"This is my truth"

[DapperButch]

Ok, so the first time I ever saw this statement was on the dash site.

The first time I read it I thought...what does that mean, exactly? Is that just another way of saying, "This is what I believe"? If so, why not just say that?

The statement sounds so awkward to my ears, for some reason. I figured that over time it would stop sounding this way, but it just doesn't.

So, my question (to anyone who wants to answer), am I understanding this statement correctly? If not, what does it mean?

I hear the statement more and more, so I am thinking that I really need to be more clear about what it means for communication purposes!

Disclaimer: This thread is not directed towards any person or any situation where this may have been said. No subtext here, just another case of my "wondering out loud" and wanting to hear from others.

[Bootboi]

I think sometimes it may be as simple as the perception of a certain word.

"I believe" Gives the perception of judgement. Where "My truth" is more personally directed and giving the feeling of no personal judgement to other people's beliefs.

My .2 cents

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Bootboi

I think sometimes it may be as simple as the perception of a certain word.

"I believe" Gives the perception of judgement. Where "My truth" is more personally directed and giving the feeling of no personal judgement to other people's beliefs.

My .2 cents

Bootboi:

See, I get exactly the opposite.

Here's the difference to me:

"I believe" means "Here is how I think the world works. I may or may not have good reasons for it. It might be wishful thinking. I might be right. I might be wrong. I do not necessarily expect you to take my belief seriously."

"This is true to me" means "Here is how the world works. I have very good reasons for saying this. I do not seriously entertain the possibility that I'm wrong about this. "

The first statement seems to me to be less about judgement and more about simple acknowledgement of what is going on in one's own head and is a statement saying that one's level of certainty is at a level that is less than entirely compelling for others. The second statement seems to be more about making a judgement. Because something being true means we should expect the world to *actually* be that way.

I believe that the European social democratic model is a more economically stable, rational and humane way to order a society than the American laissez-faire capitalist model. While I think that my reasons for believing this are fairly strong and I think I can make a pretty damn good empirical case for it, I'm certainly not prepared to say that it is true. Meaning I don't necessarily expect the world to be obliged to be that way.

On the other hand, I know that it is a true statement that Earth orbits the sun. I know it is a true statement that ordinary water is two hydrogen atoms and an oxygen atom. I have very good reasons for believing so. I would be rather surprised to wake up tomorrow morning to find out that the Sun orbits the Earth or that ordinary water is actually comprised of three carbon atoms and four iron atoms. The world is actually obliged to be a certain way because if it were not that way, then something else would be true. I think a statement can be said to be true when it would be perverse to withhold at least provisional assent.

My problem with the 'this is true for me' statement is that if I am going to behave as if that statement has any coherence to it, I'm going to have to *at minimum* treat your statement as if your reasons for believing it are sufficiently strong that I should accept those reasons as valid--at least in my dealings with you. They may not be valid and your statement may be seriously contradicted by evidence.

Cheers
Aj

[Blade]

I'm with you Dapper I don't get it...perhaps I'm learning disabled

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by Blade

I'm with you Dapper I don't get it...perhaps I'm learning disabled

I have been trying to understand it for 20 years now. I still cannot make it make sense to me. The minute I acknowledge the other 7 billion of y'all 'this is my *truth*' just falls completely to shreds.

I like to think I have some brain cells I can rub together and generate heat and I can't make head or tails of it.

Cheers
Aj

[DapperButch]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I have been trying to understand it for 20 years now. I still cannot make it make sense to me. The minute I acknowledge the other 7 billion of y'all 'this is my *truth*' just falls completely to shreds.

I like to think I have some brain cells I can rub together and generate heat and I can't make head or tails of it.

Cheers
Aj

I'm thinking it means, "This is what I believe" + "no matter what you say nothing will change this belief I have"

and/or

"This is what I believe" + "And this is something I know in the deepest part of my soul"

I would really love to hear from people who use this phrase.

[SelfMadeMan]

Great question. I say all.the.time that I am "living my truth", (yes, in RL, and no, I don't own any pearls, lol) and that others should be allowed to live theirs. What I mean specifically by that, is that I feel we each have the right, and the power to decide what is true for us, how we choose to live and be. No one else has the right to tell me how to live my life, nor do I have the right to tell them how to live theirs. It isn't really about what I believe so to speak.. just what *I* decide is right and wrong for me as an individual.

[Star Anise]

I don't tend to use that phrase, but I do think it is important to acknowledge how subjective and personal "truth" can be. I am somewhat skeptical of truth that comes in the category of "universal" or "objective" especially when related to abstract concepts and social constructs. To debatable extents all that we know and feel is our own truth, I think this is part of the human experience.

[Star Anise]

Although in saying that, I just want to add that I do agree that saying "this is my truth" is sometimes used to shut down a conversation, or rebuff confrontational questions because it is very difficult to argue with someones subjective experience.

[ButchBowWow]

Originally Posted by DapperButch

Ok, so the first time I ever saw this statement was on the dash site.

