Question
How Valid is this statement?
"A belief is what we accept as truth"

Is it?
I know that truth has its levels, Coherence, Correspondence, Pragmatic, Semantic, which all asess the validity of truth?

How valid is a belief?

If somebody was to say “The chair was red�, then that would be the assumed truth. If the person said afterwards, “I wasn’t so sure because I was hallucinating� then the validity of the true statement becomes less believable. The only way to prove this as true would be if the chair was actually red.

Nils Bohr said (and I find it works) - A great truth has an opposite which is also true, a trivial truth has an opposite that is simply false.

The statement, "a belief is what we accept as truth," is entirely valid. The amount of certainty people need before establishing a belief, is highly variable, however. Science has a much higher standard for acceptance than religion, for example. Having a preacher say something is true is often good enough for the belief-inclined. All religions require a degree of gullibility in their adherents for their continuation and propagation.

Believing means Accepting something as TRUTH beyound any DOUBT.
(It does not matter whether the person applies objective techniques or subjective techiniques to believe on something)

Hence one's TRUTH depends on one's ability to doubt.
As long as a person can doubt, he will never find(believe in) any truth.

There is no TRUTH, unless one believes in it.

I am not sure that we need to believe in anything as long as the truth is in doubt.

In criminal law, jurors must believe that guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt. If religious persons believe beyond all doubt, they could be very dangerous. Look at some of the cult mass suicides, for example. The Jones Town massacre involved extensive homicide. Jihadists are another example of runaway belief.

That's why so much of my thinking is hypothetical. It's the scientist way. Every plan of action is provisional, subject to revision as new facts come in.

Do you think that among Dan's aforementioned "quasi-rational" anchor assumptions of scientists, we might count a fervent, hopeful clinging to the idea that verbal, conventional expression is sufficient in the ultimate analysis to describe the nature of things? Are words, or mathematics, or a combination, enough?

If this belief is not true (which I think it is not), and linear expression is not sufficient, then I suspect the scientific project (reliant as it seems to be upon verbal description, and wary of phenomena experience that cannot be categorised or expressed in combinations of words or symbols) may be doomed.

That depends on the nature of the scientific quest, though. As long as its quest isn't to get at Truth (with a capital T), it's all good. Truths with little t's are more the scientists' cups of tea, I think...

What think ye?

~~~

But have some hope, ye scientists. Einstein pointed out that all mysticism is the ground of all science. I think the exact words were something like:

"The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion. Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science. Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment and lives in a state of fear is a dead man. To know that what is impenatrable for us really exists and manifests itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty, whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties - this knowledge, this feeling ... that is the core of the true religious sentiment. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I rank myself amoung profoundly religious men."


He was quite a groovy chap.

~~~



What about Buddhism? In what way does the Buddhist worldview require a degree of gullibility in its adherents? It sounds as though you might adhere to the idea of 'religion as meme' (which I actually find quite convincing in many cases), but I think the explanation falls down somewhat when applied to Buddhism. Then again, many do not count Buddhism in the same religious category as the more clearly memetic religions... it is a particularly slippery fish...

What think ye?

Yes, that quote is by Einstein (but you misspelled "among"). As Einstein was a scientist, and as he strove for understanding of the kind that should be capitalized, then the argument ascribing the little "t" domain as that belonging to scientists like me is accordingly weakened.

The case for religion as (harmful) meme seems to me to be entirely credible. Buddhism doesn't seem as susceptible to some of the harmful behaviors displayed by adherents of monotheism. However, there are active harms and passive harms. For example, watching television situation commedies may not be harmful per se, but to the extent that it diverts from more constructive activities such as reading, it may constitute harm. Is such an application of the category appropriate to Buddhism? I don't know enough about it to say.

Unfortunately, for many, Buddhism is escapism from responsibility. I have seen many a lazy Buddhist. Why is that?

You seem to be showing a strong bias using these words, indicating an agenda. A sufficient statement would have been
Do you think that among Dan's aforementioned "quasi-rational" anchor assumptions of scientists, we might count verbal, conventional expression as sufficient in the effort to describe the nature of things?

I suspect that you have developed a strong affinity toward mystical thinking, biasing you against rationality. Don't get too convinced by this dreaminess, otherwise you'll end up lost in your escape bubble.


