Lak

Here's a thingie me and a mate came up with one day while chatting with a couple of friendly guys from the uni God Squad. This is an abridged version of the explanation we wrote - if it is patchy I apologise and can clarify later.

"Humans are poor judges of truth"

The simple premise for this is that people all over the world disgree with each other. Let's examine two people of equal age and similar mental capacity who happen to disagree on a particular idea. Let's say each of thier views cannot co-exist (ie: god or no god). We can say that they have been lead to believe what they believe because of the experiences they have had in life so far. This is fair. However, one of them is wrong (it could actually be both of them but the point is that they can't both be right). So we can say that having some experiences doesn't make you a very good judge of truth. If you had MORE experience(s), you might be a slightly better judge of truth, and indeed, we call this "wisdom". But you can still disagree with someone else of equal experience etc, so you are still not capable of correctly judging truth.

The only way we could be sure that someone is a fair judge of what is true and what isnt, is if they had had all experiences that ever were and ever would be, AND were able to discern the difference between misleading experiences and "correct" ones. This is clearly no-one*. So, because we are not fit to judge what is true, it does not make sense to try to disprove or denounce another persons 'truth'. Indeed, it's just plain unfair to hold your own truth in a higher reguard to someone elses, let alone to try to impress your truth onto another person.

From this we can form the concept of "Good Ideas". Any idea that is useful in explaining phenomena (say, a scientific thoery) or that is an elegant and simple explanation for something which we would otherwise be lost to explain (say, a myth or creation story) or that simply provides an better reasoning for observations makes a Good Idea. All Good Ideas should be worth keeping, according to our principle that no-one is fit to judge which is a better idea.

So, in conclusion, if it works and you're happy with it, good for you. The most important thing to draw from this is that it's not cool to press your own Good Ideas over someone else's.

As I said this is quite abridged and may have a couple holes. I think our original essay was quite good, it went into more detail about the nature of truth also. If anyone wants, I'll dig it up for them.


*no mere human, at least

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ignorance really is bliss.

Zeraph

"The truth cannot be said, and once you have said it you have already falsified it" - Lin Chi

sandinista

Descartes has interesting theories on this. He says that all humans have a natural capability of "reason" - causing them to know what is the truth and what is not. He says that we develop varying definitions of the truth because each individual mind takes into account different factors into every decision, and therefore no decision can be the same, even though there is a "truth" out there - but no human mind is capable of finding it.

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"Nature herself makes the wise man rich."
-Cicero

Lak

That pretty well sums up our idea.
Just a footnote - not claiming credit for this idea... I'm sure its been done before, and probably better than us

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ignorance really is bliss.

hiredgun

Unfortunately, I think this proof assumes that people's opinions are always rational. I find that, in all things but especially in matters of philosophy, the idea's people have are HEAVILY informed by their emotions (which result from their upbringing, among other things).

Therefore there may be many things which "reasonable" or "experienced" people disagree on, but that we can still prove to be true or false.

Suave

I like your philosophy, but the main problem lies not just in that, but also the creation of... phrase of the day... false dichotomies. People are lazy slash ignorant slash whatever you want to put in, and so rather than actually keep an open mind or think things through, the majority of the population chooses to think in the simplest terms possible. These terms are dichotomous. Most of the supposedly mutually exclusive viewpoints that people have in the world are actually not, people just find it a lot easier to view them that way rather than accept that there is generally a spectrum, and compromises or combinations can be made. I am not necessarily or specifically referring to the God/no God debate though. That is obviously dichotomous.

NotMVH

There is no universal truth. My truth is mine, it is not internal or external it is the makeup of the world I exist in. I can share my truth with you if I choose and you yours if you choose, if they conflict or coincide does not matter. What has been shared is no longer true and we both suffer the anguish of our own existances.

archpaladin

Obviously not. To say that there is no universal truth is in fact stating a universal truth.

Thus, there must be at least one universal truth.

NotMVH

You have presented a logical argument agianst my statement. I can see your logic but the statement I made is not the truth, it is merely an idea in the represtention of my own existance.

Lak

Not to say there aren't universal truths, no, not at all. In fact there must be at least one (that nifty little paradox presented before) and there are probably many. Humans can simply never know what it is, therefore should refrain from telling other people that they are wrong
Idealistic, I know, and this is clearly not what happens in everyday life (Suave made this point well). But it's a nice idea. Maybe it's even a Good Idea. Ooooo.

With that said, by presenting this idea I am trying to get everyone else to accept that it is wrong to try to get other people to accept that they are wrong... and so on. So if this idea I have IS in fact a Good Idea, alas, I keep it to myself

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ignorance really is bliss.

archpaladin

Doesn't that kind of make this whole thread paradoxical then? I mean, we're telling people that we shouldn't tell other people that they are wrong. But if those people thought something other than what we're telling them now (ie. you can tell people when they are wrong) then we're doing exactly what we said we shouldn't be doing.

Lak

Yeah, I know. If I were to suggest that everyone should take on this idea, I would surely be hypocritical. However, I can accept this idea for myself, and no longer be bothered by other people holding beliefs which are directly contridictory to my own. 'Tis a healthy thing (or so I believe )

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ignorance really is bliss.