Is truth relative or absolute?

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Hmm...

Well on one hand it's not good to lose yourself to herd mentality but on the other hand it's not good to completely cut yourself off from others and think you're always right and everyone else is always wrong. It's good to have your perception kept in check by others but not to sacrifice your own interests for the interests of the group. I don't know where you're getting at with objective truth and shared perception thing though since individual perception is just as subject to the truth being filtered by one's paradigms as shared perception . Another thing that complicates the issue is that it isn't just about being right, but being right for the right reasons. Not only should you know that something is true, but why it is true. It is a fact that Blacks commit more crimes but do we attribute this to genes? Family structure? Societal oppression? Ghetto subcultural values? General breakdown of family structure and values within society that they are more vulnerable to the effects of than middle class whites? etc... etc...

I'd personally draw a huge overlapping clusterf*ck of a Venn diagram before I start boiling it down to one specific cause and ruling everything else out. Most people are way too concerned about being right and do not care if they are right for the wrong reasons. It isn't just the truth that matter, but also how the truth is interpreted. Since most people are only concerned with being right, this is what sets the precedent for the mainstream media to feed them distorted and misleading facts.

I'm certain that its absolute, just that I don't think humans - from their own bubbles and perspectives, will ever be fully efficient at explaining it. Its tangled, its highly nuanced, and especially as it relates to us trying to understand and explain the 'whole' truth of many situations could fill thousands of pages. That and, there's hardly such a thing as an omniscient unbiased observer.

The truth is that they are wrong but, understandably, may have no queue to realize that they're wrong. If someone is colorblind with green and red and you show them a traffic light asking which color is lit up - they know the answer because they know that red is on top and green on bottom from consistently being told as much. If you show them an arbitrary object that they couldn't have a rehearsed answer for the result go go 50/50 either way and it may be them just taking their best guess.

That particular argument for subjectivity would work similarly to the notion that the world starts existing when we're born and stops existing when we're gone because, after all, we're measuring this by our own personal cognition. So far I haven't met anyone who's birth or death spelled beginning or true cataclysm.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 28 Aug 2011, 4:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.

Truth is statistical, based on available data. In other words, what is more likely.

Objective Truth is absolute. statistics are used to make Objective Truth conditional, and subjective perceptions tend to subvert Objective Truth to a lesser, more mutable form in the minds of the observers.

Let's call that last form "Religion"...

If that is your definition, you just demonstrated Religion.

Of course, it is not my definition. Thought you said you believed in being up on the opposition?

Truth doesn't even have an exact definition.

When it comes to people, the truth is something that makes sense to them according to the systems of thought they feel comfortable with and invest in.

I find validity and logic a better way of determining reality than the ambiguous "truth".

What is true is true and what is false is false, however that does not stop people from considering truth to be falsehood and falsehood to be truth nor does it stop some from disguising falsehood as truth and truth as falsehood.

You have a non subjective definition for "validity"?

And logic - forget not GIGO.

REALITY - that what TRUTH is, friend.

Except when it isn't.

You have some things which change and you have some that don't. Some items are not Boolean but on a scale, but regardless of the existence of scaled items you still have Boolean items.

*doesn't bother reading any replies*

Relative. Nothing is absolute in this ever changing universe.

Religion isn't the only form though, you have philosophies, ideologies, politics, ethics, and so on. I could say that a thing that can be more related or closest to the objective truth than anything else is scientific empiricism, regarding physical facts about the physical universe. Else, especially those mentioned, seem to be subject of differing of opinions, and it looks evident. So pretty much, most "truths" are relative.

Last edited by blunnet on 31 Aug 2011, 7:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Right.


And how do you suppose to identify where truth lies and where falsehood lies, properly and accurately, and how do you justify that those who differ in perspective from your own about anything are dishonest? Your position is overly simplistic.

Last edited by blunnet on 31 Aug 2011, 7:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

What about partial truth; a truth which states some of the facts but not all.

ruveyn

A statistical statement? Do you mean things like the Octet rule in chemistry? Do you mean half-truths which are intentionally deceptive or do you mean more towards the sort as providing a generality which is generally true but not in every instance?

In addition, after reading several very thoughtful posts...

Qualitative truth is both relative and subjective - How big is "Big"? How loud is "Loud"?

Quantitative truth is both absolute and objective - Fred is 1.86 metres tall. Francine masses in at 50 kilogrammes.

Comparative truth is both relative and objective - Jupiter is bigger than Mars. A shout is louder than a whisper.

Moral truth is both absolute and subjective - It is wrong to kill, except in self-defense. It is wrong to steal, unless I am starving.


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