Moral and Epistemic Relativism

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

I was agreeing with Wagner.

At one time, people thought the world was flat. It was their truth, at that time. Then, we discovered the world was round. A new truth appeared.

It would be presumptuous for me as a mere human to think everything I take for granted as truth at this point in time is the end all and be all of the truth. At some point, someone may indeed be able to prove a new truth.

Hence, a collective hunch is an agreed upon reality which is subject to change as our knowledge expands.

I'm curious, why call it their truth and not their belief? It wasn't true, they believed it to be true but that didn't make it any less a false belief for all that. I understand that people do not old beliefs they *know* to be false but it seems that calling something 'their truth' gives a false belief a pride of place it does not merit. Did a 'new' truth appear or did humans finally get it correct? I would argue the latter. Certainly, all our knowledge (well, very large swaths of it) should come with the proviso of "to the best of our knowledge, at this time, subject to modification without prior notice". However, when that day comes in some knowledge domain or another what would be so wrong about stating "in 2010, humans believed this to be true. They were, of course, wrong about that because...".

[Kobi]

Had to think about this but again, I believe we are saying the same thing using different words.

Call it truth or belief or hamburger, it is still the prevailing agreed upon thought/perception at a given time which is based on our understanding of a certain body of knowledge which is intrepreted in a certain way using certain words and concepts which are agreed upon to reflect the situation.

Simplistic interpretation of above....reality is a collective hunch at a certain time, in a certain place by a certain group of people using a certain criteria by which to evaluate a certain thing.

Our knowledge and the ways we are able to apply it are growing at a tremendous rate. So, all in all, maybe the question should be is there an ultimate truth, an end all be all truth, at which point humans would say yes we are done searching because this is it. Or, is the potential for knowledge so great that our search for truth(s) is an infinite project.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm curious, why call it their truth and not their belief? It wasn't true, they believed it to be true but that didn't make it any less a false belief for all that. I understand that people do not old beliefs they *know* to be false but it seems that calling something 'their truth' gives a false belief a pride of place it does not merit. Did a 'new' truth appear or did humans finally get it correct? I would argue the latter. Certainly, all our knowledge (well, very large swaths of it) should come with the proviso of "to the best of our knowledge, at this time, subject to modification without prior notice". However, when that day comes in some knowledge domain or another what would be so wrong about stating "in 2010, humans believed this to be true. They were, of course, wrong about that because...".

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Had to think about this but again, I believe we are saying the same thing using different words.

Call it truth or belief or hamburger, it is still the prevailing agreed upon thought/perception at a given time which is based on our understanding of a certain body of knowledge which is intrepreted in a certain way using certain words and concepts which are agreed upon to reflect the situation.

Simplistic interpretation of above....reality is a collective hunch at a certain time, in a certain place by a certain group of people using a certain criteria by which to evaluate a certain thing.

Our knowledge and the ways we are able to apply it are growing at a tremendous rate. So, all in all, maybe the question should be is there an ultimate truth, an end all be all truth, at which point humans would say yes we are done searching because this is it. Or, is the potential for knowledge so great that our search for truth(s) is an infinite project.

That's an interesting question. I think there are SOME ultimate truths but I think that there are probably only a handful of them and almost all of them are going to fall into one of the physical sciences. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is one such Ultimate Truth. As one eminent physicist put it:

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

I think to know what ultimate truths there are, we will ultimately have to meet another sentient species at or beyond our technological level to see what they hit upon. I expect that if we ever do have such an encounter, we'll agree on the speed of light, we'll agree that the Universe is expanding, they will have some kind of formulation approximating classical mechanics, they'll have some kind of formulation approximating Einstein's theories of relativity, they'll have something along the lines of the atomic model and we'll agree on things like the approximate value of pi and they'll have something recognizable as quantum mechanics. I suspect that they'll understand our chemistry although not, necessarily, our organic chemistry if they aren't from a world where life is carbon based as it is here. (Silicon based life is possible, it just didn't happen here.)