My answer to the question:
I say that expression is meaningful only insofar as the listener has the experience necessary to properly interpret the intent behind the expression. In other words, the meaning in expression is not simply the expression itself but also requires the listener to contain the basic experiential units that are so organized by listening to the expression.

I would suggest a different approach to this issue.
First,
Is it possible for one to experience an understanding of the nature of things?
Second,
Is it possible for two people who have experienced an understanding of the nature of things to meaningfully discuss this understanding?

perhaps to really experience an understanding of the nature of things, you must become the thing. Otherwise, you will always be standing on the outside of the thing and not really understanding it.

Einstein's philosophical reflections can make for good reading, and are useful if they make the reader more receptive to mystical experiences or emotions. However, Einstein was not a Buddhist, so how this ties in with Buddhism remains to be seen. What does Buddhism bring to the table? What does it offer the mystically-aware scientist other than truisms or worse?

(Apologies for the misspelling - I actually cut 'n pasted the quote from another page... should have checked. Anyway, on with the show...)

Yes, my argument above may have been quite weak. Let me try and distill it.

Einstein surely strove for Truth. But he described it (above) as "what is impenatrable [sic] for us...whose gross forms alone are intelligible to our poor faculties".

I would suggest that linear, verbal, conceptual expression can never fully describe Truth, only its "gross forms alone", and even then only partially (which is to say, only to the extent that our descriptions of the gross forms really correspond to the gross forms themselves, and not merely to our constructed ideas about them). Part of the reason for this is that linear expression requires concepts, and concepts are reductionary. To express Truth, and not merely its gross forms, one cannot admit any exclusion or reduction, so reductionary tools like concepts will always fail us in that quest.

Another thing we might consider is that we ourselves are part of Truth. Any description of Truth must include the describer as well as the description and the described (these things being gross forms only), without positing any separation between them. (But it is clear that I cannot even talk about this without considering the three things separately.) Language and mathematics use concepts and sets, which are inclusionary/exclusionary, and necessitate a separate point from which the whole is taken to be viewed. Therefore, language and mathematics can talk about concepts and sets (constructed gross forms) and the gross forms that belong to these, but can never really talk about the Truth beyond concept or set, because concepts simply do not attain to that.

In brief conclusion: words and concepts can express only conventional truths, but Truth can be apprehended only nonconceptually if at all. Therefore, if the scientific mission always depends upon conceptual or symbolc expression (verbal or mathemetical), it will never attain to describe ultimate Truth, only conventional truths.

That is all. And it means that talking about it is futile, because we must always talk in conventional terms, using concepts.

But as an aside...

For grammatical reasons, English sentences require a "done thing" and a "doing agent", a subject and a verb. To describe rain, for example, the simplest way we can put it in English is: "It is raining," or: "It rains". But of course, existentially speaking, there is no "it" that is raining. (A more accurate way to describe it, though one we never use, would be: "Rain is happening" or, more simply, "Rain.") But the unfortunate grammatical tendency towards a subject and a verb, the linguistic convention that posits a separation between the act of doing and the doer does not reflect an existential situation. We tend to become trapped by our grammatical conventions, to say nothing of the extent to which we are trapped by the words, the concepts themselves.

~~~

I think Dan's idea is a good one. And yeah, I must admit that Dan is correct in his assessment of my embarrassingly transparent bias in favour of 'mystical thinking' (whatever that is)... I will try not to get lost in my escape bubble. Conventional truth is certainly useful; it can describe aspects of Truth in ways that are, strictly speaking, flawed, but still useful. Like a finger pointing at the moon. I should remember that, although the finger is not the moon, I may be much better off for the pointing.

I suppose I am a romantic mystic... I hope all you scientists out there (including Rick, whose mature and measured contributions to these discourses have earned my respect, if it please him) can tolerate my impudent nonrationalism.

