Truth is an absurdity

[VogoLannd]

It is amazing to me how many people on this forum claim to really know what the objective essence of things such as labeling in this case. How do you know that all people label things not to gain any insight but merely to have a handy tool for referencing? If even one subjective being has ever labeled something in order to try to understand its essence better then you would be wrong.

It is amazing to me how you actually state that labeling provides anything other than reference. Seriously, what kind of insight about "x" would one get if they labeled it "x1"? Would they know it's mass, it's weight, it's temperature, it's feelings, it's purpose, if any? This scribble called semantics would've still been devised, even if Anceint Greece never existed, just with a different Label.

Yes, a label may purposefully carry information about the object at hand, like for example labeling an apple as "roundishcomingfromatreefruit" but that is only After you've analyzed and concluded that.

I am in class right now and I wish I can develop this further but your statement "how you actually state that labeling provides anything other than reference" means the following to me: Logically it can never be the case that labeling can provide anything other than reference because neither I nor any human being that I know of has ever gained objective insight of anything by labeling it, as a result of this limitation of the human species wemust consider it objectively to be the case that no subjective being can ever gain insight into anything by labeling it. So are you aware then that you are using limitation as the criterion for truth? our limitations=some kind of gateway into objective truth, this is also a belief.

[Free Soviets]

1 + 1 = 2. It's true by definition.

Its statistically true.

There is absolutely no reason that the universe cannot, when we combine two objects, create a third. The entirety of the laws of physics are based on observation and statistics, just because, so far, whenever humanity has combined 2 objects, it has observed that 2 objects remain, does not mean that this is an absolute truth, only 'the truth' - the thing all/most of humanity agrees on.

no.

[Czechanada]

As I understand it, the word objective is defined as an attribute which signifies incontestable reality towards the idea or thing that it is attached to. This means that if I claim X to be objective then X is a reality beyond my perspective and other perspectives cannot alter this X. The problem with ascribing anything objective to X is that all my faculties of evaluation are subjective in essence. I will use language and an apple as examples to demonstrate the impossibility of transforming our subjective beliefs into objective facts.

How is it that anything is properly labeled in language? or more specifically why is an apple regarded as an apple? Some may claim that the word apple is derived from the word aplaz which is from an older proto-Germanic language but then I retort why was an apple labeled aplaz? let's regress to the zero level, before any language existed as a precedent, how is it that humanity labeled the apple? here I claim as in everything else the chasm between human subjectivity and the true essence of the thing being observed is impossible to breech. When humans utter the word apple it is a sound and nothing more and when humans write the word apple it is a scribbling which is felt to be appropriate to the utterance. Neither the sound nor the scribbling brings us any closer to the essence of the thing in question. Would it be any more or less accurate to label an apple a schmaple or a durkato? And what if we were to draw two bent lines with an exclamation point at the end? How is this any less accurate than the word apple? What transpires at the origin of an object's labeling is devoid of any truth, what actually occurs is the conjuration of a belief. The man labeling the object with his particular version of the word apple is fostering a conviction that X from now on shall be called Y but there is no basis in objective reality for this connection! No incontestable proof whatsoever!

What is this if not faith? For faith is defined as a firm belief in something for which there is no proof. Mankind observes phenomena, cannot possibly fathom it's objective essence, and yet a word is assigned to it with no actual insight gained. Now we see the abyss hidden beneath everything we've ever held to be true. There is no idea more genuine or favorable than another if truth is factored into our evaluations. Neither scientist nor priest has a more accurate grasp on reality since both are human and in possession of subjective faculties. The proud claim to truth of the scientific community is no less an article of faith than the Christian belief in the Holy Bible as the word of God.

There is no truth, there are only perspectives based solely on faith. Therefore,as far as humanity is concerned, all is faith. One should never be dissuaded from their beliefs because others claim they are "inaccurate" or "not based on fact" for this type of criticism emanates from an absurd and impossible demand to be assured of the truth behind an idea before holding it as one's own and acting upon it. If such a criteria was to be existentially forced on our species then all vestiges of language, philosophy, art, time, music, religion, science, politics, etc would be promptly removed from human history. Truth is an absurdity that man ought to throw overboard.

