Is truth relative?

[John Scott]

Our perception of the truth will always be different because we perceive it differently. Therefore there is a range of truths, no single one.

Premises do not support the argument.

Perception will vary. I perceived he oxidized VW bug to be red, my ex wife insisted that it was orange. That doesn't change the fact that the car is the color that it is, no matter how it is perceived.

The car is color "x". I call color "x" red. My wife calls color "x" orange, but the truth is that the car is the color "x", no matter what name you want to attach to that, no matter who perceives it. A blind person could stand in front of the car, and not see it at all. That doesn't mean that reality will accommodate the blind person and the car will magically disappear.

[bochgoch]

Truth is absolute it's just that people are unable to perceive it in its entirety

[Atom]

Originally Posted by bochgoch

Truth is absolute it's just that people are unable to perceive it in its entirety

I agree.

[StrongInTheArm]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Perception will vary. I perceived he oxidized VW bug to be red, my ex wife insisted that it was orange. That doesn't change the fact that the car is the color that it is, no matter how it is perceived.

The car is color "x". I call color "x" red. My wife calls color "x" orange, but the truth is that the car is the color "x", no matter what name you want to attach to that, no matter who perceives it. A blind person could stand in front of the car, and not see it at all. That doesn't mean that reality will accommodate the blind person and the car will magically disappear.

True, the car does have a definable red value independent of our perceptions. Or should I say perhaps

After all, how do we know? We have our senses and our technology that extend our senses. But as Brian pointed out red is seen by bees differently to how we see red. Which is the truth? We all see a red, are all those slightly different views of the true red car false images. No, they can't be because our sense of that red is enough for us to function in the real world.

Even the blind guy, if told it is red might have an idea of the colour if he was not always blind. (Heck, he might have a notion of the meaning of red even if he was blind from birth. Its the idea of red that is important, not necessarily the perception of the actual red.)

If you agree they are not all false images, then there is a range of true reds for the same observed car, which includes the true red you speak of. The problem is, how do we decide which that 'one' true red is. We can only calibrate our tools once we know what the common idea of red is, which ends up turning that 'one' true red into merely a statistical value, the one which is somewhere in the centre of the range of reds.

Is it any more true than any other red in the range? After all it was an arbitrary decision by someone, once, to say that wave length of light was red. So for all time, the true red is what that guy in a forgotten past decided?

I hate Wately, he is so much more concise than I am.

[John Scott]

The problem is, how do we decide which that 'one' true red is.

You're transplanting the unreliability of perception to truth. Perception is subjective. Truth isn't.

The color of the car is "x". That has nothing to do with perception. If you like, we can postulate that the car was build by blind people and never perceived by human eyes. That removes perception's errors from the dilemma.

[edd]

I feel truth is relative. You could grow up your whole life thinking certain truths were real when they were not, and determining the truth is dependant on our ability to observe everything and how they interact.

Not only are our senses very limited, the way we interpret and preceive everything changes what we know and what we think we know.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by edd

I feel truth is relative. You could grow up your whole life thinking certain truths were real when they were not, and determining the truth is dependant on our ability to observe everything and how they interact.

So people grow up thinking the untrue is true. Then the problem is not with truth being not true, but opinion being not truth.

Opinion, of course, is relative.

[StrongInTheArm]

Originally Posted by John Scott

You're transplanting the unreliability of perception to truth. Perception is subjective. Truth isn't.

The color of the car is "x". That has nothing to do with perception. If you like, we can postulate that the car was build by blind people and never perceived by human eyes. That removes perception's errors from the dilemma.

We are human. Remove perception from the equation and you remove us. The question is meaningless without us to ask it.

The existence of truth is pointless without us to witness it. We can only do so through our perceptions.

[John Scott]

We are human. Remove perception from the equation and you remove us.

Not quite. Humans can exist without perceiving a lot of things.

The question is meaningless without us to ask it.

That statement is not supported by the premises.

2+2=4

The truth of that statement has a definite meaning. It's entirely self evident in its meaning. And the truth of that statement existed long before humans did.

[Zap]

Originally Posted by John Scott

My ...

Nobody decides truth, we only observe it.

I can observe that 2+2=4, but I didn't decide that. Nobody did.

I'll add my to your and we both know we'll end up with 4 cents.

Neither of us invented mathematics, but we both know the above equation to be true.
We know it to be true because we each, independantly decided for ourselves that it was truth.
You decided for yourself that 2+2=4 is true.

[Jul]

Truth is relative within the bounds of known facts. Recognition or unveiling of new unknown facts is likely to influence the "truth".

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by Zap

I'll add my to your and we both know we'll end up with 4 cents.

Neither of us invented mathematics, but we both know the above equation to be true.
We know it to be true because we each, independantly decided for ourselves that it was truth.
You decided for yourself that 2+2=4 is true.

Emphasis added.

I think it's the most common problem in discussions of truth, that "truth" and "knowing" of truth are confused.

Truth doesn't change. Knowing does. Some people know that 2+2=986, but does anybody think that affects the truth? Knowing something untrue to be true does not make it true.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by Jul

Truth is relative within the bounds of known facts. Recognition or unveiling of new unknown facts is likely to influence the "truth".

See above post.

And welcome to v7n.

[Zap]

Originally Posted by John Scott

Truth doesn't change. Knowing does. Some people know that 2+2=986, but does anybody think that affects the truth?

The people who know that 2+2=986 do.

Originally Posted by John Scott

Knowing something untrue to be true does not make it true.

No. What makes it true is your decision that it IS true.

2+2=4 is only true because the majority of us have decided that is truth.
If some mathemetician announces tomorrow that 2+2=5 and manages to prove it, then the majority of us will decide that 2+2=5 is truth.
Does that mean that the "truth" changed? If the truth is truly independant of us, then it can't.

Either that, or we are all calling a truth tomorrow, a lie today. In that case, the truth still relies on us to call it truth.

[John Scott]

In case anybody is interested, a lot of the debate on "truth" is due to semantic differences.

Truth, as in opinion: Something thought to be true. (This truth exists in a person’s head.)

Truth, a la Ayn Rand: attribute that attaches to a statement which is representative of actual reality.

Abraham Lincoln:

How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg.

Protagoras: Truth is relative. It is only a matter of opinion.

Socrates: You mean that truth is mere subjective opinion?

Protagoras: Exactly. What is true for you is true for you, and what is true for me, is true for me. Truth is subjective.

Socrates: Do you really mean that? That my opinion is true by virtue of its being my opinion?

Protagoras: Indeed I do.

Scorates: My opinion is: Truth is absolute, not opinion, and that you, Mr. Protagoras, are absolutely in error. Since this is my opinion, then you must grant that it is true according to your philosophy.

Protagoras: You are quite correct, Socrates.