Prison Architect

[zebramatt]

The point is that progress was established under the assumption that objective truth existed yes?
 
By the same token, progress in terms of human behavior can be established through the restructure or elimination of the prison system, by assuming there is an objective truth to be reached yes?

I'm not sure the former is true; and I'm doubly unsure the latter follows logically from it.

Science only ever deals with theories for a reason. And Einstein's most famous one makes precisely the point that everything is relative. That was pretty important for scientific progress.

And is human behaviour purely scientific - that is, rational? Do we not often do things which, 'objectively', make little sense at all?

[Hearteater]

zebramatt, you seem to be using your own definitions for most of the things you are talking about, and not providing those, or even changing the definition throughout this thread.  For simplicity, I'll just comment on Objective Truth.  I'm not sure what you think it means, but something like this is what most people, and Google, think it means:

The idea of truth as objective is simply that no matter what we believe to be the case, some things will always be true and other things will always be false. Our beliefs, whatever they are, have no bearing on the facts of the world around us. That which is true is always true — even if we stop believing it and even if we stop existing at all.

Most people in most cases certainly act as though they believe that truth is objective, independent of them, their beliefs, and the working of their minds. People assume that the clothes will still be in their closet in the morning, even though they stopped thinking about them during the night. People assume that their keys may really be in the kitchen, even if they don’t actively believe this and instead believe that their keys are in the hallway.

Why adopt such a position? Well, most of our experiences would appear to validate it. We do find out clothes in the closet in the morning. Sometimes our keys do end up being in the kitchen, not in the hallway like we thought. Wherever we go, things happen regardless of what we believe. There doesn’t appear to be any real evidence of things occurring just because we wished really hard that they would. If it did, the world would be chaotic and unpredictable because everyone would be wishing for different things.

Continued if you're interested

[Wingflier]

It's ironic that you use Descartes since Descartes argues for objective truth: "I think therefore I am." That's just part of his argument of course, but I feel as though you're taking him out of context.

[keith.lamothe]

I've no particular view on its desirability, to be honest. It's empirically true within the socio-psychological context, though!

We have very different definitions of "true"   But thanks for humoring my questions; I've run into a fair number of no-objective-truth folks, but only rarely will they follow it through to the extent of accepting that "being human" (or some other descriptor of "behavior they prefer") is not an objectively-binding (or perhaps even objectively-meaningful) standard, according to their own view.

Incidentally, I agree that scienctific inquiry requires a pre-existing context before it can begin proving or disproving things (within that context).  I don't think scientific inquiry is the only means of acquiring information (including the information necessary for those contexts), nor that the underlying truth is purely subjective, but I can understand why it looks that way to you

Though Hearteater brings up a good point about definitions.  If the desirability of being-human is "empirically true within the socio-psychological context", is it true whether or not you or anyone else believes it?  Would that not make it "objectively" (independent of subject) true?

[zebramatt]

It's ironic that you use Descartes since Descartes argues for objective truth: "I think therefore I am." That's just part of his argument of course, but I feel as though you're taking him out of context.

Actually, it was Popeye the Sailor Man. It's easy to get those two dudes mixed up!


@Hearteater: That's precisely the definition to which I was referring, yes. I apologise in advance if that boggles your mind!


@Keith: And as it happens, my point is that it's true to me because I believe it; and it's true in a broader sense because it's generally believed. I really am of a mind that if it was not generally believed - and indeed simply if I did not believe it - then it would not be true.

[keith.lamothe]

@Keith: And as it happens, my point is that it's true to me because I believe it; and it's true in a broader sense because it's generally believed. I really am of a mind that if it was not generally believed - and indeed simply if I did not believe it - then it would not be true.

Ok, boys, lock 'I'm up!  Just give him the holographic wallpaper and he won't even mind.

(I kid!)

[Hearteater]

@Hearteater: That's precisely the definition to which I was referring, yes. I apologise in advance if that boggles your mind!

The only boggling that is occurring is that you've just claimed to be using one definition, but your previous writing in this thread suggests otherwise.  So in this case, the definition you think you are using and the one you are actually using disagree.  And while that is boggling to me, I can only imagine the confusion it must present for yourself.

But since you've rejected objective truth, you've ceased all attempts at being a rational individual.  Which pretty much ends the point of having a meaningful discussion at all.

