Can we handle the Truth? (Part one of a big debate)

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Ganondorf

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This has nothing to do with God, at least not right now so before you go any further you must realise that I am not pushing my religion on you or saying that you are wrong so please continue on to the topic.

My discussion will be based on a book that I have read (not the bible) and will have no biblical referances if possible, what I am trying to do here is have a debate about if we can know absolute truth and what relative truth really is.

We demand truth in our everyday lives from people all around us: Parents, siblings, teachers, books. So we want to know truth about everthing around us also: Finances, Relationships, information, knowledge learned from others.

Yet when it comes to Morality or Religion we think that there can be no truth and that everything is relative, this is understandable because we all have different opinions right?

But if something is true then it is absolutely true, universally for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Truth is constant, and I would like a discussion of what truth is and what we can consider to be true.

My last comment will be that truth claims are absolutely narrow, right? laws of nature, gravity etc...

Even the claim "Everything is True" is a narrow statement because it excludes the statement "Everything is not True" so anything that says something is not true is not considered to be true by the first statement.

Discuss, please try to leave out religion at this point in the Big Debate threads I'll be co-ordinating.
 
Actually, there's not that much to discuss. You've basically covered it all. Though you have to factor in we few who think that ignorance is bliss in a universal scheme who don't really need the truth to be happy.

What's the book? I may have read it. :]
 
I didn't specify because I thought it would offend people but if you insist: I don't have enough faith to be an Aitheist, but I'm not covering anything about God right now in fact I hoped that I could use this thread as an establishment for future referance so right now we are discussing truth anything to add?
 
Their quality of being offended would be relative. Fear not their offenses! Be free! Free, I say!

And nope...never read it. "I Don't Have Enough Faith to be An Athiest" would be the book title, right? See what happens when you don't capitalize? It confuses people.
:(

And uh, you sorta covered everything already what with your truth and relativity. There's not much else that matters, in the grand scheme of things.
 
Actually there is a lot more that matters for instance would you say that what normal people say is really relative truth is actually solid truth for instance preferance of anything, pick anything.
 
Technically, everything's relative in the universe, even gravity. After all, what's down for me is technically up for someone else, and left for another person.

As for if we can handle the truth? Ha, we'd never be able to. Not as a group. We'd have too many idiots arguing that it's fake. This is what happens when you bring 6.5 billion people into an equation. No one agrees just to say "okay fine, this looks like the best possible way for it to have happened" whether it be for a baseball bat standing on its end or the beginning of the very world we live on. And no one accepts anyone's opinion but their own.


...of course, it doesn't help that we've been trained to lie and told by every source that we're being lied to. If everything is a lie, what is the truth?
 
No, no, no. I don't think that we can say everything is relative, I mean you are contridicting yourself if everything is relative then your statement but also be relative.

Besides the laws of gravity always exist for everyone on earth even if they choose to ignore them or believe them not to exist. It's like the idea of Math it is an unprovable tool and set of rules that we use and it exists outside of our own minds wheather we like it or not.
 
Yes, can you physically show me math? It's a rule, a set of rules not a physical object. It's one of the basic rules that we assume to be true.
 
Unlike the laws of physics, the rules of mathematics are true and inviolable. Something is not accepted as a mathematical "truth" (for want of a better word) without rigorous proof. Not the result of experimentation and observation, but proof. Of course, the limitation comes about when you have to use language to explain mathematics.
 
Ganondorf said:
No, no, no. I don't think that we can say everything is relative, I mean you are contridicting yourself if everything is relative then your statement but also be relative.

Besides the laws of gravity always exist for everyone on earth even if they choose to ignore them or believe them not to exist. It's like the idea of Math it is an unprovable tool and set of rules that we use and it exists outside of our own minds wheather we like it or not.
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Actually, that's not a contradiction. Including that sentence that states that 'everything is relative' ...everything is, indeed, relative. This forum is relative. The symbols we put here are relative. Your face is relative. Prove anything exists, yo.

Gravity may exist for everyone on earth...but what about elsewhere? We're most likely not the only living things in the universe. And math is an idea. Only a set or collection of ideas interacting between minds and singular entities of personality. Therefore, it's relative. If you cannot prove something's relativity, there's no way you could ever prove something's "true". Our minds are too feeble.
 
I only watched the movie, which was a hoot.

God said (just hang on a sec with me here) that He is the Truth and so I worship the Truth -- even if it turns out the patriarchal God of my traditions does not exist. I have surrendered myself to the Truth (does that make me Muslim by definition?).

I also don't care whether or not I exist. If I didn't, someone else would simply fill the niche. I wouldn't be around to care. Even if this turns out to be all a dream (which sometimes I feel like it is...), does it really matter? I will live my life the way I feel I'm drawn to and will never apologize for any of it.

Ganondorf said:
Besides the laws of gravity always exist for everyone on earth even if they choose to ignore them or believe them not to exist.
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We can alter gravity's pull on us on roller coasters, super magnets, etc. Best diet idea: go to the Moon -- weigh less ... INSTANTLY. lol

Ganondorf said:
But if something is true then it is absolutely true, universally for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Truth is constant, and I would like a discussion of what truth is and what we can consider to be true.
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I like chocolate ice cream, yet I have a friend who can't have it because he's lactose intolerant. The truth of liking ice cream is not universally true. It's perfectly normal for some cultures to eat dog and horses -- for me, ick. Waiting five minutes in line for a snack is perfectly fine for me -- a travesty worthy of a temper tantrum for someone else (like the impatient witch who got me fired from my favorite job). There are many truths that aren't really Truth. Personally, I feel there is a Truth out there, but being one speck in a very large universe, I will probably never see it unless I get Phoenix powers or something.
 
