What is true
Consider the postulate: The only tool we have available to provide support or not for the truth of anything is application of the scientific method.
Do any members know of any other tool or method that we have available to provide support or not for the truth of anything. Try anything: trees exist, Mary loves Jane, the World is flat, the World is round, thunder is the sound of Zeus, the Rainbow Serpent is a god creator … choose anything and find some method other than the scientific method to ‘prove’ its truth. I put ‘prove’ in quotes, because maybe nothing can be absolutely proven, so let’s say prove to a broad consensus of satisfaction. That is why I chose to say ‘provide support or not for the truth’.
Do any members know of any other tool or method that we have available to provide support or not for the truth of anything. Try anything: trees exist, Mary loves Jane, the World is flat, the World is round, thunder is the sound of Zeus, the Rainbow Serpent is a god creator … choose anything and find some method other than the scientific method to ‘prove’ its truth. I put ‘prove’ in quotes, because maybe nothing can be absolutely proven, so let’s say prove to a broad consensus of satisfaction. That is why I chose to say ‘provide support or not for the truth’.
Comments (123)
And which scientific test would you subject the truth of this claim to?
That's an argumentum ad populum.
truth is something one believes and tries to act in accordance with.
I want to link truth to what we do, or at least try to do
Then delusions would be true, and by definition a delusion is not true so I think defining truth in that way does not make sense.
By the most pragmatic interpretation of that aim, any invented language and method of simulation suffices as a scientific method provided it achieves its goals of behavioural replication to the level of precision deemed necessary for a given engineering application.
Which scientific method?
Falsification? Coherence? Survival of the fittest paradigm? Research Programs? Anything Goes?
It's not exactly clear what the scientific method is.
The scientific method is: one begins with a theory or hypothesis, which might be preceded by research or other process, such as just a 'bright idea' or a guess. Then one would test the hypothesis, commonly by experiment, or by gathering data relevant to the hypothesis. This stage should be impartial. One should not be just looking for data to support the hypothesis, but data to test the hypothesis. One should especially search for data that disproves the hypothesis, since by that means one is likely to strengthen the conclusion if the conclusion is in support of the hypothesis. Tests should include statistical analysis of the results of experiments or data collection. One then comes to a conclusion about the validity (or truth if you like) of the hypothesis, or the probability that it is true. Note that I have not said 'prove', because that implies an absolute yes or no. In most cases for a hypothesis that is supported by this process there will remain that it might be disproved when new data comes to light in the future, which commonly occurs in scientific activity. Disproved, because usually one instance of a hypothesis being untrue would show absolutely that the hypothesis is not true, at least if it was hypothesised that it should hold in all circumstances.
Although this is called the 'scientific' method, I don't believe it should be applied only in cases where the hypothesis might be regarded as a 'scientific hypothesis', which really brings me back to my original question of whether any other process can be used to test whether something is true (or better, probably true) or are all other candidates just the scientific method in disguise.
Yours is a neat account of the mythical method scientists tell each other that they use. Please don't read that as being disparaging; it's the sort of thing a budding scientist needs in order to have an idea of what is going on.
But there are many other stories.
None of them will account for how I know I have a headache, how I know I am rather fond of wife, how I know what seven is nor how I know where I live.
That is the real method that scientists use, and others use as well, though others would not always recognise what they are using as the scientific method. All scientists, whether budding or experienced, use (or should use) this as the basis of all they do, not just 'to have an idea of what is going on'.
But we don't. What could count as evidence that I have a headache? "I took some paracetamol, and put a cold towel on the back of my neck, so I hypothesis that I have a headache"?
Quoting Scribble
I'm afraid it isn't. It's close.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/scientific-method/#Con
Ask yourself, what other method is available to determine whether your claim is true?
I think you are saying it isn't the method scientists use. Then, what method do you think they use?
I don't need a method to know I have a headache.
The question relates to "anything," so as it applies to questions of morality, purpose, and meaning of life, those are matters we don't rely upon the scientific method for. Our method for arriving at such things is rationality, intuition, and reliance upon tradition (to name a few).
Per Wiki, the steps of the scientific method:
Define a question
Gather information and resources (observe)
Form an explanatory hypothesis
Test the hypothesis by performing an experiment and collecting data in a reproducible manner
Analyze the data
Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
Publish results
Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
How do I know it is true you have a headache? how do you make your truth, my truth?
Interesting response. As noted in my listing of the scientific method steps above, all of the data gathered in step 2 ("Gather information and resources (observe)") would be accepted without formal method. You'd just have the phenomenal state and accept it as true, making phenomenal states foundational.
Possibly the scientific method provides a basis for why we have these phenomenal states, but does not provide a basis to determine whether phenomenal states accurately reflect reality. That issue is within the purview of metaphysics, and just like that of morality, is not addressable through the scientific method.
