What is, and how to find, Truth?

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Ned
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by Ned »

Very poetic, I know, but what does it mean in the practical sense?

I am a very practical person, even though I write poetry myself:

Communication

Communication is an art,
a science, a hopeless human quest:
an attempt to reach our brother,
trying to breech the abyss that keeps us apart,
finding ourselves in the mind of another.
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WanderingLands
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by WanderingLands »

The seven principles of Hermeticism that I've shown can be seen in all aspects of reality that we see. I'll give you a break down of those axioms.

1. All is Mind - Reality is influenced by the intelligent creativty of 'mind' - one can do anything that they put their minds to; for example, aesthetics comes to mind (along with philosophizing, conversing with people and other things). It's also tied into the occult/paranormal phenomena of ESP, psyonics, etc (if you're interested in that, of course). We make ideas and apply them to reality, and thus influencing and continuing the chain of causation.
2. As Above, So Below - Man is the 'microcosm' of the Universe, or the 'microcosm' of God, which is mirrored in the vast complexity and awe of the universe and man. As man learns the powers of mind by reason and/or deep spirituality, he begins to intuit the powers of God. It's something that comes from gnosis, as in deep experiential/inuitional knowledge that comes from this contemplation.
3. Everything vibrates - Related to the first principle. Because reality is an intelligent and creative process, so then everything vibrates. One example of this would be looking into Cymatics, and other things, like Chaos theory.
4. Everything is in polarity - There's hot/cold, positive/negative, sun/moon, male/female, love/hate, great/small, east/west, north/south, yin/yang, etc. In order to be motion, there must be polarity, which is often perceived as 'contradictions' (if you get into Hegelian philosophy and relate it to Taoism and Greek philosophy).
5. All things are in motion - Related to third and first principle.
6. For every cause, there is an effect - This is shown through the flow and interaction of 'objects' (including even 'you' and 'me').
7. All is gender (Male & Female) - Related to the principle of polarity. The male represents logic, fire, activity, reason, strength, domination, brutality; the female represents love, nurturing, passivity, intuition, gnosis, water, emotions. Both of these principles contain good and bad qualities, which is why balance is the key (which is the key to uniting the contradictions to create harmony).

Hope this gives you a good synopsis of what I'm saying here.
Ned
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by Ned »

"Man is the 'microcosm' of the Universe, or the 'microcosm' of God"

Sorry, but you used an undefined word here.

I could ask you to define the word 'god' but I have just spent days arguing with 'thedoc' on religion and I do not want to start all over again.

If you have not seen it yet, take a look at the "Where was 'god' before 'he' created the universe?" thread. :)
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HexHammer
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by HexHammer »

van Keister wrote:I agree with the "Truth must be experienced" and because of that truth will always be subjective and limited. I tend to agree with those who aver that our intelligence is designed more for picking berries than ultimate truths. You are right in that ultimate truth may be beyond our capabilities, but to remove it beyond reason and intelligence and consign it to consciousness is as old as Hegel. Consciousness is always conscious of something, and whether it is the ground for some ultimate truths in the universe or whether it is just a function of the brain is a matter of temperament and taste. As an analytic philosopher I ask the question, "What ultimate Truths have Consciousness delivered?"
How do you know? Right now it seems you only speak straight out of your ass, without any proof.
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WanderingLands
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by WanderingLands »

Ned wrote:"Man is the 'microcosm' of the Universe, or the 'microcosm' of God"

Sorry, but you used an undefined word here.
'Microcosm' and 'Macrocosm' both connote to be the mirroring of God, or emanation of God's power into this existence, which goes into the Oneness and Unity of the totality of Reality. Here's some food for thought for what I mean here:

http://www.kheper.net/topics/Neoplatonism/Plotinus.htm (Gets into Plotinus and his Emanationist system)
Ned wrote: I could ask you to define the word 'god' but I have just spent days arguing with 'thedoc' on religion and I do not want to start all over again.