After that, I think the areas that we would agree upon would fall off rather quickly. I don't think we can make any kind of pretensions to Ultimate Truth claims about the purpose of the Universe or the nature of a divine being if any such thing exists. All our religious claims are local affairs. All our history is local (although I still think that there are truth claims about history that can be made). By local, I mean here on Earth and I'm willing to be generous and extend it out to the whole of the solar system but not beyond that.

[Kobi]

This is something I must think about as the mention of the second law of thermodynamics made my eyes glaze over. Brain fatigue perhaps. Fresh eyes and brain may help. Will revisit tomorrow.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

That's an interesting question. I think there are SOME ultimate truths but I think that there are probably only a handful of them and almost all of them are going to fall into one of the physical sciences. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is one such Ultimate Truth. As one eminent physicist put it:

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

I think to know what ultimate truths there are, we will ultimately have to meet another sentient species at or beyond our technological level to see what they hit upon. I expect that if we ever do have such an encounter, we'll agree on the speed of light, we'll agree that the Universe is expanding, they will have some kind of formulation approximating classical mechanics, they'll have some kind of formulation approximating Einstein's theories of relativity, they'll have something along the lines of the atomic model and we'll agree on things like the approximate value of pi and they'll have something recognizable as quantum mechanics. I suspect that they'll understand our chemistry although not, necessarily, our organic chemistry if they aren't from a world where life is carbon based as it is here. (Silicon based life is possible, it just didn't happen here.)

After that, I think the areas that we would agree upon would fall off rather quickly. I don't think we can make any kind of pretensions to Ultimate Truth claims about the purpose of the Universe or the nature of a divine being if any such thing exists. All our religious claims are local affairs. All our history is local (although I still think that there are truth claims about history that can be made). By local, I mean here on Earth and I'm willing to be generous and extend it out to the whole of the solar system but not beyond that.

[Kobi]

After careful thought and brain gymnastics, I am thinking we disagree on a central premise. I believe you are saying their are absolutes truths for which no other explanation will ever be found by humankind as a species.

I believe otherwise. I believe anything, including the second law of thermodynamics , can be proven to be a false truth or an incomplete truth. I think as we develop new techologies and ask new questions in our research, the possibility exists for new explanations or clarifications for previously held truths.

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

That's an interesting question. I think there are SOME ultimate truths but I think that there are probably only a handful of them and almost all of them are going to fall into one of the physical sciences. The Second Law of Thermodynamics is one such Ultimate Truth. As one eminent physicist put it:

"The law that entropy always increases holds, I think, the supreme position among the laws of Nature. If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations — then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation — well, these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation." — Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, The Nature of the Physical World (1927)

I think to know what ultimate truths there are, we will ultimately have to meet another sentient species at or beyond our technological level to see what they hit upon. I expect that if we ever do have such an encounter, we'll agree on the speed of light, we'll agree that the Universe is expanding, they will have some kind of formulation approximating classical mechanics, they'll have some kind of formulation approximating Einstein's theories of relativity, they'll have something along the lines of the atomic model and we'll agree on things like the approximate value of pi and they'll have something recognizable as quantum mechanics. I suspect that they'll understand our chemistry although not, necessarily, our organic chemistry if they aren't from a world where life is carbon based as it is here. (Silicon based life is possible, it just didn't happen here.)

After that, I think the areas that we would agree upon would fall off rather quickly. I don't think we can make any kind of pretensions to Ultimate Truth claims about the purpose of the Universe or the nature of a divine being if any such thing exists. All our religious claims are local affairs. All our history is local (although I still think that there are truth claims about history that can be made). By local, I mean here on Earth and I'm willing to be generous and extend it out to the whole of the solar system but not beyond that.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Kobi

After careful thought and brain gymnastics, I am thinking we disagree on a central premise. I believe you are saying their are absolutes truths for which no other explanation will ever be found by humankind as a species.

I believe otherwise. I believe anything, including the second law of thermodynamics , can be proven to be a false truth or an incomplete truth. I think as we develop new techologies and ask new questions in our research, the possibility exists for new explanations or clarifications for previously held truths.

