Topic: What is truth?

[Hanes]

We do not know what the truth is.

Well we only have our estimations of the truth.  They're probably correct, but we could be wrong (or, in other words, they could be not true).

[TheSimianofDoubt]

Hi, I'm new to this place.

Avoiding all mentioned terms, and at the risk of sounding like Confucius Lite, truth is that which is or has ever been. Everything else is nothing. Individual perspectives of truth, but not truth itself, can be relative.

[Hanes]

Hi, I'm new to this place.

Avoiding all mentioned terms, and at the risk of sounding like Confucius Lite, truth is that which is or has ever been. Everything else is nothing. Individual perspectives of truth, but not truth itself, can be relative.

See, I view what you described as "reality" or "existance," and truth as a description for a statement that is in accordance with that reality.

The problems with language!

[Bill K]

We do not know what the truth is.

Well we only have our estimations of the truth.  They're probably correct, but we could be wrong (or, in other words, they could be not true).

Irrelevant!

[Green Ideas]

I didn't think you were supposed to use the word when defining it.

Yeah, exactly. You can't just say that "truth is that which is true"! That's a tautology. A high quality dictionary would have something like this:

Truth: That which is in accordance with reality.
Reality: That which is true.

See? Much better that way.

I have a very small dictionary whose 'dictionary' entry reads "This is one."

Now that's a very small amount of truth.

[Hanes]

We do not know what the truth is.

Well we only have our estimations of the truth.  They're probably correct, but we could be wrong (or, in other words, they could be not true).

Irrelevant!

ir⋅rel⋅e⋅vant   /ɪˈrɛləvənt/ 
–adjective
1. not relevant; not applicable or pertinent: His lectures often stray to interesting but irrelevant subjects. 
2. Law. (of evidence) having no probative value upon any issue in the case.

Seeing as my comment built upon and added to your statement, you fail language.

Your claim that we do not know what truth is is true (probably), but ultimatly a straw man.  We have error bars on out knowledge.  We know what we know, but know we could be wrong.  We make statements that are probably true (e=mc²), but we can only ever be 99.9999etc% certain we are correct.  We can never be 100% sure that what we think or say is true.  So we can grant that we do not know what truth is, and can never know, but for all intents and purposes, we can determine what is, in fact, "true."

[spiney]

In fact, we constantly act as if we know what truth is, but find it almost impossible to define, which is very much "in Wittgenstein territory".

In fact, this is a very important issue, and there are several possible approaches, as outlined here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth#The_major_theories_of_truth

(added) this is how philosophers see it:

http://www.dif.unige.it/epi/hp/penco/did/reyw/tarskitransp.pdf

[Evil Eye]

So... truth is defined by the parameters set forth in finding it.

If I say 1 + 1 = 2, the only thing that makes it true is that I set the standard of the definition before making the statement.

1 + 1 can equal 3 or 1 if I change the parameters, and the statement can still be true.

[spiney]

So... truth is defined by the parameters set forth in finding it.

If I say 1 + 1 = 2, the only thing that makes it true is that I set the standard of the definition before making the statement.

1 + 1 can equal 3 or 1 if I change the parameters, and the statement can still be true.

Not at all! 2+2 = 4 , always !

Now, J S Mill would have said that it's only empirically true, there's no underlying reason why it should be, and one day you could get 5, it just happens you never do cos that's how the world is!

Wittgenstein wd say, au contraire, all mathis is tautologies, and is necessarily always true, because it contains no information (in my opinion, that's the correct answer).

The logisist account of maths - that arithmetic is built out of logical structures - wd also see artithmetic as necessarily true, but that's just a different (earlier) version of Wittgenstein's viewpoint.

There's other versions, for example Peano:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms

[Evil Eye]

So... truth is defined by the parameters set forth in finding it.

If I say 1 + 1 = 2, the only thing that makes it true is that I set the standard of the definition before making the statement.

1 + 1 can equal 3 or 1 if I change the parameters, and the statement can still be true.

Not at all! 2+2 = 4 , always !

Now, J S Mill would have said that it's only empirically true, there's no underlying reason why it should be, and one day you could get 5, it just happens you never do cos that's how the world is!

Wittgenstein wd say, au contraire, all mathis is tautologies, and is necessarily always true, because it contains no information (in my opinion, that's the correct answer).

The logisist account of maths - that arithmetic is built out of logical structures - wd also see artithmetic as necessarily true, but that's just a different (earlier) version of Wittgenstein's viewpoint.

There's other versions, for example Peano:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peano_axioms

Not always true. Always true under the defined terms yes.

1 man plus one woman can equal 3 people... including a baby.

1 pile of dirt added to another pile of dirt is still one pile of dirt.

The definition of the truth is what is important. Not the truth statement.

If you redefine the parameters, the truth changes. That's how magic works.

[Hanes]

Not always true. Always true under the defined terms yes.

1 man plus one woman can equal 3 people... including a baby.

1 pile of dirt added to another pile of dirt is still one pile of dirt.

The definition of the truth is what is important. Not the truth statement.

If you redefine the parameters, the truth changes. That's how magic works.

That's because "pile of dirt" is a qualitative value, not quantitative, and you didn't include fetus on one side of your first equation.

The concept of 1+1=2 is part of the nature of the universe.  The statement that 1+1=2 is only true if it matches the nature of the universe.  The statement 1+1=3 is "not true" because it does not match the nature of the universe.

[Evil Eye]

Not always true. Always true under the defined terms yes.

1 man plus one woman can equal 3 people... including a baby.

1 pile of dirt added to another pile of dirt is still one pile of dirt.

The definition of the truth is what is important. Not the truth statement.

If you redefine the parameters, the truth changes. That's how magic works.

That's because "pile of dirt" is a qualitative value, not quantitative, and you didn't include fetus on one side of your first equation.

The concept of 1+1=2 is part of the nature of the universe.  The statement that 1+1=2 is only true if it matches the nature of the universe.  The statement 1+1=3 is "not true" because it does not match the nature of the universe.

You made my point.

First you have to qualify the statement.

"What do I mean when I say 1 plus 1 = 1?"

If I can demonstrate the logic, then the statement remains true regardless of your own definition of the equation.

A real truth is not dependent on the statement.

Gravity is true whether we give it meaning or not.

[Hanes]

You made my point.

First you have to qualify the statement.

"What do I mean when I say 1 plus 1 = 1?"

If I can demonstrate the logic, then the statement remains true regardless of your own definition of the equation.

A real truth is not dependent on the statement.

Gravity is true whether we give it meaning or not.

Well then all you're saying is that language must be defined so that we all know what we're talking about.  You're not going to get any argument there.

[pandamonium]

Well then all you're saying is that language must be defined so that we all know what we're talking about.  You're not going to get any argument there.

Didn't I already point that out?  You made Mr. Oxford sad.

[spiney]

To give Wittgenstein type of answer .......

It's logically possible - to image - that, each time we set out 3 rows of 3 chilli beans, we might get 8 beans (not 9!).

That's the JS Mill idea of maths, ie, it's what's empirically true!

But, if that happened, we wouldn't then say "2+2 = 8"! What we'd say is: "answer 9 is correct, because that's what 3x3 means, ie, take 3 rows of 3 beans. However, the physics of the situation isn't like that!"

Something of this sort happened with special and general relativity, ie, velocities don't "add simply", and the distance between 2 points isn't the simple Pythagorian formula.

http://onemorebrown.wordpress.com/2008/06/25/the-empirical-justification-of-mathematics/

more:

http://rbjones.com/pipermail/hist-analytic_rbjones.com/2009q1/000056.html