Thread: All points of view are truth

Ok, I accept all of that - even though it's a rather ironic analogy considering many of the terrorists are suicide bombers!!

But now it becomes apparent that the corollary is also true - everyone's perspective also contains falsehoods.

I fall back on my first point: Truth is the gestalt.

Ah, but it seems to be a gestalt of truth and falsehoods woven together inextricably.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Belief is a messy word, especially if you use it like that.

From everyone's experience, a unique worldview or perspective is derived. Much like how a 3D image is not truthfully observable from one position, but rather only truthfully conveyed through infinite positions surrounding it in space, "Truth" itself cannot be observed from one position, but is actually made up of the collective of perceptions it is surrounded by.

That doesn't mean that false things are true. False things are sometimes interesting, extremely so sometimes. They can be very beautiful. But to live your life in delusion is not so good in my experience. Very wasteful.

What do you gain from believing something that you don't know? Hypotheses are great but it's important to be honest with yourself about the difference between what you know and what you think might be.

All of the major religions(Judeo/Christian/Islam/Hindu) believe things that they do not know. This effects their values and the way the live their lives. This has a huge effect on society.

Information is a battle tactic, nothing more.

I don't believe you are claiming something that is possible for a human being, StonedApe. Everyone believes what they believe because they decided that it's most likely. No one believes something they think is probably less true than something else.

The strategic withholding/manipulating of Information is a battle tactic, nothing more

Fixed



Nobody has a complete concept of what exists. Even science gives only partial views - very little is absolutely concretely known for a fact - even if probability is 99.9999%. I think this means we can't understand the totality of anything (Omnis' 3d view), we have to settle for feeling the parts of the elephant we can reach and try to understand what they are. Until somebody turns the light on, the elephant might as well be a wall, a spear, a fan etc..

Of course it's also important for us to strive to understand more than we already do. Once the lights are turned on and all the men see the elephant, it's no good for them to continue to argue for their former beliefs (something may people will do out of stubbornness and fear of change).

Well... let's imagine a meeting between an atheist and religious zealot. The atheist uses calm reasoning and the religious zealot dismisses it. Does this make the religious zealot wrong? They're simply choosing Tradition over Discovery in this specific scenario. And why shouldn't they? Tradition has delivered them thus far, tradition has provided a model of existence that they have found agreeable and furthermore, it may be that the tradition is rooted in an investment and cannot be easily dislodged (if they stop believing, they'll go to hell or won't go to heaven according to their beliefs). This means they might be afraid of giving up their beliefs, but does being afraid make you wrong?

The same occurs when people dismiss theories related to Jungian psychology and the dimension of the mind, just one wrung up. We all choose to either stick with what we know or try something new. A balance is required to ensure we continue to evolve while preserving our form in the process (only buying into ideas that prove sustainable).

Information can appear to be true and yet be parasitic or cancerous in nature if it's spread in a way that influences society against its best interests. In much the same way, information that may strike you as false can sustain a culture and protect it.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Information is a battle tactic, nothing more.

I don't believe you are claiming something that is possible for a human being, StonedApe. Everyone believes what they believe because they decided that it's most likely. No one believes something they think is probably less true than something else.

When did I claim that people believe something that they don't think is true? I said that religious belief is in general believing things that you don't know; that you hope are true or that someone else told you are true and you are taking their word for it. Most people believe things because other people decided it was most likely or worse that it would be profitable for them if people believed it.

I think most people believe in an afterlife not because it is most likely, but because it is most comforting. If people really understood emptiness they would live their lives very differently.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

This means they might be afraid of giving up their beliefs, but does being afraid make you wrong?

if it does then it does. If you are afraid of change and afraid to admit that you are wrong then it does. Being afraid of change is a very bad thing.

Information can appear to be true and yet be parasitic or cancerous in nature if it's spread in a way that influences society against its best interests. In much the same way, information that may strike you as false can sustain a culture and protect it.

Can you give an example of this in a religious context(or any)? When is the truth destructive? People can be destructive but the truth is just the truth.

Originally Posted by StonedApe

When did I claim that people believe something that they don't think is true? I said that religious belief is in general believing things that you don't know; that you hope are true or that someone else told you are true and you are taking their word for it. Most people believe things because other people decided it was most likely or worse that it would be profitable for them if people believed it.

I think most people believe in an afterlife not because it is most likely, but because it is most comforting. If people really understood emptiness they would live their lives very differently.

Their tradition taught them what they know, they don't not know what they believe. They know it based on tradition and they trust their tradition more than they trust scientific discovery.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Information can appear to be true and yet be parasitic or cancerous in nature if it's spread in a way that influences society against its best interests. In much the same way, information that may strike you as false can sustain a culture and protect it.

Ok, again, I can accept all of this - but it means we have no way to know which truth is more true. Does science have all the answers? Of course not - you could agglomorate (is that a word? ) all known scientific models of a human being - the cellular, the atomic, the genome etc, and it fails to tell you anything about a person that's as relevant and useful as knowing their personality or being in love with them or being an enemy... these are all just different perspectives, and each has value in different cases. For a medical emergency I'd trust the medical perspective (but then the question becomes - which doctor. which technique). But for dealing with a person face to face you want to know them personally and possibly have some psychological insight that comes from book learning (especially if they have some kind of personality disorder or something).

