Gees

Again. What is it you are looking for? The simplest explanation is that truth reflects reality and fact defines that truth. This is the whole reason why truth is subjective and fact is objective. Think of each and every life form as a mirror reflecting whatever it experiences, so it reflects its own subjective experience, its own truth. When communication happens through shared experience, emotion, or maybe language, then we can get an objective truth, which we will then define and negotiate between us to create fact. Have you looked at my post on Page 2 of this thread? The one that dimreepr put the big red down-vote on because he was admittedly feeling pissy? I wrote that while working in a philosophy forum and it was very well received. The members there thought it was a very good, comprehensive, study of truth, especially for an amateur philosopher. I copied it to this forum years ago and recently found it in archived threads. The study of truth can also tell us about fact since fact is based on truth. I can't trust anything that iNow says. Misinformation likes to play with truth and fact. Well, I don't really agree with you, but I can agree to set these other questions aside. OK This says that fact can be wrong, it can even be iffy, but still be called fact. Much like the idea that I can be called a convicted murderer and treated like a convicted murderer, even though I never killed anyone. When we define a truth and classify it, we create fact, but that is no guarantee that we are right. This means that it is a true reflection of reality. All reflections are not true. Sometimes we have a bad mirror and are wrong, which is why we compare with others to try to obtain an objective truth -- fact. Tautologies are covered under the title of Conceptual truths in my post. They are always true because we set up the rules of the game. Yes there are different kinds of facts and different kinds of truths. Maybe you could go back to page 2 and review my post. Maybe someone could take that big red down vote off of it, so that people might take it more seriously. When I wrote it, I called it 'A Measure of Truth' because that is what we do. We are constantly trying to improve our knowledge and measure our truths. By the way, I have a question for you. As I noted earlier in this thread, I suspect that all of reality is based on motion and balance. Recently I have noted that emotion is also based on balance and have been wondering if it is real, like you mentioned that a shadow is real. I have also been considering that math may be real. It occurred to me that simple math can not be done without a balance point, an equal or less than or more than sign. Is math also real? Seth posted something about math at the top of this page and I found it interesting, but thought I would ask you since you seem to know a great deal about math. Gee

Well, that's a good question. Do we think in dreams, or are they just memories? I don't know. The study of consciousness is a massive study that encompasses all of religion, most of philosophy, and probably half of science, so five lifetimes of study would not be enough to fully understand it. Here is what I do know: Neurology says that we store information in the unconscious -- so there is that. Psychology gives us Freud, Jung, Bianco, and many others. Freud's work was not well accepted, but his interpretation of dreams is still well regarded. Jung understood the unconscious better than most, and learned a lot about the "God" concept with regard to the unconscious. Bianco used math to discover, I think six, levels or maybe he called them stratums in the unconscious. ( I have no idea of how he did this. ) The deepest of these did not accept time constraints, so logic does not work there. Most people will not accept the idea of thought, without thinking also being present, and thinking does not work without time and logic. In these deeper levels, if Mary is Rose's mother, then Rose is Mary's mother. These levels do not recognize time, only relationships. Is this thinking? I don't know but the work is fascinating. One has to wonder if truth fits in here because fact certainly does not seem to. Probably. Gee

Why would you think that I am standing out on a limb? This sounds personal. Of course, you can look up the definition of thought in a variety of ways, i.e., Google, dictionaries, etc., but that is not what you want to know. You want my definition of thought, so here goes: I study consciousness and all manner of things that are incorporated into that idea, mind, psychology, life, etc., but mostly I study how the things work. Thought is a product of the rational aspect of mind and can be manipulated in order to produce thinking and ideas. We control most of our thoughts and use them to guide our lives, make our decisions, etc. We are aware of our thoughts. No. It requires knowledge, but not necessarily thought or a conscious mind. Knowledge can come from DNA, but that does not cause thinking. Most people in this forum will tell you that thinking requires a brain, so plants and some others could not possibly think or have thoughts. When one person told me that consciousness required a brain, I responded by saying that spiders, fleas, and flies must be conscious because they all have brains. That person quit talking to me. If you want to make the argument that all living specie have thoughts, go ahead. I don't want to participate, but can I watch? 😀 Gee Yes. You missed it. Please note that I have not forgotten your snarky response about me, re: "truthiness", in the last thread where we communicated. I also noted that there was no apology. If you are not going to post in good faith, this will be my last response to you. Fact is an objective, created and/or defined digital truth, and is artificial. Truth is a subjective, analog reflection of reality through emotion and/or experience, and is natural. imo Gee

