Thank you Sancho. I think I understand. I will ponder over it further and maybe even find some more reading material. This is interesting.
Printable View
Thank you Sancho. I think I understand. I will ponder over it further and maybe even find some more reading material. This is interesting.
Whoohooo, the insomnia cure worked again.
Cassandra, I think you summed that up beautifully, much unlike my incoherent ramblings.
“The truth is just the truth and you can’t really have an opinion about the truth.” While that works for mathematics, it’s hotly debated in ethics. There may be an undiscovered Stone Age tribe of folks in the Andes who don’t believe in the equilateral triangle, but A-squared plus B-squared still equals C-squared regardless of their opinion.
With ethics it’s a whole new ball game. If there is a Categorical Imperative, a Universal truth or an Absolute truth -- who gets to decide what it is? (Agreement/disagreement in the human mind) There seems to be too many variables to prove it mathematically correct for all situations. So (as you said) we’re back to a situation dependent truth.
Now I’m going to try to extricate myself from this philosophic quagmire I’ve gotten myself into to and try to tie this discussion back into literature. I once read somewhere that Hemingway, in order to deal with writer’s block, would sit down and write the first true sentence that he could think of. As he got older it became more and more difficult for him to think of one true sentence. Ultimately, this frustration may have had a hand in leading to his decision to commit suicide.
As I understand it, the Pythagoras Theorem might not apply to quadrilateral triangles in non-Euclidean geometry.
Good one!
AP, English please? :-))
Sancho, that's interesting, I didn't know Hemingway committed suicide.
Well, I'm not actually a mathematician, but I remember the physicist Paul Davies saying something about how an equilateral triangle on a large oval shape would not strictly obey the principles of Pythagoras' Theorem, or something like that. Any mathematician, please feel free to correct me, or improve on my description.
Thanks Sancho. That must be the first time I've been coherent in my life! :) I never realised how hard it is to think of absolute truths (without resorting to maths) but it is, you always find some way around a lot of them.
I agree with Lara, in english please, and I take maths (by the way a2 + b2 = c2 is with right-angled not equilateral but I still don't understand AP)
Oops. Yes, I meant right angled triangle.
Heh heh heh, oops,
I should proof read my posts better. “Equilateral”-- I guess the math is in the English. If all sides of the triangle are equal, it’d be a real trick to get the sum of the squares of two sides to equal the square of the third.
“Ya know this kinda reminds me of time back in reform-school….”
A.P., sorry, thought you were just fooling around. I sat here trying to picture a “Quadrilateral Triangle” but I just kept coming up with a trapezoid. If I don’t know the difference between a right triangle and an equilateral triangle, what are the odds that I know anything about Euclidian Geometry? About the only two things I remember from college math is the Law of Partial Pressures “PIVNERT” that is PV=nRT and the Taylor Expansion Theorem. With Taylor you never really had to solve an integral equation, but you could get close enough just by taking it out a bunch of iterations.
So did I for a moment. But what's even worse, is I think I might have been serious for once. I might be talking complete nonsense. However, let me see if I can rescue some sensibility from all this:
The properties of right-angled triangles on planes may be different to the properties of right-angled triangles on shapes.
If you maintain a right angle, and have two sides that bend across a sphere, and the third side is a straight plane, then, I think, a2 + b2 may not equal c2. But of course, I may be completely wrong.
It could be I was thinking of angles and their properties. But my brain is too tired to go there!:)
Mathematicians do dance to a different beat don’t they?
Here’s an interesting tid-bit I stumbled across. Apparently Bertrand Russell’s brother had given him a copy of “Euclid’s Elements” when he was 11 years old. He became very interested in mathematics and it occupied him through an otherwise miserable childhood. At the age of 17 he was contemplating suicide but was so absorbed in mathematics that he decided to stay alive to find out more about it. Possibly the only person in the history of mankind saved from suicide by math – instead of the other way around.
That was paraphrased from a lecture series given by Dr. Robert Kane from U. of Texas.
The geometry you're thinking of may be elliptical or hyperbolic geometry.
When I started my BA in humanities I forgot how to do math.
Thanks, now when people say to me 'why ya doing maths A level to do law, you'll never use it' I can bring this up. Isn't it strange what small things can so alter a life or indeed lots of lives.Quote:
Originally posted by Sancho
Mathematicians do dance to a different beat don’t they?
Here’s an interesting tid-bit I stumbled across. Apparently Bertrand Russell’s brother had given him a copy of “Euclid’s Elements” when he was 11 years old. He became very interested in mathematics and it occupied him through an otherwise miserable childhood. At the age of 17 he was contemplating suicide but was so absorbed in mathematics that he decided to stay alive to find out more about it. Possibly the only person in the history of mankind saved from suicide by math – instead of the other way around.
That was paraphrased from a lecture series given by Dr. Robert Kane from U. of Texas.
I think truth is all relative. Every part of it. What's true to you can be a lie for somebody else, because people can't think outside their own heads, their own worlds, if that makes any sense. Like, if I REALLY believed the moon was cheese, for me, that WOULD be an absolute truth. It's completely relative to the person.
But it wouldn't be an absolute truth, the moon would not therefore be cheese for you and something elese for everyone else. Absolute truths should be true regardless of what peole think.
Sir Arthur Eddington used to talk about how he found the life of a physicist a bit like the life a schizophrenic (I think he didn't know much about schizophrenics, but that is another matter).
He would walk into a room and see chairs and tables and walls etc. He would slip into that macro-reality view, where these things are solid and textured and colourful. And the next moment, he would know that they are mostly empty space, with atoms flying through, into and off of them. He would know that they had no real discernible boundaries in the quantum world, and that there is a possibility that everyting on the table might fall through it as if there was nothing there.
So what could possibly have been true for Arthur Eddington?
And what would we mean by 'true'?
Well, I was going to agree with Faye but decided to look up the 'true' defintion of true. Agreeing with fact;not false. AP you do have a knack of bringing up questions to make people think. I still agree with Faye that truth is relative, although Cassandra does provide valid disagreement as well. Which brings me to the question, who is to say that the facts are accurate? Yes, as far as the moon goes, it is a proven fact. My argument is that the facts presented mostly to society are that of the media, or a book which may only provide an authors opinion. So, as individuals, we must seek out the sources of so-called facts and make a choice pertinent to the truth.
And even supposedly proved facts have been wrong in the past. A lot of what we believe we believe out of trust in those who told us it.
I think we may have worked ourselves around to Rene Descartes. A man who at some point in his life realized that almost everything he had been taught was false. He became so skeptical and questioning that he even questioned his own existence.
Of course he finally decided that he did exist. Famously: “Cogito ergo sum” - “I think therefore I am”
Which reminds me of a bad joke, but I’ll spare you all.
Which is possibly very bad, but if we didn't base knowledge on something society would never evolve (I think I'm linking to another thread). Truth is relative to a situation and we can create truth but that doesn't mean that truth is wholely from human perspective. Yes I know I'm making no sense. I think I'm kinda agreeing with faye and myself (don't ask) If one is saying truth is relative does that make facts relative as true is agreeing with fact?
<I think we may have worked ourselves around to Rene Descartes. A man who at some point in his life realized that almost everything he had been taught was false. He became so skeptical and questioning that he even questioned his own existence.>
Unfortunately, Descartes chickened out. Rather than let his reasonings follow their logical course, he came up with the idea that God wouldn't fool him into believing in a world that was an illusion. He also stole the ontological argument from St Anselm, to provide himself with a rational starting point for reality. However, the argument is flawed.
<Of course he finally decided that he did exist. Famously: “Cogito ergo sum” - “I think therefore I am”>
The usual translation of Descartes' famous dictum does not really work very well. As Bertrand Russell said, the start does not bode well, as he is already presupposing the conclusion. Then there is the problem that RD is making a big leap from the idea of a process (thinking) to the idea of a processor (I). In its purest sense, it should really read: thinking therefore existence. This however tells us nothing of what it is that exists, other than thinking. And what is thinking?
Rene Descartes was generally much better at asking questions than answering them.
Cassandra, tell me, what would truth mean outside a mind? When does something become true?
man AP you ask the tuffies!
And the rotten person expects me to compete with ancient philosophers and answer them! :(
I'm personally better at confusing points than answering questions.
