Isn't impossible to be certain of what is true and what is not?
Skepticism seems to rule my mind when I think about this question as the world is full of lies... myths, dreams, lost causes, failed expectations.
We may know bits and pieces of truth, but never absolute truths. Not to mention, we - as a society - do not want to know the truth. We either shield ourselves from it or do not believe anything at all. We are all skeptics in reality. We doubt everything. When do we ever believe anything with checking for proof/evidence/facts... whatever you prefer to call it? Normally, I would say "honestly, never". However, can I ever be sure what I have seen - my relative truths - is the absolute truth? I cannot be sure, I've come to realize. Even nature changes and people are much more unreliable... So, is truth even real? I mean, if everything is changing, does truth even matter? Circumstances changes as do people. How do we know if something will be there forever? We don't know. We can only guess and hope. Faith is the one thing that people need to have to keep us going. We all want the truth as we want to know knowledge. Knowledge, to us, is trustworthy and believable. Thus, we all like to know if we could ever completely trust or believe in something or anything at all.
Ergo, my three questions are ... 1. What are your philosophical opinions on if we can ever know anything with absolute certainty 2. Do you think it matters if we have or don't have an answer? 3. Is there any philosophers that agree/disagree
[This message was edited by Annie Yan on 11-08-08 at 06:02 PM.]
[This message was edited by Annie Yan on 11-08-08 at 06:04 PM.]
1. What are your philosophical opinions on if we can ever know anything with absolute certainty
In my opinion, no. I think no earthbound being, as us humans, is able to know truth to its factual depths. We hold truth but we can’t withstand it. We carry truth, with every bit of our essentiality, but we still can’t take or accept it on the whole. And yes you were right on about it! We collect truth bit by bit, piece by piece, but not comprehensibly that it would give some definite and vivid form or pattern to our perceptions. I think most of it is due to the limits and bounds, assigned on our perceptual boundaries, that cut us back even if we try our damnest best to know the truth with absolute certainty, while enduring the pains and troubles of course that the incomplete knowing brings along. So, I guess no..we can’t know truth with absoluteness.
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2. Do you think it matters if we have or don't have an answer?
I think I already answered it before in my above-mentioned post. Attempting to know the truth, or to know the answer with absolute certainty, is a long, lonely, painful and sore pathway to no end. Its similitude is holding a strand of something whose stretchibility is limitless. You could go on to stretch it as much as you want to. But when you get tired and stop, you realize there’s still as much of it left over unstretched as it was before. The only difference is that your restive desire to stretch what remains only grows in time. Personally, if it were under my control, I wouldn’t have chosen to know what I agnize today. For no matter what, everything I know is still incomplete and indistinct, and it has only shadowed my own happiness.
In my opinion, no. I think no earthbound being, as us humans, is able to know truth to its factual depths. We hold truth but we can’t withstand it. We carry truth, with every bit of our essentiality, but we still can’t take or accept it on the whole.
If you don't know it, you shouldn't be discussing it ... especially not debating it. In this case, why go to school at all? Why bother learning anything in life?
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You could go on to stretch it as much as you want to. But when you get tired and stop, you realize there’s still as much of it left over unstretched as it was before.
Seems like a waste of time. May be you are doing it wrong. Just because you failed, don't assume that everyone will.
"Nunc Scio Quit Sit Amor" But it's still not premarital sex if you don't plan on getting married
Your post every bit ran out of proportion with the actual subject matter although it should hardly seem surprising seeing as to how you came down hard and hurried towards judgementalism on me without even reading it through. In any case, if it's mere verbal joust that you are mistaking for a 'discussion' or more appropriately a 'debate', in your terms, then rest assured I am through with you.
Mathematics seems pretty certain to me...... Your either wrong or your right. It's certain. It's promising and it's never wrong unless it's done wrong. But mathematics is always correct only if done right; however, always certain depending on how it's done.
Truth is knowledge and knowledge is truth. It's promising if done or thought right then it is right, but if done or thought wrong then it's wrong.
It's always certain and always promising-always.
If wrong we can always try again, but the way it's done is promising weather or not we think so. We fail or succeed and there's nothing in the middle. There's no since thing as merely done. You failed or you succeeded and it stops there only if you stop.
"If you disagree with something I write, tell me so, argue with me, correct me - but don't tell me to shut up. That's not the American way." -Roger Ebert
Posts: 622 | Location: Tionesta Pennsylvania, USA | Registered: 09-22-05
Replying to a question with another question. Kind of like my son ... why why why why why ... the only different is that he is only 2.
My point is very simple and I am not sure how you could miss that (actually I put it in bold on the previous post): how much absolute is absolute enough?. Take gravity for example. We know what it is and how it exist on earth (at least the concept of it) - ergo truth and knowledge why sh*t falls down. I guess I could over analyze it and say that human doesn't exist ... or time doesn't exit ... or space doesn't exist ... or whatever philosophy b.s I want to insert in the argument.
Yes, we know very little of this world (at the moment) but it doesn't mean that we don't know anything at all. I am a fan of learning, truth and knowledge. It's all possible because a lot of us want to find out the absolute truth to the best of our ability.
Again, how much absolute is absolute enough? You can reply anything but please don't ask me ... why?
"Nunc Scio Quit Sit Amor" But it's still not premarital sex if you don't plan on getting married
in my opinion, there is no way of having an absolute truth. even the most basic ideas, which are accepted as facts, can not be proven beyond doubt.
take, for example, the very concept of reality. how does one know, without any doubt, that they truly exist? the common answer to this is the classic quote, "i think, therefore, i exist." however, a response by someone (although i am not sure who it is from), is "i think, therefore, thoughts exist."
however, one can take this quote and argue that, since we cannot prove WE exist, we have no way of proving that we think, and if we do not exist, and therefore do not think, then thoughts do not exist either.
Yankee, I think the quote proves one's existence about as well as it can be proven. The problem then is: in what way do I exist?
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” - Harry Schoell, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc.
well, in order to answer your question, i would need to know your definition of "existence". My point is that we cannot prove we exist because the definition of existence is subjective, so that someone who may or may not exist would have to prove something that may not be true at all.
Yes, the whole there's no way to possibly know anything thing. Everything's relative and all truth is subjective, or objective truth may exist but is impossible to know through mortal means and is therefore more or less irrelevant and so on. Big fan of it, but where's the fun in debating that?
“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” - Harry Schoell, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc.