OK. Here I disagree. I think there have been some very good answers and wonder why you think there has been no comprehensive answer. What would satisfy you? Well, some of the people are dead wrong and some others understand just a portion of what is truth and how it works. I am going to be frank here and say that most of the members are science people. They study fact, not truth, so they are not as informed about truth and just a tad biased toward fact. If you really want to understand this issue, maybe you could tell me where you see conflict, explain the contradictions that you see, and maybe together we can work this out. It might also be beneficial if you could tell me where there is agreement. Surely some of the responses are in agreement. We can use the agreements as a base to build understanding. Oh, it was clear. What was not clear was the equivalent with regard to fact. You see the problems with truth, but do not see the problems with fact. Models, plots, maps, graphics, and schemas all have nothing to do with emotion. All of those things can exist quite well without emotion and have nothing to do with it. You are confusing the issue. This is closer to true than any other thing in your post. So if a fact is a partial model of truth, then couldn't we say that the fact is artificial? second hand? not actually true? Reflexes work through the sub/unconscious aspect of mind and so are automatic responses which do not require thought -- very much like emotion. Gee Harry is an orphaned infant put in the care of people, who do not care for him. I think everyone can identify with the fear that kind of helplessness engenders. Emotion is not illusion and transfers among people very easily. Haven't you heard of the riot or mob mentality? Emotions can transfer from person to person while getting stronger with each person. There is no problem with 'loss of signal'. The problems arise when the feeling finally dissipates and the people are horrified to recall their behavior while under the influence of such strong emotion. This sharing of emotion is common in many specie and I suspect that emotion was the first language in many specie. So startling a bird can cause thousands to take to the air. Startling a cow can cause a stampede. Gee

I suspect just the opposite. I see a thought as a piece of an idea. So if I think of a thought, '50 years' -- what does that mean? What is the idea? The mortgage will be paid off? I will start looking forward to retirement? It will be half a century? Or maybe I will be a grandparent. These are all ideas that the original thought could be part of. I don't think that emotion can be thought. Emotion is a feeling. For many years, decades, I wondered if emotion carried thought, or if thought activated emotion, as both seemed to be true at different times. Then when I was corresponding with a Physics/Philosophy Professor at Duke University, he said that thought has no power. He explained that if we take our greatest thoughts and write them down or record them on a CD, then store them away, we will find that in five, or fifty, of thousands of years, they will have done nothing. The paper may deteriorate, but the thoughts will have done nothing. Thought has no power on its own. I am leaning toward the idea that emotion is the motivator, not thought. But I am still not sure. All the best stories are based on truth, and that truth is a reflection of something and was caused by emotion. Gee

I like a lot of your posts and think you understand truth better than most. But this post shows me that you also have very good instincts. Gee

Think again. There is a lot of truth in the Harry Potter story; it is not the story line about witchcraft that is true, it is the relationships between the people. Have you ever walked out of a movie theater thinking that the movie was stupid? the plot idiotic? the acting terrible? that it was a waste of time and money? It would be because you did not believe the story. Considering that Harry Potter's story has sold across the world in books, movies, and paraphernalia, I would say that a lot of people believed it and related to it. The thing about belief is that it requires emotion. It does not require valid thought, just relatable emotion. So I guess my question is why are you talking about Harry Potter? This thread is about the difference between truth and facts, not the difference between truth and lies. I suspect that you see lies as qualifiers for truth, whereas facts reflect reality and need no qualifiers. I suspect you don't know enough about the study of truth to make that judgement. Gee

Thank you. Absolute truth does exist, and you even know about it. What is the one thing that you can tell me about the universe that applies to all life, all matter, all forces, everything? You can tell me that there will be change -- whether the change is constant or intermittent, whether it is slow or fast, whether it is immediate or takes billions of years, it will happen, because change is an absolute truth of reality. Another absolute truth is balance, because in all of this change, balance tries to reassert itself over and over. When we look for something that is absolute, we think of it as being constant and static. Maybe we would like to take reality, grab hold of it with both hands and give it a shake to make it hold still so that we can know it. But that is not going to happen because reality is always in motion -- another absolute truth. imo I tried to explain this idea early on in this thread with the two buckets analogy, but I got downvoted. Maybe I did not explain it well enough, or maybe someone did not understand my meaning. Truth is necessarily analog because it reflects motion. Fact is digital because it reflects thought and language. This is the real difference between truth and fact, and this difference leads to many other differences. I don't want to say much more here because I am a little nervous about how this will be accepted, so let me know what you think. Gee

