Will someone please explain what truth is?

First of all, the title is sarcastic. I do want to hear other peoples points on what truth is though. I understand that what we know of as truth is a widely accepted idea with a high level of confidence. To say that the sky is blue because of refracted light through the atmosphere is true, right? What happens when we find out (Completely hypothetical, I don't think this will ever happen.) something doesn't add up and the light isn't being refracted in a way we expect to see to get the outcome we perceive. The former idea is now false, and assuming we discover a new reason, the new idea is true. However, fifty years later someone looks again and decides the data shows a different reason for the color. Now that idea is true. Again, I'm using the sky as a simple metaphor for things such as electron movement, entropy, gravity, dark matter, and life. It seems like every time we think we are right, we are proven wrong.

So here is the real existential question. Is truth a construct of our human imagination? Is it a fear of the unknown that we quell by coming together and declaring something as true without proper data? This leads to things such as God of the gaps and the blunders of brilliant people. To know truth, is to be blind to it.

Now for my personal nihilistic idea. I'm starting to think it is better for nothing to be true than for anything to be true. Yes, it is terrifying to know nothing, but when you let go of truth and pass through the door of nihilism you come out with a greater understanding of what is objectively happening around you. I do not mean to say that the search for understanding is futile, I am an undergrad chemistry student. My statement is more of a philosophical one. We should look at things from the point of view that we are most likely wrong, and need to keep delving further into our ideas instead of accepting and stopping at the "Okay this works" stage.

I am talking about you and me, by the way. We are not Neil Degrasse Tyson, or that guy that loves Tesla so much. (I know I should remember his name but I'm too into my flow to stop and google it.) They already have this mindset, or else they would not be at the front lines as they are. I'm saying stop regurgitating what you read on facebook (really I advocate deleting that garbage and talking to people again), or even what your parents tell you, what your teachers tell you, what the t.v. tells you. Treat everything as suspect. Seek it out for yourself, or don't accept it. Negotiate this ether of misinformation with the idea that no one knows, not even you.

I have thought of a few counter arguments, such as the need for "truth" so that we as a society (U.S in my case, yeah we're not the only Americans) have a cohesive understanding of the world and how to act in it. So we don't have idiots running the place...and...well...that kind of already happened. I would like this to be open to discussion.

tl;dr Nothing is true, everything is false. And holy shit the sky is falling.

I think truth is anything that we perceive to coincide with reality as we know it. Since there are so many things we don't actually know about reality, truth gets altered and rearranged on almost a daily basis. As you know, a theory starts out with a hypothesis. We make educated guesses about something based one what we already know about the subject, or what we already know about something related to the subject. The more you experiment, the closer you get to the actual truth about that subject. The more peer reviews that match the results of the first observation, the stronger the truth of that subject becomes. Of course nothing is set in stone. There is no objective truth, only subjective. The truth we know to be 100% accurate is man made and has little to do with what reality actually entails. It is only true in our little bubble. Look at quantumn physics, there are so many wacky laws in that subatomic space that practically baffles scientists. Science can explain the what, and the how, but until they explain the why, a theory can never qualify as truth.

With that said, this is off topic, but I never had a concrete answer to what my idea of god is. Instead of defining my concept of god, I just described what it is not which is a personified version of us with supernatural powers. After thinking about it today, i believe god is actually an entity that is constantly evolving and seeking perfection. Since perfection is a subjective thing to begin with, it will continue striving for the absolute truth. As sentient beings that are a part of this entity called god, I believe our purpose is to develop into beings capable of fulfilling the ultimate desires of existence. However, like I said, there is no such thing as objective perfection, so the journey to strive for it will continue for infinity. Of course, that's what makes God, god. If perfection were to ever be achieved, then existence itself would be meaningless because "balance" would no longer play a role. Without balance, everything crumbles. And that can be said about people who think they are too "Perfect", or people who have too many faults. That's my "truth" anyways.

That is exactly my point. When we use the scientific method and come from a point of view that we know what is true because we experimented on other things in a similar subject, we ultimately blind ourselves to the objective truth. The reason for this is because the possibility exists that where we started is wrong. If we start from an erroneous presumption we will inevitably reach an erroneous conclusion. I know those whom I deemed "front liners" are critical and work objectively. They know the art of dying and accept that things change. However, they still assume that where they are coming from intellectually is the best course. Instead I think we should let go of the strict scientific method and adopt one that promotes a triple thought process. To make an example, lets take electron movement. For a long time we did not understand electrons until we threw out the old conclusion of what electrons were. Essentially throwing out the old model, the new model solves the contradictions. Still, this model will eventually reach some sort of contradiction as well. I know hindsight is 20/20, but how about some foresight and say even though this theory plays out, lets develop two other theories that also play out and see which one hits the wall of misunderstanding last. Because it always will. I don't think we are biologically equipped to discover objective truth. But at least, we can speed things up a little. I know that this is essentially what happens in the scientific community through peer review, but they tend to stick to their guns for too long. Mentally we are still, as a whole, the same group of people that burned others for new discoveries. We thankfully don't do that anymore. Or so we think.

Onto your second point, what you described is essentially evolution. Life seeks perfection, whether it is a community of people or a school of fish they collectively and without conscious knowledge of it strive to live longer. So God can simply be the force that drives this, death and disease.

That's gonna be kinda hard to implement if you consider that the scientific method relies on peer review to make sure that results are sound and accurate. There's just no room for additional foresight when trying to repeat a experiment through different perspectives. There shouldn't be any rush in trying to find results, otherwise we may end up with more errors. The scientific method isn't instant coffee, its a slow brew.

