Gees

You are right. Not a science person and I am not surprised that the details are wrong. Glad you corrected me, as I do not want to contribute to nonsense. One thing that I would like to ask -- is motion and/or force caused by matter, or material, always? Gee

Probably. I have known since early childhood that I am socially inept, which is why I often write my responses in Notebook in my computer, wait a few days, then review and rewrite to modify the tone. This is one of the reasons why I am so slow to respond to a post, another reason is that I will often try to confirm the information that I am posting, then there is my health which prevents me from posting sometimes. But when someone flat out lies to me or about me, then my temper helps me to answer the post and the effect is not always good. I am not sure that false modesty is ever really appropriate. Actually I have a great deal of respect for many of the posters and for science in general. You are included in that respect, as I have caught you actually thinking. I know it was you because I would read your name after reading your post and find that you are listed as being from Nigeria, which means that you do not spout the usual media nonsense that covers the US -- you actually think. But I also have a great deal of respect for philosophy and a great deal of respect for religion, which does not make me popular. You will find that the large majority of my posting is in the philosophy section of this forum, and that is where I run into a lot of posters, who have little or no respect for philosophy and/or religion, which irks me. But back to the topic, I noted that you stated you had a deaf Uncle. My Aunt was deaf (7% hearing in one ear) so along with her schizophrenia, she led a very challenging life. It is difficult when you can hear the demons in your head, but can not hear the family that loves you. Or in the airport, you can not hear the guards that yell at you to STOP. My Aunt went to a deaf school and learned to sign, read lips, and even learned to speak, but I never would have guessed at the blessings that my brothers and I received because of her deafness. When I was five years old, my Mother went to my first Parent/Teacher conference and the teacher asked if I had had speech lessons. Mom said, "No. Why would you think that?" The teacher responded that my diction was too perfect. I enunciated my words like someone, who had been trained. Mom explained that my Aunt was deaf and the perfect diction was just a little girl trying to be understood. Perfect diction caused the people around me to value me higher and see me as more intelligent. An unanticipated gift from my Aunt. Sometimes there is another side of a disability that is subtle and we don't think about it. Of course, now that MS (multiple sclerosis) has kicked my behind, stolen memory, cut my vocabulary in half, and reduced my cognitive skills, I no longer have the problems of being valued higher or thought of as more intelligent. Gee

I don't think the existing words, "all" and "none", have anything to do with the problem. I suspect that the word "something" is the problem. A thing, something, is material like my desk or my chair or my computer -- these are all "things". So when we say that we can't imagine something coming from nothing, or always existing, we are talking about matter. But science tells us that matter is not what it appears to be. It is actually atoms, and photons, electrons, and protons, and nucleuses, which break down into things like quarks, etc., and even waves and particles. So would these things appear to be something, or would they appear to be nothing? What causes waves and particles? Are they what the universe is made up of, or is there something more? We probably need a science person to answer these questions, but I wonder where force and motion come from. Do force and motion have a source, or is force and motion the source, the beginning? Well, religion thinks the answer to your query is "God" -- the origin of existence. The funny thing I realized recently is that religion actually studies emotion and calls it "God". Is it possible that what religion studies, "God" and emotion, is actually motion? Is motion the source of everything? We always think of matter as being stable and then matter causing motion to exist. We swing a bat and hit the ball -- causing more motion. What if we have it backward? What if motion always exists everywhere and matter is just an example of motion that is balanced and is therefore temporarily stopped? We know that balance influences everything. What if motion is the underlying reality and matter is just illusion? Gee

That is what I thought. Your bizarre personal attacks on me having been consistent for weeks now. How did you ever get the idea that your attacks were warranted? Is it because I didn't fight back? If I don't state that I think you are full of BS, that means that I accept your nonsense? Is that what you think? You may know about science, but when you are in the Philosophy forum, you are usually quoting someone else or talking out your backside. Do you even know the difference between science and philosophy? I will give you a hint: it has nothing to do with the "blender" you alluded to. A job, not a profession, which you worked for a very short time? As I alluded to. Maybe they didn't know you gossiped about the clients. Like we didn't know that already. The takeaway is that psychotic disorders can be very frightening, because psychotic people can be very frightening. Any other conclusion that you come to is bullshit. You should not lie to a person, who has spent a lifetime studying truth. Even if you are not called on it, that does not mean that your lies are accepted, even when you do not know you are lying. What do you know of my areas of expertise, knowledge, or judgement? I'll tell you what I know about yours. You couldn't think your way out of a paper bag. You follow the accepted standard and popular truths, whether they are true or not -- because it is safer. But not you. Not in Philosophy, or in psychiatry, and definitely not in psychology. Since I have decades of engaging with delusional people, I think you are wrong. The mention of men-in-black was in response to another poster's question about a delusional person worrying about men-in-black (Exchemist). Maybe you are having a reading problem, or is it comprehension? Good advice. Maybe you should take it. Gee