That's not *exactly* what I'm saying. I always hold out the possibility that, for instance, the laws of thermodynamics could be overturned although I think that's vanishingly improbable. I like to use a scale from 0 - 1 with 0 being "certainly untrue" and 1 being "certainly true". Very large swaths of physics, for instance, I think are in the .7 to .9 range. It's *possible* but extraordinarily improbable that we're wrong. There are other areas, string theory for instance, where I have moved from the .4 - .5 range (probably true) to the .1 - .3 range (almost certainly not true). I'm never absolutely certain because of one of the sayings that I keep on the wall of my study: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."

That said, I think that most of the time we can proceed as-if some matter were settled until Nature, which always has the last word, says otherwise. Now, there are some areas that I'm pretty close to certain. The atomic model, the quantum mechanical model, the Einstein model of gravity and space-time and, on this planet, evolution are all .8 or .9 certainties for me. If any of those are wrong then not only are their respective domains irreparably broken but we, all 6 billion of us, are living in a very elaborate collective hallucination. What I mean by this is that, for instance, if the atomic and quantum mechanical models are wrong then you aren't reading this and I'm not typing this because computers don't work. If evolution is wrong then Nature has a lot to answer for because there's all kinds of genetic evidence that makes no sense except in the light of evolution. If thermodynamics is wrong then, again, Nature needs to explain why the flat tire I had on my bike a couple of weeks ago will never spontaneously inflate itself and why the coffee cup one of my cats broke will never spontaneously reform itself. (I would put the 2nd law in the .01 certainty range because of the kinds of examples above.)

There are no areas of science that I think are settled in that there's no more work to be done in them. If you think that's what I'm saying then that's entirely not what I’m saying. However, I AM saying that, barring contradicting evidence, I can proceed in my field of bioinformatics *as if* the chemistry underlying biology was a, more or less, settled matter at least in the broad outline and that the physics underlying the chemistry is also a settled matter, again at least in the broad outline.

I'm curious about something. How do you deal with past false truths? The reason I'm asking is because the examples I use to play with these ideas in my head all, generally, orbit around either the physical sciences or questions related to things that people believed in the past. For example, what kind of truth value would you give to the 19th century belief that I, as a black woman, was not quite really human. Was it true then but not true now? Was it false then and false now? The reason I ask is NOT--and I want to make this clear--because I think your'e racist but because it's a tough question. If we want to grant 19th century people that their worldview was consistent, valid and *true* and we are going to grant their beliefs the dignity of saying "well, it was true then" it begs the question of when racial bigotry became an injustice.

For example, no one ever complains that it is unjust that 18 months old infants aren't allowed to drive cars or fly jumbo jets. Everyone recognizes that 18 month olds lack the physical or mental abilities to do so and so, forbidding them from those activities isn't an injustice. Even if there were some extraordinarily precocious 18 month old who could it still wouldn't be an injustice since the *average* behavior of children of that age completely justified society forbidding kids from doing those things. So quite a bit turns on how we treat false beliefs from the past. If we grant those beliefs that were based in bigotry the dignity of calling them truths--even if we do not believe them ourselves--then what grounds do we have to claim that an injustice was being perpetrated? If blacks really WERE not-quite-human in the 19th century then on what grounds can we say that slavery was actually an evil? Is it an evil to keep a pet dog? Is it an evil to keep a cow? Slavery is an evil because it is wrong to use or treat humans as mere instruments but we draw a line between humans and other, less neurologically gifted, animals.

Do you see what I'm driving at?

[Kobi]

I might see what you are driving at. Then again I might not LOL.

Your field of expertise seems to be in the physical sciences and emperical data. My expertise is in the social sciences and quantifing things isnt quite as exact or easy.

You look at probability and in assigning it a value, proceed according to where on your scale something fits i.e. if there is a high probability, you can go with it. If there is a low probability, you might be more hesitant.

I look at possibility and try not to assign it a value judgement because in doing so, I limit its potential expressions. Any value judgement I give something automatically skews the results and pushes something in the direction of my value judgement.

Are we on the same page or am I still not understanding your perspective?