ルカリオ said:
Prove you exist.QUOTE]

I can't. That's my point. Hooray unprovable solipsism.
Proof is nothingness. Nothingness is existence. Snorlax, Scyther and Spheal are my favorite pokemon. Generic statement of stuff on things performing actions or not.
Pointless...all of it.
And therein lies the adventure.
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ImJessieTR said:
I only watched the movie, which was a hoot.
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Had to switch off after the first twenty or so minutes, it was so bad.

ibid said:
God said (just hang on a sec with me here) that He is the Truth and so I worship the Truth -- even if it turns out the patriarchal God of my traditions does not exist. I have surrendered myself to the Truth (does that make me Muslim by definition?).
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No, it makes you a mathematician by definition. :) (It was the search for "Universal Truth" that led me to mathematics.) Old Beardie is a civil engineer.

ibid said:
I also don't care whether or not I exist. If I didn't, someone else would simply fill the niche. I wouldn't be around to care. Even if this turns out to be all a dream (which sometimes I feel like it is...), does it really matter? I will live my life the way I feel I'm drawn to and will never apologize for any of it.
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Well, as far as you know, do you exist? I think I exist, therefore as far as I'm concerned, I do exist. (Not so much "I think, therefore I am", more "I think I am, therefore I am, as far as I care".)You could be a spambot for all I know. I could be a spambot for all you know. The level of intelligence (I hope) speaks otherwise.

ibid said:
We can alter gravity's pull on us on roller coasters, super magnets, etc. Best diet idea: go to the Moon -- weigh less ... INSTANTLY. lol
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Rollercoasters rely upon gravity for their operation, so they don't really alter it. Super magnets, ok. The electromagnetic force is some 4.17×10^42 times stronger than gravity.

ibid said:
It's perfectly normal for some cultures to eat dog and horses -- for me, ick.
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Take the train from Beijing or Moscow to Pyongyang. Don't ask what you're eating.
 
ルカリオ said:
Unlike the laws of physics, the rules of mathematics are true and inviolable. Something is not accepted as a mathematical "truth" (for want of a better word) without rigorous proof. Not the result of experimentation and observation, but proof. Of course, the limitation comes about when you have to use language to explain mathematics.
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Even more so when you have to use real life examples to use mathematics, and use one where your mathematics really have little relevance (IE, the whole innanitude about encountering a little girl who has one sibling, and her having better odds of having a brother than a sister.)

And I'm not getting into the whole degrees of absurdities and time wasting involved in that whole 0.999999...=1 fiasco. (Which all results from an imperfect definition of what a number is, from where I stand).

I don't like mathematicians much, to be honest. They're useful to the development of the other sciences, but by and large those I've met were also unredeemable pedants without a ounce of common sense.
 
Evil Figment said:
Even more so when you have to use real life examples to use mathematics, and use one where your mathematics really have little relevance (IE, the whole innanitude about encountering a little girl who has one sibling, and her having better odds of having a brother than a sister.)
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Lies, damn lies, and statistics...

There's said to be a 5% chance of catching a Magby with a Magmarizer in Diamond. 104 Magbys later...
 
Actually, even the statistics of it are shaky. Statistically, 50% (well, not quite 50%, due to a variety of factors, but we'll use 50% as a good enough approximation) of babies born will be boys, and 50% girls. Generally speaking, each birth is an independant event, therefore a family already having a girl does not impact the odds of a second girl being born.

As such, regardless of the order the children are born in, if a girl has a sibling, then the odds of it being a boy are 50% - because the odds of any sibling of the girl being born a boy are 50/50. That's how it is in real life.

The mathematical stance relies on a tree.


This trees go something like this.
There are two equal possibility for the first child in a family.

1)Male (50%)
2)Female (50%)

This give us, for a two children family, the following option :
1a)Male, Male Sibling (25%)
1b)Female, Male Sibling (25%)
2a)Male, Female Sibling (25%)
2b)Female, Female Sibling (25%)

The mathematical claims then go to say that, since we know there is at least one girl, theory 1A does not apply. 1B, 2A and 2B all remains equally likely, giving us an end run of 33.333...% of each of these being true.

In which case, our little girl, would, indeed, have double the odds of having a brother than a sister.

So in theoretical mathematics the claim is (arguably) true; in real life, it is a fat load of bullshit.

EDIT : Two children family, not four children, of course.
 
But, this is an ordered set, and the options are also ordered sets, ie. we not only know that there is at least one female, but the first one is female, therefore 2A doesn't apply either. Thus, only 1B and 2B are the only applicable options.

So in theoretical mathematics, the claim is the same fat load of bullshit.

109 Magmarizer-less Magbys and counting...
 
That would be my stance on it, yes.

Their defense tend to be to word the tree precisely so as to underline that this is the order the child are born in in the four possible families, and that then any combination that include at least one girl COULD be the valid combination for our family, since we don't know whether the girl is the oldest or youngest child.

One of those so-called mathematicians once stated that by disagreeing with them (arguing that if the order the child are born in matters, then we should have two girl-girl pairing, one in which we've met the older sibling, one in which we met the younger sibling)to properly account for all the variables), someone, in his eyes, failed the Turing test.
 
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