I would like to suggest that at least one of the reasons is that we do not differentiate as to solutions between psychotic personalities, obsessive compulsive personalities, slow thinkers, and simple depression -- which are very different problems. In this thread, all of these and more have been mentioned implying that these problems are similar, or the same, and could possibly be resolved in the same way, which is of course nonsense. They are very different problems requiring very different resolutions. Another reason is that some problems are accepted and some are not. I believed that my Aunt was mentally retarded for most of my life, then finally learned after she died that she was actually schizophrenic. My family told me that she was retarded because that was more acceptable than schizophrenia, but her school records that we found after she died told us that she was no where near retarded. She was very bright and valedictorian of her class. Did you know that high IQ, genius, and schizophrenia all tend to run together in families? Coincidence? You respond by talking to him about the reality around him, but never scaring him. Avoid anger, fear, and argument, while pointing out the pleasant and good things in your surrounding reality. Eventually this should pull him out of the delusion long enough to get treatment/help. I don't think that sharing your terror with the general public is a very good way to help your patients/clients avoid stigmatization, no matter what you would like to think is possible. I'm guessing you didn't work there very long. I very seriously doubt that psychiatry is going to come up with many answers. A hundred years ago, in Hellen Keller's time, they were locking people up together with TB patients, syphilis patients, mentally retarded, psychotic, deaf, and just plain willful people in institutions. Seventy years ago, they were still giving people with mental disabilities shock treatments and ice baths -- I know because my Aunt got them. I suppose I should be grateful that she wasn't given a lobotomy, although that may have been because we could not afford the surgery. In short, psychiatry has not been fixing people with mental disabilities, it has been making these people more acceptable to the general population. Psychiatry is testing a whole new crop of medicines through our jail system, which encourages criminalizing abhorrent behavior and enriches pharmaceutical companies. I think a change of attitude of the general population is required. Gee

This response sums it up nicely. +1 When we see someone with a physical disability, we see the problem and feel sympathy for the victim of this accident of nature or luck. But when we meet a person with a mental disability, we do not see the problem, we do not feel sympathy -- we feel fear. We see someone who is not responding to people, or the situation, as they should; and we have no idea of how they will act, what they will say, or what they will do. This unpredictability frightens us, so fear is the predominant reaction (as has also been mentioned by some of the other members above). Then, of course, we have movies like, Psycho, and news headlines that exaggerate the danger this person may impose on us. The truth is that mentally disabled people are more dangerous to themselves, than they are to us. We are much more likely to be attacked by a perfectly rational mean person, who is pissed off, than we are in danger from a psychotic person -- as they usually hurt themselves. Many years ago, I stopped at the bank on my way home from work, and as I entered the lobby, I saw a man, who was obviously upset, and he was shouting about a bus. The bank employees that surrounded him were telling him that he had to leave. After I finished my business with the teller, I was walking back through the lobby and realized the situation had escalated. Now the bank employees were threatening to call the police, the man was close to hysterics and still complaining about the bus, and I realized a few things. 1. There was a bus stop right in front of the bank. 2. This man had mental disabilities. 3. If the bus did not come on schedule, this man had no ability to adjust and find an alternate way home. 4. The bank employees demands were useless, because this man had no idea of where to go to get home -- and the bank employees could see this, but didn't care. When I asked, the bank employees told me that I was putting myself in danger and should wait for the police. I ignored them. I walked up to the man and asked how far he lived. He told me where home was (about a mile) but he gets lost if he tries to walk it. I told him that I had a car and could take him home. He was so relieved, and thanked me profusely. He even tried to pay me, but I told him it was on my way so there was no cost and I would enjoy the company. When I got him home, he smiled like it was Christmas morning and thanked me again. I wonder how many people have criminal arrest records for things like disturbing the peace, simply because other people are afraid of them. If you meet someone like this, try to remember that he may not be able to respond well to you, but you can listen and respond to him. Tell him to look around, there are no men in black, zombies, etc., in the room. He is safe. Always let him know that he is safe. Gee

