Truth vs. Perception

[No Me Importa]

Somebody on another forum brought this up, and I thought it was kind of interesting.

If two people look at a fruit, and one person sees an apple, and the other person sees a pear, which is it? Assuming that there are no third parties present. Both people see completely different things in a real, material object. Can either one be right? Or are they both full of shit, since a material thing can only be itself, and this absolute truth cannot be interpreted any other way?

[Lardlad95]

Objective truth is worthless if no one observes or understands it. Unless people realize that it is true then it's meaningless in regards to humanity. Sure something can be objectively true, but for all applicable purposes truth is perception.

[cormacobear]

When truth is based on substantial matter, it is based on a consensus and is taught from generation to generation. Call it what you will it is the same object and the hisorical consensus determines what it truly is.

Only theory is relative, and is thus limited by language, and our use of it.

[Hawker]

Truth is the way things really are and cannot be denied or perceived in anyways,for example everything subjected to death,that's a truth.Everything is temporary,the Oceans,the Sky,the Earth,etc.That's a truth.

[percept¡on]

I am the truth.

Thread closed.

[cormacobear]

Energy is eternal. The difference between perception and truth, is restricted by linguistics.

[Dyst]

Everything is math, and math isn't relative. Yet, everything is relative. What I mean is quite complicated, but can be summarized as followed.

Let's use NMI's example with the fruit. There is a historical reason for the gathering of molecules (atoms) which creates the exact fruit, whether it is a pear or an apple (this is math.) Now, let's say it really is an apple. It is red. However, the two people might see it as a green apple/pear. That has something to do how the brain reacts to what is seen by the eyes, or it can have something to do with how/what the eye sees. I just explained why everything is relative, everything that is seen/smelled/heared/felt is relative, so everything, for us.

After all, we are just a brain, controlling a body. We don't really know anything for sure, other than, yes, math.

[Lardlad95]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2004, 02:25 AM
Truth is the way things really are and cannot be denied or perceived in anyways,for example everything subjected to death,that's a truth.Everything is temporary,the Oceans,the Sky,the Earth,etc.That's a truth.
A quick paradox: You say that EVERYTHING is temporary, ie impermanent. Does that mean then that truth is impermanent? If it is then, how can it be truth. In addition if everything is temporary then is the saying "everything is temporary" temporary?

Granted i know you were talking about physical things, but I'm bored and thinking that up was fun.

[Lardlad95]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2004, 04:34 AM
Energy is eternal. The difference between perception and truth, is restricted by linguistics.
Not only is it restricted by linguistics, it is also restricted by human understanding. Understanding is not necassarily linked to language. Simply put truth becomes not existent if someone can not observe or understand it free of bias and personal perception. Unless it is understood objectively then it is irrelevant. And since people can not seperate perception from reality in their minds, then reality and truth might as well not exist.

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by No Me [email protected] 13 2004, 08:19 PM
If two people look at a fruit, and one person sees an apple, and the other person sees a pear, which is it?
It depends on what the fruit is.

Human animals have developed certain sounds which differentiate between objects. I am typing on a computer (being this machinal thing), words (being the "material" relisation of sounds) for you to read (the action of absurbing those realisations).

The word apple and the word orange are sounds used to differentiate between two objects. An applie is a green fruit grown on a tree in cooler climates, has a distinct taste, shape and varies between red and green in color. It is a whole object and usually has black seeds.

And orange is a citrus fruit which also grows on trees in hotter climates and comes in segments. It is surrounded by pyth and has white seeds.

[Of course these things do have variations, but it does not have whole variations so that the object becomes something else. For example, an orange might be green, but it still has other distinctions which allow us to determine what it is]


Both people see completely different things in a real, material object.

Only in a subjective way. One person could look at an apple and physically see a banana, but that wouldn't stop it from being an applie, it just means, usually, the person has some mental percption problem, or is just insane.


Can either one be right?

In themselves of course. But not in the world of real.


and this absolute truth cannot be interpreted any other way?

