Argument from truth

Chriliman · Jul 15, 2019

holo said:
Yes, but that still wouldn't be objective, it's just that it's subjective to someone other than me.

Yes, but if it's not dependent on you, how is it not objective to you, regardless if it's dependent on someone else or not?

I agree that meaning is dependent on someone, but meaning in someone else is necessarily objective to you because it's not dependent on you.

holo said:
I suppose that IF there were some sort of "objective" or "ultimate" purpose that we were supposed to know about, then we would know about it. I don't see why God would choose to hide himself or the meaning of life from us. Unless us being clueless about it is somehow part of the plan.

You're right, God does make things known, but doesn't necissarily force us to acknowledged or accept it.

holo · Jul 15, 2019

Chriliman said:
Yes, but if it's not dependent on you, how is it not objective to you, regardless if it's dependent on someone else or not?

I agree that meaning is dependent on someone, but meaning in someone else is necessarily objective to you because it's not dependent on you.

I guess we're talking past each other or using the word objective differently. By objective I mean something that would be real, or true, regardless of anybody. Like objective morality: that something would still be right and wrong even if there were no people to make a moral judgment about it.

Chriliman said:
You're right, God does make things known, but doesn't necissarily force us to acknowledged or accept it.

I think it's reasonable to expect that if God, being God (as in almighty etc), wants everybody to know about something, then he'll make sure they do know about it. It seems unreasonable to leave it to what is practically chance (where and when you're born, what culture you grow up in etc) if it's actually important to him. So I reckon that either God doesn't want us all to know the truth, or there simply isn't no God or ultimate truth to be known.

Or to put it another way, I don't know what it would take to make me a believer, but God should know.

Chriliman · Jul 15, 2019

holo said:
I guess we're talking past each other or using the word objective differently. By objective I mean something that would be real, or true, regardless of anybody. Like objective morality: that something would still be right and wrong even if there were no people to make a moral judgment about it.

In theism, objective morality doesn’t exist without God, so no I don’t think objective morality can exist apart from a being capable of determining right from wrong.

holo said:
I think it's reasonable to expect that if God, being God (as in almighty etc), wants everybody to know about something, then he'll make sure they do know about it. It seems unreasonable to leave it to what is practically chance (where and when you're born, what culture you grow up in etc) if it's actually important to him. So I reckon that either God doesn't want us all to know the truth, or there simply isn't no God or ultimate truth to be known.

Or to put it another way, I don't know what it would take to make me a believer, but God should know.

I like the way you’re thinking.

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

eleos1954 said:
Truth

a fact or belief that is accepted as true

So, as a Christian I accept the inspired word of God, the bible as true.

People who believe in evolution or something outside of God the creator accept that as true.

All truths are subjective.

and that's what makes a peculiar people ;o)

I'd tend to think we discover or see truth, not just accept it. When I consider "Bob has just run in front of my house", I am capable of verifying that statement by whether or not Bob has. I will recognize that it's true or not based on evidence.

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

Moral Orel said:
I have a drive to do good, we can call that my conscience if you want. What do you want to call my drive to do evil though? How do I know that a god gave me one but not the other? What does it mean if that god gave me both? And how do I know which drive is correct? Maybe morality isn't objective. What if it's subjective? How do you demonstrate that "Giving to charity" is the correct thing to do?

I wouldn't really answer these questions; they're way, way, waaaaay, off topic for your thread. You can start a new thread with the moral argument if you want and I'll gladly participate though.

Sure, I might start a thread on the moral argument later. It would be nice. It's an interesting discussion theme.

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

gaara4158 said:
Didn’t we just agree that as long as we assume survival is connected to reality, then there’s no reason to suspect that our survival-based faculties are significantly deceitful?

gaara4158 said:
It’s unlikely that a completely wrong conception of reality would allow us to survive if survival and reality are connected. There are far more ways to die than to survive, so an experience completely disconnected from reality has far more ways to fail us in our endeavor to survive than it has to succeed. Therefore, we can infer from our continued survival that our experience is at least somewhat correlated with reality.

