Is the Truth Knowable?

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Is the Truth Knowable?
« on: March 07, 2013, 07:59:25 PM »
The philospher Rene Descartes once proposed that if there was an extremely powerful entity, such as a demon with supernatural powers or mad scientist with advanced technology, then he could fool us into believing anything. You couldn't even trust your own eyes, because he could project illusions in front of you. In fact, the universe itself could be an illusion. You might just be a brain sitting in a jar that that's just imagining this universe.

After floating around this forum, I've seen a lot of talk of conspiracies. Apparently, there's some kind of government agency with massive resources that's tricking the planet into believing that the Earth is round. I can create a model of the universe that will explain any phenomena I experience. So-called "experts" could dispute it, but ultimately there's no way to tell whether evidence is real or fake, or whether "experts" are just paid shills for some conspiracy. Let me give you an example.

Maybe instead of gravity or upward momentum, objects appear to fall because they are pushed down by angels. The reason you can't see them is that they exist in a dimension that borders our own. They exist I know they're there because I can feel them. Sometimes you catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of your eye, or feel something brush against you, or hear a voice when there's no one there. The treacherous government would have you believe in things like "optical illusions," but that's a lie. Those phenomena are the angels that are moving in places where the veil between dimensions are thinner than elsewhere, so you can perceive them for brief moments.

So, gravity is a lie, but so is upward momentum. The Flat Earth Society is a conspiracy created to fool people who see through Round Earth Theory because they don't want people to realize that the Angel Theory is the truth. The Flat Earthers are paid shills for the NWO who attract people who are disillusioned with the Round Earth conspiracy, but instead of truth, they just push more lies and propaganda.

The whole reason for lying about physics and cosmology is doing this is because America is the only country in existence. It's just America surrounded by endless ocean. People claiming to be from other parts of the world are either paid actors or brainwashed by NWO mind control chips. If I get on a plane that claims it's going to China, I'm really being taken to a special area located in Wyoming that's been made up to look like China. "Other nations" are just a made up excuse for the ruling elite to create false wars and economic disasters to keep the people under control.

I challenge any Flat Earth believer (or should i say Flat Earth conspirator! Yeah, that's right! I'm on to you!) to disprove Angel Theory.

The point I'm making is this: How can we find the truth in a world where anything could be lies and trickery? If there could be conspiracies covering up the truth at every turn, how can you trust what anyone says?

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Rushy

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2013, 08:09:23 PM »
Ugh, for one, keep topics that bring up FES in the forums labeled "Flat Earth." Second, no one is tricking the world into believing the Earth is round. The only conspiracy is that governments are faking space travel/satellites. The governments themselves really, truly believe the Earth to be round. No one gains anything from faking Earth shape, but there is a lot to be gained from faking space superiority.




Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2013, 08:12:24 PM »
I've heard both that there is a Round Earth conspiracy and that their isn't, but that's beside the point.

The point of the post is a discussion about the nature of truth and how to find it.

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Username

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #3 on: March 07, 2013, 08:25:30 PM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

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Sean

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #4 on: March 07, 2013, 08:27:34 PM »
Truth is subjective.... Prove me wrong.
Quote from: sokarul
Better bring a better augment, something not so stupid.

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #5 on: March 07, 2013, 09:21:19 PM »
Exactly; W. James talks of truth and defines it as that which can be cross referenced.  I think its a bit more complicated than that myself.  The real interesting bits happen when two points of view clash, or when one point of view internally clashes.

