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Goodbye Jesus

" we create our own Truth and Reality"


been borg again

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quote.......But as Obi-Wan Kenobi put it, "the truths we cling to depend greatly on your own point of view.".......

 

lol, try telling that to the skydiver whose parachute fails to open. He may want to beleive your nugget of wisdom with all his heart, soul, and mind but it wont make a bit of difference when he hits the ground.

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What is Truth?

 

Often it can be said to be that which cannot yet be proven false to whoever asked the question. :blink:

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What is Truth?

 

Often it can be said to be that which cannot yet be proven false to whoever asked the question. :blink:

that took me a while to understand, then I thought of Heaven's Gate LoL

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quote.......But as Obi-Wan Kenobi put it, "the truths we cling to depend greatly on your own point of view.".......

 

lol, try telling that to the skydiver whose parachute fails to open. He may want to beleive your nugget of wisdom with all his heart, soul, and mind but it wont make a bit of difference when he hits the ground.

 

Thanks for this one Been Borg Again! It expaaaaands the mind! :wicked:

 

Truth, as one perceives it to be, IS THE TRUTH to that person, isn't it?

 

Having said that, consider any truth to this? Imagine, if you will, if that sky diver falling with a nonfunctional parachute 'COULD' change HIS/HER reality to not hit the ground...

 

(bear with me) PLEASE BE THINKING ABOUT THIS: would that then cause that skydiver to be doubting what 'IS REAL' and what 'IS NOT REAL' :eek: ... questioning ALL of reality as the skydiver now knows it to be!!!

 

Isn't losing touch with 'ALL' of one's reality, what causes one to go utterly, totally insane? So, would one rather die than to give up their perception of their TOTAL reality? :twitch: (Could even scare one to death!?) :scratch:

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christian: "what is the standard that determines Truth?"

 

average chucklehead: "well, uh, duh, I don't know, uh..."

 

christian: "See, you have no standard. God gave us a standard to determine Truth- His Word, the Bible!"

 

average chucklehead: "oh, gee, that makes me feel really secure, I think I'll pray the sinner's prayer and then I'll know lots of cool stuff."

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Amanda: reading your posts hurts my brain.

 

A skydiver might deny that the ground is real, and for a few seconds he might be right. But he's still gonna splat like a bug on a windshield when reality sets in.

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Truths do exist, but what truth is to me personally is just my own conception of what is truth. It’s one of those basic fundamental functions in our brain (and my head hurts too).

 

I kind of think (I might be Totally wrong here), that faith, belief, truth etc is pretty much our opinions. We make opinions from what we hear, see and reason about. All of it is a mesh of connected experiences (facts of first order), and information we received (facts of second order), and we make up our mind what to believe, and it becomes our opinion and we think that is the truth.

 

Truth is very subjective, even if we can logically prove that absolute truths do exist. We just can’t really agree on the absolutes, just because we are isolated islands of consciousness. If we one day could develop telepathy and communicate on a subconscious level, we would automatically start agreeing on objective truths.

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Amanda:  reading your posts hurts my brain.

 

A skydiver might deny that the ground is real, and for a few seconds he might be right.  But he's still gonna splat like a bug on a windshield when reality sets in.

 

I think that one must be careful not to confuse facts with truth. All facts must be interpreted by individual persons each with individual bodyminds that are physically simular but not identical. Life experiences expand the differences between individuals.

 

Each human has unique subjective filters constructed from his unique experience including but not restricted to:

 

Participents) You and other people who have "played a role" in your life.

Parts) Settings, significant facts, episodes, and significant states (including the present state and some original state)

Stages) Preconditions:Settings for the begining of life, culture, language, economics, parents, siblings, extended family, environment, gene expression, etc. Beginning: The original state followed by episodes in the same temporal setting. Middle:Various episodes and significant states, in succeeding temporal order.End: The present state.

Causation: Various causal relations between episodes, actors, and states.

Linear Sequence) The temporal position of the various causal relations between episodes, actors, and states. (example: learning a language as a child instead of as an adult)

Purpose) Goal: A desired state of self either constructed by the self, or by other actors, or by both. Plan:A sequence of episodes initiated by self and/or by other actors, which are percieved to be causally connected to the goal.*

 

(list taken with modifications from Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By pp172, 173) Link

 

This is not to say that there is nothing real, but it is to say that what ever is real will not be understood the exact same way twice.

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[addition to my previous post]

 

Take a kid for instance, that doesn’t know about gravity or aerodynamics or skydiving.

Tell him that if you fall from a plane you’ll be ok; you will land without getting hurt. He actually might believe you. Depending on how much trust in put in you he might think this is a universal truth. You made him believe the subjective truth to be an objective truth.