[zebramatt]

I'm not rejecting it outright - I think the concept is too simplistic.

Consider our plane of existence an incredibly self-consistent shared delusion. I'm perfectly cool with discussing the particulars of that delusion, in order to refine it for the betterment of mankind. Or just for kicks. But I still think we're all basically barking.

[keith.lamothe]

I'm not rejecting it outright - I think the concept is too simplistic.

Consider our plane of existence an incredibly self-consistent shared delusion. I'm perfectly cool with discussing the particulars of that delusion, in order to refine it for the betterment of mankind. Or just for kicks. But I still think we're all basically barking.

It seems that a more consistent position would be that you don't know whether what you perceive is a delusion, objectively true, or some combination of the two.  In other words, you might be a brain in a vat, but you might not be.  You wouldn't know, if you were, but you might also not know if you weren't.

Or you could stop the silliness, but I'm guessing you've already evaluated that option

[Hearteater]

Consider our plane of existence an incredibly self-consistent shared delusion.

Do you have some evidence to suggest this is the case?

[zebramatt]

I'm not rejecting it outright - I think the concept is too simplistic.

Consider our plane of existence an incredibly self-consistent shared delusion. I'm perfectly cool with discussing the particulars of that delusion, in order to refine it for the betterment of mankind. Or just for kicks. But I still think we're all basically barking.

It seems that a more consistent position would be that you don't know whether what you perceive is a delusion, objectively true, or some combination of the two.  In other words, you might be a brain in a vat, but you might not be.  You wouldn't know, if you were, but you might also not know if you weren't.

Or you could stop the silliness, but I'm guessing you've already evaluated that option

First of all, I never claimed to be self-consistent. I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining the universe but I'm not that sure.

And thirdly, if you take our silliness... what have we left?


@Hearteater: Objective evidence?

[Wingflier]

@Hearteater: Objective evidence?

Maybe to rephrase his question:

What are your reasons for believing that there are no objective truths?

It seems to me that there is plenty of evidence FOR objective truths.  For example, whether or not you believe in gravity, when you jump off a cliff you're going to fall to your death.  Whether or not you believe in oxygen, if you try to breathe in space you're not going to have a good time.

Some things seem to be true whether or not we believe them.  It doesn't matter how hard you try to believe that the sun isn't coming up tomorrow - it doesn't care what you believe.

It seems that you've rejected objective truth simply because it makes your intellectually dishonest position tenable, when it wouldn't be otherwise.  I'm going to go ahead and take a leap here and assume that you're a religious person, since this is the kind of tactic religious people often use to justify their own irrational beliefs.

[Coppermantis]

I like how this started out discussing a game and evolved into a philosophical discussion about objective truths.

I might as well contribute my opinion: There many things that can be objective; these are generally accepted truths. For instance, it is an objective truth that killing another person is a bad thing. I don't think you'll find many sane people who will say otherwise.

However, there is a lot of subjectivity regarding morality and truth. For instance, the question "What is a good life?" would not be answered the same way for everyone. The very nature of the question is subjective, there is no answer that can be objectively "true".

But as far as "The Earth will continue to revolve around the sun", yes, that is an objective truth. It will occur, at least for the foreseeable future.

[Wanderer]

I might as well contribute my opinion: There many things that can be objective; these are generally accepted truths. For instance, it is an objective truth that killing another person is a bad thing. I don't think you'll find many sane people who will say otherwise.

In defense of an ideal, such as the bully who doesn't stop trying to take your freedom, I disagree.  My sanity is now up for debate.  Self-defense is another discussion.  Do you kill to stop non-lethal pain?  I will, and consider it righteous, depending on severity.

I don't mean to derail the philosophical discussion, but you must allow for an objective truth to not include a bias towards principals of an individual participant.  'Killing is wrong' allows nothing to eat, for death feeds life, even plant life must die for another's needs, even other plants (fertilizers).  Trees murder the majority of their own children with shade.

An objective truth cannot take a moral bias into account.  It must occur no matter the desires nor stance of the beholder, and must hold true across multiple observers in the same way.  Otherwise it is a biased fact (I think that's the lingo for it), similar to quarks, where the observation changes the truth of the fact.

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, "objective truth" and "objective morality" are two different concepts.  Even some of the most ancient/traditional/think-you're-bound-to-it-to forms of morality are basically subjective, but the "subject" is a creator figure or something like that.