Objective Truth

Mind Over Matter said:
Objective truth is the belief that truth is not subject to opinion or belief; it simply is truth

Subjective truth is the belief that truth is subject to opinion or belief; it is true because someone beliefs or thinks it is

Absolute truth is the belief that there are truthes which are universal

Relative truth is the belief that there are no universal truthes

Singular truth is the belief that there is one absolute truth, from which comes all truthes

Plural truth is the belief that there are many truthes and no one truth is the source of them

False truth is an umbrella term for different beliefs: truth dose not exist, truth is in the mind only, truth can only be discovered scientifically, truth can only be discovered religiously, and truth cannot be known.
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Wow. So everything boils down to belief, there is nothing better than belief?
 
Aqueous Id said:
Suppose he is then celebrated for his heroic daring, and documentaries are made, and now the objective truth, that rogue waves exist, becomes widely known.
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There would have been an observation, as far as the process of science goes, that is all there would have been.
1) observation is not science.
2) you're making a metaphysical claim, that observations are objective truths.
3) science is metaphysically neutral, it makes no difference, to science, what metaphysical stance one holds about observations.
4) your metaphysical stance is no better supported than Mind Over Matter's claims about god are.
5) in order to support your metaphysical stance, you will need an argument.
6) if you want to support your claim that science is a method that leads to knowledge, you will need to extend your claims to include models and make further arguments.
This is the philosophy sub-forum and philosophy is the support of positions by reasoned argument. It isn't hand waving with stuff about hitting thumbs with hammers or the like.
Aqueous Id said:
Would I be misrepresenting or trivializing science by citing his observation as an application of the scientific method?
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Yes, of course you would.
 
Aqueous Id said:
Third is the phenomenon of observation, which has been discovered (in physics) to mean something about the way objective truth reveals itself (i.e., reality tends to remain in an ambiguous state until observation selects only one state). . . . third, reality follows science.
It was not I who introduced modeling. . . . decide whether the discovery of wave function collapse, and the science surrounding it, fits your own definition of neutrality.
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This is the kind of stuff you need to explicate and support.
There has been no discovery of wave function collapse. Wave function collapse is a story told about an interaction of an abstract model with observables. So, you appear to be confusing models with observations.
 
Aqueous Id said:
You gave Shackleton v. Science in response to religion v. science.


All of science involves the application of all human experience to explain the particular experience.


Except for all events which have a zero probability. For example, what is the probability that a hand will reach through this screen and hand each of us a pot of gold with a note attached that says: "Shut up and I'll double your money." Some things are just flat impossible.


I would enjoy following up on IPUs with you, but first we need to decide what "probability" means. Under probability theory, we understand that it only applies to random events. I'm not sure how "invisible pink unicorn" categorizes as "random event".


Now we're getting somewhere. You only need to cross one more barrier, but I'm not sure if you're willing or able. You now need to clearly distinguish the characterization "rogue". Scientists were looking for a specific phenomenon in which the sum of all amplitudes of randomly propagating surface waves could reach a particular value (say 30 m). Shackleton had no such categorization or characterization in mind, just the harrowing experience of it. Shackleton did not care if it was a random sum, or a wave whipped up by a hurricane, or a tsunami. He merely experienced it. You need a way to overcome the fact that if Shackleton had said "I was hit by a monster wave" (which is close to his actual reamarks) most scientists probably would have assumed he was talking about a storm wave or a tsunami. So information is missing here, information needed to complete your thesis.

The light house is cited as early evidence that such waves were already documented in the literature.
Above I posted the picture of a ship struck by a rogue wave. You appear to be saying that scientists deny the evidence presented in the picture. That makes no sense. As for scientists working on rogue wave analysis, I can refer you to the following sources.

You can start with Shackleton's own book. I find no discussion of any scientists discrediting him. Since there were scientists on board, it's hard to understand which scientists are claiming the existence of rogue waves and which are not:

http://books.google.com/books?id=EICKclfgBPYC&pg=PA177

Here is a reference to the lighthouse I mentioned

http://www.commissionersofirishlights.com/cil/aids-to-navigation/lighthouses/eagle-island.aspx

For scientific work regarding rogue waves

http://www.opc.ncep.noaa.gov/perfectstorm/mpc_ps_rogue.shtml

http://folk.uio.no/karstent/waves/index_en.html

http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/wea00800.htm

http://www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/18_3/18.3_muller_et_al.pdf

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/05/hurricane_prompts_wave_rethink/

http://earth.esa.int/workshops/seasar2006/proceedings/papers/s1_5_jan.pdf


OK now you can put the above source material in your pipe and smoke it.

I'm waiting for you to establish what probability means.