 

On the other hand you tell him, if you fall from a plane you will turn to strawberry jam on impact. He will believe you. Then you tell him about skydivers, and he will think they turn to jam on impact, and you have to correct his knowledge about parachutes and aerodynamics. So he will modify his truth.

 

You and I know about the truth of gravity and skydiving, based on trust in the information and knowledge we have. And we do that without having a personal experience of it. So this is to us an absolute truth.

 

Now faith and non-faith, is a very subjective truth, that can’t be objectively confirmed or disproved. So it can’t be made to an absolute truth.

 

This is the problem with religion that they believe they have the absolute truth, while they don’t, and only a freethinker can admit that he could be wrong, and admit his non-faith to be subjective until some kind of confirmation to either side can be made.

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I think that one must be careful not to confuse facts with truth.

 

Thank you Chef! I'm getting so sick of people using the concept of "truth" and "objective reality" interchangably. My opinion of gravity has absolutly no influence on how it will affect me...

 

:thanks:

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Of course facts and truths are not the same thing, but what is facts?

Isn't it information you consider to be true?

 

So Truth and Facts go hand in hand, and it's all based on you trust in the facts.

 

If you trust the information to be true, then it is truth to you, and hence a fact.

 

You can't have facts without truth, nor truth without facts, but it all comes down to trust.

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Amanda:  reading your posts hurts my brain.

 

A skydiver might deny that the ground is real, and for a few seconds he might be right.  But he's still gonna splat like a bug on a windshield when reality sets in.

 

"If" you could even comprehend to be Truth, that the ground is not real... wouldn't that cause you to question what else about your reality might not be real? You might have to question EVERYTHING if it is real, including yourself? That would be a hard concept of reality to let go of... that's all I'm saying.

 

If a child falls from the plane and someone tells the child they will not fall, then how is that congruent with the ball that falls from their hands to the ground everyday while playing?

 

Hey, how do I know if this is True... I just think at least parts of it could be, and is something to think about.. because if there were even SOME truths to that... imagine the mind's hidden powers to heal one's own body...

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Of course facts and truths are not the same thing, but what is facts?

Isn't it information you consider to be true?

 

So Truth and Facts go hand in hand, and it's all based on you trust in the facts.

 

If you trust the information to be true, then it is truth to you, and hence a fact.

 

You can't have facts without truth, nor truth without facts, but it all comes down to trust.

 

Sort of.

 

Hitler had a lot of people killed via gassing. That's a fact.

 

Most people consider him a monster. That is a truth.

 

Some think he was a hero. That is a truth.

 

Both truths are derived from the fact.

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This is the problem with religion that they believe they have the absolute truth, while they don’t, and only a freethinker can admit that he could be wrong, and admit his non-faith to be subjective until some kind of confirmation to either side can be made.

 

 

 

Very good explanation! :grin:

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Guest aexapo
If we one day could develop telepathy and communicate on a subconscious level, we would automatically start agreeing on objective truths.

 

I think another way humans could approach "truth" more clearly is by following a particular teaching of Buddha -- by ridding one's self of emotional attachment. Emotionalism is really the key, isn't it -- that "convinces" each of us what truth is? People that believe in God do so even when the same scientific principles that keep them alive through antibiotics and debrillators tell them otherwise -- they are emotionally dependent on the idea of an all knowing God and the promise of an afterlife. Life confusing? That's okay, God works in mysterious ways, and it'll be better "bye and bye."

 

Living in a state of emotional detachment would be lonely, but maybe this is the trade-off for humanity: give up on your sense of empty consumerism and obsessions. Then and only then will we "know the truth, and the truth will set us free."

 

Of course, there's always too much of a good thing. If you know too much of the objective truths, those you influence will probably start a church and deify you the moment you die . . . it would be poor Buddha all over again!

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Guest aexapo
"If" you could even comprehend to be Truth, that the ground is not real... wouldn't that cause you to question what else about your reality might not be real? You might have to question EVERYTHING if it is real, including yourself? That would be a hard concept of reality to let go of... that's all I'm saying.

 

If a child falls from the plane and someone tells the child they will not fall, then how is that congruent with the ball that falls from their hands to the ground everyday while playing?

 

Hey, how do I know if this is True... I just think at least parts of it could be, and is something to think about.. because if there were even SOME truths to that... imagine the mind's hidden powers to heal one's own body...

