There is no truth...

"If you are seeking an absolute truth you will not find it. Only truth that applies to you." -Oma Desala, Stargate SG1

That's the best think I can add to this

Adhara wrote: "If you are seeking an absolute truth you will not find it. Only truth that applies to you." -Oma Desala, Stargate SG1

That's the best think I can add to this

Bingo!

Streen wrote:

Proteus wrote: This is a paradoxical statement.

"There is no truth"
If that is the truth, then it falsifies itself.
If that is not the truth, then itself is falsified.

I was thinking the same thing. It's like saying "everything I tell you is a lie".

Hmm always open to the possibility/probability of being wrong but I don't think "everything I tell you is a lie is really a paradox. the first statement "There is no truth" like Proteus say's contradicts itself, the latter well...
To me I really agree (yes I'm biased Streen) that "everything I tell you is a lie". you can never really experience or absorb the whole "truth" of what I try and convey to you, I have my perceptions and my preconceptions which shape my experience of a person, thing or event. No matter how verbosely I describe an experience, or how open to my experience you are you will never have that exact experience. We might align to the point that as we try and convey a thought or experience we even describe it to people in the exact same words but your experience remains yours and mine remains mine, the best we can do is try and share those thoughts or experiences and hope that others can gain the same enjoyment, benefit or knowledge imparted by them. To me that doesn't make a contradiction.

Then again dude "everything I tell you is a lie"

Vergere82 wrote:

Streen wrote:

Proteus wrote: This is a paradoxical statement.

"There is no truth"
If that is the truth, then it falsifies itself.
If that is not the truth, then itself is falsified.

I was thinking the same thing. It's like saying "everything I tell you is a lie".

Hmm always open to the possibility/probability of being wrong but I don't think "everything I tell you is a lie is really a paradox. the first statement "There is no truth" like Proteus say's contradicts itself, the latter well...
To me I really agree (yes I'm biased Streen) that "everything I tell you is a lie". you can never really experience or absorb the whole "truth" of what I try and convey to you, I have my perceptions and my preconceptions which shape my experience of a person, thing or event. No matter how verbosely I describe an experience, or how open to my experience you are you will never have that exact experience. We might align to the point that as we try and convey a thought or experience we even describe it to people in the exact same words but your experience remains yours and mine remains mine, the best we can do is try and share those thoughts or experiences and hope that others can gain the same enjoyment, benefit or knowledge imparted by them. To me that doesn't make a contradiction.

Then again dude "everything I tell you is a lie"

The paradox is in the single statement...

If "everything I tell you is a lie", then the fact I say this to you, is also a lie, therefore I am telling the truth, which I cannot, because "Everything I tell you is a lie"...

I quite agree with the rest of your statement, but, this is the flip side of "There is not truth"...

Alexandre Orion wrote: -- I'll let you find those flaws.

The flaws I find are with me.

I have strong convictions (values) of what I believe is right/wrong, true/not true. Truth in my life is the cement that binds my morality. Saying (my) truth is really my perception forces me to think the perception of others (cultures and societies) are just as validly true as mine. There is the rub.

My truths can be in direct conflict with what others hold true due to their perceptions. For example: slavery, equality of the sexes, prearranged pre-teen marrage, dictators, kings, child labor, abortion, capital punishment, cast system. Just look around the world. It's easy to see cultures and practices baised on perceived truths that I abhor.

If I open my mind and reflect on things from anothers perception I can understand whay their world is the way it is and why they do what they do. So am I wrong? I can envision myself in the roll of the very things I am disgusted by. That's scary. Who is really right or wrong.

Maybe I should be a slaver or a dictator? There is good money in it. The strong always prey on the weak So why not? It is the way of things.

Now I'm not going off the deep end and changing my career. I'll still do what I think is true to my nature. I am flawed. I can live with that. I don't know all the answers. I've been living with that as well and seem to get by. I think too much, for all the good that will do me, but it keeps me entertained.

Rickie The Grey wrote:

Alexandre Orion wrote: -- I'll let you find those flaws.

The flaws I find are with me.

Are you saying the only flaws you find are within yourself?

I have strong convictions (values) of what I believe is right/wrong, true/not true. Truth in my life is the cement that binds my morality. Saying (my) truth is really my perception forces me to think the perception of others (cultures and societies) are just as validly true as mine. There is the rub.

My truths can be in direct conflict with what others hold true due to their perceptions. For example: slavery, equality of the sexes, prearranged pre-teen marrage, dictators, kings, child labor, abortion, capital punishment, cast system. Just look around the world. It's easy to see cultures and practices baised on perceived truths that I abhor.

If I open my mind and reflect on things from anothers perception I can understand whay their world is the way it is and why they do what they do. So am I wrong? I can envision myself in the roll of the very things I am disgusted by. That's scary. Who is really right or wrong.

There is no 'right and wrong'.. lol...

I think you identify with these things you abhor, and not with 'you'...

You are not these things, so why do you let them get to you? Can you do anything about them? Then do it...

No? Then why worry about it?

Maybe I should be a slaver or a dictator? There is good money in it. The strong always prey on the weak So why not? It is the way of things.

Lets see, constant care of the slaves would become a priority...

Feeding, medical, scraps for cloth... The time for these things, and money does not grow on trees...