If you have not seen it yet, take a look at the "Where was 'god' before 'he' created the universe?" thread. :)
I have no need to debate on the subject of God; it's up more so to the individual of one wants to truly inquire without bias (whether one believes or not).
Ned
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by Ned »

I have no need to debate on the subject of God;
I agree. Live and let live. :)
Systematic
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by Systematic »

I'm not sure what truth, in itself, is, but I have started a thread on how to find it:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=14708
The Inglorious One
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Re: What is, and how to find, Truth?

Post by The Inglorious One »

Ned wrote:Quoted from my book "Humane Physics":

Truth is an observation or a plausible theory that has not [yet] been contradicted by the accumulated knowledge available to us. The very instant an irrefutable contradiction is demonstrated, the theory becomes false and needs to be modified or discarded.
This sounds very much like saying "truth" is the accumulation, association and recombination of codified memories.
The only intolerable state is contradiction.
Reality is not reducible to ideas. Below is quoted from the movie Lucy:
Humans consider themselves unique, so they've rooted their whole theory of existence on their uniqueness. "One" is their unit of measure. But it's not. All social systems we've put into place are a mere sketch. "One plus one equals two.” That's all we've learned. But one plus one has never equaled two. There are, in fact, no numbers and no letters. We've codified our existence to bring it down to human size, to make it comprehensible. We've created a scale so we can forget its unfathomable scale.
Life is not different from science - only more complicated. Basic principles still apply. A while ago, telling my students how to find truth, I used the example of Hercule Poirot. Imagine that you are a detective. A murder has been committed and you need to find out the truth. You question suspects and witnesses. Some tell the truth, some lie; you have no idea which. You collect all the evidence, all the statements from those interviewed, and build a model in your head. At that point “the little grey cells” ought to do their job.

You arrange the known facts and statements in such a way as to have a minimum number of contradictions in the model. You discard those that cannot be used without contradicting most of the other facts. Then you try to come up with a theory that agrees with the largest number of ‘facts’ and is supported by your personal experience, the experience of those you trust, and discard as ‘untrue’, all the rest. Then you think you know what the truth is. You draw logical conclusions and test these in real life. If they check out, you can be reasonably sure. You will never be absolutely sure -- truth is still only those theories that have not yet been contradicted.
A fact-finding mission is about finding relevant facts, but truth is lived. The basis of "truth" is relational, not conceptual.
Applying this method to our understanding of the human condition is no different. The keys to a reasonable confidence in knowing truth are to

• have extensive personal life experience (needs observation)
• learn as many facts as you can (needs a lot of reading)
• keep all of these facts in mind (needs a good memory)
• try to form a theoretical model (needs pattern recognition ability)
• be completely open minded (needs intellectual integrity)

Then you can be reasonably sure, in the relative sense. In the absolute sense you can be only 50% sure. Either you are right, or you are wrong. However, we can only do the best we can do. For all practical purposes, I can call it truth: 'my truth'. And it stays true until someone proves it false.
Who/what is saying "I" and "my"? If one does a lot of reading, he or she might come to question the reality of the ego-oriented self and come to realize that there is no 'my truth': there is only truth.

Unfortunately, when the topic of truth comes up, most people assume we are talking about metaphysics or quantum theory and the conversation becomes highly philosophical and highly impractical. To consider Heisenberg for my modest purpose of learning the truth about the reason we are unhappy and the changes we have to make to set it right is like considering Einstein to plan a car trip to Florida.

We also have to deal with another misconception of our age: it basically claims that no one has a by definition superior value system or opinion; that my opinion is just as good as someone else’s. While I understand the necessity of devaluing arguments based solely on authority, I find that we managed to swing to the opposite extreme (as usual) and tried to be completely egalitarian when evaluating competence and ability.

There are more and less intelligent people, more and less educated, experienced, knowledgeable, wise, honest, etc. people in the world. It is still true that some younger people could learn something from some of their elders, some experts still know more about their fields than some laymen.

Convictions are not entirely relative with identical weighing factors. Before I evaluate it, I like to know how a person arrived at his opinion, what it is based on, how many factors were considered, how much factual knowledge it incorporated.
As physical organisms we codify our existence to make it comprehensible. By making it comprehensible, we hope to bring reality under our control, and we want to bring it under our control because we are afraid of living the uncertainty of truth.
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