 

When someone has such an experience -- you know, falling from a plane, but not crashing to the ground -- then, we'd have to redefine physics. Until then, perhaps we'd better define truth, or at least distinguish it from "perception," which is entirely different. Truth, I believe (for lack of a better way to put it), is unchangeable, unbendable -- and it doesn't rely on mortal understanding or definitions to exist or be real. Perception is how we interpret truth or reality -- and it's quite capable of bending to meet our expectations, even making us believe we can walk on air, though putting this into practice usually induces metabolic cessation in the individual that tries this off a ten-story building.

 

BTW, there are no hidden powers or secret truths -- there's just a bunch of crap we haven't figured out yet. Ascribing everything we don't know to the supernatural is how we screwed things up to begin with.

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the truths we cling to depend greatly on your own point of view.".......

 

I think that truth must be something that is not supernatural, that it can be proven by means of logic. The supernatural is only that which we haven't found a rational explanation for yet.

 

So far, physics and biology have revealed many things that are true. Not everyone is willing to accept all of them, but they will have to eventually.

 

Perception is how we interpret truth or reality -- and it's quite capable of bending to meet our expectations, even making us believe we can walk on air, though putting this into practice usually induces metabolic cessation in the individual that tries this off a ten-story building.

 

I agree with this. Everyone's interpretation of things are different. No two people are going to look at the grass and see exactly the same thing, even if they happen to look at the same blade. But that doesn't change the fact that they are looking at the same blade of grass, even though one might be brainwashed to believe it's a rose and the other brainwashed to believe it's a stalk of wheat.

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Sort of.

 

Hitler had a lot of people killed via gassing.  That's a fact.

 

Most people consider him a monster. That is a truth.

 

Some think he was a hero. That is a truth.

 

Both truths are derived from the fact.

 

Let me explain it a little better.

 

If no one had told you about Hitler and what he did, then someone told you he was a good person and did good things, I’m not saying he was, but someone was lying to you, and you had no chance of getting the truth.

 

The truth would still be that Hitler was bad, but to you, the fact would be skewed and you would believe in a subjective truth, and you would claim it as objective until you could get enough proof that you had been fooled.

 

So belief and subjective truth comes from trusting the source that gives you the information.

 

Object truth does exist, but to know it, everyone has to agree to the facts.

 

Say for instance that all of a sudden we would get to know that Hitler was manipulated and someone else was pulling the string, and that he never did anything wrong, and lets say that was the truth (which I’m not saying it was), but just consider if it was. Then everyone had to change their opinion about WWII and Hitler’s actions. The general truth suddenly changes and now everyone believes something else.

 

Facts can be proven and validated, most of the time, and argued and explained. So facts and the trust of the source lead to the “truth” that you hold on to. So you have to know who to trust.

 

Take the Bible for instance, why do Christians maintain that this or that really happened that’s written there? It is because they trust the people that communicated the information, and the people that put the books together. So trust is the key to our beliefs and what we hold as true.

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Let me take this from another perspective. I’m widening the discussion here, and branching of a little. So I’m not expanding previous post, but sidetracking a little.

 

Take color for instance.

 

When I see green, how can I be sure that I see the same color as you? We have the same name for the same phenomenon, so our agreed perception is that green is green.

 

But if we would do a brain scan when we see a green wall, will the brain really give the same signals? To some extent is does, but actually to some degree it doesn’t. Why? Because green is my favorite color and will trigger some more emotional signals than it would for you, so is the truth that green is exactly the same phenomenon for both of us? I would say it’s not.

 

We could take this with scent also, and look at recent studies that show that color, scent and flowers trigger different areas in the brain if you’re male or female.

 

One person will hate a scent, and another would love the same scent, so the truth about the scent, scientifically, it’s the same chemicals, but emotional and their opinion about it would be totally different. So one say “it’s the truth, I hate this smell”, is that a common/absolute truth or is that a personal/subjective truth? Of course it’s totally subjective. And sometimes these kinds of reactions come from experiences in life, and not necessarily facts or information.

 

So my personal conclusion is that how we interpret truth is that it is subjective and we base our truths on facts or experiences. We approve the facts based on the trust we have to the source, but experiences are based on our trust in ourselves. And we do this even if the truth itself could be a common truth that no one can deny; we still base it on our own trust in the facts.

 

We should open a discussion about if reality or free will is an illusion. Because I just read today about that quantum entanglement starts to mess up the understanding of the correlation between those to.

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ok....but ABSOLUTE truth is REAL truth....everything else is perceived.

 

Graity is ABSOLUTE truth.

Dimensions are ABSOLUTE truth

Things that are PROVEN.......

ETC

 

everything else is a free for all of thought!!!

 

Well, that's MY thought anyhoo!