~~~

I don't think that religion-as-meme and Buddhism, though they're damned interesting, are central to this topic... it would take another few topics to dissect the contents of that particular can of worms.

~~~

In response to Lucid Dream:

In that case, Lucid, (if we must become a thing in order to understand it) we are doomed in our quest for understanding - because we always (or almost always) experience ourselves as basically 'outside' the thing we are trying to understand. We are doomed unless we can disinhabit the reflexively self-referential perspective.

But I think it is possible to disinhabit the self-referential perspective. To do this, we must investigate the nature of the self to which our perspective refers. (And now, after a long foray in the trackless wastes of truth and belief, we're getting back to "mind"... yay... though still in a very philosophical way...) If, after a thorough search, we find no enduring 'self' to which to refer, then the self-referential perspective is, in fact, a flawed one for understanding the nature of things. It's basically a false construct of imagination.

We can deconstruct the idea that a constant, enduring self exists at all. (This is difficult for westerners particularly, whose culture leads them to attach so much value to the idea of their selves, their ego.) The process involves realising that our "selves" are contingent and temporary phenomena, that the entirety of the so-called 'self' phenomenon arises interdependently, due to the interaction of all other phenomena, and has not one iota of independent existence.

When we overcome the idea a separately-existing 'self' the tendency to personalise our experience to 'ourselves' will be reduced, and we will be able to 'understand' other things more fully. We won't, of course, be a rock, and thereby fully understand the rock; we will have dispensed with the prospect of any valid self-identity, so the idea of being a rock would be just as absurd an idea as that of being our 'selves'.

But these are the only tools we got, though. Are you then suggesting that we are on a quest for the unatainable? Or simply looking the wrong way?

even if science does not give us direct experience of Truth, it is one of the most useful tools we've got.

One?!!! Can you give me another example? You sound like the kind with a defetist perspective.

That was me! FTLI

I don't really know. If science relies on linear, conceptual expression, AND wants to get at Truth with a capital T, then yes, I suppose I would say it is on a quest for the unattainable...

The rest of us... well, it depends what we're after. I don't think we're looking the wrong way - all of us on this forum seem to be looking at the mind, which I think is an excellent place to be looking. I'd just say that we're using the same tools for missions that are compatible with those tools as well as for missions that are not compatible with those tools, so we're getting confused and frustrated. Now, maybe your mission is different to mine - bear that in mind - but I would say...

The perfectly human desire to investigate and explain phenomena results in concepts and intellectual understanding, which can be very illuminating, and has great benefits - such as medicine, or electricity, or internet forums. But concepts aren't the only tools we have - we can understand some things experientially, immediately, without recourse to concept.

Some things we already understand nonconceptually - we understand how to open or close our hand, how to walk, and so on. We understand the taste of a strawberry or the colour of the sky, though no concept could describe this understanding. You could say that this experiential understanding is far more innate than intellectual, conceptual understanding. The experience of breathing is far closer to us than the conceptual framework: "diaphragm descending - pressure differential - inhaling; diaphragm ascending - pressure differential - exhaling". Similarly, the statement "the XYZ chemical in the strawberry bonds to the ABC taste receptor on your tongue, which.... stimulation, reaction... in your brain" would not convey the quale, the experience of the taste of a strawberry. We understand these things experientially, immediately, nonconceptually - and that understanding is a very intimate one; we know completely how to open and close our hand, and all that we can't do is explain (verbally) how to do it. To explain, the best we could do is say "like this", and open and close our hand. And that would be adequate! That is how it is done.

But we know how to open and close our hands, and we don't need to explain how to do it. Given, physiotherapists need to conceptualise the mechanics of hand movement, and that's exemplary of the usefulness of science and conceptual thought in certain arenas. But the real knowledge of how to do it is nonconceptual. You can't say to someone "now fire the motor neurons that connect to your finger", you just have to appeal to their instictual knowledge of how to do it.

(Where I'm getting at is this - if you know that you are at one with the universe, why do you need to explain how you are one with the universe? Unfortunately, I've not yet realised that I am at one with the universe... so here I am, ranting away.)

When we realise that our thoughts, being linear and one-at-a-time, are useless fully to describe and understand the universe, which is multidimensional and all-at-once, we must search for other tools than thoughts to use. Eastern mystics, understanding this, developed meditation.

