The "Spiritual Mechanics" of Truth

I agree there is a lot of mental gymnastics and very complex ones but these are necessary for humanity’s sake.

The drive to believe in a God is psychological, critically necessary and primarily has significant psychological benefits to the individual [s] as a balm to soothe the inherent unavoidable existential crisis -the angst.
Basically theism as a psychological balm is a very SELFISH thing but there are no effective alternatives for the majority in their present psychological state.

However looking at the big picture in relation to humanity, whilst theism serves primarily* a selfish needs it has its double-edged with its inevitable unavoidable manifestation of terrible evils and violence by SOME [potential pool of billion+] evil prone theists.

The problem with the individual theists is they are driven naturally by SELFISH drives and that blinded them to see themselves as a whole group of theists with its malignant evils that is a threat to humanity -possible extermination of the species by SOME theists.

The theory is thus, no theism = no theistic related evils and violence, but this is not practical until there are effective fool proofs alternative replacements to deal with that inherent existential angst.

So at least at present I am discussing the theory only with the optimism it will be practical in the future.

Framework and System is imperative. But is possible for no framework Russell or even ‘you’ but only within the relevant Framework and System [Y].

‘Abstraction’ is a very limited description.
Take the Scientific Framework and its reality, there is abstraction in Science but the whole process to enabling scientific theories and knowledge very complex.

I understand one can think of ONE REALITY, but that is only in thought and such a ‘reality’ is an impossibility within an empirical-rational basis. There is a psychological basis to think of such an absolute reality just as one can only think of God which is an impossibility.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Prismatic, than are dreamt of in your simple-minded philosophy.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzforrealzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzohah?

To be more clear, the question had to do with whether the TRUTH existed about the mile 500,000 years ago, irrespective to time frame of the statement. Reference to time frame of the observation is irrelevant.

A consistent realist would properly confirm that the measurement 5,280 feet = 1 mile held 500,000 years ago as it does today. But mathematics is useless minus its reference to truth for at least the reason noted in the op, that mathematics is the beautiful language of perfect, immutable truth. Mathematics has no meaning without reference to truth; this is the only thing mathematics is about. If one affirms that mathematics existed 500,000 years ago, one is tacitly admitting that truth did too. If truth existed 500,000 years ago, then truth can’t be mind independent unless some other mind than a human mind existed then. So truth either is not mind independent or it is dependent on some mind other than a human mind.

Truth cannot exist until language exists. Truth is what describes Reality. If there is no one to describe Reality, there is no Truth.

That is true, although has nothing to do with mathematics, rather definition.

Mathematics is logic applied to quantities. Without mind, there is no logic. Without logic, there is no mathematics.

Neither existed 500,000 years ago.

Did you mean to say “mind dependent”? Otherwise, your sentence doesn’t seem to make sense.
But actually Truth certainly is mind-DEpendant, because Truth is language dependent.

I’m not seeing the point.

If truth be language dependent then it is also mind dependent because language is a product of the mind
A distinction should be made between truth which does not have to be known and knowledge which does

Truth is formed of the language by the mind, so yes, it is mind dependent. But also Truth must be known in order to have been formed by a mind (forgiving the infinite monkey theorem).

But comments like this show the superficiality of your thinking my friend. For example, your next comment….

…pretty much trips you up. First, it’s odd that someone who has done deep and extensive research into truth consistently posts links to SEP and Wikipedia. These are fine sources for the amateur like me, but are introductory explanations. Second, you infer the surprisingly thin (for someone of your reported depth of understanding) proposal that unless the view of truth I present is consistent in most or all of its significant points with those in SEP it is not actually about truth at all. This is just an attempt to use standing notions of truth as rules you wish to force on one, as though thinking outside the box somehow leads only to error–as evidenced in the following:

I gently suggest that your reasoning needs considerable further thought to shore up its ramshackle foundations.

Actually, it is not. I draw content from the concepts and ideas of those I find meaningful. You appear to discount Avicenna on the sole basis that he was Muslim [a theist], therefore his metaphysics can’t be true. But this presupposes the unproven proposition that God does not exist. Posting things like this might be why others respond to you the way they do. Food for thought.

  1. Impossible things have no information. Minds can only grasp information; thus any information the mind is able to grasp has passed the first and fundamental test for its possession of existence of some sort.

  2. The evidence of this is to carefully consider the impossibility of a square triangle. The mind can only grasp square and triangle because each of these singly possess information. But beyond this, the mind slams shut when “square triangle” is presented because “square triangle” is an impossibility. Impossibilities possess no information.

  3. The signifier “God” is one of the most—arguably the most—objectively discussed concepts in history. The sheer weight of this evidence flatly denies legitimacy to placing “God” in the realm of impossibilities, as you have so often recklessly done. What remains is to determine what sort of existence the information “God” might be, but that’s a separate discussion, not relevant to the question of God being an impossibility.

Think the above over carefully , Prismatic…when finished you can give me a million thanks.

One of the interesting things to me about the power of prescriptive truth as presented in the op lies in its predictive abilities. For example, using the principles laid out there, one can, with some degree of accuracy, predict how people whose minds are made up and shut to superior evidence will respond to prescriptive truths they don’t want to hear. I run into this in discussions with fellow Christians all the time. And there have been many times in my own past I have toed the line and stubbornly defended “truths” I thought were fundamental, only to have them rather painfully eroded over time and replaced by higher truths I fought to keep out of my worldview. The analytical methods that can be drawn from the op might even suitably anticipate forthcoming responses in this thread.

It’s also interesting to me that the principles noted in the op are tied closely to views and practices in various fields of psychology. For example, psychoanalysis is typically aimed at bringing patients to recognize and deal with (prescriptive) truths they don’t want to embrace. In the spiritual mechanics of truth, this has a very strong theoretical correspondence to the gradual restoration of some degree of falsity in the value content of the individual to a true state, suggesting at least some degree of capacity for human means of prescriptive value renovation—something traditionally thought in theological circles to be wholly beyond our abilities.

Does truth have to be formed by a mind? Can not something be true without it being formed by a mind? Truth pertains to
what is true so it is not necessary for it to be known. For it to be known would mean that it was knowledge not just truth

Nothing but language and/or thoughts can be “true” (to reality). What else is there to be true to reality (aka “aligned with reality”)?

Language and thoughts are not the only things that are true about reality. They are how truth is expressed. But reality by
virtue of its existence is already true. Language and thoughts just convey that truth. That is when it becomes knowledge

You seem to have entirely missed the point.

To say that “reality is true” is to say that “reality aligns with reality” … a bit tautologically pointless to express.

Statements and thoughts can be “true to reality”, “aligned with reality”. The word “true” does not apply to reality itself because it would be pointless. Reality is what affects you. Truth might or might not affect you, depending on communications. You might never hear Truth, but you can never escape Reality (Prism’s mind excluded).

Truth is the description, the map, not the terrain.

The word real applies to reality and what is real is true so logically reality must be true
Something does not have to be expressed in language or in thought just for it to be real
Reality is simply ALL THERE IS and it existed before either thought or language ever did
When the human race becomes extinct and there is no more thought or language reality will still exist like it always has

I disagree. To say [state] that reality is true is just to acknowledge reality has existence from one’s perspective. Existence is made up of nothing but values. Properties and attributes are just value statements.

Value [true and/or false] is a condition of existence. That’s why we express descriptive reality in value statements–and math is the primary language of descriptive reality while moral statements are the primary language of prescriptive reality. A common expression today is, “It is what it is.” We can’t describe “it” without describing its value(s). If “is” is just about a certain set of circumstances that exist, those circumstances will contain various factual values [John, is 5’-11" tall, weighs 187.834 pounds, is composed of specific numbers and kinds of cells, molecules, atoms, etc.] and prescriptive values [won’t work with Dan because he hates him for having cheated him out of $40, etc.]. All our language either directly or indirectly accesses the myriad values that comprise a given state of affairs. It is what it is (that John didn’t show up today because he knew Dan would be here, so you and Dan will have to get the job done yourselves) just [partially] describes one set of reality circumstances.

Reality is value, and most of that value is truth.

By definition Reality IS existence.

You are going to have a hard time getting that one passed me.

Certainly not. Value cannot exist until there is someone to assign value.

James, I’m disappointed that you posted a dictionary definition of value as an argument against the framework laid out in the op . You of all people I’ve read here–given the abstract nature and sophistication of RM–surprise me by directing to the status quo. You’re merely pointing out that minds evaluate. This offers no argument for why or what we evaluate. Correspondence is a relation, not a definition of truth. I understand you and most folks don’t accept the notion of value as a condition of existence…it’s outside the mainstream. But the mainstream has no ownership of truth.

I wonder, do folks reject the notion of a value-endued reality because the arguments are incoherent or do they reject because it fails to fit their own worldviews?

When the status-quo is about a precise definition (if properly stated) then it is a matter of the language we are using. It is not about any belief concerning any proposed “truth”, merely the proper use of the words involved. If you are trying to make a point concerning innate, absolute values of objects, use the right words to express it. That is all I am saying.

Not really. I was expressing that the ONLY source and formation of “value” is from minds. There is no other kind. And that is to say that a rock, for example, has no value whatsoever unless a mind assigns a value to it. The rock did not have value until a mind chose that it be so. It doesn’t matter WHY a mind might do that. That is a different issue (involving PHT if you recall).

I am not talking about mainstream one way or another. I am talking about what the words mean. And the word “value” refers to something assigned by people to other things (as pointed out in the dictionary). If you are referring to something else, use a word or phrase that means what you mean to say.

If you mean what I think that you mean, the reason people in general reject it is because most people can quickly see that nothing has value until it is assigned value. What has value to some, has little or no value to others, more often, merely different value. There are many who believe otherwise concerning only specific things, for example “life” in the Christian Church is accepted as innate and inherent value regardless of anyone’s assessment. That is professed for ecumenical reasons, but is not philosophically sound.

You miss my critical point.
“Wiki and SEP” are a convenience and good beginnings. It is not practical to produce a Bibliography for every point I made. Btw, SEP is 10 times more rigor and credible than Wiki.

What is most critical is this point which you have missed, “from other philosophical sources on the term ‘truth’.”
Since you are in a philosophical forum, the ultimate is for you [me and others] to do a literature review and exhaust as much as possible the topic of ‘what is truth’. I have made a point to strive to achieve this.

As I had stated as far as Science is concern, there is no issue with Avicenna as he had to comply with the requirements of the Scientific Framework. But when it comes to Metaphysics and philosophy, a theist will be default bring in God.
Note I have presented my thesis ‘God is an Impossibility’. I invite critiques to that proposal.

  1. Impossible things have no information. Minds can only grasp information; thus any information the mind is able to grasp has passed the first and fundamental test for its possession of existence of some sort.

  2. The evidence of this is to carefully consider the impossibility of a square triangle. The mind can only grasp square and triangle because each of these singly possess information. But beyond this, the mind slams shut when “square triangle” is presented because “square triangle” is an impossibility. Impossibilities possess no information.]
    [/quote]
    Impossibilities [in various contexts] can be thought.
    It is quite reasonable God could possibility exists via reason, i.e. primal crude reason in mind.
    But as highlighted in the details [in that OP] I have highlighted God is an Impossibility within the empirical-rational reality.

Btw, re you point 3, have you considered the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

If you insist God exists within the empirical-rational reality, e.g. a God who can hear and answers prayers and the likes, then you have to provide the necessary evidences to justify your claim.

Note there are tons of psychological research out there in explaining why and how,
You: how people whose minds are made up and shut to superior evidence will respond to prescriptive truths they don’t want to hear.
These findings are applicable to secular and theistic behaviors.

Know Thyself.
Since you mentioned ‘psychology’ I would suggest you look into the psychological basis of why the majority of people are clinging to theism where SOME will even kill, murder, commit genocides when they perceive their theism is threatened.
‘Psychoanalysis’ will be one of the useful tools to understand the above.

Note, I have mentioned somewhere,
there are tons of research relating to how the idea of God manifest in the minds of SOME people, e.g. the mentally sick, the brain damage, those taking drugs, chemicals, hallucinogen, various diseases, electronic brain stimulation etc.
(I have provided links to the above in some other posts)
These actual evidences and findings provide strong clues that the idea of God is a resultant of brain activity than a God existing as real within empirical-rational reality.

Impossibilities [in various contexts] can be thought.
It is quite reasonable God could possibility exists via reason, i.e. primal crude reason in mind.
But as highlighted in the details [in that OP] I have highlighted God is an Impossibility within the empirical-rational reality.

Btw, re you point 3, have you considered the argumentum ad populum fallacy.

If you insist God exists within the empirical-rational reality, e.g. a God who can hear and answers prayers and the likes, then you have to provide the necessary evidences to justify your claim.

Note there are tons of psychological research out there in explaining why and how,
You: how people whose minds are made up and shut to superior evidence will respond to prescriptive truths they don’t want to hear.
These findings are applicable to secular and theistic behaviors.

Know Thyself.
Since you mentioned ‘psychology’ I would suggest you look into the psychological basis of why the majority of people are clinging to theism where SOME will even kill, murder, commit genocides when they perceive their theism is threatened.
‘Psychoanalysis’ will be one of the useful tools to understand the above.

Note, I have mentioned somewhere,
there are tons of research relating to how the idea of God manifest in the minds of SOME people, e.g. the mentally sick, the brain damage, those taking drugs, chemicals, hallucinogen, various diseases, electronic brain stimulation etc.
(I have provided links to the above in some other posts)
These actual evidences and findings provide strong clues that the idea of God is a resultant of brain activity than a God existing as real within empirical-rational reality.
[/quote]
Prismatic: Perhaps we should adjust to the normalcy of the empirically rational world, where scepticism abounds even to the very minimal definition of normalcy.

Any one can be a skeptic to any philosophical idea any time. No problem with that.

What is critical is, whenever any one makes a positive claim one has to provide verifiable and rational justifications.