If I was being hardline about it, I would say that all knowledge comes exclusively from observation, and science as method is not in the business of accumulating knowledge but of organising it.
No. I'm left with saying that every primitive culture knows that shit smells and doesn't need the scientific method to do so. Even Sap's cat knows it.
That's all fine and dandy in theory, but then in practice how do you know when an hypothesis is untrue? You may say, if an observation doesn't match the hypothesis then the hypothesis is untrue or falsified, but how do you know if the observation doesn't match the hypothesis? You may say it's obvious whether it does or not, but how do you know whether the instruments of measurement you use work the way you believe them to work? How do you know there isn't some effect you haven't taken into account that is acting on what you are observing or on your instruments of measurement? In fact, you're never really sure whether your hypothesis in itself is untrue or not, that depends on a whole bunch of other hypotheses you make unconsciously when making an observation.
Scientists use the theory of general relativity. Some observations about galaxies do not match the theory. Is it because the theory is untrue, or because of something they haven't taken into account? They went with the second option, they believe there is something they don't see, which they call dark matter, that is acting on the galaxies they see. They tried to detect it in other ways, they devised some huge experiments, and they still haven't found it. Is it because this dark matter doesn't exist, or because it has properties that makes it undetectable to the experiments carried out up to now? In fact if we never detect it, we can never really be sure whether it's because it doesn't exist or because we haven't yet conducted an experiment that can detect it. The range of possibilities is infinite, we can never rule them all out. So we end up realizing that science doesn't deal with truth or even probabilities, if we're being honest we're never really sure about anything, we can't prove a theory is true and we can't prove it is false. The prize at the end of the scientific inquiry is not truth, it's just the ability to predict the future to some extent.
What's truth even? It's absolute certainty, something you can hold onto no matter what, but what fits that description? Scientific laws have a limited applicability, they're only laws as long as we blind ourselves to a whole bunch of observations and experiences that don't fit them. Maybe there is no such thing as absolute certainty. Maybe you're not just a passive being subjected to absolute laws, but a being that has the power to bring about change in the way you desire. The quest for truth seems like the quest of the individual who feels powerless and desperately needs to hang onto something to feel a bit safe.
That's epistemology. The supposition in the OP is that the only way to truth is by the scientific method.
There's lots going on here.
Truth and belief are different things. Something can be true, and believed; true, yet not believed; false yet believed; or false and not believed.
Then we have knowledge. Usually that's taken as true belief with a bit extra, a justification or some such.
It seems to me that nine-tenths of the epistemic errors on this forum come from failing to differentiate these well.
Your point about the difference between my knowing I have a headache, and your knowing I have a headache, is most important. Being true is something that statements do, and since belief and knowledge are about truth, they are also about statements. Statements are things we do with words, and hence essentially communal.
While it is an excellent rhetorical device, the line "how do you make your truth, my truth?" will not do. If something is true for you, but false for me, then either one of us has mis-stated what is going on, or one of us is wrong. There is no "my truth" and "your truth". Relativism cannot be made coherent.
While we might believe that someone is in pain by an application of the rigid scientific method @hanover quoted, there wold be something quite pathological about doing so. Picture a man with a protruding tibia, writhing in agony. What would one think of someone who said "first we must define the question: Is this man in pain?; then we gather information and resources: google 'fractured tibia'; then we form a hypothesis..." and so on. There would be something quite inhumane in the lack of empathy of this reaction.
Cheers.
It's more complex than that. One's own phenomenal state ought be checked against the phenomenal states of others; do they see what I see? And doing this is already interpreting that one sees.
The world is always, already interpreted. Its' already theoretical.
And doing metaphysics would be a poor way of checking our agreement here.
That is, I reject the notion that what is true is relative to the conceptual schema within which one works. And I would do this by pointing out that some explanations are just wrong.
Point taken, thought it sounded cool.
Here is the issue behind the question. I put forward an idea for a workable definition of truth as, a belief one has, that one tries to act in accordance with. It was quickly defeated by the example that what if I was delusional. And I agreed. The point is, is there any difference between your headache and my delusion? We both have a personal truth, that we are acting in accordance with.
If we are to share our personal truths, are all we are left with is our ability to communicate them effectively and their acceptance by the audience?
Well, no. Truth doesn't care if you believe it or not. Being certain is a state of mind, not a state of affairs.
Is truth personal? I don't see how it could be. Again, what is true or false are statements, and statements are not private.
So let's get long with plain ordinary truth. Like that this is a sentence of English, in a philosophy forum, responding to your post.
Doubting that would be absurd.
No.