Concepts can explain the biological situation that gives rise to the physical structures that support human consciousness (and much more besides). It does these things within the confines of conceptual schemas, which have limited scope and rely on reductionary concepts. But conceptual schemas cannot integrate it all - something will always be excluded, and all conceptual systems rely upon some unproven assumption that lies outside their scope.

If your mission is not merely to explain conceptually, but actually to realise the nature or potential of your consciousness, then, although concepts can be useful in some ways, they can't get you the whole way. A true understanding of the nature of your consciousness must be a directly experiential one, involving immediate realisation without concepts. So, for directly realising the nature of the mind, meditation is a better tool than thought.

If you really believe this, then you must admit that your entire monologue on 'Truth' is futile. Which begs the question "Why are you engaging in futile acts?"

Sort of ruins your credibility as an expert on Truth, eh?

I wish I had been able to say it as well, Dan. Well put.

My attempt at answers:

1. Yes, but not fully due to human limitations. Otherwise we would all give up, right?

2. Yes, but such discussions can have a tendencey to be frought with misunderstandings, as we prove daily.

It hasn't seemed to me that Lao Tzu has been posing as an expert, but is a humble questioner, like the rest of us, who has been occasionally misunderstood. I have learned some things as a result.

Yeah, I'm certainly not an expert on Truth. All I know

(is he was into field hockey players)

sorry don't know how that slipped in there...

As I was saying, all I know is what I've been told and what I've read (and one or two psychedelic experiences), which seemed to make sense to me. Zen Buddhism has a saying: Those who know do not speak, those who speak do not know. By the large amount I've been speaking, you can make a reasonable estimate as to how much I know...

Yeah, the monologue on Truth is futile - but only insofar as our conventional discussion can't attain to describe Truth. It's still conventionally useful. We can still accurately describe the futility of the attempt, since 'futility' is a conventionally agreed thing and so can be conventionally discussed. And it is useful to know in conventional terms that conventional approaches to Truth are futile, because that finding directs those of us who're frustrated with the apparent limitations of conceptual thought to investigate nonconceptual means, like meditation.

But I think I should shut up now and go meditate or something... *L* Sincerely, so far it's been a real kick to participate with you all. Very cool to find such excellent e-company...

"Sincerely, so far it's been a real kick to participate with you all. Very cool to find such excellent e-company..."

I am confident this quote is the Truth and not a belief!

ok, a synopsis of Lao's position



Therefore, 'Truth' is not a concept.



Therefore, 'Truth' cannot be meaningfully discussed.

Which of course leads me to wonder, How is it that we are having a discussion about Truth here given that we cannot actually have a discussion of Truth here? This seems inconsistent. Perhaps we will uncover this inconsistency.....


How is it possible to make meaningful statements about Truth if Truth cannot be meaningfully discussed? You can either discuss Truth or not discuss Truth.


What is the flaw? That 'Truth' cannot actually be discussed? Isn't this a fatal flaw?


'Concepts' are higher-order understandings - models if you will. Ultimately they are based on 'experiential' understandings. Think of them as shortcuts. If the 'experiential' understandings on which they are constructed are sound, then the concepts are sound. Their meaning lies in the 'experiential understanding' out of which they are constructed. Perhaps some people do not have the 'experiential understandings' on which the concepts are based. These people then do not understand the concepts. That is the problem with concepts.


How can we realize this without thinking? Sounds like a 'belief' to me. I suppose that such a belief is what makes a system like Buddhism work in the mind of the neophyte, seeing as how the neophyte lacks understanding of the problem that the system (such as Buddhism) appears to solve.


So a monologue on Truth is both futile and 'conventionally' useful?


so, if 'futility' is a 'conventional truth', how can the claim "attempts to describe Truth are futile" be meaningful in terms of the reality of Truth? Isn't this just another conventional statement that, by your definition, cannot attain to describe Truth? Doesn't it then follow that this statement contradicts itself?


Now this is interesting. I posit that this statement accurately represents how you made the 'leap' to mystical thought as the only approach to understanding 'Truth'. The key here is that you have 'found' the 'truth' that conventional approaches to Truth are futile (a belief). This belief allows you to reject any statements of 'truth' in your quest to understand 'Truth', but, interestingly, it does not lead you to reject the 'truth' that caused the belief. hmmm.....

Firstly, my sincere apologies for the length of this post. I had to deal with a number of quotes in turn, though. Hopefully you'll find it interesting, and the Nietzsche quote both beautiful and illuminating (if not positively enraging).