Interesting indeed. +1 I see things a little differently: Reality exists. Truth reflects reality. Fact defines that truth. When I say reality exists, I am denying solipsism, idealism, or 'its all in your head' type philosophies. When I say truth reflects reality, I am saying that as long as there is life, there can be truth. This includes all life as all life reflects reality; humans are not the only specie that can reflect reality. Any species that reacts to reality, reflects reality; so an earthworm moving through the ground reflects reality, a tree turning it's leaves to the sun reflects reality -- and truth. When I say that fact defines truth, I am saying that without language and thought, fact can not exist as it has no ability to define anything. If you took away all thought and knowledge, there would be no facts, because there would be no definitions. Reality would still exist, truth would still exist, but fact would have to be rebuilt along with thought and language. imo My opinions in this matter probably have a great deal to do with my studies of consciousness, which reflect my thoughts on conscious life, rather than thoughts on human consciousness. If the click-it club does not agree with this, try to explain why instead of letting your fingers do the thinking. Gee

Studiot: I am not going to be able to finish this thread with you. It has been interesting, but someone has already decided to use the click-it option to down vote me to show me that I am wrong. They neutralized the point you gave me, and once the click-it club starts, they can too easily shred a reputation. It is very difficult for a philosopher to gain respectability in this science forum, so I have decided not to play. I will leave you with some information that may help you to understand the issues as I see them. First it is not fact v truth, it is fact v truth(s) as there are different kinds of truth. The first, emotional truth, was what I was trying to demonstrate with the bucket analogy. Emotional truth is fluid, it moves, it changes, which is why science does not trust it. This is not true for all truth, just emotional truth. I remember this really big hill that we played on by my home when I was about five years old. One day I went back to the old neighborhood and looked for it. When I finally found it, I was shocked as it was only about three foot tall -- not the huge hill I remembered. Have you ever thought you loved someone, who was beautiful/handsome, then broke up? And years later saw them again and realized that they are not even goodlooking? There can be many examples, but the point is that emotional memory changes your perception over time of what is real and what happened. Psychology knows this and give us about 24 hours before it expects changes to start occurring. So if you have an incident at work, you may be required to fill out an incident report within 24 hours. If you are in a trauma situation, hostage, war, etc., you will be asked to participate in a debriefing as soon as possible -- before you reinterpret the experience. This can be a problem in law if it takes weeks or months before you are required to identify the suspect. Of if you think you have had a paranormal experience, write down what you think happened immediately. Putting this information into writing digitalizes the memory and makes it static -- no longer fluid. This is good because you stop the mind from corrupting the actual account of what happened, it is also bad because it limits what you know about the experience unless you are a very good writer. You might look at the following Ted Talk about emotional memory, which I found very informative: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNuARPcb5FA I also went into the archived files and found a thread I wrote many years ago that categorized some of my ideas on truth. I did not know about emotional truth at that time, so it is not listed. You may find it interesting: I had not yet determined that emotion is real, so there is no reference to Emotional truths. Please note that I was not looking to find truths, but looking to categorize and rate as to reliability the truths that I understood. So please consider: Like all philosophers, I have spent a lot of time contemplating "truth", and find it to be illusive. Truth is not an absolute, so THE truth, or absolute truth, or ultimate truth, is illusion or idealism. Truth is a reflection of reality, and it is necessary to understand it in order to acquire knowledge; but it is not static, it is forever changing as reality is forever changing. Some truths seem to be more stable however; so, I broke truth into categories of reliability: Simple Truth, Conceptual Truth, Acceptable Truth, Common Truth, Classic Truth, and Philosopher's Truth. These have become my measures of truth. Simple truth is the opposite of false and/or lies. This category of truth is very transient and can turn false rather quickly. An example is; I am alive--truth, but it may not be truth in an hour. So this truth is only relative to the "now" of whenever the truth was made or told. Conceptual truth is truth that has been designated and agreed upon, and as such it is a very reliable truth. Examples of this kind of truth are measurements, numbers, maths, directions, language, etc. But then true north adjusts itself, gallons are now liters, and inches are centimeters, so this truth can also change. One aspect of Conceptual truth that is convenient, is that whatever breaks an established truth also usually supplies the material needed to recreate a better truth, so it is still very reliable. Acceptable truth is truth that can be verified in at least three different ways, preferably from three different kinds of perspectives and is an objective truth. This truth requires evidence and is commonly used by science, Courts, and people in general to establish a truth. An example; What if I saw a poisonous snake on my couch? It looks like a snake, I am afraid, but it does not make sense to my mind because poisonous snakes do not live in my area. I do not accept this truth that is offered to me, I check. I watch the snake or throw something at it to see if it is a snake or one of my grandson's toys, then follow up that test with the appropriate action after I have discovered an acceptable truth. Most science falls under the category of acceptable truth. This does not mean that acceptable truth can not change, as it can and does, science often revises their own truths (facts) to make more acceptable truths when they discover more information. Acceptable truth is more than just "now"; it is a truth that can be relied upon for the foreseeable future. What I can not accept as Acceptable truth is a "truth" that is established through only one kind of perspective, as this can too easily be falsehood. An example would be a truth based solely on mental deliberations, no matter how logical those deliberations are, they are likely to be rationalization rather than truth. An example of the physical would be something like statistics, no matter how valid, the interpretation can be invalid. An example of spiritual would be a belief in anything that has nothing to support it, as that would look like opinion to me. To be an Acceptable truth, I would need to have some kind of corroborating evidence from another kind of perspective--preferably three perspectives. Example: The police find two people dead at a table, both shot with the same gun, and the gun in the hand of one of them. Many people would accept that one person shot the other, then themself. But I would want a motive for the shooting and a witness that could state that there were not three people originally at that table. Common truth is truth that is common to about 90% of a category of people. It is a subjective truth and must be treated as such. There are some philosophers and scientists, who believe that there is no such thing as subjective truth--that is not so. Common truth is knowledge or behavior shared by people who share a commonality, and can include; who people are, what people are, where people live, and common experiences of people. It should be considered that people's Common truths are intermingled as two people can be religious and nonreligious, employer and employee, single and married, but both share the same illness giving them a commonality. So why is Common truth worthy of consideration? Because Common truths can give us knowledge and understanding that could only be otherwise acquired by being all things and knowing all things. Since none of us are God, that is an impossibility, so we acquire truth, knowledge, and understanding where we can find it. Example: Most babies will study the image of a face, whether real or cartoon; this is a Common truth. If your baby does not, it may be of no consequence, but it may also be a good idea to check out baby's vision and/or watch for signs of Autism. There is a danger in viewing Common truth in an objective manner. One can not assume that because a person is a child that they will want to play with another person who is also a child, or that one person who is an employee will identify with another person who is an employee. Common truth is subjective, to view commonality in an objective manner is to walk a path that can lead straight into the ignorance of prejudice. Common truth is also transient and lasts only as long as the commonality, but the knowledge obtained through the commonality is valid and can be viewed objectively. So Common truth can give us information, facts, knowledge, and understanding that can be relied upon as truth for the foreseeable future. Classic truth is just what it sounds like--classic. Whether common or acceptable, these truths have survived as truth for five hundred to a thousand years, and so they are classic truth. Classic truth is no more reliable than Acceptable or Common truth, but it does have the test of time on it's side, so to overturn Classic truth, one needs to have more proof than would be required to overturn an Acceptable or Common truth. Hope this helps you to understand truth. I apologize to anyone who expected a response from me. Gee

