Definition of truth

[sin_is_fun]

What is truth?I tried to define it and failed.I am also not satisfied with definitions of Aristotle and Traski.Can anybody come up with an acceptable definition for truth?

[sin_is_fun]

I concede that this is true, but don't see why an "only" must come into it. Why can't appearance reflect what is really there, even if by accident? Realistically, our senses are used in order to interact with reality, and even if the impressions it gives us is not complete, they are impressions of something that may be.

Reality doesnt 'appear' to us.We tend to see reality through our subjective lens.So we can only say we perceive reality as we are trained to observe it.

Can appearance reflect what is really there?hmm....I would like to ask 'what is really out there '?

what is out there?I will give an example.

If culture A defines a child as "below 12 years" and culture B as "below 16 years"--and a person from culture B sees a person from culture A marrying a 13 year old girl,he will call that as child molestation,immoral and so on.Culture A person will never understand the fuss.

So what is the reality here?What is the 13 year old girl?Is she a child?Is she an adult?What is the reality?...to know the reality we have to know the objective definition of a child.What is it?Unfortunately no such definition exists.Psychologists will have different definition,law will have a different definition,religion will have a different definition,sociology will have a different definition.

Does any one of these definitions come close to the reality?....To say that one of these definitions come close to the reality, we have to say an objective reality that seperates a child and an adult exists somewhere..Does any such definition,a cutoff point fixed by god exist?It doesnt.So how can we say reality exists?

She exists.The 13 year old girl exists.But the reality of whether she is a child or an adult--a cutoff point,does it exist?It doesnt.

So without knowing what exists out there how can I say appearance often reflects reality?There is no objective reality about she being a child or a girl.

There are also certain situations where appearances are clear examples of objective truth.

I disagree.Objective truth doesnt exist.

I have to say that this is rather convoluted. If reality doesn't have a nature apart from its observer, then you are talking solipsism, and a subjective reality.

Yes.I talk about subjective reality.

Just when I think this is the line of reasoning you are going to pursue, you then state that the properties are undefined without an observer, and that they are just some sort of amalgam of the universe. Either the universe/reality has an existence outside of the observer's perceptions or it doesn't. If it does, then it still has the same properties and they just don't have words or ideas attached to them.

I understood your argument as "Truth is found".But I say "Truth is made"
You say "Properties exist and we found them".I say "We made theories about properties"

Properties are created by words,theories and equations.2+2=4 was not 'found'.It was made.It is a certain way to describe a reality.It is a language.Maybe it is a very good language,but it stil is a language.

We cannot say 2+2=4 existed and mathaematicians 'found it'.We can only say mathematicians learnt to describe reality in a better way.They made a statement which was better than the previous statement.2+2=4 did not exist anywhere before,that property did not exist before.we made that statement and did not find it.

Similiarly Indians did not find zero.They came up with a better way to describe the phenomena which greeks were describing as IX, X and XI. zero did not exist before,but was made.Similiarly gravity and other properties dont exist out there,but were made by men.

Antarctica has always existed as Antarctica, because Antarctica refers to a block of frozen land on the south pole of the earth. It does not create a block of frozen land on the southern pole. The block of frozen land exists, even if our understanding of what it really is like is faulty. I vaguely understand what you're trying to get at; that if we set up a camera on Antarctica, the camera would be indifferent towards everything, and wouldn't be able to make those sorts of distinctions, but I don't see the point.

You tend to see antartica as "a block of frozen land on the south pole of the earth".To say this you need to have definitions of land,earth,southpole,block,frozen and ice...Is it possible for you to free yourself from seeing antartica from this way?Is it possible for you to not to see what is out there as ice,water,frozen etc?Impossible.

Even now I am only vaguely conveying what I have in my mind.It is a limitation of the language we have.My statement doesnt corespond to the reality in my mind

So you keep repeating, but once we accept the existence of a reality independent of human observation, and therefore objective, then we have already recognised an objective truth.

"Reality about whether the 13 year old girl is a child or a woman exists independent of human observation"--can we say like that?

An "objective outlook" is an impossibility. But no matter how many subjective outlooks one threads together, one still only has many subjective outlooks and is even further away from objectivity. Our ability to make statements most certainly does not depend on "how knowledgeable we are about the different appearances the phenomenon takes for different observers".

To say subjective outlook differs from objective outlook we have to assume than an objective outlook exists somewhere...But it doesnt exist,hence we cannot say subjectivity differs from objectivity.

And appearances might correspond to reality. One case where it most definitely does is shown by the statement and challenge you brushed aside. You exist. Are you going to say that you don't exist?

To say appearance corresponds to reality we have to assume that an objective reality is out there.

It cannot be out there.A 13 year old girl is out there.But what about the reality of whether she is a child or a woman?Is it out there?

What about the reality of the definition of 13?Is it out there?Fortunately the language of mathematics is very,very precise-so we can come to a conclusion about the 13 here,but again we cannot call it as objective definition of 13.

what about the reality of the word 'girl?'.Here again cultures have very similiar definitions for word 'girl'.Most of us have learnt to see that phenomena as 'girl'....

So fortunately '13 year old girl is out there' has more universal acceptance than '13 year old child is out there' or '13 year old girl is out there'.But to say any of these statements or appearances come closer to the objective reality out there will not be correct.

Thats why we hear statements like

James:Oh what a cute babe..

jones:Shut up,its just a kid...

[sin_is_fun]

Fine, come on over here and I'll bash you in the head with a brick while you try to subjectively disbelieve it. We'll see which happens first, you succeed or you get a concussion.

Very funny,arent you?

Phenomenon:You are bashing me up with a brick.

Observor 1 says "Cephus is bashing up sin_is_fun"

Observor 2 says "A christian is reforming an atheist"

Observor 3 says "A blind follower of book is corrupting a rationalist"

Observor 4 says "one man is having fun at the expense of the other man"

Observor 5 says "God is punishing sin_is_fun"

Observor 6 says "cephus threw the brick at 100 MPH.It hit the head of sin_is_fun and he fell down.Cephus picked up the brick again and now bought it in the forehead of sin_is_fun..."

which of these statements come closer to the reality?

Reality is not subjective.

Is it so?