A synopsis of my position has been put forward, but I think it has flaws. Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Herewith an argument that attempts to rebut the synopsis' line of argument.


Well, I think that's a serious leap.

A rock - that hard, grey, roundish thing - is not a concept. It's a rock. But as soon as we use the word "rock" to describe that hard, grey, roundish thing, we are using a concept.

It's the same with 'Truth' in this context. The 'Truth' we're trying to talk about surely exists as something that is not a concept. So in that sense Dan is quite correct. Truth is not a concept - it is Truth. But as soon as we talk about it, we are talking about a concept of Truth, and not Truth itself. That's what I mean.


We must be very careful, in this discussion, with the words we use, since our discussion is about words. We must also be very careful not to misquote one other.

If you look carefully, I actually said that Truth could not be meaningfully discussed. I did not say, as Dan suggests, that "we cannot actually have a discussion of Truth here". Obviously, that is not true - we are discussing Truth, however poorly. Now, I should have used a better word, like "accurately" or "fully", but what I mean is that our words about Truth will never attain fully (accurately, meaningfully) to describe Truth, because we must use concepts, which are reductionary.


I actually said that "conventional truth can describe aspects of Truth", but Dan suggested I said it is "possible to make meaningful statements about Truth".

So I was misquoted. But that's irrelevant. Both claims are correct, in a way. This is very tricky. Read on:

Suppose we say "Truth can never be fully described". That statement has conventional meaning, and it's a statement about Truth. However, the statement does not describe Truth completely, it merely points to one aspect of it - the fact that it can't be fully described.

Now, since descriptions of Truth, to be really meaningful, must be complete (because Truth is the whole, and cannot be reduced, except by concepts) the description is not in fact meaningful about Truth itself. The real, nonconceptual Truth is beyond both describability and indescribability - both are extremes, and concepts that fail to obtain to the true nature of reality. (I must hasten to add that the real Truth is also beyond being "beyond both describability and indescribability", and it is beyond "beyond being beyond both describability and indescribability". I hope this gives the reader more insight into what I'm trying to describe.)

So, to the extent that the "indescribability" aspect of Truth - about which the statement is made - is reduced from the totality of Truth (being just one aspect of the whole), what we are talking about is a concept, a reduction, and not the whole Truth. That is why Truth cannot be meaningfully discussed, but it's still possible to make (conventionally) meaningful statements about aspects of it.


Yes. In the ultimate analysis, it is a fatal flaw. It means that science cannot attain to fully describe Truth, merely conventional truths. That is my original hypothesis in this topic, so I'm glad Dan agrees. Still open for debate, though, of course...


I don't entirely agree with this. But it's a complex argument, so I'll refer you to Nietzsche, in "On Truth And Lies in a Non-Moral Sense". I apologise sincerely for the length (and the bold text is my own) but it's probably some of the more beautiful philosophy-poetry I've ever come across.

In particular, let us further consider the formation of concepts. Every word instantly becomes a concept precisely insofar as it is not supposed to serve as a reminder of the unique and entirely individual original experience to which it owes its origin; but rather, a word becomes a concept insofar as it simultaneously has to fit countless more or less similar cases--which means, purely and simply, cases which are never equal and thus altogether unequal. Every concept arises from the equation of unequal things. Just as it is certain that one leaf is never totally the same as another, so it is certain that the concept "leaf" is formed by arbitrarily discarding these individual differences and by forgetting the distinguishing aspects. This awakens the idea that, in addition to the leaves, there exists in nature the "leaf": the original model according to which all the leaves were perhaps woven, sketched, measured, colored, curled, and painted--but by incompetent hands, so that no specimen has turned out to be a correct, trustworthy, and faithful likeness of the original model. We call a person "honest," and then we ask "why has he behaved so honestly today?" Our usual answer is, "on account of his honesty." Honesty! This in turn means that the leaf is the cause of the leaves. We know nothing whatsoever about an essential quality called "honesty"; but we do know of countless individualized and consequently unequal actions which we equate by omitting the aspects in which they are unequal and which we now designate as "honest" actions. Finally we formulate from them a qualities occulta which has the name "honesty." We obtain the concept, as we do the form, by overlooking what is individual and actual; whereas nature is acquainted with no forms and no concepts, and likewise with no species, but only with an X which remains inaccessible and undefinable for us. For even our contrast between individual and species is something anthropomorphic and does not originate in the essence of things; although we should not presume to claim that this contrast does not correspond o the essence of things: that would of course be a dogmatic assertion and, as such, would be just as indemonstrable as its opposite.