Heavily influenced by Nietzsche's Perspectivism. I would appreciate any thoughts or constructive criticism.

There is no such thing as truth, but it is possible to strive for truthfulness.

[Free Soviets]

seriously V, how do you not see the performative contradiction you are engaged in?

[The Land Fomerly Known as Ligerplace]

seriously V, how do you not see the performative contradiction you are engaged in?

Confusing the thing that is a symbol, the associations with that thing that is a symbol, and what that symbol is meant to represent?

[Free Soviets]

seriously V, how do you not see the performative contradiction you are engaged in?

Confusing the thing that is a symbol, the associations with that thing that is a symbol, and what that symbol is meant to represent?

even then, he's still left holding the equivalent of 'i am not thinking'. and while that may be true symbolically, it can't be true literally.

[Typhlochactas]

I'll just bow out until the OP realizes that his arguments are self-refuting.

[Augarundus]

Erm... OP doesn't make any sense. If you're going to argue the solipsist position, you'd better bloody well do it right.

You're arguing the solipsist position using nominalist philosophy. That is, that we cannot be sure of existential truths because essences are subjectively determined (or, rather, that essences are non-existential)...

As a nominalist who does agree that existence precedes essence, I have to say: this thread makes no fucking sense.

[Wikkiwallana]

You're mixing semantics with semiotics.

Sir, I have no duty to hold Ancient Greek schools of thought as objective sources of truth. If Ancient Greece had never existed you'd have no ground to stand on. The terms semantics and semiotics would be absurd scribblings with no meaning.

You obviously aren't interested in meaningful discussion, only bullshitting everyone who disagrees with you. We're done here.

[VogoLannd]

Sir, I have no duty to hold Ancient Greek schools of thought as objective sources of truth. If Ancient Greece had never existed you'd have no ground to stand on. The terms semantics and semiotics would be absurd scribblings with no meaning.

You obviously aren't interested in meaningful discussion, only bullshitting everyone who disagrees with you. We're done here.

Yea it's not meaningful if it doesn't pertain to your system. If it doesn't make sense to me I will slander and run for the hills, fine go ahead.

Talk of contradiction invalidating a concept presupposes logic as the dominant idea which validates or makes invalid any idea or thing, everything must pass through logic and be valid according to the rules of logic otherwise we will not consider it to be possible whatsoever.

Take the idea of signifier and that which is signified, humans are incapable of obtaining insight from labeling, so they create a logical separation between signifier and that which is signified and proclaim the establishment of two separate categories to be objectively true. We believe the essence of the two categories to be objectively separate because WE can not make the connection, therefore no subjective being will ever make this connection. A subjective being gaining insight of an object by labeling it would be illogical because we are incapable of doing it. This is not proof of any truth, this just signifies our current LIMITATIONS as human beings. Those who believe in logic believe that our limitations are the sign posts to truth. We can't fathom how something could be contradictory and yet be valid so we refute it as illogical. Quantum theory states that our universe was created from a void that was positively charged. contradiction! impossible! how can nothing have a positive charge, how can nothing contain something! I cannot understand this so it must be illogical and false.

Well I am not going to be so arrogant and presumptuous as to believe that if our species can't understand something or do something then that means we have stumbled onto some kind of objective truth. Humanity and it's limitations are being grossly overvalued here.

[Farnhamia]

You obviously aren't interested in meaningful discussion, only bullshitting everyone who disagrees with you. We're done here.

Yea it's not meaningful if it doesn't pertain to your system. If it doesn't make sense to me I will slander and run for the hills, fine go ahead.

Talk of contradiction invalidating a concept presupposes logic as the dominant idea which validates or makes invalid any idea or thing, everything must pass through logic and be valid according to the rules of logic otherwise we will not consider it to be possible whatsoever.