Truth can be interpreted in any way one chooses, but it doesnt change the material reality of a truth.

I can look at an apple and interpret it as an orange, but it's still an apple.

[Hawker]

Originally posted by Lardlad95+Nov 16 2004, 07:34 PM--> (Lardlad95 @ Nov 16 2004, 07:34 PM)
[email protected] 15 2004, 02:25 AM
Truth is the way things really are and cannot be denied or perceived in anyways,for example everything subjected to death,that's a truth.Everything is temporary,the Oceans,the Sky,the Earth,etc.That's a truth.
A quick paradox: You say that EVERYTHING is temporary, ie impermanent. Does that mean then that truth is impermanent? If it is then, how can it be truth. In addition if everything is temporary then is the saying "everything is temporary" temporary?

Granted i know you were talking about physical things, but I'm bored and thinking that up was fun. [/b]
Everything in this world is impermanent including truth,which is subjected to change,if a truth is not passed on then it will cease to become a truth since it's forgotten.

[Wurkwurk]

Einstien showed how everything was relative. Take speed, for example. You ride your bike at 15 mph, yet at the same time the earth is spinning at a speed of 1,100 mph. Also, the earth zips in orbit around the sun at ungodly speeds.
The solar system shifts in whichever directions as well, not to mention the whole god damn galaxy moving millions of miles per secons spinning to and fro. Concluding, its pretty hard to say anything has a [i]REAL[i] speed.
Same goes for the rest. Hard to get to grips with, but everything is mass percieved in someway. Nothing is the ABSOLUTE truth.

[DaCuBaN]

I can look at an apple and interpret it as an orange, but it's still an apple.


...the only way you'd know this of course, would be for a multitude of others to point it out to you. Otherwise, that orange is very real indeed. In essence, "truth" is in fact consensus

[ComradeRed]

A is perceived to be A. An objective observer, or one who, says "A is A, and here's why..." Humanity is "condemned" with perception...however, we do not know what we perceive is what it is.

Here's the "trippy" part: how do we know we perceive anything at all?

[Latifa]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2004, 02:21 PM
Everything is math, and math isn't relative. Yet, everything is relative. What I mean is quite complicated, but can be summarized as followed.

Let's use NMI's example with the fruit. There is a historical reason for the gathering of molecules (atoms) which creates the exact fruit, whether it is a pear or an apple (this is math.) Now, let's say it really is an apple. It is red. However, the two people might see it as a green apple/pear. That has something to do how the brain reacts to what is seen by the eyes, or it can have something to do with how/what the eye sees. I just explained why everything is relative, everything that is seen/smelled/heared/felt is relative, so everything, for us.

After all, we are just a brain, controlling a body. We don't really know anything for sure, other than, yes, math.
Well, well, well. Maths. If I say 2 + 2 = 5 you'd never prove me wrong. Try me.

[guerillablack]

True, you CAN interpret an apple to be a bannana. But is that truth? Based on the definition of an apple, you will be false. This goes hand to hand with what the brother said, "we do not know what he perceive is really what it is".

Because way i'm looking at it, is that an apple is this description which seperates it from any other fruit. Can you perceive an apple to be peanut, and still be true?

[Rasta Sapian]

I think that they are both wrong yet partially right, they are chinease pears, a kind of apple/pear hybrid, so I suppose that the one who guessed pear would be a little closer to the truth or maybe not...................subjectively speaking

[codyvo]

