentally flawed?

Or is this merely about "good reasons" in practical terms, as in ”why bother"?

By "no congent support", do you mean to say that no idealistic philosopher ever advanced an argument that convinced you, or that they are all fundamentally flawed? — Echarmion

They're all flawed.

Most arguments in philosophy in general, proportional to the extent to which they're presented more formally as arguments, are pretty stupid, if they're taken as anything but a formalism.

If you extend your logic here you will realize that there's no way to match what we see with any purported mind independent existence of the things we see. — Janus

Since I know we won't resolve what counts as empirical or not, and I think this is worth commenting on, I'll start a second thread for you to argue with: what we're matching is a proposition with a state of affairs. The way we do that is by thinking about what we mean by the statement in question, and judging whether we consider that to be the "same" (more or less), as the state of affairs that we're focusing on, and that's obviously going to be from our perspective.

(And maybe it's worth commenting again, for other folks who might be reading this at some point in the future, that the above is framed in terms of correspondence, whereas my truth theory is actually a meta-theory that's not just about correspondence, even though correspondence is what I personally use.)

There are just things that people generally agree upon or generally accept. — thewonder

Do you discover that through inquiry?

(I'm also a relativist, by the way.)

Well, guys, I have found people who agree with me, and people who disagree with me in a way that it feels like we're living in different realities and talking past each other, so I rest my case :wink: — leo

If we're talking past each other or living in different realities, then how can you say that we are disagreeing? Agreements and disagreements would be incoherent. Your view loses any distinction between delusions and any other kind of thought. And if we can only talk past each other, then what is the point of talking at all? Why should anyone care about your's or anyone else's subjective "truths"?

Its so funny to watch you claim that truths are subjective while in the same post you go about telling how it is for all of us not just yourself. From my point of view you are simply maintaining your own delusion of having your cake and eating it too.

All you have done this entire thread is render your own posts and ideas as useless because they don't apply to anyone else's reality except yours.

D’accord. Thanks.

Yeah, I had figured that out, but, I'm still unsure as to what you mean by the manusive comparison.

You figure things out by just whatever general way that it is that have that you go about doing things. Things just become revealed to you through living your life. There's a philosophical process that could be compared to inquiry. You experience "truth" as if it becomes revealed to you. Inquiry is one of the processes that a person goes through so that they can discover what is "true".

You don't actually discover what is true, though. You just discover how to better communicate in regards to what is considered as "true".

If we're talking past each other or living in different realities, then how can you say that we are disagreeing? Agreements and disagreements would be incoherent. Your view loses any distinction between delusions and any other kind of thought. And if we can only talk past each other, then what is the point of talking at all? Why should anyone care about your's or anyone else's subjective "truths"?

Its so funny to watch you claim that truths are subjective while in the same post you go about telling how it is for all of us not just yourself. From my point of view you are simply maintaining your own delusion of having your cake and eating it too.

All you have done this entire thread is render your own posts and ideas as useless because they don't apply to anyone else's reality except yours. — Harry Hindu

There can be a limited common ground that gives a basis for disagreements, our use of the same language is a common ground, even if we often don't mean the same thing when we use the same word.

You talk of delusions, delusion is defined as a belief that contradicts reality, the concept of delusion presupposes a mind-independent reality, right now I don't believe in a mind-independent reality so to me the concept of delusion is meaningless, see the problem? That's just one example out of many. There is not only talking past each other, but there is a lot of it.

I'm not saying how it is for everyone in an objective sense, I am saying how it is for everyone from my point of view. In my point of view, some people agree with me because their reality is similar to mine, and some disagree because their reality has a lot of differences. Others may agree with that, or they may disagree.

That doesn't make talking with one another and sharing ideas pointless. Precisely because in my view, our realities are not disconnected, they can influence one another, and through speech we can get an idea of the commonalities and the differences. But when there are too many differences discussion becomes difficult, because one side uses concepts that the other finds meaningless, because I feel misunderstood and I see that my attempts to make myself understood do not work, and when that's the case it usually doesn't lead anywhere to keep trying, it ends up being an endless debate on semantics and at the end it doesn't feel like we understand one another any better, the kind of debate that ends in "let's agree to disagree" or in some heated exchange because of the frustration in not being understood.

I don't have any hard feelings against anyone who may disagree with me, I'm just hoping I can offer thoughts that some people find interesting. I know some people will find what I say useless, whatever we do or say there will always be some who find it useless, but I believe and hope that some people can get something out of it. If I didn't see a point I wouldn't do it.

