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raganwald / AMA

A lightweight “Ask me anything” repository inspired by @holman and @r00k
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Is it possible to refute absolute truth? If so, how can this be done without proving at least one absolute truth? #3

Open codylindley opened 9 years ago

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@codylindley what is often meant by the phrase "absolute truth" is any given person knowing any given thing absolutely.

What is being denied is the Dunning-Krueger'sque insistence from the person demanding that we do something other that what we want, in that moment, to do.

In a moralistic and philosophic vacuum most are willing to admit to the notion of truth. In fact, they rely on it by pointing out the truth of the uncertainty of truth.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@shawndumas - Would absolute truth cease to exist if all human brains we're gone?

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@codylindley good question.

I hold that truth is:

  1. extent
  2. absolute
  3. eternal
  4. immutable
  5. propositional

So, without question, I believe truth to be free from human dependence.

raganwald commented 9 years ago

I use words like “truth,” but what I personally believe is that the universe as I perceive it is consistent.

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@raganwald as in non-contradictory?

mxriverlynn commented 9 years ago

"which truth? whose truth?" - (some spy novel i read years ago)

raganwald commented 9 years ago

Exactly. And when we find a contradiction, we peel back a layer of reality and discover a deeper reality that is consistent. Until we discover another inconsistency.

raganwald commented 9 years ago

"which truth? whose truth?”

Also could have been said by Sir Humphrey Appleby

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@raganwald sounds like you might be a classic Aristotelian logician.

  1. A===A: the law of identity
  2. !A || A: the law of the excluded middle
  3. !A !== A: the law of non-contradiction

I believe all points to be true.

mxriverlynn commented 9 years ago

"I believe there are no absolute truths"

"Are you sure of that?"

"Absolutely"

/me ducks and runs away :)

davidtheclark commented 9 years ago

It is ridiculously uncanny that I came across this less than three minutes after reading What's the Use of Truth?.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@shawndumas Would it be certain than that truth is not subjective (relative to a human mind) and irrefutable is the nature of absolute truth? To refute an absolute truth (X is true for all people at all times) would require a denial or refuting of the law of non-contradiction, right? Which, again, proves the law of non-contradiction because one can't deny anything without it.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@raganwald - What exactly is constant? I thought the steady state theory as of today was dead, right? But, you might not be using these words like I think. If anything, we factual know the universe is not constant (an absolute truth that has been true for all people at all times, regardless how they think about it). Can you elaborate?

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@davidtheclark I raise you one pascal.

“Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.”

― Blaise Pascal

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@derickbailey - This is sort of the point of my question. "which truth? whose truth?" pre-suppose a truth. One can't ask such questions without first, acknowledging an absolute truth is possible. The alternative, is skepticism. And even that, is illogical, because one would have to be skeptical about the fact that there is only skepticism.

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@codylindley I'd take it further.

Language itself is impossible apart from it. Here is a comment I wrote on HN that bares that out.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@shawndumas - It would seem that the basic laws of logic, as you stated them, are primordial. These laws exist so that anything at all can (including linguistics) . They are, absolutely true for all people at all times. They are the constant. I'm wondering if this is the constant that @raganwald was referring too. Anytime we tear anything down, there we find the laws of logic. Which result in an absolute truth. I'm trying to find someone who can refute this. BTW Aristotle logic, did Aristotle define that or discover it?

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@codylindley by his own account it was a discovery; akin to how an astronomer discovers a comet.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@shawndumas - I believe we have an accord. My question for @raganwald genuinely seeks to understand the cool-aid the majority of developers are drinking which results in a relativistic post modern pluralistic thinking process. We, as developers operate in a world of absolutes. Yet most developers stop thinking in this manner when it comes to reality.

shawndumas commented 9 years ago

@codylindley next time you have that conversation with a developer ask them to create a toy simulation -- in code -- of what they are espousing.

raganwald commented 9 years ago

FYI, the literal meaning of the phrase “drinking the kool-aid:”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drinking_the_Kool-Aid

codylindley commented 9 years ago

Yes. I literally meant, "unquestioned belief, argument, or philosophy without critical examination".

codylindley commented 9 years ago

@thinkhuman - Do you believe that assertion to be true? Odd, how you illustrate that point from a perspective of having the truth about the dark room.

codylindley commented 9 years ago

I'll be drinking Truth IPA http://www.rhinegeist.com/beers.