To answer your illustration of the history of slavery and how to quanitfy this historically....from my perspective.....I wouldnt want to give it any value that implies judgement for in doing so I am denying the potential process that may have been evolving during that time. For example, I would wonder if slave owners had any dealing with persons of other races before they had an economic need for laborers. I would want to know if they had preconceived notions and where they might have come from. Or, perhaps, did the slave traders introduce the idea that the people they were enslaving in Africa perpetuate the idea of savages and subhuman concepts in order to bolster and find support for their business - i.e. weird marketing technique.

Seeing I wasnt around back then and racism as a concept hadnt yet been developed, it behooves me to describe the process in its economic context rather than give it a value judgement based on current understandings.

I presume it might be easier to say were people inherently racist, even tho the concept didnt exist then, or was their behavior the result of something else.

I guess I am trying not to ignore the evolutionary aspects of the human experience by judging things based on an understanding that was not available at the time.

Am I making sense?

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

That's not *exactly* what I'm saying. I always hold out the possibility that, for instance, the laws of thermodynamics could be overturned although I think that's vanishingly improbable. I like to use a scale from 0 - 1 with 0 being "certainly untrue" and 1 being "certainly true". Very large swaths of physics, for instance, I think are in the .7 to .9 range. It's *possible* but extraordinarily improbable that we're wrong. There are other areas, string theory for instance, where I have moved from the .4 - .5 range (probably true) to the .1 - .3 range (almost certainly not true). I'm never absolutely certain because of one of the sayings that I keep on the wall of my study: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."

That said, I think that most of the time we can proceed as-if some matter were settled until Nature, which always has the last word, says otherwise. Now, there are some areas that I'm pretty close to certain. The atomic model, the quantum mechanical model, the Einstein model of gravity and space-time and, on this planet, evolution are all .8 or .9 certainties for me. If any of those are wrong then not only are their respective domains irreparably broken but we, all 6 billion of us, are living in a very elaborate collective hallucination. What I mean by this is that, for instance, if the atomic and quantum mechanical models are wrong then you aren't reading this and I'm not typing this because computers don't work. If evolution is wrong then Nature has a lot to answer for because there's all kinds of genetic evidence that makes no sense except in the light of evolution. If thermodynamics is wrong then, again, Nature needs to explain why the flat tire I had on my bike a couple of weeks ago will never spontaneously inflate itself and why the coffee cup one of my cats broke will never spontaneously reform itself. (I would put the 2nd law in the .01 certainty range because of the kinds of examples above.)

There are no areas of science that I think are settled in that there's no more work to be done in them. If you think that's what I'm saying then that's entirely not what I’m saying. However, I AM saying that, barring contradicting evidence, I can proceed in my field of bioinformatics *as if* the chemistry underlying biology was a, more or less, settled matter at least in the broad outline and that the physics underlying the chemistry is also a settled matter, again at least in the broad outline.

I'm curious about something. How do you deal with past false truths? The reason I'm asking is because the examples I use to play with these ideas in my head all, generally, orbit around either the physical sciences or questions related to things that people believed in the past. For example, what kind of truth value would you give to the 19th century belief that I, as a black woman, was not quite really human. Was it true then but not true now? Was it false then and false now? The reason I ask is NOT--and I want to make this clear--because I think your'e racist but because it's a tough question. If we want to grant 19th century people that their worldview was consistent, valid and *true* and we are going to grant their beliefs the dignity of saying "well, it was true then" it begs the question of when racial bigotry became an injustice.

For example, no one ever complains that it is unjust that 18 months old infants aren't allowed to drive cars or fly jumbo jets. Everyone recognizes that 18 month olds lack the physical or mental abilities to do so and so, forbidding them from those activities isn't an injustice. Even if there were some extraordinarily precocious 18 month old who could it still wouldn't be an injustice since the *average* behavior of children of that age completely justified society forbidding kids from doing those things. So quite a bit turns on how we treat false beliefs from the past. If we grant those beliefs that were based in bigotry the dignity of calling them truths--even if we do not believe them ourselves--then what grounds do we have to claim that an injustice was being perpetrated? If blacks really WERE not-quite-human in the 19th century then on what grounds can we say that slavery was actually an evil? Is it an evil to keep a pet dog? Is it an evil to keep a cow? Slavery is an evil because it is wrong to use or treat humans as mere instruments but we draw a line between humans and other, less neurologically gifted, animals.