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sceptimatic

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #6 on: March 08, 2013, 02:18:17 AM »
Truth is what each individual interprets as the truth. We are merely born to mimic and follow orders in the grand scheme of things.
We can be made to believe in anything if it's pushed enough and very few will stray away from that. That's the nature of the beast.
From birth to death we follow a pattern in life which is to obey and basically play copy cat with each other. We are no better than trained animals, yet in our arrogance, we believe we are some special species of utmost intelligence because we believe we know the answers to a lot of things, yet in truth, it's a game of copy cat and obey.
We could be no more special than a dolphin or an ant or fly. We are born, we create life and we die just like every other species on this earth.
The strange part of it all is, what's the purpose of it all. I mean what's the end goal.
Is there a higher intelligence sitting around a big glass bubble, like something from Jason and the Argonauts, looking down at us and deciding to play chess with all life on the earth, chopping and changing as time goes on.
We are simply an organism that was born to survive, like any other organism. We do not possess the ability to kill ourselves under normal circumstances, yet can be made to do it under exceptional circumstances which usually stems from the way our lives have been conditioned from those in power that decided we should be all branded like an animal and put into numbered hutches.
So which avenue can we go down in life?
The answer is, we don't really get the chance to choose that, because we are Governed over the choices we make.
It's fine if you want to be a scientist and have your own theories but if those theories don't match up with the run of life, your theories are ridiculed to the point of your despair.
We aren't smart, we are just more able and advanced than other species because we have the ability to do a lot more things with our hands and find solutions to any problems that we face.
A bird can build a fine nest to house it's chicks and they can hunt for food by learning how to overcome problems, such as realising that if they pitter patter their feet on the ground, they will convince worms that it's raining and make them surface.
Does this make worms gullible or less intelligent than the bird or is the bird more gullible and less intelligent than the human?

We live our lives on what we are told and we argue throughout life with each other by what we are told and the reason why we all differ slightly from one another , is all to do with who, why and where in the world we are told what we believe we know and as we know, the world varies in terms of religions, culture and thinking, yet for each country, they believe that their way is the right way, the same as tribes , each believe their way is the right way.

Only the strongest survive, yet the strongest does not necessarily mean physically. The smarter people outsmart the gullible and that's why you get worlds run by meek, frail looking people at the very top. It's not what they can physically bring to the table that got them there, it's the ability to outsmart the gullible and can be such a force, they can actually make the strong physical gullible type, go out  and kill each other in what's known as war.
They also have the ability to "lie" and "lie" without showing any remorse for it.

When a small body of people can get family to betray each other or friends to snoop on each other and the public to single out anyone that has a different mind to the norm, then you know just how much your life is set in a pattern to follow and play Monkey see, Monkey do.
The world is in a trance because we allowed ourselves to be put in a trance by allowing ourselves to be hypnotised by the box in the corner that emits visual and audio and the mulched up trees that become newspaper.

If everything was true in this world, nobody would be arguing against it.
The reason why conspiracies start is because some people wake up and see lies and have the bottle to stand up and say they see through those lies, which makes others question the truths given out and so on and so on.
The problem only becomes a real problem for the elite when too many people start to question truths given out, which then forces the elite to employ shill tactics to ridicule the small pockets of people that are not satisfied with what they were force fed.

To think we believe we are an advanced world in only a short period of time, yet although people believe they are smart and can sit at a desk and calculate some numbers and reel off answers to questions they memorised, those very same people cannot see just how gullible they could be, because they are bathed in the fact that they are smarter than the average bear and they have a certificate to prove that to any dummy who challenges them.

You get the average gullible people and you get the smart gullible people. These two types don't question official lines, they go with it, yet the average gullible can be afforded some sympathy for not understanding what's going on, so never think to question...yet the arrogant smart person who accepts it all on face value because it's official, is the reason why ridicule is rife to those that dare to have an alternative view.

The smart ones will never admit to being wrong or believing there's a possibility of them being duped because it would literally destroy their lives and they will not allow those thoughts to enter their heads, even if NASA came out tomorrow and told then direct that the moon landings were all faked or space travel is a sham etc.

Sometimes I wonder if the world would be a nicer place if we were all just brains in jars with just dreams to look forward to, dreams that we could live in a world of basic honesty instead of having to sift through all the shit to get at the real truth.

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mathsman

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #7 on: March 08, 2013, 03:47:03 AM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

Do you have an example?

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Username

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2013, 08:58:36 AM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

Do you have an example?
Well, an offhanded one would be most paradoxes.  Really any time two observers clash on their explanations irreconcilably.  Often times this brings emotional stress and at larger levels even physical stress. 

I'd say the truth is willable, not knowable, within your right to do so.


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mathsman

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #9 on: March 11, 2013, 01:05:04 PM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

Do you have an example?
Well, an offhanded one would be most paradoxes.  Really any time two observers clash on their explanations irreconcilably.  Often times this brings emotional stress and at larger levels even physical stress. 

I'd say the truth is willable, not knowable, within your right to do so.