I guess I'm acctually agreeing with plato (never thought I'd say that) and his idea of forms. People are often arrogant enough to believe that truth revolves around humanity and that we are the only things that matter, and that therefore we invent truth. Even if there were no people there would still be truth therefore truth must exist outside the mind. If truth only exists in the mind then truth does not exist for minds are so diverse and complicated that truth would be so different it would contradict itself and ceese to be truth.
I'm not saying this very well. I will come back to it later when I've had time to think.
but people have no way of knowing outside of what they think-my original point. In which case, couldn't there be no absolute truth? Since how would you know?Quote:
Originally posted by Cassandra
But it wouldn't be an absolute truth, the moon would not therefore be cheese for you and something elese for everyone else. Absolute truths should be true regardless of what peole think.
As for facts... well, 75% of people know that 68% of statistics are totally made up.
You wouldn't know. Just cus I don't know something doesn't mean it is not true. People didn't know the world was round hundreds of years ago but that does not make it any less true. (and before some smart mouth says so I know its not 'round' I meant it in general aproximation terms)
No, I'm just saying how would you know if it is true? Since everything is relative to what you know, if something is 'true' to you, you must know it. You wouldn't think the world being round WAS true, if you lived hundreds of years ago. And this is drifting dangerously into that 'and how do you really know it's round today' kind of territory. MAYYYYBBEEE it's not, and all those satellite photos are fake. [stupid idea, but you get my point]
Yup, again trusting and faith is half of the 'truth' we know. Just cus you don't think somethings true doesn't mean its not otherwise opposites would have to be true simulataneously which is logically impossible. You cannot know truth. Truth is in belief.
Sometimes I believe in fate and sometimes not. Well, its not like we could stop making choises just becuse our fate already was desided, because our fate is to make choises!!!
You can catch 'glimpses' of the paths you are next to. Everything seems to lead up to a 'peak' or the'fork-in-the road'. There always seems to be a choice for the occassion. What choice will bring you further along? As for sweating over it I have No idea for I am in the same predicament. I am sweating over it but you really shouldnt have to. Good Topic:)!
I think we make fate by the decisions we make. Only we don't know where these decisions will take us, as they're influenced by other people's decisions too. So, we all make destiny, but this doesn't men we can make things go the way we want, as it's a collective and not totally controllable creation. That's what I think.
Internet Gambling
I believe in both the power of fate and the power of choice.
Considering that your very personal Fate leads your life, I must be a real cursed boy ! No, seriously, I think things do not happened only because we acted to make them happened. Sometimes you met someone because you had to and that's what 's magic about living here.
If it do exist, fate is for small events. You decide about big stuffs and fate about the rest. This way, fate is not irreversible- not at all at least-.
I think the world is determined. There are no real choices. We have developed the idea of choice and freewill in order to maintain sanity in a pre-determined world. Our brains follow certain patterns and microseconds later our consciousness creates the idea that we have made a choice, when in fact we have been fooled into this belief: our brains have merely responded in an unconscious way to physical stimuli and then generated the conscious experience of freewill.
Fate is an excuse given by people who finally have to accept things as they are and not how they wish them to be...
Choice is a myth indulged in by those who cannot accept the way the world works
I agree (given certain assumptions).Quote:
Originally Posted by atiguhya padma
As far as I can tell, moreover, this is the consensus of modern science.
"Finally, free will as it is traditionally conceived - the freedom to make uncoerced and unpredictable choices among alternative courses of action - simply does not exist. There is no way that the evolutionary process as currently conceived can produce a being that is truly free to make choices." - William Provine
AP, have you any reading suggestions on this topic (as it relates to free will in particular)? Free will especially and consciousness more generally are of great interest to me.
Let's say we don't have the slightest idea on whether there is fate or not ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Lara
There may be such a thing as fate; only, you don't know the end of the story. Or, as mr. Tom says in his role in The Last Samurai: "a man does what he can, until his fate is revealed to him". (As an answer to "do you believe a man can change his fate?")
This is, by the way, to me, a more .. logic question: if there is fate, can a man change it?
Fact: no man knows the future. Nor about his own fate. (Except for the cyclops, in Krull ...)