Definition of Truth.

[harshgoel1975]

Do we have scientific definition of truth(1).. hypothesis, postulates, thesis and theory... to be proven... or already proven by models and experiments or using mathematical tools...and as we inch further... we redefine.. so we refine truth rather one inch near to truth (2) ...can we say science is the quest to find truth (3) ....if not all ,most will say yes...and what if we found the truth .. there will no more be science(4)... it become final words(5)...... or .. we keep on fining the truth .. which is not definable(6). .. any comments

 

 

[studiot]

All this presupposes there is only one grand truth that is universally applicable.

 

Perhaps there are, in fact many smaller truths, each only applicable in their own domain.

 

Or perhaps there are no truths at all.

[starlarvae]

Don't bother about defining truth. You'll spin your wheels forever.

 

It's enough that we know how to use the word. That's all. We continue to use the word in certain agreed-upon ways, and that's it. There's no "the way the world actually is" lurking around at some "deeper" level. We just compare our experiences, and then come up with rules about how to use the various words that we use.

[Strange]

 

can we say science is the quest to find truth

 

No. I don't think anyone has held that view for a very long time.

[harshgoel1975]

Don't bother about defining truth. You'll spin your wheels forever.

 

 

thats true......living in a shell is easy but it is living in shell......

 

looks like science ( rather scientists ) are honest person rather than true person...they describe exactly what they observer and measure.....got an ancient example ...a blind person touches the elephant and start describing it...and if he touches tail only... he describe elephant like a rope......which is correct .. because by bring other people( of his kind ) and make them touch the tail of elephant.. and everyone say... yes... unless someone reach to the tail end and touch the leg... and then description of elephant changed as a rope ending with pillar kind of structure....and so on and so forth.....allamaa......time consuming process....

 

Nevertheless.. looking for some stuff on ultimate reality... the truth and only truth .... and... after knowing that nothing left to known... ( hypothetical situation )

[davidivad]

thruth is an opinion guided by one's perspective.

one truth is another man's lie.

two truths can lead to a lie.

lies can also lead to the truth.

this is of course my personal opinion.

[Robittybob1]

thruth is an opinion guided by one's perspective.

one truth is another man's lie.

two truths can lead to a lie.

lies can also lead to the truth.

this is of course my personal opinion.

I was quite surprised by this. I am going to treat anything you say as suspect from now on.

[davidivad]

that was just an attempt at philosophy.

i know i suck.

is it the truth?

pick it up.

does it have weight?

this is the truth.

i do not lie.

Edited November 30, 2014 by davidivad

[studiot]

 

they describe exactly what they observer and measure

 

But some observations are more exact than others.

 

Take the observation "the colour of X is.........."

 

Now orange is, by definition, the colour of that particular fruit.

 

That, to me, is an example of the strongest available truth.

 

But what is the colour of my bedroom wall?

 

Well the paint manufacturer called it April Yellow, but another manufacturer calls it Spring Sunshine and yet another just used the British Standard colour number, called cream.

 

In theory I will get the same ccolour, whichever product I choose.

[davidivad]

as long as that is what it means to you, this is what matters the most.

philosophy is a strange creature.

if i had to count the number of paradoxes in life i could split a dime forever.

to me, philosophy is the einstein of all because it is truly relative.

what is the truth?

it is a lie.

[harshgoel1975]

 

to me, philosophy is the einstein of all because it is truly relative.

what is the truth?

it is a lie.

 

I like it....Philosophy is like fluke in the dark .. ( pardon me .. this is not to hurt )... if it hit it become theory... else who cares.....but I still feel this is needed.... someone need to think beyond where everything else stops.....

 

coming to back the point.. Truth here is not ,how to describe .. label may be different and doesn't matter until it points to same ... but the truth means that doesn't vary or change with time........

[Robittybob1]

as long as that is what it means to you, this is what matters the most.

philosophy is a strange creature.

if i had to count the number of paradoxes in life i could split a dime forever.

to me, philosophy is the einstein of all because it is truly relative.

what is the truth?

it is a lie.

Poetry 10 out of 10. Truth zero.

[davidivad]

i then present to you the liar's paradox.

 

Explanation of the paradox and variants

The problem of the liar paradox is that it seems to show that common beliefs about truth and falsity actually lead to a contradiction. Sentences can be constructed that cannot consistently be assigned a truth value even though they are completely in accord with grammar and semantic rules.

The simplest version of the paradox is the sentence:

This statement is false. (A)

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

 

sorry for the poor reference.

Edited November 30, 2014 by davidivad

[John Cuthber]

If truth isn't real then you cannot establish the truth about anything- including truth.

So, if we plan to get anywhere we had better assume that there are at least some objective truths- for example, we are people living on a big rock.

I'm not saying that statement is correct, I'm saying that if we assume it isn't we get nowhere.

Science treats the existence of objective reality as an axiom.

[davidivad]

i concede.

we can define it and use it under those conditions.

what is accepted by the professionals of the field in question?

a consensus can be reached just for this purpose as long as everyone agrees.

Edited November 30, 2014 by davidivad

[Robittybob1]

i then present to you the liar's paradox.

 

Explanation of the paradox and variants

The problem of the liar paradox is that it seems to show that common beliefs about truth and falsity actually lead to a contradiction. Sentences can be constructed that cannot consistently be assigned a truth value even though they are completely in accord with grammar and semantic rules.

The simplest version of the paradox is the sentence:

This statement is false. (A)

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

 

sorry for the poor reference.

From my days of doing programming logic a statement like "This statement is False" would be a circular reference or something like that.

The word "This" would be referring to a prior If statement.