Asking for a criteria for right and wrong is asking for reasons to believe. Belief is not truth.
Words. Keep 'em clean.
And why would you think that there might be only a limited set of criteria for why one should believe this or that? I don't believe I have a headache because I have set out and met some criteria, but because I have a headache.
The only truths science can be involved in are empirical truths and that too in a way different from what the OP suggests.
We don't find truths with science unless you call measurement a truth. What science does is generate hypotheses to explain observation.and these are considered only provisional.
Also the scientific method is a derivative of the broader concept of rationality.
If I were you @Scribble, I'd try to understand rationality or logic first and then take the step towards the scientific method.
So the answer to this is that it is using "truth" to ask about belief; and hence it is asking what other reasons we might have for accepting one belief over another.
And the answer is that we believe things for all sorts of reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all. And that's OK.
Not at all. If you find yourself inclined to accept a contradiction, you're saying it wrong. Take another look.
It's belief that is provisional, not truth.
God alone knows that we are having this conversation? Or any of the myriad related things that are also true? I don't think so. Nor do you, judging by your behaviour.
Quoting tim wood
These definitions are obviously circular.
"which functions in your "culture" or society as truth", I presume means what our culture believes. Of course, what we believe is true might turn out otherwise. But surely not all of what we believe, because we could not make sense of nothing we believe being true.
"... the unattainable truth you seem to be referencing". Unattainable? Crazed doubt. It's hot outside and cold inside - at least here. Simple truths you would deny because Philosophy.
Quoting tim wood
...all believe that what they believe is true. And in some cases they are wrong. But in most cases they are right.
This is very unclear. Are you suggesting that we should not think that the things we believe, are true? That would mean believing things we believe are false...
As I said earlier, most of the confused epistemology in this forum comes form confusing belief and truth. Thanks for providing such a neat example.
I'm leaning more to Davidson than Rorty, but admit to the difference being small. It would be an interesting topic, but I'm learning that there is not really much place in this forum for depth.
I see you have beenna member for 3 years...slow learner or has there been a shift from depth to no depth at some point and if so, what do you think it is?
I'm just venting some frustration that a few recent threads in which I have been involved only superficially dealt with the issues I was interested in addressing, before reverting to comparatively straightforward stuff. That's more about me than the forums.
Just an old bugger having a bit of a grump.
Fair enough, just curious. Im fairly new and like to get a feel for the culture of a forum. Experience has taught me that its a big factor in how many discussions play out.
Anyway, thanks.
Are you not drawing a distinction between knowledge and certainty here? We don't use science to obtain certainty. A scientific experiment is based upon its analysis of observations. Our observations may or may not comport with reality, but what we're assessing is our observations and trying to figure out what brings them about.
I just think the counterexample you provide in this OP is of a different category and not really an attack on the proposition that all knowledge is obtainable through the scientific method. I think a better counterexample would be something like morality as that at least stands in the same category of shareable knowledge.
That's not commonly done. I don't need verification of whether I see this computer before me or whether I have a headache.
Well, yes. To believe ? is to think that ? is true. Recall Moore's performative contradiction: "I believe ?, but ? is not true".
The "on that basis alone" bit. Some things I believe, and there are reasons that I can provide for that belief. Other things, not so much. Our reasons for believing are many and varied, perhaps as many as there are beliefs. Certainly there are very few things that I believe because I followed some method to determine its truth.
Quoting tim wood
The things I am satisfied are true are my beliefs. That's not a type of truth, because obviously some of my beliefs are not true. I could work with the next bit if you remove "intrinsic to the world" - I've no idea what that means. Oh - "A state of affairs, when expressed" is a bit hairy too; states of affairs are already expresses. The world is always, already, interpreted (Davidson). So I guess we are left with "Some statements are true". Yep.
Quoting tim wood
Well, it's not my truth, usually, so much as our truth. Again, I don't see what "intrinsic" does in that sentence , except confuse things; can there be an extrinsic state of affairs? Why do we need to draw attention to such a distinction here? And "Universally true"?True for everyone, or true as part of a universal quantification?
Basically, Tim, there's an extraordinary amount of overkill here. Have a read of my About page.
Oh, yeah. There are plenty of things of which we are certain, but of which we ought not claim knowledge. This is because knowledge requires (on one common rendering) justification. "Here is a hand" and "I have a headache" do not require justification.
I can make sense of certainty as a sub-class of belief, not as a sub-class of truth. We are certain of stuff that we cannot doubt.
Quoting Hanover
Well, if your position is that knowledge must be justified, then since that I have a headache has no justification beyond my having a headache, you might have a point.
Well, yes, it is commonly done. Each time you ask me to pas the salt, we check our agreement on there being salt. This conversation checks our agreement on how computers, internets and English work.