So is it your opinion that facts are valid and truth is not? It is my opinion that facts are often irrelevant. I saw that request and reviewed that thread. I found truths that are not fact, and facts that are not true. So I think it would be a waste of time to try to show you something that you refuse to see. You just want to argue. Gee

This is nonsensical. Who do you think has been 'bewitched'? You are not making any sense here. You seem to think that I should not have used the word "truth" above. Why not? In each statement I would have corrupted the meaning if I used the word, true. To be precise is kind of important in philosophy, not like your example where you copied my response to The Vat and instead credited it as an anwer Studiot. I did not write the above to Studiot. Yes. This is true and it is also a fact. This is not true and is not a fact. It is opinion and maybe conjecture. This is true and is also a fact. You can say that if you are happy with lying. Since no one here has done this, I suppose you are projecting as I see no other source that would cause this comment. Gee You and I do not agree on many things, but I must say that you do understand the differences between facts and truths, probably better than anyone else here. +1 Gee What I am talking about here is an understanding of shared, subjective, reality. It has nothing to do with good or bad, with right or wrong, or with truths or lies. It is just a shared reflection of subjective reality. Because it is a true reflection of other people's emotional perspective, or as close as one can get. What do you feel when you listen to a marching band? Most people feel energized, motivated, looking for a goal -- then the speaker comes on a gives you that goal -- or its incorporated into the lyrics of the music. Politicians and religious leaders have been using music, dance, and art for centuries to lead where they want the people to go. Why do you think that Trump keeps hi-jacking writers music to play at his conventions and speeches? If you can not understand how emotion works, you can not understand truth. You can deny that emotion has anything to do with truth, but you will be wrong -- experience plus emotion equals belief, which is the foundation of knowledge. Gee