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Oh, and to add to the fact that Hitler gases people (which I know he did), some people maintain even today the notion that he never did it (Neonazis). So for them the facts are not there, and their subjective/personal truth is that it never happened.

 

And why? Because they don't trust the information that has been given. They think the Jews are falsifying the facts and the documents.

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ok....but ABSOLUTE truth is REAL truth....everything else is percieved.

 

Oh, I don't deny there is absolute truth, but the problem is "what is the absolute truth?"

 

Take Newtons formulas for speed and acceleration. It was the absolute truth for everyone until Einstein came up with relativity.

 

Newtons formulas work up to 1/3 of lightspeed, but over that it doesn't, then you have to use relativity.

 

So today our absolute truth is not the same as the absolute truth 150 years ago.

 

And with quantum entanglement, now relativity starts to be questioned too.

 

Quantum Entanglement could prove that what we percieve as reality doesn't exist, but is an illusion. So if you thought relativity was hard to understand, we haven't seen the worst yet.

 

QE could, I only say could because it's not solved yet, mean that there is a higher order of structure to not only physics, but to our actions in the past and the future.

 

They starting to compare QE to be on the same level as cause and effect. They say it's : cause and effect and entanglement.

 

Entanglement is a part of Quantum Mechanics where two particles or photons behave as a connected pair. If one is affected in one place, the other one follows suite, and they say this "information" actually travels much faster than speed of light. And somehow, the action/reaction, can't be influenced by our free will to force them to contradict each other. A very strange thing indeed.

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Oh, I don't deny there is absolute truth, but the problem is "what is the absolute truth?"

 

Take Newtons formulas for speed and acceleration. It was the absolute truth for everyone until Einstein came up with relativity.

 

Newtons formulas work up to 1/3 of lightspeed, but over that it doesn't, then you have to use relativity.

 

So today our absolute truth is not the same as the absolute truth 150 years ago.

 

And with quantum entanglement, now relativity starts to be questioned too.

 

Quantum Entanglement could prove that what we percieve as reality doesn't exist, but is an illusion. So if you thought relativity was hard to understand, we haven't seen the worst yet.

 

QE could, I only say could because it's not solved yet, mean that there is a higher order of structure to not only physics, but to our actions in the past and the future.

 

They starting to compare QE to be on the same level as cause and effect. They say it's : cause and effect and entanglement.

 

Entanglement is a part of Quantum Mechanics where two particles or photons behave as a connected pair. If one is affected in one place, the other one follows suite, and they say this "information" actually travels much faster than speed of light. And somehow, the action/reaction, can't be influenced by our free will to force them to contradict each other. A very strange thing indeed.

 

 

Yes, that IS very strange. I'm quite fascinated with dimensions. There are, at the present, 11 proven dimension. (pretty sure)

I can't even begin to understand that!

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Yes, that IS very strange. I'm quite fascinated with dimensions. There are, at the present, 11 proven dimension. (pretty sure)

I can't even begin to understand that!

Well, they are still debating if they exists, or if they're 9, 10 or 11.

I've got different information there. But I agree, it's very likely.

 

The last I heard was that string theory, that they thought would solve some of the questions about quantum mechanics, have come to some snags. I don't know what problems, but there seems that things are more complicated that they thought.

 

Talking about trust in information leading to opinion again, that our opinion feeds back into who we trust. So it's a recursive function, we trust, we make opinions, which leads to new trusts. And it all comes back to ourselves, do we trust ourselves?

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When someone has such an experience -- you know, falling from a plane, but not crashing to the ground -- then, we'd have to redefine physics.  Until then, perhaps we'd better define truth, or at least distinguish it from "perception," which is entirely different.  Truth, I believe (for lack of a better way to put it), is unchangeable, unbendable -- and it doesn't rely on mortal understanding or definitions to exist or be real.  Perception is how we interpret truth or reality -- and it's quite capable of bending to meet our expectations, even making us believe we can walk on air, though putting this into practice usually induces metabolic cessation in the individual that tries this off a ten-story building.

 

BTW, there are no hidden powers or secret truths -- there's just a bunch of crap we haven't figured out yet.  Ascribing everything we don't know to the supernatural is how we screwed things up to begin with.

 

It doesn't matter if there is something you might call objective truth at least as far as humans are concerned. Truth must necessarily be understood by a subject that cannot be removed from the loop. That subjective understanding is often enough to allow an individual to survive the hazards of her environment for good number of years. That is not to say there are not malfunctions of the subjective understanding due to damage to the bodymind so that the individual has an understanding of what he is in relation to that is destructive of his individual existence.

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