Harder is better. It doesn't have to change the actual process, but the philosophy behind it. When you get right down to it I'm just talking and thinking. I don't expect anything to change, it just irks me that we haven't realized we're full of ourselves. Relativity will be restructured at some point when dark matter/energy has a bit more light shed on it. We know this, but we still look at the universe through that lens. I think being open to other theories even bat crap crazy ones is more realistic given our history of blunders. Dudes thought planets in the sky danced a weird back and forth path. Someone said "hey what if the sun is the middle and the earth is the one moving". And then we killed that guy. All because of the single thought of a geocentric universe. I'm not saying we're that bad, but we do have that same tendency to stay on one truth. Why not have no truth, and let the new ideas develop freely instead of fighting it. Also we're getting a little off point because this was centered more around everyday people and the collective rather than scientists.

The truth is the theory that offers the most reasons for the evidence available at the time on a specific subject.
Or it's a definitive fact, like gravity pulls things towards it, and depending on the mass of the object and the distance it's falling it will spead up - potentially to a terminal velocity -

the truth can be twisted by politics and psychology, but is it really the truth at that point?

Wow you're a chemistry major? considered switching over to the greatness of Philosophy? I'm a Philosophy major myself 2,1/2 years in. You really posed some fantastic ideologies here. Some good questions to ponder over as well. So the truth you are discussing is what I would call "relative truth" that is more or less your understanding/perception of reality. I was pretty excited thinking we were going into "ultimate truth" which can be a pretty difficult sea to navigate. ARG!

So lets focus on the main question here. What is truth? Does it exist outside of the conceptualization of man? When it comes to reality I'm going to have to say... I'm not too sure. It's really impossible to try to understand any of humans concepts from a non human perspective because... well I'm human. We don't have any other lifeforms we are in contact with to get a second outside opinion from either. So we are just stuck with that one unfortunately.

Nihilism is.... or rather can be a decent approach, but running around screaming "I AM UNCERTAIN OF EVERYTHING!" It's gonna drive you nuts at some point. Well it happened to me at least... best of luck in your future with that one.

TRUTH IS RELATIVE: let me explain myself. you provided a great example of humanities understanding of light waves, refraction in particular. You proposed a theory of what if we are wrong? This is no longer the truth right? You would be correct. Truth and facts appear to be synonymous for one another. However, I personally think there is 1 large distinction.
Truth is something that can be relative in almost 3 parts: Relativity to reality, relativity to time- A fantastic example is "the earth is flat" a once preconceived notion now proven wrong through factual evidence. finally the last one the BIGIN! relativity to the mind or the individual.

THE INDIVIDUALS "TRUTH": So suppose we are evaluating a man with an extreme form of delusion, paranoia and schizophrenic tendencies. this man's perception of reality is completely different from the "average" man. Regardless of factual evidence provided to him, his truth will be his truth because he has no ability to conceive his misguided ideology of reality and what the rest of us call reality. Suppose his truth is the world is flat. Even if someone were to provide him substantial evidence he will utterly deny evidence provided and fall deeper in his delusions.

FACT IS...FACT: fact is simply just a fact it falls prey to the 2 other forms of relativity. 1.) relativity to reality and 2.) relativity to time. It does not however fall prey to relativity of an individual. Someone can scream and shout 2+2 is fish all they want but it wont ever be a fact. It might be "their truth" but it isn't fact. 2+2 is of course 4 and it will be for forever or until otherwise proven wrong.

So now we have kind of an issue. (At least I think it posses some problems) the difference in the actual truth: That which has been proven through scientific, mathematical and other inquiries, the perceived truth: Based on belief, faith or some other pre-conceived notion. Both exist but which one is the ultimatum? Which one will fight through the never ending barrage time and reality will subject it to? Think on that for a bit (:

Ps: Hope to hear back soon!

Seems a bit of interesting serious babbling is running here :)

I won't dispute the possibility of things to be true or not, it is not my ground in this reply. Just... I've read upward some mistakes such as :

• confusing truth and perception : hence the infamous "relative truth" which is abusive phrase because truth is something that is valid on a universal scale.

• confusing truth and fact(s) : facts are percieved to begin with, and said perception can even be fragmentary if not nonexistent depending on circumstances ; as well, percieving a fact (ex : smoke smell) does not imply you would understand the things going on (from trivial to catastrophic possibilities) ; additionally, a pile of facts makes no sense without coherence/understanding, that is to say we need to analyse facts in order to "screen" some pieces of information and extract sense from it.

So well, truth neither being relative nor facts, what could it be ?

Let's talkd about semantics. There are words that can be grouped with 'truth' in several ways. For example : 'hole'. This word qualifies not anything "positively" but an absence, a lack, a breach/gap, etc through something. Now let's analyse 'truth'. Some philosopher once said something like "who wants the truth, wants not to mislead people or (at least) themselve", which means or implies :

• no lies (lie-less-ness)

• no errors (error-less-ness)

• no mistakes (mistake-less)

• no misunderstandings (misunderstanding-less-ness)

• no ignorance (ignorance-less-ness)

...
All to say this concept of "truth" does not exist per se but only in negation / by absence of undesirable "things" (lies, errors, etc) that we positively/possibly may encounter and reject.

Last word... Good scientists do not seek "truth" but knowledge. A fairly different thing while lots of people do confuse both. Knowledge is about uncovering our ignorance by discovering accurate pieces of information : the very process name is 'learning'. We learn the exitence of lies, wich is factually knowledge, while we hope the truth to pierce through lies. That is to say that knowledge is wider than a pile of truths.


I leave here this semantic analysis. I hope it to nuture this discussion in some way.