Do you see what I'm driving at?

[EnderD_503]

Ok, just a heads up, I wrote up this post last weekend and was going to reread it and post it, but since I've been at work practically 24/7 the last week I didn't get a chance to do either. This is in response to Emmy and atomiczombie, for the rest who quoted me, some of your responses are addressed in some way in the post since they are similar to what Emmy and atmiczombie addressed, but I will post again later to try and clarify as far as those responses are concerned. Excuse the typos if any and rushed nature of the post, I didn't get a chance to reread. Here it be:

Thanks for your response Emmy.

In your first paragraph you write that “if the aim here is to show that an act can be right or wrong only insofar as people judge it to be, I don’t think the case has been made.” I’m curious about the reasoning behind your objection to the idea that morality (or the “right” or “wrong” nature of a given act) is entirely dependant upon the existence of man-made belief systems. What evidence is there to suggest that these acts inherently contain any moral substance when examined outside their respective systems? Belief systems are very much like a codex for the interpretation of information. Without the system or the aligning discourse they are stripped of moral meaning. For example, the end of human life on earth is one that is looked upon as negative, wrong, evil, bad, generally an unfortunate turn of events and yet take away the human desire to survive in that judgement and said apocalypse is neither positive nor negative; it simply is. The same goes for any act or event. What lends an act or an event its rightness or wrongness (particularly if one does not hold any religious belief, or any belief whatever in a sentient higher power)? What inherently grants an act moral meaning?

Originally Posted by Emmy

However, if the crucial point you make in your first paragraph is instead that particular moral codes, developed and upheld by particular cultures, must be remembered to be cultural products -and not, a priori, correct in their moral judgments - I'm with you entirely.

I do agree that one must remember that a particular moral code is a cultural product, however, I do not agree that there exists any inherently correct moral judgement. What causes one to be a more correct moral judgement than the other? Again, one requires that the judgement be made according to a particular system, otherwise it can be easily interpreted in a myriad of ways. The crux of my argument is: what determines the moral nature of a given act, if not man-made systems?

Both you and atomiczombie asked similar questions about my discrimination example and so I'm going to answer you both of you, particularly regarding what you both thought appeared to be a contradiction in my argument. Before I began I would like to say that my argument involves inherent morality, meaning a moral code that exists beyond the human mind and that is, thusly, universal.

Originally Posted by Emmy

I would also like to point out that, implicit in your argument, I contend, is the notion that discrimination against target groups is a bad thing. (And yes, I certainly agree ) But what underlies that assumption if not a moral judgment?

Originally Posted by atomiczombie

I find it interesting that you say this. I am wondering if you mean the same thing as I mean when I talk about reductionism. If so, then might that evaluation be a judgement too? What I am getting at is that making evaluations about whether or not something is say, "discrimination" or not, is implying that discrimination is wrong, or at the very least that some people who pass moral judgments on others is hypocrisy, which is a judgment in itself and also implies wrongness. At least that is what I hear you saying, and if I am wrong then please correct me.

I would like to clarify that nowhere in my post did I state that discrimination was inherently wrong. To evaluate something as discrimination is not a proclamation of its inherent wrongness. It is not an implication of wrongness until connotation is applied (which typically implies adherence to a specific system of thought) to meaning. Context, here, again implies system of thought. For example, within certain discourses the discrimination of individuals according to specific racial or sexual characteristics is not given a negative connotation, while in others it is. Discrimination itself is only positive or negative according to discourse, but is inherently neither.

Atomiczombie, you mentioned you were a philosophy student. You must certainly be familiar with Derrida and his Dissemination, then. Just as one may read a text according to a certain system (for example, what one would take from Milton's Paradise Lost using a Marxist lense differs from what one would take using Heidegger or Freud as a decoder), so can one read an act according to a certain system. Derrida wrote that when one reads a text, one both reads and creates, and that is arguably also the case with an act. One witnesses an act either directly or indirectly, and as this is done the act is also analysed and interpreted.