A paradox is not an example of mutually exclusive things being true. People having irreconcilable explanations is not an example of mutually exclusive things being true.

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #10 on: March 11, 2013, 01:37:37 PM »
Lets take the liar's paradox, an early one:
"This is a lie"

Clearly this is both in a state of true and falsehood;  As such it appears as nonsense to those trying to use traditional logic and mathematics to parse it.  Using another language might shed light on this paradox;

"[This|The Other] is [True|False]"

Its the issue of looking at two facets of truth at the same time that appear to contradict.  Here we have a sentiment of 1=0;  This is not nonsense, and makes sense in many contexts, just not the collapsed frame.  The machine can handle paradox easily.  Its often more useful to look at paradox like this as a series of machine states than natural language, as natural language can be vague and purposefully hiding.

That is all I will talk on this for now, I apologize for the necessary vagueness.

Now to the base issue -

Irreconcilable observations of events are paradoxical.  Truth to any person is what he or she wills it to be.   One can will their truth to be Christianity, or Taoism, or Buddhism.  These are all great choices for the person trying to live a preferred life as it min/maxes paradoxical events to their supposed gain by pushing belief into a larger scope of collapsed frames -- frames that for the large part don't effect physical reality or cause real conflict to others.  To that person, Christianity is truth, even if to an outside observer Buddhism or Atheism is "truth."  These two views clash and often lead to war, bloodshed, physical trauma, mental trauma, emotional trauma, and in the worst case  collapse.

Science is the attempt of man to take this ideology and fit it into a box - into a democratic, or even communist, mentality.  We should all decide truth together, science screams, even if that makes no sense.  Its the ideology of a forced collapsed frame, and it takes the right to believe from those who would have it freely.  We are all slaves to the o, and this will end.

In reality, they are all just different angles, like trying to view something sleeping at the bottom of a rippled pool, you end up with a lot of pieces that kinda fit together visually, but are distorted and dishonest about their nature and if taken as fact look broken.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2013, 01:40:21 PM by John Davis »

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mathsman

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #11 on: March 11, 2013, 02:14:58 PM »
Lets take the liar's paradox, an early one:
"This is a lie"

Clearly this is both in a state of true and falsehood;  As such it appears as nonsense to those trying to use traditional logic and mathematics to parse it.  Using another language might shed light on this paradox;


You haven't given me an example youve given me a boring old paradox. Paradoxes are usually conditional: if some statement is true then it is also false. I want to see: This statement is true and it is false.


Now to the base issue -
Science is the attempt of man to take this ideology and fit it into a box - into a democratic, or even communist, mentality.  We should all decide truth together, science screams, even if that makes no sense.  Its the ideology of a forced collapsed frame, and it takes the right to believe from those who would have it freely.  We are all slaves to the o, and this will end.

In reality, they are all just different angles, like trying to view something sleeping at the bottom of a rippled pool, you end up with a lot of pieces that kinda fit together visually, but are distorted and dishonest about their nature and if taken as fact look broken.


As usual I haven't got a clue what you mean.

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Genius

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #12 on: March 11, 2013, 02:42:12 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.
The earth is round because the space man said so.

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rotating planet

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #13 on: March 11, 2013, 05:54:31 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #14 on: March 12, 2013, 09:09:10 AM »
Omnipotence without Omniwisdom is a hell unto its own.

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Lorddave

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #15 on: March 12, 2013, 09:15:29 AM »
"Is the Truth Knowable?"
What is your name?

If anyone can answer that correctly, then the answer to the OP question is yes.
You have been ignored for common interest of mankind.

I am a terrible person and I am a typical Blowhard Liberal for being wrong about Bom.

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Genius

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #16 on: March 12, 2013, 09:40:41 AM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.
The earth is round because the space man said so.

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #17 on: March 12, 2013, 09:44:05 AM »
"Is the Truth Knowable?"
What is your name?

If anyone can answer that correctly, then the answer to the OP question is yes.
Just because part of the truth is knowable, if it is and someones name is their "true" name, does not mean all the truth is knowable, or is knowable and is not internally conflicting.

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Lorddave

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #18 on: March 12, 2013, 05:01:00 PM »
"Is the Truth Knowable?"
What is your name?