So I suppose it comes down to being able to move fluidly between various perspectives as the situation changes. We aren't capable of understanding anything in its totality.

My response to the OP remains - Every perspective contains some truth and some falsehood.

Originally Posted by Omnis Dei

Their tradition taught them what they know, they don't not know what they believe. They know it based on tradition and they trust their tradition more than they trust scientific discovery.

Faith or trust do not make things true. Though they do make people believe and do very irrational things.

Do you really think they don't know what they believe? How can they believe it then?

Well, the OP is meaningless unless we accept that the word Truth as used in it is completely subjective - not objective reality.

Faith and trust of course are things people rely on in the absence of knowledge. And while they don't have much to do with concrete objective truth, a religious faith can certainly create someone's spiritual/subjective Truth.

Omnis - he's arguing for Objective truth and you're arguing for Subjective truth - you're not going to make any headway. I think in order for this to go any farther (meaningfully) it would require a more proper definition of exactly what's meant by TRUTH in the OP.

Originally Posted by StonedApe

When did I claim that people believe something that they don't think is true? I said that religious belief is in general believing things that you don't know; that you hope are true or that someone else told you are true and you are taking their word for it. Most people believe things because other people decided it was most likely or worse that it would be profitable for them if people believed it.

I think most people believe in an afterlife not because it is most likely, but because it is most comforting. If people really understood emptiness they would live their lives very differently.

if it does then it does. If you are afraid of change and afraid to admit that you are wrong then it does. Being afraid of change is a very bad thing.

Says you. Fearing change causes people to be cautious of change so they can preserve their form. Do you buy into every crazy idea someone tells you? Too much of either polarity leads to problems, mutation or preservation.

Can you give an example of this in a religious context(or any)? When is the truth destructive? People can be destructive but the truth is just the truth.

Information, dear watson. I was talking about information with this sentence. Information isn't just truth, information is a collection of words and they can appear true or not but they can never BE true or not because they're words. When you inform people that they need a vaccine you're telling them the "truth" but if you hide the fact that the vaccine also has a sterilization agent in it, you're using the truth in a destructive way.

And many things seem false such as the bible. But the bible has commanded man to stop hurting each other and have faith in an idea higher than their self interest. The core principles of the bible have preserved and unified a culture.

Every religion is a collection of symbols pointing to higher truth. The horizontal form of religion guides the level it's written for. It may appear false to people on other levels but it's not designed for them.

Faith or trust do not make things true. Though they do make people believe and do very irrational things.

Do you really think they don't know what they believe? How can they believe it then?

I believe my argument was that they know exactly what they believe. They simply arrived there through trust in tradition rather than exploration or discovery.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Well, the OP is meaningless unless we accept that the word Truth as used in it is completely subjective - not objective reality.

Faith and trust of course are things people rely on in the absence of knowledge. And while they don't have much to do with concrete objective truth, a religious faith can certainly create someone's spiritual/subjective Truth.

Sure, my point is just that most of these subjective truths are actually just delusion(or metaphor mistaken for being reality; though that is delusion isn't it?). They're what people want to be the truth(in the sense of reality) rather than what the truth is. The concept of subjective truth seems like bullshit to me though. There's the concept subjectivity, what is the use of adding the word truth on the end of it?

Originally Posted by StonedApe

There's the concept subjectivity, what is the use of adding the word truth on the end of it?

Well I was qualifying the word truth from the OP cause that's the only way I can accept it.

Hehehehehe. So we could reduce this thread to: all points of view are subjective. Or: all points of view are points of view.

The one that works for me:

Everyone's viewpoint is important to them.

I never read the OP, sorry. I read the title an agreed with it. I don't agree that "each point of view is true" but I do agree that "all points of view are truth." Truth is nothing less than the gestalt.

You responded lengthily and proceeded to argue about an OP that you didn't read? lol. It wasn't even a long OP.

I did no such thing. I only ever argued my point of view.

I know that was meant for Omnis, but I must admit - I did read the OP but I'm mostly just responding to the title as well.

Dammit, I can't stop thinking about this!!

Ok - it seems very ironic to me that the title of this thread is a statement about truth that is not true. It needs qualification before I can accept it. I tried, as an intellectual exercise, to see the opposing viewpoint, but in order to do so I had to add the word Subjective.

So - if we devalue the meaning of the word Truth so that it means "everything someone believes in" - then we need a new word to mean what Truth used to mean. Why go to all the trouble when we already have perfectly good words for each concept?

All points of view are beliefs

Fixed. Now truth still means what it really means.

How about

Every Point of View is false except for all of them?

Keep working on it..

All points of view rolled up into a big ball does not equal Truth - it equals a confusing mass composed of all truths plus all falsehoods. Unless you're talking about looking at all perspectives to find similarities and then winnowing out the falsehoods.