To clarify my meaning further: I do not need to believe that discrimination is inherently wrong in order to disagree with it or even to fight against it. I am both able to recognise that discrimination is not inherently wrong, as well as that it is not advantageous to my personal survival, yet, simultaneously, I recognise that what is disadvantageous to me or to the majority of human beings is not equatable with inherent wrongness since that would require a sort of universal archetype for right and wrong (similar to Aquinas's discussion of the goodness of god in relation to human and natural goodness discussed in his Summa Theologica, or similar to Plato's cave allegory). If morality is not man-made then it must come from some source, but if moral questions require a so-called human element then they are not absolute nor universal. As Nietzsche wrote in On Truth and Lies In A Non-moral Sense: "In some remote corner of the universe, flickering in the light of the countless solar systems into which it had been poured, there was once a planet on which clever animals invented cognition. It was the most arrogant and most mendacious minute in the 'history of the world'; but a minute was all it was. After nature had drawn just a few more breaths the planet froze and the clever animals had to die. Someone could invent a fable like this and yet they would still not have given a satisfactory illustration of just how pitiful, how insubstantial and transitory, how purposeless and arbitrary the human intellect looks within nature; there were eternities during which it did not exist; and when it has disappeared again, nothing will have happened. For this intellect has no further mission that might extend beyond the bounds of human life. Rather, the intellect is human, and only its own possessor and progenitor regards it with such pathos, as if it housed the axis around which the entire world revolved." Morality is centred upon species survival and moral codes (whether culture specific or pan-human) more often than not revolve around survival.

And yet, I would argue that what you describe is no absolutely human element at all, but, rather, the element of any living thing concerned with survival. I do not deny that the judgements I make are coloured by my own mortality, and yet neither do I consider them moral judgements, for I am able to recognise that no matter my judgement, that judgement is not absolute, but centres around purposiveness rather than absolute truth.

I agree that fact does not imply conclusion (like an act or a text they are interpretable according to thought system), and that it is up to the individual to interpret fact, however, this does not bring me to agree with Kierkegaard.

I'd like to delve further into how this relates to my example in my previous post. To do so I'd like to go back to this statement of yours, atomiczombie: "What I am getting at is that making evaluations about whether or not something is say, "discrimination" or not, is implying that discrimination is wrong, or at the very least that some people who pass moral judgments on others is hypocrisy, which is a judgment in itself and also implies wrongness."

I've already touched upon why I don't believe that evaluating something as discrimination is implying wrongness, but I'd like to get to the second part that states that "at the very least some people who pass moral judgments on others is hypocrisy, which is a judgment in itself and also implies wrongness."

It is not that I believe passing moral judgements on others is hypocrisy, but, rather, that I believe waging a war of moral judgements is not particularly practical when you can use concrete evidence and logical conclusion, since science provides a good foundation for debating against those who would claim homosexuality "unnatural." Both sides turn into emotional maelstroms ranting and raving about what is undeniably" "right" and "wrong," and both begin to take on the stench of fanaticism rather than logic. I dislike discrimination because it denies me the freedom to be, to speak, to act, and requires that I adhere to notions that I do not agree with. This has little to do with a personal moral code, and more to do with my preference toward the freedom to analyse, to question and to be something that may defy current convention. If we focused on the science we would note that homosexuality and bisexuality are far from "unnatural," and if either were some form of “unnatural evil” then Phelps would surely need to rename his website to "god hates bonobos" or "god hates homo sapiens sapiens." Fueling the fire by waging our own moral crusade really does not do much good in overcoming discrimination. In an age where scientific understanding demonstrates more and more that fact is without bias, I am perfectly content to simply be, rather than to be good or evil or even a combination of both.

And as far as you example of the woman in the car hitting the child, what if no one were there to see her, or if no one knew of her act except for her and she thought nothing ill of it? Morality requires that something or someone judge an act, it must have a source. Without a human source of judgment it would require some other source. And that is the question I ask to both of you: what is the source of morality, if not human?