The first time I read it I thought...what does that mean, exactly? Is that just another way of saying, "This is what I believe"? If so, why not just say that?

The statement sounds so awkward to my ears, for some reason. I figured that over time it would stop sounding this way, but it just doesn't.

So, my question (to anyone who wants to answer), am I understanding this statement correctly? If not, what does it mean?

I hear the statement more and more, so I am thinking that I really need to be more clear about what it means for communication purposes!

Disclaimer: This thread is not directed towards any person or any situation where this may have been said. No subtext here, just another case of my "wondering out loud" and wanting to hear from others.

For me, when I hear that my brain translates it to this is my experience.

[dreadgeek]

One of the books I have on my Kindle is "Fear of Knowledge" which, as it turns out, deals with the issues under discussion here. I want to quote at some length to illustrate part of the problem:

"A belief is a particular kind of mental state. If we ask precisely what kind of mental state it is, we can find that it is easy to say. We can describe it in other words, of course, but only in ones that cry out for as much explanation as talk about belief. To believe that Jupiter has sixteen moons, we could say, is to take the world to be such that in it Jupiter has sixteen moons; or to represent the world as containing a particular heavenly body with sixteen moons; and so forth.

Although we may not be able to analyze belief in terms of significantly other concepts, we can see clearly that three aspects are essential to it. Any belief must have a propositional content; any belief can be assessed as true or false; and any belief can be assessed as justfied or unjustified, rational or irrational. Condier Margo's belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons. We attribute this belief with the sentence:

Margo believes that Jupiter has sixteen moons. That Jupiter has sixteen moons, we may say, is the propositional content of what Margo believes.

The propositional content of a belief specifies how the world is according to the belief. It specifies, in other words, a truth condition--how the world would have to be if the belief is to be true. Thus, Margo's belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons is true if and only if Jupiter has sixteen moons. As we may also put it, Margo's belief is true if an only if it is a fact that Jupiter has sixteen moons...We could equally say that the belief that Jupiter has sixteen moons is true just in case the entity referred to by the concept in the subject position--namely, the concept Jupiter--has the property denoted by the concept in the object position--namely, the concept has sixteen moons. Since the entity in question doesn't have the property at issue--Jupiter, it turns out, has over thirty moons--the belief is false.

I have just asserted that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Obviously, my saying it is so doesn't automatically make it so, otherwise there could not be any such things as a false assertion. If my assertion is true it is because, in addition to my saying it, it's a fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Well, let us suppose my assertion is true--that is, that the corresponding fact obtains.

Here's an interesting question: Does it follow from its being a fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons that it's a fact for everyone that Jupiter has over thirty moons, that it's a fact for all communities?

Well, it depends upon what one means by the phrase 'it's a fact for everyone." It certainly not a fact for everyone in the sense that everyone believes that proposition that Jupiter has over thirty moons. Some may never have considered the question; others may have come to the opposite conclusion. So, in the utterly trivial sens in which I may believe in a fact while others don't, some facts are facts for me but not for others.

But if what we mean is something more ambitious--that the fact that Jupiter has over thirty moons can somehow "hold" for me but not for you, that seems harder to comprehend. After all, my belief is not in the proposition Jupiter has over thirty moons for me but, rather, in the impersonal proposition Jupiter has over thirty moons. So, if we say that that belief is true, then it looks as though the corresponding fact has to obtain for everyone, whether they are inclined to believe it or not...In the case of Jupiter's having over thirty moons, we can go further: it's not merely that it looks to be universal, it also looks to be completely mind-independent: it would have obtained even if human beings had never existed. By contrast, the fact that there is money in the world is not a mind-independent fact--money could not have existed without persons and their intentions to exchange goods with one another.

(Paul Boghassian -- Fear of Knowledge)

Again, my concerns are not those personal beliefs that are interior but about those impersonal facts about the world. Those are the point of maximum interest because those are the points of greatest possible tension.

So I have a question for those who hold to the idea that we each carry, in our own heads, our own truth about the *impersonal* world; what is it that such a belief is supposed to 'buy' us? What benefit are we gaining from this belief that justify the cost of it? (And as I've said, the cost we pay is non-trivial)

Cheers
Aj

[tapu]

Jupiter has 30 moons can't be "my truth" even if I fervently believe it. It's something I could be wrong about and I know it, and even if I don't it has a different essence than "my truth": The way Jo (and others) are explaining "my truth," the determiner of what is true is internal to the speaker. It's not an empirical fact; it has an external truth condition.

Or something like that.

[Licious]

This is a fun thread, on one of my favorite current topics (okay several of my favorite subjects are embodied in this thread, to be accurate)

In a society where I want to see change and affect change, discussions of logic, people's individual belief systems, what kind of verbage produces results counter-productive to individual civil rights - are of great interest to me.

I realize this is not contributing to the topic at hand, rather, I am here to cheer you all on as I read and reflect.

If I have something intelligent to add, I will chime in as the thread progresses.

Thanks everyone!