What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to a people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions - they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins.

We still do not yet know where the drive for truth comes from. For so far we have heard only of the duty which society imposes in order to exist: to be truthful means to employ the usual metaphors. Thus, to express it morally, this is the duty to lie according to a fixed convention, to lie with the herd and in a manner binding upon everyone. Now man of course forgets that this is the way things stand for him. Thus he lies in the manner indicated, unconsciously and in accordance with habits which are centuries old; and precisely by means of this unconsciousness and forgetfulness he arrives at his sense of truth. From the sense that one is obliged to designate one thing as "red," another as "cold," and a third as "mute," there arises a moral impulse in regard to truth. The venerability, reliability, and utility of truth is something which a person demonstrates for himself from the contrast with the liar, whom no one trusts and everyone excludes. As a "rational" being, he now places his behavior under the control of abstractions. He will no longer tolerate being carried away by sudden impressions, by intuitions. First he universalizes all these impressions into less colorful, cooler concepts, so that he can entrust the guidance of his life and conduct to them. Everything which distinguishes man from the animals depends upon this ability to volatilize perceptual metaphors in a schema, and thus to dissolve an image into a concept. For something is possible in the realm of these schemata which could never be achieved with the vivid first impressions: the construction of a pyramidal order according to castes and degrees, the creation of a new world of laws, privileges, subordinations, and clearly marked boundaries-a new world, one which now confronts that other vivid world of first impressions as more solid, more universal, better known, and more human than the immediately perceived world, and thus as the regulative and imperative world. Whereas each perceptual metaphor is individual and without equals and is therefore able to elude all classification, the great edifice of concepts displays the rigid regularity of a Roman columbarium and exhales in logic that strength and coolness which is characteristic of mathematics. Anyone who has felt this cool breath [of logic] will hardly believe that even the concept-which is as bony, foursquare, and transposable as a die-is nevertheless merely the residue of a metaphor, and that the illusion which is involved in the artistic transference of a nerve stimulus into images is, if not the mother, then the grandmother of every single concept. But in this conceptual crap game "truth" means using every die in the designated manner, counting its spots accurately, fashioning the right categories, and never violating the order of caste and class rank. Just as the Romans and Etruscans cut up the heavens with rigid mathematical lines and confined a god within each of the spaces thereby delimited, as within a templum, so every people has a similarly mathematically divided conceptual heaven above themselves and henceforth thinks that truth demands that each conceptual god be sought only within his own sphere. Here one may certainly admire man as a mighty genius of construction, who succeeds in piling an infinitely complicated dome of concepts upon an unstable foundation, and, as it were, on running water. Of course, in order to be supported by such a foundation, his construction must be like one constructed of spiders' webs: delicate enough to be carried along by the waves, strong enough not to be blown apart by every wind. As a genius of construction man raises himself far above the bee in the following way: whereas the bee builds with wax that he gathers from nature, man builds with the far more delicate conceptual material which he first has to manufacture from himself. In this he is greatly to be admired, but not on account of his drive for truth or for pure knowledge of things. When someone hides something behind a bush and looks for it again in the same place and finds it there as well, there is not much to praise in such seeking and finding. Yet this is how matters stand regarding seeking and finding "truth" within the realm of reason. If I make up the definition of a mammal, and then, after inspecting a camel, declare "look, a mammal' I have indeed brought a truth to light in this way, but it is a truth of limited value. That is to say, it is a thoroughly anthropomorphic truth which contains not a single point which would be "true in itself" or really and universally valid apart from man. At bottom, what the investigator of such truths is seeking is only the metamorphosis of the world into man. He strives to understand the world as something analogous to man, and at best he achieves by his struggles the feeling of assimilation. Similar to the way in which astrologers considered the stars to be in man 's service and connected with his happiness and sorrow, such an investigator considers the entire universe in connection with man: the entire universe as the infinitely fractured echo of one original sound-man; the entire universe as the infinitely multiplied copy of one original picture-man. His method is to treat man as the measure of all things, but in doing so he again proceeds from the error of believing that he has these things [which he intends to measure] immediately before him as mere objects. He forgets that the original perceptual metaphors are metaphors and takes them to be the things themselves.