You still are outside of the domain of probability theory.

I doubt you have any evidence of this. Shackleton and his crew report a frequency of zero. I still can't find any evidence that any scientist denied anything. So far I have a dozen or so sources, referencing others, and going back to the 19th century, in which scientists appear to be taking notice that these "freak waves" do in fact occur. Shackleton's science officers probably are the only scientists who we are going to find who have anything to say about Shackleton's experience, which they shared with him, and would have no reason to deny.

You assume he never wrote a book about it.

I make no such assumption. I'm quite certain a lively discussion went on among the scientists in his party concerning the wave, and whether or not it was from a gale or a tsunami, since they had no reason to suspect that amplitudes might randomly add in constructive coherence. I doubt seriously that they concluded it was the thing which has come to be known as a rogue wave, which is why I do not connect their ideation with the ideation of scientists at large who you say disputed him.

This is incorrect. The fact of an occurrence does not affect the expected value. For example, shuffle a deck of cards. The probability of drawing any particular card is 1 out of 52 (1/52, or 1.923%). Each time you draw a card you are experiencing an event that has only 1.923% chance of occurring. Note how easy it is to alter the expected value. Take a red deck and a blue deck (to differentiate them into 104 distinct species) and shuffle them and repeat the test. Your odds of drawing each particular card is reduced to 0.9165%. Now take 10,000 cards numbered 1 to 10,000. Shuffle them and draw. The odds of drawing that particular card is 0.01%. Draw another. Still 0.01%. The draw of a specific card has no bearing on the odds.

I think there was enough validation from among his crew. Again, you have not explained if Shackleton was concerned with categorizing the wave as a rogue wave, or a soliton from another source, such as a storm or seaquake. Without that information, the question of how other scientists may have estimated the odds, based on the specific probabilistics of rogue wave formation, is moot.

So far I only see the problems in yours as I have noted.
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I find nothing in your lighthouse reference that says prior to 1990 scientists said a rogue wave event occured at the lighthouse.

I find nothing in your references that says events prior to 1990 scientists were attributed to rogue waves.

Concerning probability, no event has a zero probibility.
Your statement
"For example, what is the probability that a hand will reach through this screen and hand each of us a pot of gold with a note attached that says: "Shut up and I'll double your money." Some things are just flat impossible."
is false.

No event has zero probability, no event is "flat impossible", according to science :
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A logically consistent way of maintaining the events of probability zero are actually impossible is presented.
http://www.mendeley.com/research/impossibility-events-zero-probability/
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•The numeric value of a probability is any Real number from zero to one, inclusive. An event with “zero” probability cannot occur; if the probability is ’1′ then the event must occur. As well, the probability that the experiment will yield some event in the probability space is exactly ’1′.
http://www.decodedscience.com/an-in...g-conditional-probability-in-mathematics/9369
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Quantum mechanics takes this a step further, because in the quantum world almost anything is possible with some non-zero probability. For example, quantum mechanics says that objects can penetrate (classically) impenetrable barriers. You probably won't get through a brick wall just by walking into it, but there is some extremely small but non-zero probability that you will.Since, in practice, the notion of "impossibility" is a very useful one, we have had to redefine the meaning of "impossible". Where it used to mean a zero probability, now it means a very small probability. Which leads to the question: how small?
This question has no definite answer, and the best answer I can give is: so small that the probability of observing the "impossible" event, on any randomly chosen day, multiplied by the maximum number of days in the forseeable future (like several billion years), multiplied by the number of people who are ever going to exist, should be so small that it will "almost certainly" never be observed at all by anyone. That way, we can safely say that we will "almost certainly" never come to a wrong conclusion by incorrectly rejecting a theory which is used to calculate such a probability. You can then fine-tune the definition of "almost certainly" according to your own personal risk tolerance.
http://www.1729.com/blog/WAPAndTheMultiverseAScientificTheoryOfMiracles.html
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An event with zero probability is thus regarded as impossible, an event with probability equal to one thus is regarded as certain.
http://www.numbersleuth.org/trends/the-bare-bones-of-probability/
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STATISTICIANS have a saying: ``There is a non-zero probability that the planet will explode in the next five minutes'', meaning, of course, that the probability of every conceivable event is greater than zero.
http://www.adrianberry.net/art17.htm
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Assigning events a zero probability would contravene Cromwell's rule, which can never be strictly justified in physical situations, albeit sometimes has to be assumed in practice.

Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/rule-of-succession#ixzz1pSxNFAO6

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Add;
For the record, your reference to a 'strawman', should instead refer to a 'red herring'.