Again, I ask, "Is there some reason you are being a sarcastic ass?" Gee

Is there some reason you are being a sarcastic ass? Gee

Those were the good old days. I think it had everything to do with the Fall of Rome. I have just spent an hour researching this Fall in Wiki, and it was much worse than I knew. I thought of Rome as a city, or maybe a country, but it was so much more -- it was more like an entire continent that slowly collapsed over hundreds of years. What I found was the Antonine Plague 165 - 180, the Crisis of the third Century which included climate change, pandemic disease, changing to Christianity as an exclusive religion, and the imminent end of the world. Then there were the military and political failures and the Little Ice Age and the Plague of Justinian to name a few things. There is more and you can read about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_the_Western_Roman_Empire As Rome was slowly collapsing, the state religion, Christianity, was slowly picking up the pieces. It is not surprising that the eventual collapse left the Church in charge of the writings/information. Maybe the Church wanted to hide the information, or maybe the Church no longer trusted the failed government and wanted to protect the information. Regardless, the result was the Dark Ages and as I suspected, fear was the motivator. Yes, Muslims, South Africans, Asians, North and South Americans, actually everyone who was not Christian retained knowledge. What a coincidence? I don't think it was quite that simple. Trump saw a truth that no one else was looking at, or that they did not want to admit, and it was about the young American white male. After World War II, the men came home to an unrecognizable life. The women were in the factories and liked making money. No one could use babies as an excuse to keep the Moms at home because the government pushed the idea of bottle feeding to get women into the factories during the war and convinced everyone that nursing was not clean as it could not be sterilized. Then came birth control and state run programs to protect women from angry husbands and to give women and children support. Then came civil rights which gave black workers/students advantages over white workers/students. Then came no fault divorce. Lots of laws. Each one of these things can be good on their own, but when put together, a man has no reason to work, no family that he has power over, no reason to care. The suicide rates for young men went through the roof. Then Obama became President. In the unconscious, the part represents the whole. This means that if a black man (the part) is President and is above you, then all black men (the whole) are above you. Racism is not a dead issue, especially in the South. MAGA was born, and Trump capitalized on it. When Obama first ran, I did not vote for him because he was an intelligent young man (maybe a little too young) who understood law, and he had a beautiful intelligent wife, and two adorable little girls. And I did not want that family wrecked, because I know racism still exists, and I live in Michigan. I can't argue any of this. Gee

My understanding is that this constant splitting is also because of the unconscious, and falls under the idea of Generalization. From Matte Blanco's Wiki page on the unconscious: "1) The principle of Generalization: here logic does not take account of individuals as such, it deals with them only as members of classes, and of classes of classes." Nobody interprets truth the exact same way as others do because truth is subjective. Since the unconscious does not account for individual interpretations, it either disposes of the individual interpretation or assigns it to a class, which causes the split. This does not happen in all groups, but it does happen in groups guided mainly by emotion -- totalizing ideologies. Of course splitting can not go on indefinitely as there will eventually be nothing to split -- which is the only good news about totalizing ideologies. I agree. It would be a mistake to equate all religious ideologies to totalizing ideologies, as some do. I agree it is a lot like tribalism and plays a part in every group that I have ever seen or that I could imagine. It is even here in this forum. If a member is a science person, they are well accepted. But if they are not, then they have to work for acceptance. This idea shows up in the up/down votes. The forum doesn't use fear to control people, but does use down vote disapproval to control people's responses. Gee

