personal truth

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DPMartin
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personal truth

Post by DPMartin »

its seems to be fashionable now to redefine personal knowledge as personal truth. turning what i know or have experienced isn't what you know or have experience in to "truth is relative". and converting that into if it isn't known, then its not true.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

DPMartin wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:58 pm its seems to be fashionable now to redefine personal knowledge as personal truth. turning what i know or have experienced isn't what you know or have experience in to "truth is relative". and converting that into if it isn't known, then its not true.
I never understand what purpose the use of the word "truth" is supposed to serve in the phrase "personal truth." If something is "only true for me," then isn't it, by definition, a matter of utter indifference or plausibly of outright falsehood for everybody else? :shock:

Why even use the word "truth" if one is not also trying to imply, "and you owe it to me to believe it, too"? :shock: But why should anybody else be obligated to believe something that is, by its own definition, only one's "personal" view? :shock:

It seems to me that the proponents of "personal truth" are trying to have their cake and eat it, too. They want to say, "X is personal, so you have no right to doubt me or question me on it," but at the same time, to say, "X is a real truth, so you owe me to respect me on it." That's a fraud.

Both cannot be true: if X is merely "personal," then it's not obligatory at all that anybody else must respect it, and it's not "truth." But if X is "truth," then it is by definition not "personal," and everybody ought to believe it.

Which way is "personal truth" meant?
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

DPMartin wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:58 pm its seems to be fashionable now to redefine personal knowledge as personal truth. turning what i know or have experienced isn't what you know or have experience in to "truth is relative". and converting that into if it isn't known, then its not true.
The language is just another way of trying to describe reality. Just because a person believes they have experienced a god (in one form or another)... or that they know ultimate truth (in one form or another)... doesn't mean that their "knowledge" or "truth" is any broader than personal.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pm I never understand what purpose the use of the word "truth" is supposed to serve in the phrase "personal truth." If something is "only true for me," then isn't it, by definition, a matter of utter indifference or plausibly of outright falsehood for everybody else? :shock:
People share belief in all kinds of "truths", which may or may not be true at all. What shall we call those kinds of truths? Shared-but-unproven truths? If it's true to an individual, it's personal for them. Why make a big deal out of the words that are used? Oh, wait, I know! So that you can play games with words and act shocked. 8)
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmWhy even use the word "truth" if one is not also trying to imply, "and you owe it to me to believe it, too"? :shock:
Is that how you use the word "truth"?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmBut why should anybody else be obligated to believe something that is, by its own definition, only one's "personal" view? :shock:
I agree!
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmIt seems to me that the proponents of "personal truth" are trying to have their cake and eat it, too.
That doesn't seem true.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmThey want to say, "X is personal, so you have no right to doubt me or question me on it," but at the same time, to say, "X is a real truth, so you owe me to respect me on it." That's a fraud.
Your projection is fraudulent.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmBoth cannot be true: if X is merely "personal," then it's not obligatory at all that anybody else must respect it, and it's not "truth." But if X is "truth," then it is by definition not "personal," and everybody ought to believe it.
:lol: So all the people who think they know "truth", are not steeped in the "personal", even though their beliefs/ideas/knowledge may differ from what countless other people think is "truth"? How does all of this vastly different truth exist as truth? Maybe because it's personal?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmWhich way is "personal truth" meant?
It can simply be a way of acknowledging that one's beliefs are for themselves (for whatever reasons) -- while acknowledging that other people may have beliefs for themselves, as well -- and groups of people may agree on certain ideas as truth. Even the most intelligent, aware, and spiritual people may not agree on an ultimate truth. The Universe is simply not that small -- and man is surely not that big to know it. There are countless views and manifestations and connections. And what we experience is personal... some of which we share with others.
Last edited by Lacewing on Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:38 pm People share belief in all kinds of "truths", which may or may not be true at all.
You mean, then, that people share delusions. As you say, they don't even have to "be true" at all.
What shall we call those kinds of truths?

Allegations. They're not "truths" unless they're actually true, and true for everybody.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmBut why should anybody else be obligated to believe something that is, by its own definition, only one's "personal" view? :shock:
I agree!
Then you mean nothing at all when you say, "My view is true." What you mean is only "My view is my view."
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmIt seems to me that the proponents of "personal truth" are trying to have their cake and eat it, too.
That doesn't seem true.
Ooops...you just used the "t" word. You can't do that...it might be "my personal truth." :lol:
How does all of this vastly different truth exist as truth? Maybe because it's personal?
If it's just "personal," then it isn't "true." It's just "personal allegation." The word "truth" no longer conveys any meaning there.
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:52 pm
Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:38 pm People share belief in all kinds of "truths", which may or may not be true at all.
You mean, then, that people share delusions. As you say, they don't even have to "be true" at all.
Do YOU think there are groups of people who share delusions? Just not any groups that YOU might associate with, right?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:52 pm
Lacewing wrote: What shall we call those kinds of truths?
Allegations. They're not "truths" unless they're actually true, and true for everybody.
What is actually true for everybody?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmBut why should anybody else be obligated to believe something that is, by its own definition, only one's "personal" view? :shock:
Lacewing wrote:I agree!
Then you mean nothing at all when you say, "My view is true." What you mean is only "My view is my view."
So, if you think something is true... it's not just true for you, it's the absolute truth, yes? Because you wouldn't dare be foolish enough to only have a personal truth... only the most ultimate truths for you. :lol:

Has there ever been anything you believed to be true, only to find out it wasn't? Yet, at the time, you might have sworn it was the absolute truth? If so, what kind of truth was that?