Take the idea of signifier and that which is signified, humans are incapable of obtaining insight from labeling, so they create a logical separation between signifier and that which is signified and proclaim the establishment of two separate categories to be objectively true. We believe the essence of the two categories to be objectively separate because WE can not make the connection, therefore no subjective being will ever make this connection. A subjective being gaining insight of an object by labeling it would be illogical because we are incapable of doing it. This is not proof of any truth, this just signifies our current LIMITATIONS as human beings. Those who believe in logic believe that our limitations are the sign posts to truth. We can't fathom how something could be contradictory and yet be valid so we refute it as illogical. Quantum theory states that our universe was created from a void that was positively charged. contradiction! impossible! how can nothing have a positive charge, how can nothing contain something! I cannot understand this so it must be illogical and false.

Well I am not going to be so arrogant and presumptuous as to believe that if our species can't understand something or do something then that means we have stumbled onto some kind of objective truth. Humanity and it's limitations are being grossly overvalued here.

This is why philosophers were sometimes sent into exile or made to drink hemlock.

[Strawberrry Fields]

For this thread I have two things to say;

1) Truth and reality rarely coincide, what is true almost never manifest itself in reality the way one would expect.

2) You can trust a man who seeks truth, but never trust a man who claims he has found it.

[Free Soviets]

Talk of contradiction invalidating a concept presupposes logic as the dominant idea which validates or makes invalid any idea or thing, everything must pass through logic and be valid according to the rules of logic otherwise we will not consider it to be possible whatsoever.

assume logic doesn't apply. it follows that truth is objective.
prove me wrong.

[VogoLannd]

Talk of contradiction invalidating a concept presupposes logic as the dominant idea which validates or makes invalid any idea or thing, everything must pass through logic and be valid according to the rules of logic otherwise we will not consider it to be possible whatsoever.

assume logic doesn't apply. it follows that truth is objective.
prove me wrong.

The very formation of that proposition presupposes a logical perspective from the one proposing it. You are thinking this: if I state that "truth is objective and logic does not apply, prove me wrong" then it follows that if he and anyone else is unable to prove me wrong the result is that my proposition is right. Limitation has proven your proposition to be correct, logic is at work here.

[Nidaria]

As more well-educated people than myself have already pointed out, truth exists.

[Free Soviets]

assume logic doesn't apply. it follows that truth is objective.
prove me wrong.

The very formation of that proposition presupposes a logical perspective from the one proposing it. You are thinking this: if I state that "truth is objective and logic does not apply, prove me wrong" then it follows that if he and anyone else is unable to prove me wrong the result is that my proposition is right. Limitation has proven your proposition to be correct, logic is at work here.

i am assuming no such thing. firstly because that wouldn't work under normal logic. but second, i have no need for such because all i have to do is assert that truth is objective and it is so under your non-rules. it is so regardless of anything you say. any attempt by you to argue against it is yet another performative contradiction - it would assume logic. and any attempt to deny it is merely met with my reassertion of it; remember, you've rejected both argument and the law of non-contradiction in favor of some bullshit subjectivist relativism. and so my say so makes it so. i'm the jean luc picard of universal truths.

you cannot touch the truth value of my claim. it is and always shall be true.

[I Want to Smash Them All]

Please God, Max Barry, The Flying Spaghetti Monster, Jean-Luc Picard, or whomever or whatever has the power save us from novice philosophers!

**runs away screaming a random jumble of obscenities, portions of "The Hunting of the Snark," and hooting noises**

[I Want to Smash Them All]

i'm the jean luc picard of universal truths

Because of your ability to time travel, I know you stole this reference from my post.

[Meryuma]

Did you study the Romans? Did all of them believe in the same branch of linguistics that you believe in?

...

Do you know what linguistics is?

[Christian Democrats]

It is true that a square has four sides!

Will the OP please prove this to be wrong; or, at the very least, will he give me a good reason to doubt this statement?