We do not, as has been suggested above, "realize this without thinking". This is a demonstrative example of a way in which linear thought is useful: among other things, it reveals its own ultimate futility. We realise this by thinking. And of course, yes, it is a belief.

I don't quite understand what is meant by the sentence about Buddhism and the neophyte, though. But that's not really on the topic. I'm interested though, so please send me a personal message if you want to discuss it further...


Exactly! Because, as Nietzsche points out above, conventional truth is merely a socially agreed-upon frame of communication, which has no desire really to investigate truth. This is suggested from the following analysis:

Towards those truths that are beneficial to us, we are positively inclined. Towards those truths that are neither beneficial nor hostile to us, we are neutrally inclined or indifferent. And towards those truths that are harmful to us or bring a fatality to us, we are even hostilely inclined! This is therefore not a search for truth, which would disregard that causes of those truths and accept both 'harmful' and 'beneficial' truths equally - it is a quest for convenience. We designate as "truth" and "falsehoood" not what are actually true and false, but what are useful for us to accept or reject as a society.

The usefulness of the monologue about Truth is a conventional one. And since convention is not about truth but convenience, the monologue (if it is searching for Truth) is futile.


Well, "futility" is not about Truth, but about an attempt; an attempt to describe Truth. The attempt is a conventional concept, and applies only to our concept of Truth, and not to Truth itself, to which none of our concepts apply.

But you are quite correct. The claim "attempts to describe Truth are futile" is not meaningful in terms of the reality of Truth. Truth admits no futility, nor any opposites of futility - it transcends both concepts.

You are quite correct - this is just another conventional statement that, by [my] definition, cannot attain to describe Truth.

You are quite correct - this statement contradicts itself. But in doing so, it proves itself.

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth."
- Niels Bohr


Well, I accept your idea, but I think it is wrong. The basic problem is in the first sentence. I actually made the leap to mystical thought not through thought, but through psychedelics. Thank goodness for that.

Besides, I don't reject statements of "truth" out of hand. I'm quite attached to them, otherwise I wouldn't have made this bloody massive post... I just keep their limits in mind. I accept them as "truths" but not as "Truth". Useful for conventional discussion, but almost useless for realising the mystery of the universe.

I figured that, but left it out intentionally to see if you would admit it


almost? why not completely? If 'Truth' is not apprehensible via discussions of 'truths', what use is discussion of any 'truth'? Is it merely some kind of masturbation?

anyway, gotta go to bed and join Truth for a few hours. I'll be back in the morning to inject more sense into this silliness

I like your style, Dan.


Ultimately yes, I suppose you could call it masturbatory... in that it's not sex, insofar as sex implies union... There should be little doubt that truths - the finger pointing at the moon - are not themselves the moon. Neither do they describe the moon (nor truths the Truth). But they can point at it.


This involves a leap you may not agree with - that gnosis, cosmic consciousness, enlightenment, allow one to perceive Truth.

It seems fair to say that the individuals in human history who attained a kind of 'cosmic consciousness' or 'gnosis' fulfilled certain conventionally-describable conditions that are rare in individuals who do not experience gnosis. Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed - just about any saint, yogi, or prophet I can think of - all behaved quite similarly in giving fruition to their realisation of their union with Buddha-nature, God, Allah, or whatever their term of choice was for the Divine.

They tended to live lives of nonviolence and compassion, humility and material austerity (if not asceticism). These behaviours, to the extent that they proceed from (or give rise to) the state of gnosis and its realisations, point at gnosis, which is "the complete comprehension that comes from both rational and intuited means"(www.kheper.net/topics/Gnosticism/glossary.html) and is therefore (by definition, though also in essence) not fully describable - though perhaps semi-describable - by rational means.

These behaviours imply certain phenomena or conditions that can be said (with our language and convention) to be indicative of or conducive to mystical realisation of Truth. Furthermore, there are major philosophical parallels between the metaphorical frameworks that saints and mystics used to talk about the Divine. The frameworks and the terms comprising them are metaphors, and that fact was emphasised by their proponents to prevent them being taken for literal truth. In these two ways - as instructions for realisation, and as metaphors for description - conventional truths can be useful for realising the mystery of the universe.