[Nat]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I'm curious, why call it their truth and not their belief? It wasn't true, they believed it to be true but that didn't make it any less a false belief for all that. I understand that people do not old beliefs they *know* to be false but it seems that calling something 'their truth' gives a false belief a pride of place it does not merit. Did a 'new' truth appear or did humans finally get it correct? I would argue the latter. Certainly, all our knowledge (well, very large swaths of it) should come with the proviso of "to the best of our knowledge, at this time, subject to modification without prior notice". However, when that day comes in some knowledge domain or another what would be so wrong about stating "in 2010, humans believed this to be true. They were, of course, wrong about that because...".

I think this is an interesting question.

I know that my own tendency toward using the word "truth" or even "fact" about beliefs from the past which have been proven untrue has to do with imagining myself in the world of the past while speaking of it.

If I imagine myself in that world, the common "knowledge", the perceived "truth" and accepted "facts" seem to make up the skeletal structure of that world. The "beliefs" of that world would be something I might imagine as soft tissue.

The way you state things there at the end bridges the gap for me - "believed to be true" makes perfect sense to me - though I don't know if I would spontaneously come to these words on my own, nor would I mind referring to those past false understandings as "truths".

I think the word "truth" is also murkier because it is used so much in a spiritual context. If religions are always seeking the "Truth", if people are always looking for their inner "truth" - it's already understood that this definition of truth has nothing to do with physical reality and facts. So in some ways, "truth" might even be its own antonym.

[Kobi]

Is it a false understanding or an incomplete understanding? Or, perhaps did we ask the wrong question?

Example. A generalize agreement over centuries and today is the sky is blue. But by todays knowledge we know that when transmitted light such as sunlight enters our atmosphere it collides with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The color with the shorter wavelength is scattered more by this collision. Because violet and blue are the shortest wavelengths the sky appears to be violet / blue. But because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light than they are violet light, we perceive the sky as blue.

So is the sky blue because it is blue or is it blue because human eyes perceive it is blue? Or is it blue because the neurochemistry of the brain is telling the eye what it is perceiving is the color blue? Or, have I now totally confused even myself?

Originally Posted by Nat

I think this is an interesting question.

I know that my own tendency toward using the word "truth" or even "fact" about beliefs from the past which have been proven untrue has to do with imagining myself in the world of the past while speaking of it.

If I imagine myself in that world, the common "knowledge", the perceived "truth" and accepted "facts" seem to make up the skeletal structure of that world. The "beliefs" of that world would be something I might imagine as soft tissue.

The way you state things there at the end bridges the gap for me - "believed to be true" makes perfect sense to me - though I don't know if I would spontaneously come to these words on my own, nor would I mind referring to those past false understandings as "truths".

I think the word "truth" is also murkier because it is used so much in a spiritual context. If religions are always seeking the "Truth", if people are always looking for their inner "truth" - it's already understood that this definition of truth has nothing to do with physical reality and facts. So in some ways, "truth" might even be its own antonym.

[little man]

Originally Posted by Kobi

Is it a false understanding or an incomplete understanding? Or, perhaps did we ask the wrong question?

Example. A generalize agreement over centuries and today is the sky is blue. But by todays knowledge we know that when transmitted light such as sunlight enters our atmosphere it collides with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The color with the shorter wavelength is scattered more by this collision. Because violet and blue are the shortest wavelengths the sky appears to be violet / blue. But because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light than they are violet light, we perceive the sky as blue.

So is the sky blue because it is blue or is it blue because human eyes perceive it is blue? Or is it blue because the neurochemistry of the brain is telling the eye what it is perceiving is the color blue? Or, have I now totally confused even myself?

for me, this tracks back to relativity. relative to time, perception and (as you've stated) generally agreed upon notions.

if you take into account folks who are color blind, animals that don't see color...where does that leave the 'factuality' of "the sky is blue"?

[Kobi]

Good point. Kind of gives new meaning to...in the eye of the beholder.