Well, we'd have no clue to what degree they are reliable or not. That was my point. I was agreeing that if they are connected, we probably don't completely conceive wrongly of it. But I think we need more than a little bit reliable. Our experience tells us it's more than that. In any case, it still wouldn't ground truth in reality, which is what we want if we believe it holds objective significance. Or did we just stumble on the right frequency by chance? And why would there be a right frequency? That's why I'm wondering how we can deny God/a supreme mind exists without concluding we're just hallucinating or else don't have a clue about what we are experiencing.

eleos1954 · Jul 15, 2019

Sapiens said:
I'd tend to think we discover or see truth, not just accept it. When I consider "Bob has just run in front of my house", I am capable of verifying that statement by whether or not Bob has. I will recognize that it's true or not based on evidence.

Bob you saw with your own eyes = fact

Your friend says I just saw Bob run in front of my/your house and you believe what he said - accept what he said as being true.

With the Lords word .... we believe (accept as true) what it says

be·lieve

accept (something) as true; feel sure of the truth of.

and yes as we study the Lords word we believe more and more as we are given more light (discover and accept more truth) through His word and through the holy spirit

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

Moral Orel said:
Right. Knowledge of true things is necessarily known. That doesn't give me a reason to think things can't be true that no one is aware of. Knowledge doesn't cause things to be true, things can be true that I am not aware of. So why does anyone need to be aware of something for it to be true?

No, even if we assume there is a good god, he could be using deception for some greater good you're not aware of. That means you do not know some things are accurate and some are not.

No, it's not possible for a truth to exist without it being known. Without God, the first time a statement or thought becomes true is the first time it is apprehended. I'm not saying it causes it to be true, but that it is a necessary part of truth to know it. Before that, it simply didn't exist. So if we think something was true before *we*, humans, knew it, then someone else had to know it.

In the absence of reasons to doubt truth's reliability, I will keep trusting in it. Everything tells me I can trust it. So why shouldn't I? In fact, it's so basic to my human experience I don't even see how I could possibly doubt it. Even if I realized I was wrong on this or that, that would only further confirm my belief in truth.

gaara4158 · Jul 15, 2019

Sapiens said:
Well, we'd have no clue to what degree they are reliable or not. That was my point. I was agreeing that if they are connected, we probably don't completely conceive wrongly of it. But I think we need more than a little bit reliable. Our experience tells us it's more than that. In any case, it still wouldn't ground truth in reality, which is what we want if we believe it holds objective significance. Or did we just stumble on the right frequency by chance? And why would there be a right frequency? That's why I'm wondering how we can deny God/a supreme mind exists without concluding we're just hallucinating or else don't have a clue about what we are experiencing.

Our experience should be based on reality to a pretty high degree given what we’ve been able to accomplish by relying on it to guide us. I mean, unless you’re arguing for something like solipsism I don’t see how you could say that the “margin of error” between our experience and reality as it is is too great to be negligible for all intents and purposes.

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

Moral Orel said:
Do you want your kids and grandkids to be happy on Earth even after you're dead? What about their kids, and so on? What if, in some small way, you can help contribute to the flourishing of human life so that it doesn't wipe itself out from some ecological disaster in the far flung future? What if your contributions to human life help your distant descendants from even being enveloped by the Sun, which the Earth is going to do a long, long time from now? What if your contributions even allow human life to advance to the point we can even escape the eventual heat-death of the universe and go on existing into the future infinitely, even though you stopped existing a long, long time ago?

Would your efforts still be pointless just because you don't get to be there in the future to witness it, or was there still a point because you were doing some good for folks you'll never even meet?

Very hypothetical. What if none of that happens?

You know, there is a way right now to gain eternal life, and it's to trust in the lord Jesus Christ.

Sapiens · Jul 15, 2019

Moral Orel said:
Why not? All that external stuff that we perceive can still exist even if the way we perceive it changes. We already have examples of people who's perceptions are off from the rest of us. There are color blind folks our there. Does their lack of an ability to distinguish between green and red, or our ability to distinguish between them affect the electromagnetic spectrum in any way?

Think of it this way. I know what blue looks like to me. I know that what looks like blue to me corresponds with a specific frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum. If I never experienced what looks like blue to me, that frequency would still exist. Why wouldn't it?

I can't delete this but I'll change my answer.

Moral Orel · Jul 15, 2019

Sapiens said:
Very hypothetical. What if none of that happens?

You know, there is a way right now to gain eternal life, and it's to trust in the lord Jesus Christ.

Your way isn't any less hypothetical. If you can show me a person that has lived forever, I'll change my mind.

