Is There a Truth?

[IceM]

I'm 17. I'm a kid. I write Slam poetry, am trying to write a sequence of sonnets in hopes of publishing, experiment with free verse, almost have a girlfriend, love frisbee, play it everyday and practice my trombone once a week. I log onto this website looking for truth: about literature, philosophy, life, love, experience, whatever ethereal substance lies beyond the confines of my vocabulary and the even larger confine of the English language.

Every day my life is different, very literally. My music intonation changes. I write different poetry, and lines I write the day before are forgotten, sound vastly different or just don't seem like poetry. The weather changes in correlation to my mood. Everyday my girlfriend looks different; sometimes beautiful, sometimes not, sometimes amazing, sometimes shocked that she came to school wearing the same clothes as she did the night before, indicating she may have slept in them. But the eyes I look at her with are always the same.

There are a lot of constants to my changing life. My eyes for my girlfriend are the same, as are my tastes. My love of poetry and nervousness when writing, inertia when attempting to motivate myself to write, and dreams for publishing burning brightly. I read everyday, text my girlfriend, still have two parents, always love frisbee and seafood and get a total kick out of big band jazz.

I get it. I'm a kid. I'm still naive to the "Real world" and to all metaphysical experience parents have that adolescents inherently don't. But the world around us is changing, globally and locally, almost with every second, both scientifically and metaphysically. Given the opportunity to relive any day of my life at random ten times, I'd probably experience that same day ten different ways, always feeling different sensations.

Finding truth amongst a changing world isn't easy. How do I know it's even there? How do I know my rationalizations create a false pretense, ascribing a truth when nothing may exist? How do I know there is a beautiful system within the physical system that binds us to scientific, moral and emotional law? How will I know if I find it? And is it subjective? Is my truth any different from your truth?

Is there a truth at all?

[Cunninglinguist]

As someone who grounds himself in theoretical philosophy I'm tempted to talk about those necessary truths and a priori knowledge. Albeit that there are but a handful of these "necessary truths" they sufficiently bind the universe--or at least the human race--together as one coherent whole, giving it some consistency. These things include the logical principles, etc. etc.

But that's probably not the kind of answer you're looking for. I guess there are a number of ways one could go about replying to this. What is this truth? It sounds like you're looking for something stable and immutable to hold on to. Being 17 generally means that many of your convictions about the world are based on fluctuating moods, which, in short, can get you into a lot of trouble. Personally, I have looked upon my moods as facetious and have taken them as such, as if they were drugs altering my consciousness. In a sense, I have distanced myself from them, and in distancing myself they have become less of an inconvenience. But they nonetheless ought to be accepted and felt lest repression warps the soul.

Her eyes will not always be the same. We all become sick and grow old, and we all will die. In our ignorance we view a changing world, and with it the mind that does not understand will forever be in suffering. These are the Buddhist truths. Understand that the glass holding water is already broken; when it falls and breaks then nothing has changed.

To me, most of your questions seem beside a larger point here. In the realm of metaphysics few things can be said with any certainty - but, more to the point, you're asking these questions and, moreover, looking for answers to them because you're dissatisfied. With what? This is the source, I believe. When you are genuinely content the answers to these questions don't matter, and, in my experience, that's the best way around them.

[IceM]

Doesn't being content suggest finding a truth and becoming self-satisfied with knowing that truth?

[Cunninglinguist]

Yes - but if you spend you life looking for answers to impossible questions you'll only find disappointment. Many decide to appeal to faith when asked the big questions about God, freedom, the afterlife, etc., which usually doesn't fully satisfy.

For me, a more or less Buddhist attitude has satisfied me, which recognizes the truth of change and seeks to understand the real nature of things. The glass is beautiful, but it's already broken in its nature, as said, so there is no tragedy when it falls off the table and breaks. When we expunge this ignorance about the nature of the world we reach nirvana.

[Panglossian]

If you're writing slam poetry what you need is some truth slogans that can easily be slam-dunked in ...

Eternity Now !
I Am That I Am !
Love without Motive !
The Now Is Key !
Unknow Thyself, fool !
Nowhere - Now Here !
Truth is a Pathless Land !
Everything Flows !
You cannot step twice into the same mutha****in' stream !
All Truths are Half-truths !
All in THE ALL, and THE ALL in All !

Word.

[G L Wilson]

What is truth? - Life is too short to be without ambition.

[G L Wilson]

Science is my truth.

[Panglossian]

Doesn't that make your truth second-hand - in that you rely on others to inform you what it is?

[G L Wilson]

Most knowledge comes second-hand, even still science is an investigation of your own resources if it is anything at all after one commits one's thought to analysis.

[Panglossian]

Okay. Science concerns itself with objective truth: facts, provable actualities, empirical knowledge - yes? What about subjective truth, psychological truth? What about the mind? Where does the mind fit in with your statement "science is my truth"?

[G L Wilson]

Okay. Science concerns itself with objective truth: facts, provable actualities, empirical knowledge - yes? What about subjective truth, psychological truth? What about the mind? Where does the mind fit in with your statement "science is my truth"?

Mind proceeds from the brain.

[Panglossian]

So this mind - whatever it is - (perhaps I can call it consciousness) - the question is: can it be changed, can it be transformed? or is it on a set evolutionary course determined by preceding causes … Are the thoughts and sensitivities that arise in it predestined, so to speak. Am I a biological robot? If not, why not?

[G L Wilson]

So this mind - whatever it is - (perhaps I can call it consciousness) - the question is: can it be changed, can it be transformed? or is it on a set evolutionary course determined by preceding causes … Are the thoughts and sensitivities that arise in it predestined, so to speak. Am I a biological robot? If not, why not?

You are an organic, homegrown, dinky-di original!

[ShoutGrace]

I'd think that whatever changes or transformations the "mind" undergoes could be quantified in chemical, electrical, purely physical brain changes (if we had the tools to observe and describe them). Whatever the "mind" is is entirely dependent on the physical brain on the materialistic view.

[Panglossian]

You are an organic, homegrown, dinky-di original!

I knew it. Thanks for the clarification.