I hope that the ordinary truths expressed here will be helpful for all to realise the mystery of the universe.

I'm such a hippy. Damned hippies are responsible for everything weird that's going on around here.

So it seems that you accept many truths as useful pointers toward Truth. Doesn't this imply that truths are not futile insofar as they assist in the journey toward Truth? Alternatively, doesn't this ability of a truth to point at Truth imply that the truth is in fact informing us about Truth?

Perhaps Truth is in fact quite describable via truth, as information about it is clearly being transmitted via truths. Perhaps the missing link that causes people to see truth as a futile attempt at arriving at Truth is the necessity of transformation of the mind in the process of arriving at Truth. In this sense, the acquisition of all truths without the necessary transformation of mind results in an incomplete journey toward Truth. We might then see the acquisition of all these truths as futile, as we have not achieved our goal of arriving at Truth. Therefore, in order to have a fruitful journey toward Truth, we must not only memorize the truth pointers but we must also go in the direction that they are pointing. Only then can we hope to arrive at Truth.


As a side note, isn't it possible that the knowledge gained via scientific inquiry (also truth) can also be a pointer toward Truth? In this sense, the scientific quest to 'understand the universe' is not a futile quest, it is simply incomplete. While scientific inquiry does gather a great many useful truths, it may not gather all of them. Therefore, following only those pointers that are gained via science, we might not complete the journey toward Truth. However, if we supplement our treasure chest of truths with scientifically derived truths, we may well find our journey toward Truth much clearer. Science can be a powerful ally.


As a side note, I would like to clarify that Truth should not be seen as something to know but, rather, a way to see. In the ideal sense, this way of seeing that we call Truth is such that the human system is transparent between the seer (also referred to as self) and the seen (also referred to as the universe). This transparency means that the human system is no longer fogging the view with unnecessary or illusory mental constructs concerning Reality (the nature of self and the universe). The human system at this point is an optimized conduit for self (or the seer) to experience and influence the seen.

We can, for purposes of discussion, make the definition that a Seer is a seer who has access to Truth. Alternatively, we can say that a Self is a self that has realized Truth.

The difference between Seer/seer is simply a matter of transparency of the system through which the sight is rendered. The seer exists in a state of seeing a combination of Reality and illusion, and cannot tell the difference. The Seer may also exist in a state of seeing a combination of Reality and illusion, but can tell the difference.

Man... so we agreed with each other all along.

*sniff*

I love you, Dan. Gimme a hug.

clarity

Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him. Therefore, if one has knowledge, he gets what belongs to him and draws it to himself. For he who is ignorant, is deficient, and it is a great deficiency, since he lacks that which will make him perfect. Since the perfection of the All is in the Father, it is necessary for the All to ascend to him and for each one to get the things which are his.

The Gospel of Truth

While a picture can represent many things, I thought, looking for "truth" to be very important as well.

Travelling through research information some things trigger recognition in my mind. I hope the picture and link might help to see much more of what I am trying to do wth that site linked here


First Principles and emergence are important values in what I see of science's progressions. Typed into the search function there, you will see some of the correspondance that is relevant to science currently.

Lao_Tzu--Thank you.

You really do express things so well, and in a way that even I can understand.

I suspect that pure Truth is something that if you could really know it--you just would, and you'd absolutely know you know it, to the point that doubt is literally impossible. Somehow, we do know of Truth, because we are driven to pursue it. Maybe we experience fleeting glimpses from time to time? I often wonder if science as we know it has limitations in this arena and is a crude tool at best for really getting us there. Perhaps there are no words, measurements or even thoughts that can contain or convey Truth. Maybe it's a whole different animal than we're used to. Pessimistically, it's possible that our brains are just not wired in such a way that we'll ever be able to fully grasp Truth. If that's the case, then maybe science will rescue us after all some day, via the Singularity.

I hate to say this, but hallucinogens really sound tempting. How many suburban soccer moms living in the buckle of the bible belt think this way? I haven't met any. There's something wrong with me.

CB--what does FTLI mean? I can guess the F, but the rest escapes me.

Forgot To Log-In.

That's funny, I was just sure the F stood for "Foot in mouth"....

wrong, you can be poisoned without your knowledge and you will die.