IF (test) is FALSE THEN

"This statement is false."

ELSE

"This statement is true."

END IF

Edited November 30, 2014 by Robittybob1

[StringJunky]

To expand on what John said: I think truths are axioms that can be defined as consensually-agreed assumptions. These are the roots of any train of logic but are by their nature unprovable because they so fundamental. Because axioms are only assumptions the ‘truth’can only ever really be arbitrary i.e. we decide and agree what are the foundational pillars of our collective world.view. We use those truths until they go wrong and adjust them accordingly.

In science and other logical endeavours I think 'truths' are evolving logical anchor-points that we use in our pursuit towards an accurate description of the world around us.

[MonDie]

i then present to you the liar's paradox.

 

Explanation of the paradox and variants

The problem of the liar paradox is that it seems to show that common beliefs about truth and falsity actually lead to a contradiction. Sentences can be constructed that cannot consistently be assigned a truth value even though they are completely in accord with grammar and semantic rules.

The simplest version of the paradox is the sentence:

 

This statement is false. (A)

 

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

 

sorry for the poor reference.

"This statement is false" does not pertain to any part of the objective world. It's describing the status of one semantic formulation within a formalized, intersubjective, rule-based system. It challenges our current application of truth values, i.e. our current axioms, but not the grounding upon which "truth" rests.

[Ten oz]

Truth grows and evolves and more information is obtained. The full truth about many things isn't yet and perhaps will never be known because there is always more to know. However there are things that are untrue. We can still distinguish real from unreal, truth from lies, and etc.

[Strange]

 

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the philosophy of truth. Pontius Pilate famously asked: what is truth? In the twentieth century, the nature of truth became a subject of particular interest to philosophers, but they preferred to ask a slightly different question: what does it mean to say of any particular statement that it is true? What is the difference between these two questions, and how useful is the second of them?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04v59gz

[Dekan]

Melvyn Bragg's weekly UK radio programme "In Our Time", is worth listening to. It sometimes gives valuable insights.

[recursion]

Do we have scientific definition of truth(1).. hypothesis, postulates, thesis and theory... to be proven... or already proven by models and experiments or using mathematical tools...and as we inch further... we redefine.. so we refine truth rather one inch near to truth (2) ...can we say science is the quest to find truth (3) ....if not all ,most will say yes...and what if we found the truth .. there will no more be science(4)... it become final words(5)...... or .. we keep on fining the truth .. which is not definable(6). .. any comments

 

 

 

Yes, actually. Truth is what is what is not disprovable and what is coherent with the understanding of truth. In its fundamental essence, truth is not a fact or statement, but rather the way towards the truth, which is something that is nearly universally understood by near-sentient or sentient beings. With that being said, truth, or truthiness to be more specific (to describe it in its essence), is an eternal existence that exists regardless of physical reality. Additionally, it necessitates only awareness of it for it to be known and by the knowledge of verifiability, coherence, and objectivity, we confirm it exists.

Edited January 4, 2015 by recursion

[david345]

This is a post I made on another forum about solutions to the liar's paradox and problems with those solutions. Even if they solve the liar's paradox there are other similar problems which may infect their system. Problems such as Gödel's proof. The principal of explosion states from a falsehood anything follows. With a single contradiction one could prove anything. One could prove Santa clause exists and the earth is flat. I am not going to explain this but google can do the job. There are a few "solutions" to the liar's paradox. Tarski claimed the truth is undefineable. He claimed only a higher level language could speak of the truth of a lower level language. This avoided self reference because a statement in a language could not speak of it's own truth. This solution comes with some problems. If I say "Joe is telling the truth". That statement must be on a higher level then anything Joe says. If Joe says "David is telling the truth". That statement must be on a higher level then anything I say. It is impossible for me to make a statement on a higher level then anything Joe says and Joe also makes a statement on a higher level then anything I say. Another "solution" is paracomplete logic. Paracomplete logic rejects the law of the excluded middle. It is a three valued logic. Statements can be true, false, and other. The law of the excluded middle is often replaced by the law of the excluded fourth. Paracomplete logic preserves consistency by claiming the liar's paradox is neither true or not true. The problem is that it can not say this. It would have to say that it is true that the liar's paradox is not true and it is true that the liar's paradox is not not true. That would be a contradiction. Another solution is dialetheism. Dialetheism preserves the law of the excluded middle but rejects the principal of explosion. Dialetheism claims the liar's paradox is both true an not true but this does not lead to explosion. This "solution" also has its problems. Joe says something and I say it is false. One could wonder is Joe's statement false or is it dialetheia (both true and false)? I could say his statement is false and it is not dialetheia. One could wonder if what I said is true or is it dialetheia?

[Dr. Funkenstein]

Philosophically, Truth is merely a qualifier for the accompining "Fact". by itself it means nothing, therefore it is just a term of diction. Only and I stress only when it is supported by a fact does it takes definition. ie;

 

The water is wet, is a true statement. Remove the fact "water being wet" and your left with nothing. There is not a true/truth, one can put forth without an accompaning fact. so the word is merely a qualifiying term we use in for a representative sign for the fact.

[tar]

Thread,

 

While the blindman and the elephant story is true, and the liar's paradox is true, and it is true that philosophers argue over what is true, and logicians struggle to define true statements, and the observations of scientists and the agreed upon axioms in mathematics and physics are true, I think String Junky says it best.

 

"In science and other logical endeavours I think 'truths' are evolving logical anchor-points that we use in our pursuit towards an accurate description of the world around us."

This goes along with my definition of truth in which one would use two litmus tests.

1. Does it match the world. 2. Is it true (does it match) in more than one way.

Regards, TAR