This is exactly why a third party is so important in a large country like the US, and I don't mean the green party it doesn't make much progress.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 5 2004, 09:27 PM
Einstien showed how everything was relative. Take speed, for example. You ride your bike at 15 mph, yet at the same time the earth is spinning at a speed of 1,100 mph. Also, the earth zips in orbit around the sun at ungodly speeds.
The solar system shifts in whichever directions as well, not to mention the whole god damn galaxy moving millions of miles per secons spinning to and fro. Concluding, its pretty hard to say anything has a [i]REAL[i] speed.
Same goes for the rest. Hard to get to grips with, but everything is mass percieved in someway. Nothing is the ABSOLUTE truth.
This brings to mind an interesting thought (straying from philosophy to physics). The shortest distance between two points is a straight line but accounting for the movement of objects in the Universe (over time), you could theoretically reach an object faster than light speed (though light is still faster, relative... :wacko:)(because objects are coming toward you as well) if you are going the right direction (you could obviously leave an object faster: past 90 degrees of its relative direction?). So you must travel to where an object will be, rather than where it is (which would take you into some sort of arc or spiral and if you are too slow, maybe a circle :D). Say you are traveling to a star in our galaxy; you would want to take the orbit into account.
If you where going to a star in a far off galaxy (hopefully you could reach it while it still exists) you would have to consider the movement of the star, possibly relative to another in a binary system or the interference of close stars, then the orbit of the star around the mass of the galaxy, then the orbit of the galaxy. Then all you have to do is find out where the star will be and what objects will effect your trajectory and come into your path along the way. Oh yeah, don't forget the expansion of the known Universe...

[Parkbench]

Well, there are no objectivities in life. There are facts--the world is round. The stars are here. The grass is green--no neo-spiritualist philosophy can change that. But the momeny you add humans to the picture, there is nothing absolute beyong that. No idea is objective. Things like law, the state, religion, schooling, work; they all demand unrealistic objectivies, trying to make blanket statements and mass-produce people when one can't because of SUBjectivity--each individual is completely different.

So, with the apple example, I'd have to side with the anarchist tension. No matter what you perceive it, it is a certain way. One can be ambivalent--or agnostic, as it were, about most things in life. One thing one logically cannot be agnostic about is the universe, even though 99% of people are in some form or another. I defer to my signature for agnostics--no matter how many fairies you believe exist and how many reptillians are controlling the new world order, no matter how many jesuses and marys and allahs you perceive to exist, the world still continues in its finite existence, us humans creating crackpot theories as to why it's here, the truth never changing.

"how the world functions" is a knowable, scientific thing--there are certain parts we do not understand, and some use this as an argument to say one can not know anything. However, just because we didn't understand the wheel didn't mean it couldn't shouldn't and wouldn't exist--just because we have current quandaries and many holes in science doesn't mean we won't fill them in the future.

So what am I saying? An apple is an apple is an apple.

[Elect Marx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17 2005, 10:44 AM
One can be ambivalent--or agnostic, as it were, about most things in life.
I am going to agree with most of what you have said but on the agnosticism point I think you are a little confused.


One thing one logically cannot be agnostic about is the universe, even though 99% of people are in some form or another.

People in general are not even remotely agnostic; dogmatism and prejudice pervade the minds of massive groups of people, just take nationalism as ONE example. Since these people have reactionary viewpoints and are often RELIGIOUS, they are not likely to understand agnosticism let alone condone it.


I defer to my signature for agnostics--no matter how many fairies you believe exist and how many reptillians are controlling the new world order, no matter how many jesuses and marys and allahs you perceive to exist, the world still continues in its finite existence, us humans creating crackpot theories as to why it's here, the truth never changing.

...Do you have the slightest idea of what agnosticism means? I will give you a hint: "believing in" anything is not included in the definition.


"how the world functions" is a knowable, scientific thing--there are certain parts we do not understand, and some use this as an argument to say one can not know anything.

Right but that is different from agnosticism; those people are challenging the base of "logical thought" which completely disables their ability to prove anything. Some people just have the theory that nothing can be proven and from the standpoint of human fallibility there may be a measure of truth. Really though we must start somewhere by using the senses we have and accepting reality, otherwise "this nothing is real" philosophy just abstracts everything. Logic is thereby the only rational measure.


So what am I saying? An apple is an apple is an apple.
I agree and as for the discussion of agnosticism, please check the linked thread in my signature; I would be happy to debate the issue with you.