How do you distinguish between what you think is truth and what you imagine as absolute truth?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 7:05 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:52 pm
Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:38 pm People share belief in all kinds of "truths", which may or may not be true at all.
You mean, then, that people share delusions. As you say, they don't even have to "be true" at all.
Do YOU think there are groups of people who share delusions?
You said there are. You said they have ideas that they all "share," but "may not be true at all." I just accepted your supposition.

Do you now think you were wrong?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 6:52 pm
Lacewing wrote: What shall we call those kinds of truths?
Allegations. They're not "truths" unless they're actually true, and true for everybody.
What is actually true for everybody?
Plenty of things. It is universally true that we die. It is universally true that we all have two bio parents. It's universally true that gravity works. It's universally true that Napoleon was exiled to Elba, that mercury is a poisonous metal...lots of things.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmBut why should anybody else be obligated to believe something that is, by its own definition, only one's "personal" view? :shock:
Lacewing wrote:I agree!
Then you mean nothing at all when you say, "My view is true." What you mean is only "My view is my view."
So, if you think something is true... it's not just true for you, it's the absolute truth, yes? [/quote]
Think about what the word "truth" means. Does it add any information to a person's opinion if it is also "the truth"? If not, why bother speaking of "personal truth"? Why not just call it "noise," or "claim"? What does the term "true" add that is lacking from the adjective "personal"?
How do you distinguish between what you think is truth and what you imagine as absolute truth?
Jordan Peterson offers this concise definition of reality:
"Reality is what destroys your stupid theory."
That's a bit harsh, perhaps, but it makes a good point. Reality is what affirms or destroys an idea...and truth is the same. The truth is what remains when delusions have been dissolved by reality.
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 9:00 pm
Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 7:05 pm Do YOU think there are groups of people who share delusions?
You said there are. You said they have ideas that they all "share," but "may not be true at all." I just accepted your supposition. Do you now think you were wrong?
I asked, to see if you might answer honestly -- since there are volumes on this forum of you bashing groups of people who you claim share delusions because they aren't aligned with truth or correctness as you see it.

It is fascinating to watch you defending truth while playing your dishonest games: distorting the questions you respond to, and ignoring the questions you don't want to answer, like this one:
Has there ever been anything you believed to be true, only to find out it wasn't? Yet, at the time, you might have sworn it was the absolute truth? If so, what kind of truth was that?
I was pretty sure you would skip over that one. :wink:

Can't you be honest about your own human experience of learning and being wrong? What are you protecting?
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pm Think about what the word "truth" means. Does it add any information to a person's opinion if it is also "the truth"? If not, why bother speaking of "personal truth"? Why not just call it "noise," or "claim"? What does the term "true" add that is lacking from the adjective "personal"?
Because truth can be another word for one's perspective, viewpoint, belief, etc. Naturally there are things that many people can agree are true, yet that in no way indicates that there is an ultimate truth or that man can know it. Someone who speaks of their personal truth is likely acknowledging that they recognize something may be true for them, but they do not expect it to be seen as true by or for everyone.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmThe truth is what remains when delusions have been dissolved by reality.
What's your timeframe for that happening? :) People go their whole lives believing delusions. When do you acknowledge that you've been wrong at any point along the way? And if you have been wrong about some things (simply because you're a limited human)... it's logical to accept that you could be wrong about some things now (because you're still a limited human). Right?

Seems like the ego always want to believe it knows "the truth" NOW. After each correction or new unfolding, it quickly leaps to that stance. "NOW, I know!!!" Rather than considering and accepting the implications of ongoing change and unfoldment.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 10:36 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 9:00 pm
Lacewing wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 7:05 pm Do YOU think there are groups of people who share delusions?
You said there are. You said they have ideas that they all "share," but "may not be true at all." I just accepted your supposition. Do you now think you were wrong?
I asked, to see if you...
Ad hominem. Boring. Not bothering.
Has there ever been anything you believed to be true, only to find out it wasn't? Yet, at the time, you might have sworn it was the absolute truth? If so, what kind of truth was that?
I was pretty sure you would skip over that one. :wink:
Well, the truth is that I ignored it because it seemed to me in no way relevant to the issue of truth. Of course everybody's had that experience: but it's irrelevant to the question in hand, because it's about what people think, not what's true. But since you bring it up again, you must regard it as somehow clever or telling, so I'll let you explain how...there's no way I'd guess.
Someone who speaks of their personal truth is likely acknowledging that they recognize something may be true for them, but they do not expect it to be seen as true by or for everyone.
So it's not "true." Because "true" means it would be so, regardless of the opinion of the person(s) in question.
Immanuel Can wrote: Wed Mar 24, 2021 5:12 pmThe truth is what remains when delusions have been dissolved by reality.
What's your timeframe for that happening?