No. This implies that truth and fact are only here to validate the existence of statements -- it is the other way around. Both truths and facts existed prior to language and validate reality as we know it. Truths and facts construct and recreate reality through language, so that the information can be shared. Or partially true, or mostly true, or occasionally true, or seldom true, or true now, etc. Gee I have never heard the terms 'global' and 'local' applied to facts and truths. I like it and will use this idea. +1 Gee Good point. +1 Gee Again. You and Studiot are talking about statements, not about truths. You are implying that nothing was real or true prior to language. Does a deaf mute not know reality? not know truth? Do species without language not know reality? Your philosophy will get lost if you can not separate language from reality. You see what I underlined in your post? (statement is true) This is again about a statement. In another forum, I was talking to a working neurologist, who explained this idea to me. He said, "You wake up in the morning in bed. The sun is up. The bed is situated so that you can reach the floor. You get out of bed. The next morning it happens again, then again, then again. You begin to be comforted by this familiar routine. This emotion, comfort, causes you to believe that this is good and right, which you now take as knowledge. If you wake up without the sun or the bed, your knowledge will tell you that something is very wrong. So, experience plus emotion causes belief, which leads to knowledge, which we confirm with fact. Was it truth before we confirmed it as such? Yes. Experience plus emotion causes belief which becomes knowledge. Now it can be disputed by fact, but until it is, it is true. Gee Agree with the underlined. This is how we knew that witches were real, then we tested them with fire and drowning to prove it. Culture has a great deal to do with truth. +1 Gee

I agree with Studiot that English is a very accomplished language; but also agree with MigL that it is frustrating. Most of the posters in this thread have used language to try to describe the differences between fact and truth, and I think this is part of the problem. Fact and truth are different in their very natures, and although fact can be described by words and language, truth does not lend itself to language. So when we digitalize truth into language, we have already corrupted it. To explain this, imagine that you have two buckets, one is entitled 'facts' and the other is entitled 'truths'. The 'facts' bucket is filled with sand and the 'truths' bucket is filled with water. If I ask you to take nine facts out of the 'facts' bucket, you can count out nine grains of sand. But if I ask you to take nine truths out of the 'truths' bucket, what can you do to ensure that you get whole truths and nothing extra? Truth is fluid, so it does not digitalize and does not easily convert to language. Digital facts are thoughts and can be converted into specific words. Fluid truths are emotions and experiences and do not convert well into specific words. Yes we can use words like love, hate, and fear, but these words to not truly convey the feeling. The old expression, "walk a mile in my shoes" tells us that the words we use to explain emotions and experiences just do not cut it. So how do we take subjective fluid truths (emotions and experiences) and convey them to another person without the benefit of words? We use music, dance, art, and poetry. Through music, dance, and art, we can feel what others feel, and through poetry, we can compare and relate to similar situations and experiences. Gee

Which is why it is my position that ignoring truth is a very good way to corrupt fact. Earlier in this thread, I explained that I personally knew of two different situations (although there are more than two) where statistics (facts) were gathered without benefit of truth. No. It is asking for the 'whole truth' and 'nothing but the truth'. Law is ancient, thousands of years old, and probably older than written language, so it has had lots of experience in understanding truth, and knowing that truth can be partial, and that it differs from different perspectives, and is even different at different times. When it asks for 'nothing but the truth' it is demanding no additional misinformation. What do you get when you rebuild the 'partial' truths, consider truth from all available perspectives, and understand its meaning through time? You get wisdom, known as advanced truth, and that is what the Court is looking for. No. To be PROVEN true, there must be facts. But you are not talking about truths; you are talking about statements. Without evidence, truth does not become fact. It either remains true, or it becomes speculation -- at best -- or it becomes lies, dreams, hallucinations, mental instability, etc. I am forever hearing about Kant in science forums. One would think he is the only philosopher. I suspect that the reason is that Kant was a bit of a science guy himself, so science types relate to him. If you trace back the ideas of 'analytic truth' and 'synthetic truth' what you get is a study of language, not a study of truth. It is an argument about language and semantics. Granted, he is trying to prove truth, but his argument is useless because it is after the fact -- truth is already boxed and corrupted by semantics before he begins to study it. You can think of it like you would processed food, which looks good, tastes good, and is satisfying. But it doesn't give you the nutrition that you expect and this shows over time. Once truth is processed into fact, then incorporated into statistics, it is so processed that there is little truth left. How can you know what "key facts were missing". How can you prove a negative? This can't be done. Maybe I lied. It is not a fact -- prove it. "statements"? Language and semantics not truths. Gee