Who is the 'slave', those in captivity by another, or he in self captivity to his charges?

Now I'm not going off the deep end and changing my career. I'll still do what I think is true to my nature. I am flawed. I can live with that. I don't know all the answers. I've been living with that as well and seem to get by. I think too much, for all the good that will do me, but it keeps me entertained.

You are not flawed!

You are the best 'Rickie the Grey' EVAR!!

Be all YOU can be!! :woohoo:

You'll never be as great a Jestor as I can be, for I am the best me I can be... And, when I find a flaw with myself, I deal with it...

Im always improving... :whistle:

I dont improve by the definitions of others, only by my own definition... :whistle: :evil: :whistle:

And what Jestor has written above is one of the best testimonies of Te (virtue) I've seen in a while.

I'm not beating myself up because I can understand anothers point of view, how their values evolved or why it works for them and do what they do. I am saying ones mans truths is anothers mans faults. You know the saying of walking in another mans shoes.

Never used the word only.

I do look into myself, as best as I can, and find some thoughts uncomfortable. That's the nature of reflection. When you try to be open minded lots of stuff can blow in. :woohoo: :silly:

I have a strong constitution. No worries nor concerns. I simple posted my thoughts from reflecting on the subject. I am flawed, I'm human. I accept that. We are all good.

Actually I like dictator best. :laugh:

There is no truth is almost like saying there is no spoon. The truth is based on one's point of view of the situation. However, a former Master of mine said that there are three sides to every story: your side, their side, and what really happened. Truth or facts are based on a collective bond of those who have the same or close to the same point of view with that subject.

Vergere82 wrote: To me I really agree (yes I'm biased Streen) that "everything I tell you is a lie". you can never really experience or absorb the whole "truth" of what I try and convey to you, I have my perceptions and my preconceptions which shape my experience of a person, thing or event. No matter how verbosely I describe an experience, or how open to my experience you are you will never have that exact experience. We might align to the point that as we try and convey a thought or experience we even describe it to people in the exact same words but your experience remains yours and mine remains mine, the best we can do is try and share those thoughts or experiences and hope that others can gain the same enjoyment, benefit or knowledge imparted by them. To me that doesn't make a contradiction.

Then again dude "everything I tell you is a lie"

Ah, a Traitor fan Indeed, everything everyone says is a lie because the truth is always greater than the words we use to describe it.

Truth can be the war between your mind, heart
then consciousness. Or this is the matrix. Just to say.

Guess in dreams and nightmares you would worry,
less then in real-time. If truth was taught then the
teacher be the salesperson. Just a thought.

Proteus wrote: This is a paradoxical statement.

"There is no truth"

If that is the truth, then it falsifies itself.

If that is not the truth, then itself is falsified.

Its almost the riddle of the liar and the truth-teller at the crossroads isn't it?

As an artist, i have come to an understanding about truth. Remove the words from that which moves us. What do you have left? Art.

It would be hard to find someone that would deny the power and complexity of the universe and the micro-verse. It is there that people find "god" expressed. Through the sublime and the beautiful.

As we all know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.


Where then is truth?

Rickie The Grey wrote: "There is no truth. There is only perception." Gustave Flaubert

Did you hear that Ariel, you've got a cas-

oh wait......I forgot

All is perception. We assign names to these perceptions in order to communicate them to others in a fashion they will understand. People then decide weather or not these communicated perceptions are correct. This leads to the question "Is that which is correct the truth?"

Nephilim wrote: "Is that which is correct the truth?"

That's the question that divides. Most are true.

It is more important to find the one that is not true and build together from there.

"Is that which is correct the truth?" Does the correctness of the perception resonate with you on a personal level through the force? If so then in your perceived reality it is true. Another answer to this paradox would be that the truth requires perception, but perception does not require the truth.

How about there being both truth and perception? Seeking knowledge is a futile enterprise if you start with the presupposition, that there is nothing to be found. Granted, whatever truth may be, we can never be sure of having achieved it even if we have indeed (try and apply that thought to omniscience and you get another paradoxon, just for fun). Either way, as long as one's perception at least seems to be appliable to what you percieve as reality, that should be good enough within the context of that respective reality. An artificial sentience doesn't need to know it is artificial or who produced it where and when and how the world outside looks like (aka the truth) in order to adequately function within its virtual world - draw your analogy from here.

If you presuppose that truth and falsehood are indistinguishable and that all is a matter of perception, we might as well never tell children that there are no dragons or fairies... or witches (have a guess where that road leads) and leave schizophrenics unprotected, unrestrained and with no medical assistance.

[quote="Nephilim" post=118369 but perception does not require the truth.[/quote]

I agree but where can you go with that? Perception is deception?

Rickie The Grey wrote:

Nephilim wrote: but perception does not require the truth.

I agree but where can you go with that? Perception is deception?

In a way Rickie,

We perceive only what we know to be true, until we receive the truth of a thing itself. One such example is the simple sense of sight, some animals see in color, and some see in monochrome. To each, they would perceive the world is as they see it to be, however it is in fact neither of those things, and is instead simply the reception of vibrational energy as broken down and processed by the organisms brain which is receiving such input.

To perceive something and take such perception as fact, is to close ones mind off to the potentiality that something is different than it appears to be on the surface