Originally Posted by little man

for me, this tracks back to relativity. relative to time, perception and (as you've stated) generally agreed upon notions.

if you take into account folks who are color blind, animals that don't see color...where does that leave the 'factuality' of "the sky is blue"?

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by little man

for me, this tracks back to relativity. relative to time, perception and (as you've stated) generally agreed upon notions.

if you take into account folks who are color blind, animals that don't see color...where does that leave the 'factuality' of "the sky is blue"?

To say 'the sky is blue' is a close approximation and true enough for our species. Ultimately, we perceive it as blue for the reasons that Kobi gets into (more on that in a minute) and that makes it true for all the members of homo sapiens that can see color. (I suspect, given WHY we have color vision and where it came from, that if chimps, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos could talk that they would agree with us about the color of the sky. I suspect that the old-world primates probably would as well because our visual systems evolved to solve the same kind of problem.)

I want to make clear that when I'm talking about truths I am talking (mostly) about a localized (meaning here on Earth) phenomena. Sci-fi geek and aspiring science fiction author that I am, I can easily imagine sentient beings that see into a different part of the electromagnetic spectrum than we do who would see, for instance, radio waves or something.

Originally Posted by Kobi

Is it a false understanding or an incomplete understanding? Or, perhaps did we ask the wrong question?

Example. A generalize agreement over centuries and today is the sky is blue. But by todays knowledge we know that when transmitted light such as sunlight enters our atmosphere it collides with the oxygen and nitrogen atoms. The color with the shorter wavelength is scattered more by this collision. Because violet and blue are the shortest wavelengths the sky appears to be violet / blue. But because our eyes are more sensitive to blue light than they are violet light, we perceive the sky as blue.

So is the sky blue because it is blue or is it blue because human eyes perceive it is blue? Or is it blue because the neurochemistry of the brain is telling the eye what it is perceiving is the color blue? Or, have I now totally confused even myself?

LOL. I follow you. I give a lot of thought to this kind of thing. Since vision is a neurochemical process what we're really talking about is that our eyes evolved to see a particular part of the light spectrum and so we see the sky as blue. The sky is not *really* blue. However, the reasons why we see the sky as blue are objective and empirical. Any animal that has eyes tuned by evolution to be sensitive to the same part of the spectrum as ours will agree with us. If we ever meet another technological species we would likely agree on what was happening in our eyes even if they saw a different part of the spectrum than we do--they might disagree with us on what 'visible' light means but they would recognize, as do we, that what we call light is the same thing as microwaves which is the same thing as radio waves. I can easily imagine a slightly different homo sapiens with a slightly different visual system that is, say, closer to bees which see further into the violet end of the spectrum than we do. What bees see as color is valid and genuine for them. However, if a bee Stephen Hawking were to sit down with the primate Stephen Hawking, they would agree on *what* light was they would just disagree on how one defines 'visible' light.

The question of 'ultimate' truth is stickier although, again, I still think that there are some ultimate truths that can be known. Almost ALL of them fall into the realm of the physical sciences and all of the examples I can think of off the top of my head certainly fall into them. Unfortunately, we have an inconveniently small sample size for knowing about ultimate truth claims regarding living things because we only have the living things here. However, everywhere we have looked in the Universe we have seen certain things:

Gravity holds throughout the Universe.
Light is the fastest moving thing throughout the Universe.
As far as we can tell, all three laws of thermodynamics hold throughout the Universe.
This means that, most likely, very large swaths of chemistry will probably be true throughout the Universe.

One of the reasons why I bring in the physical sciences is because much of what we have discovered appears to be invariant wherever we look. When talking about truth claims the sciences give us a means of testing our claims, a language to use to talk about where we have it right, where we have it wrong and where we have no idea what-so-ever. For me, the physical sciences form the foundation of how we know about the world we live in. We can argue about why the Civil War happened. We can argue about the relative truth claims undergirding the various religions. We can debate whether Marx or Smith or Ricardo or Rand or Hayek was right about economics. However, there is nothing so real as a rock that has landed on your toe or that glass that you knocked off the table which shattered when it hit the floor.