If anyone can answer that correctly, then the answer to the OP question is yes.
Just because part of the truth is knowable, if it is and someones name is their "true" name, does not mean all the truth is knowable, or is knowable and is not internally conflicting.
Are you drunk?  Your sentence is full of grammatical errors.  Makes it hard to read.

Also:
All truth is knowable.  If it isn't, then how do you know can it be true?
You have been ignored for common interest of mankind.

I am a terrible person and I am a typical Blowhard Liberal for being wrong about Bom.

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rotating planet

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #19 on: March 12, 2013, 06:25:29 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.

What I am saying is that if none can be Omnipotent, how can we know what Nigh Omnipotence even is? We do not know what Omnipotence is.

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Genius

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #20 on: March 13, 2013, 07:16:24 AM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.

What I am saying is that if none can be Omnipotent, how can we know what Nigh Omnipotence even is? We do not know what Omnipotence is.

The definition of omnipotence is to know everything there is to know.
The earth is round because the space man said so.

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #21 on: March 13, 2013, 08:04:39 AM »
Omnipotence does not connote necessarily all knowledge.

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Genius

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #22 on: March 13, 2013, 08:29:58 AM »
Omnipotence does not connote necessarily all knowledge.

That's true, actually. It'd be really only omniscient. Fair point.
The earth is round because the space man said so.

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rotating planet

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #23 on: March 13, 2013, 03:52:40 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.

What I am saying is that if none can be Omnipotent, how can we know what Nigh Omnipotence even is? We do not know what Omnipotence is.

The definition of omnipotence is to know everything there is to know.

I am merely saying "nigh" omnipotence is arbitrary and cannot be measured if nothing is omnipotent.

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Genius

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #24 on: March 13, 2013, 03:56:48 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.

What I am saying is that if none can be Omnipotent, how can we know what Nigh Omnipotence even is? We do not know what Omnipotence is.

The definition of omnipotence is to know everything there is to know.

I am merely saying "nigh" omnipotence is arbitrary and cannot be measured if nothing is omnipotent.

Okay.
The earth is round because the space man said so.

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rotating planet

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #25 on: March 13, 2013, 09:36:21 PM »
One can be Nigh Omnipotent, but not Omnipotent.

If none can be Omnipotent, what is Nigh Omnipotence?

Concepts can exist outside reality.... I'm trying my best here to sound cool and be correct at the same time.

What I am saying is that if none can be Omnipotent, how can we know what Nigh Omnipotence even is? We do not know what Omnipotence is.

The definition of omnipotence is to know everything there is to know.

I am merely saying "nigh" omnipotence is arbitrary and cannot be measured if nothing is omnipotent.

Okay.

Do you mean Okay? or O.K.

Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #26 on: May 11, 2013, 07:43:11 AM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

Do you have an example?

Eating animals is good.  Eating animals is bad. 

I am a good person.  I am a bad person.

You are a good person.  You (the same you, btw) are a bad person.

Do I have an example? Yes.  Thank you for asking. 

Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #27 on: May 17, 2013, 12:27:16 PM »
The issue at the centre of it all is that false things can be true;  Mutually exclusive things can both be true.  Once you see that, the rest falls in place.

Do you have an example?

Eating animals is good.  Eating animals is bad. 

I am a good person.  I am a bad person.

You are a good person.  You (the same you, btw) are a bad person.

Do I have an example? Yes.  Thank you for asking.
I am sorry, but you have not demonstrated anything other than the fact that language has the ability to blind you and to influence you into polarzied thought.
These statements are contextually ambiguous and therefore unfalsifaible.

Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #28 on: May 17, 2013, 02:00:07 PM »
The very fact that you have to ask the question whether the truth is knowable means it's not.

If it's the truth it can't have doubt which is what the question gives.

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Re: Is the Truth Knowable?
« Reply #29 on: May 19, 2013, 06:16:31 AM »
The very fact that you have to ask the question whether the truth is knowable means it's not.

If it's the truth it can't have doubt which is what the question gives.

At least its not to said person at said time.  Otherwise I have to say spot on.

Truth is willable, perhaps, not knowable? Things that are knowable fall into knowledge.  Truth is beyond that; the facet of will has been ignored so long or used for trite and temporary purpose.