What is truth? Is it a fixed point which humanity can someday reach, or is it impossible to find? Is there only one truth, one grand equation detailing life which humans may or may not be able to comprehend? Or is truth something different, not quite as defined, not a single point which someone can turn to and say "that is the truth and everything else is a lie." Does truth even exist at all, or is it merely a human creation, an interpretation of events separate from the ontological reality? While dictionary definitions do of course exist for truth, they may not cover every aspect of what, if anything, truth is. Please leave your thoughts on the nature of truth.

Well, put simply, the truth is something that can only be pointed as one hypothesis. Anyone who knows the real truth to how ANYTHING started would be dead by now. Unless you're talking about truth in a metaphorical term I don't think you get the gist of it.

Basically you choose whats a lie and whats truth, over the years people have molded their own image of things that deal with unwanted truths. For instance- If someone would think it bad to masterbate then do it themselves they would cover that up and hide it.

Truth to me seems like the same argument as Good and Evil. It's up to an individual to define what can and eventually will be truth, though viewpoints differ between rival parties.

You can ask someone what they think the truth to something open-ended is, such as the creation of the universe, and they will respond with their version of "truth". However, ask them what the truth is to a logical problem, such as literal mathematics, and they'll all respond the same.

While we may have dictionary definitions to help us understand the use of the word, truth is ambiguous. It will never have a true answer due to each individual having his/her own filters applied to whatever is in question, though we still have the tangible core of truth which changes with the viewpoints of the generations.

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What are you people talking about? All you're talking about is individual perception and subjective truth. Of course you can, in your mind, bend things in such a way that anything may appear 'true'. If I brainwash you to such a degree as to believe that I am flying and I am also delusionally believing that I am flying then the truth between the two of us is undeniably that I am fucking flying.

But outside that, there is such a thing as objective truth. The facts of the world. Because, believe it or not, the world exists outside of the human mind (unless you're one of those people that argue that it doesn't). No matter if you believe in infinite possibilities, parallel universes and alternate dimensions in this particular reality there are some things that are set in place. And do not depend on human perception in order to exist. Just because we don't know about the beginning of the universe and now believe in one theory or the other doesn't change the truth of what happened back then.

But if you just define truth as a belief then bloody anything can be true. And also nothing. In that way, I agree, you can never be 100% sure of the world perceived through your senses.

But even when having to do with scientific theories truth is tricky. Because when dealing with very general theories you can never properly prove them true, because you can't analyze every instance of one event or object, just a representative number from which you generalize a theory. And it can stand up as accepted scientific truth for a long time, until of course something else comes along. You can, after all, just prove a theory wrong, but you can rarely prove it right beyond all doubt. The truths of the world exist, human knowledge is limited.

I think I ended up rambling. But anyway, I think the word itself is used with a lot of different meanings, so anyone can refer to truth and be thinking about a proven fact or just a firm belief. You have to differentiate between your personal 'truth' and 'the truth' though.

...I don't think my post ended up making a very good point.

bang-bang

I don't want to argue very much, as I agree with what you've said, though something bugs me about this truth. You said, "No matter if you believe in infinite possibilities, parallel universes and alternate dimensions in this particular reality there are some things that are set in place. And do not depend on human perception in order to exist."

Well, what if the only way that we perceive the hard-line facts of the galaxy is through our truth filters? Think, why do we see yellow as yellow? Why not green? We only see what our truth filter wants us to believe, and it could be naturally woven and also conditioned with the life of the person receiving these signals. How do we know that the earth is really ball shaped, or that the sky isn't purple?

This can apply to those with things like colour blindness. They can't see what "normal" people see, because their filter was altered. Instead of seeing yellow as yellow, they see it as a shade of gray. So, just how do we know that the truth behind the things outside of the human mind is really what we perceive it to be? After all, we only receive signals from senses that have filters of their own.

I think there is an empirical truth out there that cannot be bent or is it in the same realm as one's individual mind. It is understandable to think that the world is made out of series of subjective truth (which is a sad thought in a way), but I believe that there is a concrete truth out there that we have yet to reach.

However, to the question "is it possible to reach such empirical truth?" I think the right attitude is to believe that the omipotent truth is possible to achieve, and strive for it, rather than simply ponder in thought whether if it's possible to aquire the truth or not.

truth is like history, it's very subjective

That depends on what kind of truth you want to know. An over all truth would be "impossible", and i say that because the things that happen around us are taken into consideration by our different perceptions just like what Mr. Kiwi said. Take for example the Christians and the atheists. if i were to speak of psychology, i'd say that the Christian faith is a self-serving prophecy.

Fact is fact. Sky is blue in the day, grass is green: fact. However, our world is only our perception, so what we see is what makes our reality in our head. Truth is commonly accepted perceptions, as well as the actuallity of events, but sometimes it's hard to filter out opinions or misperceptions.

Truth is something undefinable. Personally, truth depends on one's perception in life. For humans, the sky may be blue that is OUR truth but if we were a dog (or should I say colorblind), it will be gray. There are different truths and most of them we can't really explain... it's just based on how we look in life. Kind of like one's perception in religion. An atheist believes that there is no god, for him/her that is the truth. While a christian believes that there is a god, he created the world and everything that lives in it... for them, that is the truth. Truth is solely based on what we know, what other people researched on, basically everything we see, hear and feel is our truth, we know it's there because of these senses. We can verify it's existence because of such.

i think what everyone on this thread can agree on is that truth can take on many different forms. What is true to me may be false to you, and vice versa. for example, for my mom, it is "true" that there is a one true god. However for me. that is not a truth, but a possibility. Everyone has their own view points, and perceptions of many different things. Those viewpoints and perceptions make up their beliefs, and those beliefs make up the world that they live in. Thus, because of the multitude of beliefs, there is also a multitude of worlds. Therefore, everyone lives in their own unique world, with a whole different set of truths. In short, truth exists, only in many varying forms. So, in a sense....there isn't a single truth?

The truth is something that is able to be atained by many things without truth well this world would be a giant fog of lies. ive heard the qoute "ignorance is bliss" a few times on the subject of truth but sometimes what you dont know CAN hurt you. Living in a world of blissful ingnorance and lies would make the truth and the real truth nothing we could never attain it. thats why Humans all over the World will seek their own truth of their lives

>>5

'Blue', 'yellow', 'purple' are just names we give to the things we see. Colors themselves are just different wavelengths of light. So red is defined as being the color perceived from light at 400-something THz frequency. That's the truth outside our perception. Taking perception into account yes, for most people 'red' is the same thing, for the colorblind it's something else and for various animals there aren't even any colors.

What is perceived doesn't change, it's there as a state of fact and it exists. How it's perceived changes. So then the answer to:

"So, just how do we know that the truth behind the things outside of the human mind is really what we perceive it to be? After all, we only receive signals from senses that have filters of their own."

is indeed that we don't know. Or I don't know. I choose to believe that it is, but the possibilities are nice to consider. I haven't really read many (authorized) opinions on this. I feel that I should.

>>13 You bring up a good point about the ontological epistemological divide. My question to you is how can one know what the ontological world really is if humans can only experience it through the senses? In other words, what happens when you apply Cartesian skepticism to your argument?

Thanks to all of you who posted, please keep it up.

Bump (: