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How Do We Know Something is True?

DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
Scientists, of course! They know everything and what they don't know they can make up good sounding theories to compensate!
 

Willamena

Just me
Premium Member
So what, I need to spell it out for you?

What is true cannot be untrue, yet facts have been proven untrue many times in the past, so they are not truth. Facts are evidence of truth, very creditable and reliable evidence of truth.
What is the "fact" at any given moment is what is true.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
So what, I need to spell it out for you?

What is true cannot be untrue, yet facts have been proven untrue many times in the past, so they are not truth. Facts are evidence of truth, very creditable and reliable evidence of truth.
Facts have not been proven untrue, what was believed to be fact was proven untrue. In other words, it was not fact.
 

Kapalika

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Something thinks, therefore something exists. Everything else could be systems that only exist within that somethings capacity to think. Something is known to be true in a system if it is analytically proven within the rules of that system. Something is accepted as true if it reliable within that system. Reliability is best measured through statistics.

True means that it corresponds to the reality of the system.

Objections?

Wouldn't this view depend on the belief that truth is inherently subjective? If so, I disagree; at least, unless we clarify it as "subjective truth" but that's a whole different beast from just plain "truth".

I think my views echo what @Erebus said about objective truth but I would disagree on his definition of subjective truth and what it means.

You can't know truth if you don't know Jesus. Jesus is the truth.

What about Satan or Shiva?

That's to say, knowledge may be right or wrong. Knowledge is not the same thing as fact.

I find this thought very interesting... we tend to use the word knowledge to mean "correct belief backed up by evidence" but really... maybe knowledge is more akin to what has been experienced or observed and belief is just what is thought of to be true without any evidence or experience.

So then what is it to correctly know truth?
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Wouldn't this view depend on the belief that truth is inherently subjective? If so, I disagree; at least, unless we clarify it as "subjective truth" but that's a whole different beast from just plain "truth".
No. Truth is not defined as subjective from this.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
By this statement, fact cannot be truth.

Defining fact as "truth" is fine, but it does not address the leading question in the thread's OP, which to paraphrase, is "How do we know that a proposition is true"? So I'm curious about how you'd answer that question?
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
If it was untrue, how could it be a fact?

Is that a real question? A fact is just an observation that meet certain standards, and it is possible for humans to be wrong when they declare something a fact. Some of you seem to be pretending that facts are never untrue, but that is simply not the case.
 

Curious George

Veteran Member
Is that real question? A fact is just an observation that meet certain standards, and it is possible for humans to be wrong when they declare something a fact. Some of you seem to be pretending that facts are never untrue, but that is simply not the case.
No, observations that meet certain standards are acceptable to use as facts, but they are not necessarily, in fact, facts...
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
No, observations that meet certain standards are acceptable to use as facts, but they are not necessarily, in fact, facts...

No, observations that meet certain standards are acceptable to use as flim flam bing doo doos, but they are not necessarily, in flim flam bing doo doo, flim flam bing doo doos...
 

Jeremiahcp

Well-Known Jerk
Defining fact as "truth" is fine, but it does not address the leading question in the thread's OP, which to paraphrase, is "How do we know that a proposition is true"? So I'm curious about how you'd answer that question?

We know something is true when it is a fact and we know something is a fact when it is true. I mean get with the program, @Sunstone .
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
The only thing that I can be reasonably certain of is anything I see or experience first-hand. And even then, there may be an element of doubt since even my own memories are fallible.

Out of curiosity then, how would you define "knowledge"? So far as you are concerned, what sort of things can be known to you?
 

PureX

Veteran Member
That I asked does not entail truth to your proposition.
You were trying to play the "game of absolutes", wherein any statement that cannot be proven absolutely true, must then it be dismissed as absolutely untrue. The hidden presumption being that relative truthfulness equals falsity. It's a fools game and we've already wasted too much energy on it.
 

SalixIncendium

अहं ब्रह्मास्मि
Staff member
Premium Member
Defining fact as "truth" is fine, but it does not address the leading question in the thread's OP, which to paraphrase, is "How do we know that a proposition is true"? So I'm curious about how you'd answer that question?

A proposition is true if the observer validates said proposition by way of collecting supporting evidence based on research and that observer's experience.
 
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