Moral Orel · Jul 15, 2019

Sapiens said:
No, it's not possible for a truth to exist without it being known. Without God, the first time a statement or thought becomes true is the first time it is apprehended. I'm not saying it causes it to be true, but that it is a necessary part of truth to know it. Before that, it simply didn't exist. So if we think something was true before *we*, humans, knew it, then someone else had to know it.

An electromagnetic wave isn't "a truth". So what if statements and thoughts don't exist if minds don't exist? That doesn't make waves not exist.

Moral Orel · Jul 15, 2019

Sapiens said:
Sure, I might start a thread on the moral argument later. It would be nice. It's an interesting discussion theme.

I'd enjoy that. I have a conception of objective morality based on human physiology that I'd like to kick the tires on and see how it runs. We could duke it out and see who's morality is more demonstrable.

Ken-1122 · Jul 16, 2019

Sapiens said:
1. If God does not exist, then truth does not exist.
2. Truth does exist.
3. Therefore, God exists.

Your problem is #1 is wrong. Truth will exist regardless of whether God exists or not.

Sapiens · Jul 17, 2019

Moral Orel said:
Right. Knowledge of true things is necessarily known. That doesn't give me a reason to think things can't be true that no one is aware of. Knowledge doesn't cause things to be true, things can be true that I am not aware of. So why does anyone need to be aware of something for it to be true?

The fact there are truths awaiting our discovery indeed presupposes their objective existence. Where were these truths "held", so to speak, until known by us?

Moral Orel · Jul 17, 2019

Sapiens said:
The fact there are truths awaiting our discovery indeed presupposes their objective existence. Where were these truths "held", so to speak, until known by us?

The "truths" weren't anywhere. The stuff that we make statements about were. Just like my analogy from the beginning of the thread. There's the penny, and then there's me saying, "Hey look! A penny!"

Sapiens · Jul 17, 2019

Moral Orel said:
Why not? All that external stuff that we perceive can still exist even if the way we perceive it changes. We already have examples of people who's perceptions are off from the rest of us. There are color blind folks our there. Does their lack of an ability to distinguish between green and red, or our ability to distinguish between them affect the electromagnetic spectrum in any way?

Think of it this way. I know what blue looks like to me. I know that what looks like blue to me corresponds with a specific frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum. If I never experienced what looks like blue to me, that frequency would still exist. Why wouldn't it?

I agree that regardless of our perceptions the frequency for blue won't change. If no one could see blue though, we wouldn't really know it exists. At least in the perceptive sense. Saying "this car is blue" would hardly make sense anymore.

But ultimately, if no one saw blue or knew its frequency existed, it could hardly be said to exist. And to say it and facts concerning it existed prior to our knowledge is like I said in my previous response. I don't see how the frequency exists on its own, unknown. But maybe you have an explanation? I'm open to alternative views.

Moral Orel · Jul 17, 2019

Sapiens said:
But ultimately, if no one saw blue or knew its frequency existed, it could hardly be said to exist.

Why not?

Sapiens said:
And to say it and facts concerning it existed prior to our knowledge is like I said in my previous response. I don't see how the frequency exists on its own, unknown. But maybe you have an explanation? I'm open to alternative views.

I've shown that facts are true whether we know them or not. It's on you to show some direct link between knowledge and existence. You already agreed that knowledge doesn't cause things, so what is it?

Your argument is essentially the old, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" You're saying that the impact of the tree hitting the ground doesn't cause waves in the air because those waves don't vibrate the little hairs in our ears.

Sapiens · Jul 17, 2019

gaara4158 said:
It looks like you’re still conflating our ability to describe reality with reality itself. Sure, things like “blue” and “up” are ultimately abstract concepts within a mind, but they’re concepts that are used to describe reality. They are not the reality themselves. Their existence is easily explained by the subjective mind that houses them. No need to import an eternal mind.

One thing is for sure, knowledge concerning that reality must reside in a mind. Whatever it may be beyond that, if anything at all, is unknowable at least and non existent at most. They are that reality itself, yes, as far as we are concerned. You wouldn't know about reality without both your mind and your subjective/conscious experience.

You don't need an eternal mind if you think it's only a hallucinatory and objectively meaningless experience from a material brain. If you think it's more than that though, like I do, then yes.

To affirm that our thoughts represent accurately the reality they are about is to assume design.

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