I was showing (with the rogue wave example) that direct experience can lead an individual to objective truth without the scientific method, by extension, to things such as 'god', that are beyond the realm of the SM.
I do not agree this is a red herring.
It is merely a 'real world' example of what most of us recognize, and that is that for many of us, our experiences do not need to be validated by the SM.
 
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Assigning events a probability is not objective truth. This is subjective. For example, if there is a 20% chance of showers, and it does not rain, the final hard data to test that estimate, indicated the odds of rain turned out to be 0%.

The approach creates an alternate reality which can give practical results but always contains added subjectivity. One should not confuse this practical value with objective truth.
 
Law of non-Contradiction.

Relativism is indefensible, if someone tries to defend it, they have to use objective arguments and thus undermining their position. This is why relativism leads to indifferentism.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Law of non-Contradiction.

Relativism is indefensible, if someone tries to defend it, they have to use objective arguments and thus undermining their position. This is why relativism leads to indifferentism.
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I will be well surprised if those are your own words. Kindly either explicate your claim or link to the site from which you filched it.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Relativism is indefensible, if someone tries to defend it, they have to use objective arguments and thus undermining their position.
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It looks to me like you're essentially implying that all atheists are necessarily relativists, and that therefore their position is indefensible. If that can be said to be one of your contentions, let's explore it. If it's not, then I guess you're only addressing a small subset of atheists, and not atheism in general.
 
ughaibu said:
Mind Over Matter said:
Law of non-Contradiction.
Relativism is indefensible, if someone tries to defend it, they have to use objective arguments and thus undermining their position. This is why relativism leads to indifferentism.
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I will be well surprised if those are your own words. Kindly either explicate your claim or link to the site from which you filched it.
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Forgive my impatience; assuming that your conclusion, that relativism is self-refuting, depends on the assumption of a universe of discourse in which validity requires non-contradiction, the existence of paraconsistent-logically supported universes of discourses seems, to me, to render your own argument, however stated, a reductio of absolutism. In short, you appear to be engaged in an irreducibly question-begging endeavour.
 
Rav said:
It looks to me like you're essentially implying that all atheists are necessarily relativists, and that therefore their position is indefensible. If that can be said to be one of your contentions, let's explore it. If it's not, then I guess you're only addressing a small subset of atheists, and not atheism in general.
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No. Atheism has nothing to do with relativism or my comment. Though it leads to the same place as relativism, indifferentism but that's another topic.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
Though it leads to the same place as relativism, indifferentism but that's another topic.
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Actually, it's not really a separate topic, since the implication is that indifferentism is an inevitable result of not embracing that which you feel is necessary in order for there to be any sort of legitimate, objective truth at all. You know, God. So are you saying that an atheist has no rational ground for adopting one philosophical position over another, or is unable to make legitimate judgments on issues of morality or ethics?
 
@Rav --

That may just be it, however I highly doubt that he can support such claims, given that he doesn't even have a grasp on what atheism is yet.
 
ughaibu said:
Forgive my impatience; assuming that your conclusion, that relativism is self-refuting, depends on the assumption of a universe of discourse in which validity requires non-contradiction, the existence of paraconsistent-logically supported universes of discourses seems, to me, to render your own argument, however stated, a reductio of absolutism. In short, you appear to be engaged in an irreducibly question-begging endeavour.
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Objectivity and absolutes are not presuppositions, they're logical conclusions. If you're stating the way I'm defeating relativism is begging the question of realism, you're mistaken. Realism is a valid premise because logic leads to it. What is your contrast? Conceptualism and nominalism? Absurd ideas and completely indefensible.
 
A thing cannot be both A and not A at the same time an in the same way; that is the law of non-contradiction. It is absolutely inconceivable that this even could be false.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
A thing cannot be both A and not A at the same time an in the same way; that is the law of non-contradiction. It is absolutely inconceivable that this even could be false.
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Of course it's not inconceivable, the principle of non-contradiction is not unrestrictedly true in paraconsistent logics.
 
Objectivity is a learned behavior. It comes from knowing every possible outcome in any situation. Experience can help you gain it, but no person holds it's all.

It is impossible to say anything about objectivity without being subjective. It is what it is
 
ughaibu said:
Please specify the logic and spell out the argument, premises and conclusion.
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You already did for me in this comment, by you demanding premises and a conclusion is demanding objectivity. And in doing so demonstrates truth exists outside the mind. Thank you for proving my point.
 
Mind Over Matter said:
You already did for me in this comment, by you demanding premises and a conclusion is demanding objectivity. And in doing so demonstrates truth exists outside the mind. Thank you for proving my point.
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If you do not have an argument, kindly link me to whatever site it is where you got the idea that there is an argument. I cannot provide a crit unless you produce something.
 
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