Irrelevant. A thing will be true to reality whether and when any persons know it is so. Even if every person on the face of the earth disbelieved in gravitation, people would still die if they jumped off cliffs.

You're mistaking "I think..." for "it's true that...." The two phrases aren't even related. One is a question of what people know, the other is the question of what's actually true.
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:04 am You're mistaking "I think..." for "it's true that...." The two phrases aren't even related. One is a question of what people know, the other is the question of what's actually true.
Do you think it's actually true that there's a god?
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:21 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:04 am You're mistaking "I think..." for "it's true that...." The two phrases aren't even related. One is a question of what people know, the other is the question of what's actually true.
Do you think it's actually true that there's a god?
Explain the relevance.
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:51 am
Lacewing wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:21 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:04 am You're mistaking "I think..." for "it's true that...." The two phrases aren't even related. One is a question of what people know, the other is the question of what's actually true.
Do you think it's actually true that there's a god?
Explain the relevance.
You think what's true.
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Immanuel Can
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Re: personal truth

Post by Immanuel Can »

Lacewing wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:04 am
Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:51 am
Lacewing wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 12:21 am
Do you think it's actually true that there's a god?
Explain the relevance.
You think what's true.
Still no evident relevance...you say some people think things that "may or may not be true." So you are assuming that what people think is sometimes also false.

So I'm waiting to see your point here. Maybe you could make it...
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Lacewing
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Re: personal truth

Post by Lacewing »

Immanuel Can wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:27 am you say some people think things that "may or may not be true." So you are assuming that what people think is sometimes also false.
Yes -- although it seems like you're saying the same thing twice. Perhaps you actually meant to say what I've been pointing out, but you couldn't bring yourself to do it: People think things that may or may not be true, so what they think they KNOW as "truth" may be false. It's not that difficult of a concept. But it doesn't serve your narrative, so you dismiss it.

You seem to think that truth is somehow independent from human perspective and thought? But without human thought, what "truth" is there? It's meaningless. Everything just "is"... it doesn't require a human judgment of what is true. Humans obviously imagine and believe a great deal which they insist is truth. Some (rightly) acknowledge that their beliefs might only be true to/for them.

You are no exception to being human, surely, even if you insist that every supposed truth you believe is an absolute/ultimate truth. Whatever. By acknowledging that there have been things in your life that you believed to be true, which you later realized were not, that reveals some implications about "truth" and yourself/humans to consider -- rather than simply jumping to the next platform or idea which you can claim to know and insist it's the truth. Doesn't it make sense that our "truths" and what we claim to know can limit us if we are so in-service to them that we deny there is always more than that?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: personal truth

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On my view, truth is personal/relative. Here's why in a nutshell:

* A standard view in analytic philosophy is that truth is a property of propositions. I agree with this view/I think it's useful for a number of reasons (including Russell's comments that truth and falsehood make more sense if they're modal properties of the same sort of thing).

* A standard view in analytic philosophy is that propositions are the meanings of declarative sentences. I agree with this view, too/I think it's also useful for a number of reasons (including the simple fact that it makes sense to be able to say that "Snow is white" and "Schnee ist weiss" are the same proposition; they're not, however, the same sentence).

* On my view, which isn't standard, meaning is subjective. Meaning is something that individuals "do in their heads." It's an associative way of thinking.

* On my view, the property of propositions in question, truth(/falsehood), obtains via an individual making an judgment about the relation between a proposition (the meaning of a declarative sentence) and something else--the something else being a matter of which truth theory someone uses. So a judgment about the relation between a proposition and empirical observations if correspondence, or a judgment about the relation between a proposition and usefulness if pragmatism, and so on.

* It's worth noting that truth is different from facts here.
Skepdick
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Re: personal truth

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Terrapin Station wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 1:23 pm * On my view, the property of propositions in question, truth(/falsehood), obtains via an individual making an judgment about the relation between a proposition (the meaning of a declarative sentence) and something else--the something else being a matter of which truth theory someone uses. So a judgment about the relation between a proposition and empirical observations if correspondence, or a judgment about the relation between a proposition and usefulness if pragmatism, and so on.

* It's worth noting that truth is different from facts here.
Potato potatoh. Your position is tantamount to truth being semantic and facts being.... You forgot to tell us what.

Is it true that the color of this square is purple?
Is it a fact that the color of this square is purple?
Is is true that the color of this square is red?
Is it a fact that the color of this square is red?

You are tripping up over the symbol-grounding problem.

purple.png
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