And our agreement overwhelms our disagreement. It's just that our disagreements are much more interesting. We spend little time agreeing that the "Q" is in the top left of the keyboard, because there is no disagreement there - unless you have a different keyboard, in which case it might be of interest.
Are you asking is you cannot share this? no, because of course you could tell us that you have a pain in your toe.
Are you asking if it is something only you could believe, or know, or be certain of? Again, no, since we might believe, know or be certain that you have such a pain.
Are you pointing out that we might believe that you have a pain in your toe because you told us, while we might believe you have a toe because we can see it? Well, yes. That's not two sorts of truths, that's two sorts of justifications.
Keeping things clear seems again to me to dissolve the philosophical speculation.
In order for someone to sustain their life, they must live in accordance to reality. The only way to know reality is with the use of reason. People who try to know the truth by other means suffer for it because they don't live in accordance to reality.
SO, what is reason?
Reason is observing reality and then applying logic to make sense of your observations. It's knowing the truth.
Yes. There is no other way of perceiving it.
No, when you observe reality you observe reality.
Because I have consciousness that allows me to know the truth. Because I have a mind that can think about what I have observed.
How do you come to know the truth? Do you discover it mystically? Or do you think it is impossible to know the truth?
Quoting BannoQuoting AppLeo
So is it consciousness that allows you to know the truth, not observation and logic.
No, it's all three of those. Consciousness, observation, and logic.
Yes. Making mistakes is part of discovering the truth.
Why do you ask so many questions?
How can you tell when you have made an error?
With logic.
It basically helps you reach conclusions in reality. By holding non-contradictory ideas.
Consistent in what way?
Yep.
It's evident that reality doesn't contradict itself.
A is A.
A cannot be B or whatever else.
Contradictions are impossible.
Thinking that a contradiction could happen or wanting to achieve a contradiction in reality will only lead to disastrous consequences.
The morning star can't be the evening star?
You can call something a different name, but that doesn't change what it actually is.
You can call me AppLeo or call me by something else, but the essence of me is still me.
When we say that A is B, aren't we either just calling it a different name or focusing on a different set of facts about it, a la morning and evening star?
If A = 5
And B = 8
Does A = B?
Does 5 = 8?
No.
A = A
5 = 5
8 = 8
What would you say that has to do with the question I just asked?
The idea isn't that A is necessarily B. It's that "A can not be B" is false.
I don't really know what you mean.
Are you saying that reality can contradict itself? That 5 = 8?
I get the reference
Quote something I said that you specifically do not understand.
I don't understand this.
Here's an interesting thing. Any properly written software program resolves down to one giant if statement. That's worth thinking about.
I really dont want to be the one to say that the truth is, none of us will ever know what is true or what is not true because even feelings can be deceiving. Limitations are not even true such as natural laws governing matter are being broken at the quantum level. I really want to think of another method for all of you and the only thing that comes to mind is learning. For example, as a child you are forced to obey parents or guardians and listen to what they say is true because their actions brought you to exist. They provide for you and seems to be true until you are able to actively think about what has been said or shown. Knowledge seems to im'prove' your chance for existence and that is our tool to find safety and comfort. Here are some truths I struggle with : you need to consume water or fluids to live, all mammals bleed, and all information can be disputed. Thank you.
I don't think you understand what I mean when I say contradiction. I'm not saying that there can't be paradoxes like cold and hot. What I'm saying is that something can't be cold and hot at the same time. A penguin can't also be a rooster. A pineapple is a fruit, but doesn't mean a pineapple can also not be a fruit.
So, one thing you said was, "You can call something a different name, but that doesn't change what it actually is."
Sure. And "A" and "B" can represent different names. So one thing we can be doing when we say that A is B is using the two different names. "Robert is Bob."
Another thing we can be doing--often in conjunction with different names--is focusing on a different set of facts about the thing in question.
For example, the morning star is the evening star. The different set of facts is that in the one case, we're talking about the "star" (it's not actually a star, though) we often see as the brightest star in the morning--it's often the last "star" we can see prior to sunrise, and in the other case, we're talking about the "star" we see in the evening--often the brightest/first star we can see at dusk. In both cases, we're actually referring to the planet Venus.
Another example there: Bruce Wayne is Batman. "Bruce Wayne" typically refers to the person in question in his everyday guise, as an uber-rich philanthropist businessman, etc. "Batman" typically refers to him in his crime-fighting superhero capacity. Each side, which is accompanied by different names, focuses on a different set of facts about the same person.
Those are examples where A is B. "The morning star is the evening star"--they both refer to the planet Venus. "Bruce Wayne is Batman"--they both refer to a particular person, as does "Robert is Bob."
Okay yes, I agree.