True or Useful?

[thebigpicture]

All else being equal, what is more important, or more valuable, to you: that something is true, or that something is useful? Or, do you find the distinction unimportant?

In its purest form, I would choose truth. Truth is consistent; usefulness is not.

 

[Straw Dog]

I agree. Yet what is the time span of knowing that something has ended as being useful? And even for that a knowledge of what is true at all times will be required.

I don't know that there's a specific time span, but maybe different truths can have different staying power depending on the duration of their utility. Then again, I don't even know if time exists outside our measuring apparatus. WHOA

I think it's just a matter of realizing that whatever particular utility one was getting out of various conceptions of "Truth" had run its course and it was time to discover a new version of the "Truth" to either better satisfy the role of the older version or to fill in a new utility function in accordance with the changing circumstances and contexts of one's natural surroundings and social situations.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

So, without knowing the Truth can one know what is truly useful?

I notice you said Truth instead of truth, are you refering to religious Truth?

Useful is immeditately obvious, the truth is often hidden and hard to find.

 

[atanu]

I notice you said Truth instead of truth, are you refering to religious Truth?

Useful is immeditately obvious, the truth is often hidden and hard to find.

I think you got me but i will not label it as religious or non-religious.

What is immediately useful may be or may not be truly useful, and eventually all discrimination of usefulness vanishes at death, after which only onlookers may (or may not) say 'that guy was useless'.

That was the reason i asked Straw Dog about the 'time horizon' that would be sufficient for one to be able to discriminate between harmful and useful.

But i suppose i am straying too far.

 

[bjpascoal]

This thread caught my attention because of a quote by Mormon Apostle:

There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not.
Some things that are true are not very useful.

Boyd K. Packer, "The Mantle is Far, Far Greater Than the Intellect," Address to the Fifth Annual CES Religious Educators' Symposium, 1981; see also Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991), 101-122; see also Boyd K. Packer, "'The Mantle is Far, Far Greater than the Intellect.'," Brigham Young University Studies 21 no. 3 (Summer 1981), 259–278.

www . fairwiki . org/Mormonism_and_history/Boyd_K._Packer%27s_talk:_%22The_Mantle_is_Far,_Far_Greater_Than_the_Intellect%22