What form does a meta-theory of truth have? What is it about truth that a meta-theory can be constructed around it?

This is reposting something I've posted here a number of times over the years, but here it is again:

‘P’ is true for S iff S judges ‘P’ to have relation R to either S’s phenomenal P, and/or S’s stock of previously adjudged true propositions, depending on the relation R. Relation R is whatever truth theory relation S feels is the appropriate one(s)—correspondence, coherence, consensus, pragmatic, etc.

So in other words, what it is for some proposition, 'P' (quotation marks denoting the proposition literally as a sentence), to be true to some individual, some S, is for the proposition to have the relation R to S's phenomenal P (their phenomenal perception etc. of some state of affairs) or their stock of previously adjudged true propositions, in S's judgment.

There can be a limited common ground that gives a basis for disagreements, our use of the same language is a common ground, even if we often don't mean the same thing when we use the same word. — leo

If we dont mean the same thing when we use the same word then we are talking past each other.

You talk of delusions, delusion is defined as a belief that contradicts reality, the concept of delusion presupposes a mind-independent reality, right now I don't believe in a mind-independent reality so to me the concept of delusion is meaningless, see the problem? — leo

Thats what I said: that your view obliterates the distinction between delusions and other thoughts. Delusions would be just as true as any deductive conclusion, which is preposterous.

I'm not saying how it is for everyone in an objective sense, I am saying how it is for everyone from my point of view. — leo

Exactly. So you're misusing language by implying that you are talking about other's views when you're really talking only about your view. So you're really talking past everyone who talks about their views or about a mind independent world. What is the point of having such a conversation? What would it be about?

Just as "delusions" would be meaningless to you, so to would "other views" be meaningless to you, so you need to adjust your use of terms so that it is implied that it is only your view that youre referring to, and not anyone else's view.

That doesn't make talking with one another and sharing ideas pointless. Precisely because in my view, our realities are not disconnected, they can influence one another, and through speech we can get an idea of the commonalities and the differences. — leo

Another misuse of language. You're misusing the term "reality".

Understood, and accepted......as far as it goes.

I attest that I do not always think in sentences yet I hold a whole passel of self-evident truths. Am I to understand your meta-theory covers that?

It's in the tradition of treating truth as a property of propositions. (Where propositions are usually understood as the meanings of statements.)

Ok.

This is a kind of urban legend/myth, but it's also an effective parable.

This is the transcript of a radio conversation of a US naval ship with Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995.

Americans: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.
Canadians: Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.
Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.
Canadians: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course.
Americans: This is the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln, the second largest ship in the United States' Atlantic fleet. We are accompanied by three destroyers, three cruisers and numerous support vessels. I demand that YOU change your course 15 degrees north, that's one five degrees north, or countermeasures will be undertaken to ensure the safety of this ship.
Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

This is reposting something I've posted here a number of times over the years, but here it is again:

‘P’ is true for S iff S judges ‘P’ to have relation R to either S’s phenomenal P, and/or S’s stock of previously adjudged true propositions, depending on the relation R. Relation R is whatever truth theory relation S feels is the appropriate one(s)—correspondence, coherence, consensus, pragmatic, etc.

So in other words, what it is for some proposition, 'P' (quotation marks denoting the proposition literally as a sentence), to be true to some individual, some S, is for the proposition to have the relation R to S's phenomenal P (their phenomenal perception etc. of some state of affairs) or their stock of previously adjudged true propositions, in S's judgment. — Terrapin Station

And what is the difference between P's being true and P's being called "true"?

Talk about "P is true for S" conflates truth and belief. It also looks like a conflation between propositions and belief, much along the same lines that gave Gettier a foothold.

Just curious what those experiences and observations were. — Terrapin Station

I can try talking about some of them, but I can't guarantee they will have the same effect on you, considering they were fundamentally personal experiences, and words only give a vague idea.

When I was a kid I used to be impressed that scientists have found laws of the universe. I was thinking, how did they do it? How did they get access to these laws? I struggled for a long time trying to understand how Newton found his laws of motion, how he found for instance that Force is equal to Mass times Acceleration, how did he find such a simple law relating these seemingly very different concepts, what does it mean that force is equal to mass times acceleration? And eventually I realized that Newton's laws weren't laws of the universe, they are definitions, mathematical definitions of the concepts of force and mass, in themselves they don't say anything about the universe. That realization really changed things for me, because then I started being really skeptical of what I was taught, since I had to struggle on my own to understand that teachers were the ones responsible for my confusion by calling a definition a law of the universe.