This made me chuckle and grin. You can't agree that people may have been stupid back then and follow that up with a reference to the 'classical' era. The people, who lived in the classical era were not stupid, but the fall of Rome around the fifth century coincided with a lot of misery -- which can make people stupid, according to Blanco. Should dictate? I don't think that "should" had much to do with it. Using the word, should, implies that this was a decision. It was not -- unless you are talking about the people trying to lead, rather than the ones who are led. The conscious aspect of mind is rational -- we call it the rational mind. The unconscious is strongly influenced by emotion and is not rational. We are talking about an emotional reaction, not a conscious decision. I remember either a book or a movie about bank robbers. The leader shot a bunch of bullets into the ceiling making the people scream, then he said, "If you can get them pissing down their legs, they are easier to control." He was right. So what made the early Christians suddenly afraid of dying and going to Hell? What caused them to think they were going to die? The fall of Rome? Or was there more? What caused the fall of Rome? First there was the classical era, then there was Augustine, then there were the Crusades, then there was Aquinas, then there was the renaissance. The knowledge was never "lost". It was hidden. These are the main points that surrounded the 'Dark Ages'. The classical era gave us Plato, Aristotle, Thales, Socrates, and many others. People were not stupid at that time. In the fifth century AD, Rome fell and no doubt other tragedies contributed to that fall. Augustine's work came to light and his distrust of science became apparent. I think he hated Aristotle. Augustine thought that "God's" word alone (the church's word) should determine right and wrong, guilt and innocence, so this thinking validated just war, or "God's" war, and it prohibited a large amount of knowledge from leaving the church archives, hence the Dark Ages. The really ironic part of this is that Augustine's ideas about just war allowed the Crusaders to go into the middle east to spread "God's" word, or to collect gold, (whichever you believe) and while there they found Aristotle's work, Plato's work, and this little thing called a zero, which changed math. Then Aquinas, et al, studied this information, rewrote church doctrine, and threw open the doors of the church to knowledge ushering in the renaissance and closing the doors to the Dark Ages. I don't think they had TV stations or the internet back then, so you are talking about Trump now. You are Canadian and I can not blame you for feeling frustrated with the United States right now, but I want to tell you that I am American and never voted for Trump. I know a lot of people are going to start denying that they voted for him, but I truly did not. I found him to be an embarrassment. I also remember 911 and remember that my President, Bush, in his fear forgot that airplanes can not stay in flight indefinitely. He ordered that passenger airplanes with hundreds of Americans on board not be allowed to land -- which was insane. Canadians, not insane, allowed the planes to land on Canadian soil and saved hundreds of American lives. I will never forget this and neither will my children. I can't argue with any of this and agree with most of it -- if not all of it. But what I was trying to state was not how these totalitarian regimes work, but why they are accepted in the first place. From Blanco's Wiki page: " "unconsciousness" is marked by symmetry, where there is a tendency towards 'sameness' and likewise, an implicit aversion to 'difference' " This 'same' verses 'difference' describes most of the processing of information in the deep unconscious and is the source of our bias. We also have a 'self' verses 'other' in the unconscious which together with the 'same' v 'difference' triggers our prejudices. You might think that we can or should dispose of these triggers, but we can't because many of our survival instincts are also tied to the same triggers. What we can do is recognize that when someone tries to make you afraid, they are trying to control you. We don't have to let them. Gee Sethoflagos: I missed that typo, but am glad you caught it. What fun. +1

No doubt, many of us have noted this problem and wondered about it. But a few years ago, I ran into a pretty good explanation as to why/when this happens. I wish I had saved the article; I didn't and can't remember all of the details, but it told about floods, earthquakes, plagues, wars, and famines, etc, or all manner of miseries that made people afraid. Many of these happened at the same times as these religious and political upheavals and also happened during the organizing of the early Catholic Church -- around 400/500 AD. Prior to that article, I had always blamed Augustine (who was a prolific writer) for the work which created most of the Church doctrine at that time and validated the idea of "just war", or war in "God's" name. I did wonder why people accepted his ideas of just war, heaven and hell, the City of God, the idea that Mary of Magdalene was a prostitute, that witnesses, logic, and evidence were irrelevant, which ushered in the Dark Ages, and a great deal more that I saw as nonsense. I just thought that people must have been stupid back then. Then I read the article and realized that I was wrong. The people weren't stupid, they were afraid. We are not talking about normal fear, we are talking about life changing fears caused by floods, earthquakes, plagues, wars, famines, etc. This kind of fear shuts down the conscious rational aspect of mind, so we work instead through the sub/unconscious aspect of mind, which does not process information in the same way. Swansont was probably right and should have moved this thread to psychology. But I am not sure if there are enough members who study psychology to make it worth the move. I am not a psychologist, but have looked into it because of my studies of consciousness, so I have learned a few things. The first thing to note is that emotion always works through the sub/unconscious, and the unconscious has it's own logic. Bianco calls it bi-logic. You can look up more about Bianco's very well accepted and clinically tested ideas here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ignacio_Matte_Blanco Suffice it to say that if you can make people afraid, you can access their emotional logic. Trump knew this. I am tired now and will finish this later. Gee

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