Posted by alexandra_k on June 1, 2005, at 0:24:50 [reposted on June 2, 2005, at 5:50:42 | original URL]
In reply to Re: Just a thought and a change of subject too, posted by Susan47 on May 31, 2005, at 23:23:06
Hmm. Truth... What is truth anyways?????
Would you believe that you give some philosophers a research grant and they come up with this:'snow is white' is true if and only if snow is white.
Legandary :-)
And of course snow is very rarely white in the first place!
This is the 'disquotational theory of truth' or occasionally the 'deflationary theory of truth'. People haggle over whether it counts as a theory or not...
The idea is that the only candidates for truth or falsity are...
1) thoughts
2) statements / sentences / propositions
Basically the thought / statement goes in quotes so we can have
'I am conscious'
And what makes the thought / statement true or false is whether or not it actually is the case that I am conscious.
It is a fact that I am conscious.
Take anything you like...
A foetus.
An oyster.
An octopus.
A plant.
Is it conscious?
Either it is or it isn't, there is no in between.
(though what you can be conscious of may depend somewhat on what sense organs are attached to your brain etc)
If it is true that it is conscious then that is a fact.
If it is false that it is conscious then it is a fact that it is not conscious.
No inbetween...Of course it is a seperate issue altogether as to how we could ever come to KNOW whether these things are conscious or not...
But even though we can't KNOW whether anyone aside from ourself is conscious - other things either are or are not.> Well, see, let me hypothesize that what we consider "facts" may actually be a limited truth .. it's limited to our perception of reality, isn't it?
So the thought is that the truth maker (what makes the sentence true or false) is objective. I might believe that I have a body...
But if scientists put me in a vat last night
Then I have the false belief that I have a body.
Actually... I do not have a body.> You can become unconnected if you really want to.
Well...
I can close my eyes and pretend my body doesn't exist...
I can divert my attention from it so that I am not aware of it...
But I can't wish it out of existence...
Unfortunately ;-)
poster:alexandra_k
thread:506754
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20050525/msgs/506768.html