Several years later I had a similar experience, but this time with the concept of curved spacetime in Einstein's relativity, teachers would say for instance that gravitation is the curvature of spacetime, and that bodies are attracted gravitationally because they follow straight lines in curved spacetime, but again this was a misconception. Curved spacetime is not a cause of motion, it is a mental concept, that theory was formulated in a way that gravitational bodies follow straight lines in curved spacetime, but we could as well formulate a theory that is as accurate where there is no such thing as curved spacetime. And so curved spacetime cannot be an objective cause of what we observe, it is a mathematical model, a model in the mind, a tool of thought.

Then I started reading philosophy of science, in particular Feyerabend and Lakatos helped me understand that a theory can never be verified nor falsified: if an observation seems to contradict a theory, it is always possible to save the theory by saying that the discrepancy is due to an invisible phenomenon that wasn't taken into account (for instance like astrophysicists and cosmologists do nowadays to account for the difference between Einstein's relativity and observations, by invoking the unseen presence of dark matter and dark energy), or due to errors in the instruments of measurement. In other words, a set of observations can always be made consistent with any theory. Even the theory that the Earth is flat can be made consistent with observations and be considered as scientific, for instance by modeling the motion of light in such a way that Earth appears round to us even though it is flat, our fundamental theories of physics would have to be formulated differently but they could be made to have the same accuracy than the ones we have now. So fundamentally, any belief is compatible with observations, which undermines the idea that science can tell us anything about an objective reality.

I have noticed that what I believe shapes the way I see the world in a profound sense, it shapes what I perceive, what I focus on, how I interpret what I see. So I have stopped seeing what I perceive as the image of some objective reality, rather I see that I am involved in shaping what I experience. I have also noticed that what I experience is shaped by others, and what others experience is shaped by me to some extent, we're not just some passive beings seeing an outside world that doesn't depend on us, we are profoundly involved.

I have had experiences that I wouldn't classify as perception, or feeling, or thought, or imagination, it was just something else, something I wouldn't think existed if I hadn't experienced it. And it is pretty much impossible to communicate, because I cannot compare it to anything, so to others who haven't had this kind of experience it doesn't exist, but to me it exists. And so it is possible that some people have experiences that they couldn't communicate to me in a way I could understand, in a similar way that someone who has always been blind cannot understand colors. I can't say it doesn't exist just because I haven't experienced it.

And then I had psychedelic experiences, which opened myself up to the idea that there is much more than what we usually call the universe. The best way I could describe these experiences, is that while I was having them I could understand things that I am not able to understand the rest of the time, I could see things that I do not have the ability to see or even to imagine the rest of the time. If 10 years ago someone had told me what I am saying now, I would have thought they were just hallucinating. But these experiences weren't hallucinations, they were much more profound than anything else. I remember telling myself that by the time the effect wears down I would stop understanding what I understood then. And indeed, there are things I wrote down during these experiences that have lost their meaning and depth, if I read them now they just sound cheesy, because I am not able to understand them anymore, I only have a vague feeling that remains, but on psychedelics I do understand, and they are more profound than anything else, and science cannot even begin to grasp it, what we usually see with the eyes doesn't even scratch the surface. Which reminds me that I promised myself I would take some again, it's been a few years, it's long overdue. I remember it is worth it, in a way that cannot be overstated.

hen I had psychedelic experiences, which opened myself up to the idea that there is much more than what we usually call the universe. The best way I could describe these experiences, is that while I was having them I could understand things that I am not able to understand the rest of the time, I could see things that I do not have the ability to see or even to imagine the rest of the time. If 10 years ago someone had told me what I am saying now, I would have thought they were just hallucinating. But these experiences weren't hallucinations, they were much more profound than anything else. I remember telling myself that by the time the effect wears down I would stop understanding what I understood then. And indeed, there are things I wrote down during these experiences that have lost their meaning and depth, if I read them now they just sound cheesy, because I am not able to understand them anymore... — leo

Think on that for a minute...

Perhaps the writings you made while under the influence of hallucinatory substances do not make sense now because they did not make sense then. Altering your mind does not allow you to see things that you cannot see without the altering, or make sense of writings that you cannot make sense of any other way.

Rather, altering your mind(thought/belief) with hallucinatory substances makes it so that you are seeing things that are not there, and using language in a nonsensical manner.

Perhaps?

:brow: