Again, you're not making sense. If there is only truth, then lies are truth, then mistakes are truth, then falsehoods are truth.

When we fail to see WHAT IS (truth) we, with language, name those things "lies" or "mistakes" or "falsehoods".

We are very good at naming things.

But if we could improve our perceptions, and see truth, if we could see WHAT IS, if we could know when people are not speaking truth, then we would know the true nature of reality.

We would see and know the truth.

It is our lack of perception that causes us to believe lies and falsehoods.

There is only truth.

More confusion due to language use...

"That the walking insect was indeed a meal" is not "the truth". "The walking insect was indeed a possible meal" is a statement. Truth is not. Any and all creatures capable of intentional/deliberate action are putting truth to use within thought/belief. Correspondence with/to fact/reality is presupposed within complex thought/belief. If the bird thought/believed that the insect was a stick, then the insect has acted as though the insect was a stick and as such it has put truth to use without having any idea what doing that means.

"Seeing the truth" is an unnecessarily confusing way to talk. One cannot "see" truth to begin with.

Those things lack truth.



Truth is not something that can be perceived like a tree or the sun. I would be very cautious in making claims of "seeing" truth.



Why do you keep saying this? If that statement is true, then falsehood, lies, and mistakes could not exist. We know that falsehood, lies, and mistakes exist. It only follows that that statement is not true.

My point is that if such symbolic meaning is "universal", then it is shared by all. If used in order to convey thought/belief and or feelings, then that constitutes language use. Your claim was that communication does not require language. I'm telling you that that does not make sense, and what you've written here contradicts that very notion.

What is "the truth", and how exactly can it be seen?

Where, in all of this, is an example of something that can be true that is not a statement?

I think that the bird example is a good place to work from in order to set out something that is true that is not a statement.

Again, the difficulty is in how to go about setting out that which is true but is not a statement. Such a thing would require making statements in order to talk about it, however, it does not necessarily follow that that which is being put into statement form - by us - in order to talk about it, exists in statement form.

Those are the kinds of things which warrant further attention.

You have stated that in order for a statement to be true, is must correspond with reality. Therefore, what you are saying is that reality is true, or the truth. If a statement corresponds with reality then it is true.

"The cup is on the table." is only true if the cup is on the table.

The reason I say "There is only truth." is because truth is reality.


In language, if someone makes a statement that does not correspond to reality is it called a lie, or a mistake or a falsehood. That is in language. We invented language. So we also invented the terms "lie" "falsehood" and "mistake." That is our own invention, but it is just a name for our own lack of perception for what is true.

But lies and falsehoods and mistakes don't actually exist IN REALITY. Everything that exists in reality is true.

In language, statements can be called false because we invented the term. But if a statement is false, it is meaningless because it does not correspond to reality. A false statement is simply a name for our mistake or our inability to see and/or know what is true.

It is a negative idea resulting from our lack of perception.

If we could see and know the truth of reality, the terms would not exist.

The walking stick is an insect that can be eaten by the bird. This is true. That statement corresponds to reality.

The bird failed to see the truth of that reality.

How simple is that?

p.s.

The failure to see the truth is not a lie or a mistake or a falsehood. It is a lack of perception.

Well DUH - yes of course you have to use language and make statements in order to talk about it.

You need to separate reality from language. Without language, reality still exists right?

Hey Creative HI, are we still discussing the semantics of truth or fact? And how perception and understanding/interpretation alters those for each person making it/truth subjective? Facts being the closest to indisputable as one can get but still subject to the aforementioned issues.

I don't remember what we resolved last time so....

Not really, but it is along the same vein.

You've misunderstood. In order for a statement to be true, it must correspond to reality. It does not follow that reality is truth. That would be to say that if a statement corresponds with truth then it is true.



Yes.



I'm aware of why you say that. I'm also aware that in order to remain coherent, you must then claim that lies, mistakes, and falsehood(s) do not exist, which is utter nonsense. Think about it.

Hey, I’m stressing over a mid-term and to relax before bed I was surfing for something other than NEWS. I found the following:

http://www.tutorgig.info/ed/Saul_Kripke#Truth

Saul Kripke – I like his view about statements and truth. He proposes that the truth value of a statement has to be grounded in some fact about the world. Facts can be falsified, while statements that are ungrounded have no truth value because they cannot be considered fact so they cannot be falsified.

I like it. It makes sense that language, out of necessity, would have been developed for the purpose of communicating information. Logically, information is only as good as its truth value and in the past, it was in the circles of the most elite and typically the most highly educated, who would be expected to engage in ethical discourse.

That means that people entered a discussion with the belief that those communicating did not intend to mislead or misrepresent, so other participants looked for the ‘truth value’ in statements because ethical communication includes representing ideas and opinions based on fact (truth). If a fact given, was known to be in incorrect, its truth value could be corrected and the speaker maintained self-respect and dignity rather than being called a lier.

But respect was not withheld from those who made ungrounded statements, it could simply be stated that the fact or facts related in the statements, could not be verified at that time and further discussion might simply have become a pastime rather than a grounded communication for the purpose of sharing information or drawing conclusions based on fact.

In summary: A statement must include facts, and if the facts are grounded and verifiable,then the truth value is upheld, if the fact is falsified and corrected all is still good. If the facts are ungrounded it can simply be dismissed as unprovable.

Hey Di,

Kripke's ok and better than many. He does, however, equate fact with verified/verifiable statements, which is a problem on my view because it makes the existence of truth contingent upon language - which just is not the case. Truth value is an instrument of logic. That is, it is not the same thing as truth. Logic presupposes truth.

They do not exist. Only truth and reality exist.

Lies, falsehoods, mistakes are only our inability to perceive what is true.

They are illusions with a name. They are mental delusions created by us. They don't actually have existence. "Nothing" cannot exist. Negatives do not exist. Only true things actually exist.

Everything else is illusion and opinion.

I don't see anything difficult about that concept.

But if you want to confine your claim to language only, as I have said, then you are absolutely correct.

So I think you should be happy with that.

Alright, Jb I'll give this some more attention. I would agree with claiming that only reality exists, but that can be misleading if not carefully parsed out. It would require that we acknowledge that illusions, falsehood, lies, and the like are part of reality.

It does not matter how many times you make these other claims, they were false the first time you made them, and are still false. It makes no sense to claim 1.that only truth exists, 2.that truth is reality, and/or 3.that only truth and reality exists.

My objection here is very clear. It cannot be true that only truth exists, because falsehood exists. Falsehood comes to us in the form of statements, at least the ones that we can look at do. Statements exist. Some are true, and some not. Of the ones that are not true, some are false, and others are neither true nor false. The ones that are false are falsehoods. It only follows that falsehoods exist. If falsehoods exist, then it cannot be the case that only truth exists.

Q.E.D.



The irony. The claim above is a prima facie example of a falsehood. Here's why...

1. It is not the case that "lies, falsehood, mistakes are only our inability to perceive what is true". If that were true, then we would not even be able "to perceive" falsehood, because recognizing falsehood requires perceiving what is true. To quite the contrary Jb, there are many times when we are more than able to "perceive" both, what is true and what is not. For instance, my cup is, at this moment, on the table and it has coffee in it that has been brewed with freshly ground beans. I ground the beans myself, shortly before attending to this post. My cup does not have orange juice in it, nor does it have wine in it.

2. In order to recognize a falsehood, one must understand how and/or why it is not true. In order to understand how statements are not true, one must first understand what it takes for a statement to be true. If one understands what it takes for a statement to be true, then it cannot be said that we have an "inability to perceive what is true". Thus, recognizing falsehood entails perceiving what is true.



This is riddled with incoherence. Claiming that only true things exist and everything else is illusion and opinion is nonsense.

"The capitol of Vermont is Rome" is a falsehood. It is a statement. It is false. It exists. It is not an illusion, nor is it an opinion.

So, tell me...

If, as you claim, it is the case that only true things exist and everything else is an illusion or an opinion, then how do you take an account of that particular statement because it is not true, it does exist, it is not an illusion, nor is it an opinion.





Here we go again with this. It's not that I want to confine claims to language only. It's that we, meaning you and I who are having a conversation, are already confined to language and there is nothing that either one of us can do about it - nor need there be. There's nothing wrong with that. That's just the way it is.

Looks like we share an odd sense of relaxing...



Good luck on the mid-term. You'll do well, I'm certain of it.