It is impossible to prove whether a square truly exists and has four sides. You see something which seems to have four sides and I see that this thing has four sides but what that means is that this thing has the semblance of having four sides according to our subjective faculties and nothing more. If the entire human race agreed that this thing we were looking at has four sides then it would only prove the semblance of the thing having four sides according to human beings. Semblance is not essence.

It has nothing to do with semblance (or the accidents to be more philosophical) because the form of a square exists independently of all human senses. The essence of a square itself is being a geometric figure with four sides and four right angles.

Prove this statement to be wrong, or give me a good reason to doubt this statement:

It is true that all bachelors are unmarried.

This is known as an analytic proposition (see, for example, Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant).

[VogoLannd]

Did you study the Romans? Did all of them believe in the same branch of linguistics that you believe in?

...

Do you know what linguistics is?

Scientific study of human language, much of which has changed since the study of linguistics in the days of the Roman Empire which just largely borrowed from Ancient Greek thought. Linguistics today is very different from linguistics back then.

[Salandriagado]

1 + 1 = 2. It's true by definition.

Not quite. It follows from any one of a number of axiom sets. Perhaps the best known are the Peano axioms:

0 is a natural number (sometimes 1 is used instead)
Equality of natural numbers is reflexive
Equality of natural numbers is symmetric
Equality of natural numbers is transitive
The set of natural numbers is closed under equality
The natural numbers are closed under some successor function S
For every natural number n, S(n) is natural
There is no natural number whose successor function is zero
S is an injection
If a set contains 0 and the successor of every one of its elements, it contains all natural numbers
(And some form of induction axiom - it varies)

Addition is defined as +: NxN->N with
a + 0 = a
a + S(b) = S(a + b)

Thus, 1 + 1 = 1 + S(0) = S(1+0) = S(a) = 2.

You can also derive the above from ZF set theory.

Proving that 1 + 1 = 2 properly took 379 pages.

[Norstal]

All those months that I have toiled making math proofs are for nothing?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo000000000000111111

[VogoLannd]

The very formation of that proposition presupposes a logical perspective from the one proposing it. You are thinking this: if I state that "truth is objective and logic does not apply, prove me wrong" then it follows that if he and anyone else is unable to prove me wrong the result is that my proposition is right. Limitation has proven your proposition to be correct, logic is at work here.

i am assuming no such thing. firstly because that wouldn't work under normal logic. but second, i have no need for such because all i have to do is assert that truth is objective and it is so under your non-rules. it is so regardless of anything you say. any attempt by you to argue against it is yet another performative contradiction - it would assume logic. and any attempt to deny it is merely met with my reassertion of it; remember, you've rejected both argument and the law of non-contradiction in favor of some bullshit subjectivist relativism. and so my say so makes it so. i'm the jean luc picard of universal truths.

you cannot touch the truth value of my claim. it is and always shall be true.

This works with normal logic all the time, people used to take it as a matter of fact that the atom was the smallest indivisible unit and the sole basis for this belief was that no one could prove otherwise, no one could go further, limitation of our capabilities, logic. What you are doing is no different regardless of how you're rewording it. You are positing something you believe that I under my rules/outlook on life cannot disprove, you say it yourself that "any attempt to deny it is merely met with my reassertion of it" so your conclusion is that through this method you will always be right, therefore what you are positing must be objective truth. My obstacle to disprove you is my limitation, logic is at work here.

[Person012345]

1 + 1 = 2. It's true by definition.

Its statistically true.

There is absolutely no reason that the universe cannot, when we combine two objects, create a third. The entirety of the laws of physics are based on observation and statistics, just because, so far, whenever humanity has combined 2 objects, it has observed that 2 objects remain, does not mean that this is an absolute truth, only 'the truth' - the thing all/most of humanity agrees on.

1 + 1 = 2 has nothing to do with "combining objects". 1 has a definition. 2 is defined as a unit of 1 and another unit of 1. 3 is defined as a unit of one and another unit of one and another unit of one.

If you want to take it even more basic, A = A. A doesn't equal not A because then it's not A.