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Original poster

here is my truth ....tell me yours

48 replies

zippitippitoes · 25/05/2006 13:03

what is truth.........are there things which are universally held to be truths

if I have a truth which isn't shared by you is it a truth still

OP posts:
Original poster
zippitippitoes · 25/05/2006 15:01

yes mb that's the one ...looking for it also came upon the interestingly elegant falling cat theorem and the cat with tails

why are philosophers so interested in cats?

OP posts:
FrayedKnot · 25/05/2006 15:05

I think I need to lie down in a darkened room afetr reading these few posts.

Blandmum · 25/05/2006 15:05

Well, shroedinger was a physicist and was really interested in quantum theory, the cat bit was just by way of explanation i think Grin

Best question and Answer from an exam that I have heard about was

Q. What is courage?

a. This is

FlameBoo · 25/05/2006 15:08

Brain has now turned to mush and is trickling out of my ears.....

Grin
Original poster
zippitippitoes · 25/05/2006 15:08

Iknew as soon as i posted that that you would say he wasn't a philosopher! Grin But quantum physics does morph into the soft end of philosophy ..doesn't it?

OP posts:
Tinker · 25/05/2006 15:09

Grin Someone reads my posts.

Blandmum · 25/05/2006 15:11

hmmmmm, i think if you said 'soft end' to a physicist (the 'hard' end of science) they would beat you to death with a stick made of 'Dark Matter' Grin

Just because they do it with maths you see! Grin

Original poster
zippitippitoes · 25/05/2006 15:14
Grin

now truth seems to have been pushed aside by reality

OP posts:
cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 15:17

i think the bit about philosophy / physics was kind of where schroedinger was coming from. physicists express stuff precisely in equations, but they can't always tell you what it looks like in words. schroedinger was pointing out the discrepancy between the equations and our experience...

Tinker · 25/05/2006 15:20

This is one of those threads where I'm able to read the individual words but can't understand them when put next to each other.

Original poster
zippitippitoes · 25/05/2006 15:21

so you have the choice of finding the absolute truth in maths/numbers or believing in god as an embodiment of absolute truth by which any other truth is measured?

OP posts:
katzg · 25/05/2006 15:21

the additional debate for the matter transporter is the soul - the transporter only moves matter and as the soul has no physical being it can't be transported and the person dies because their soul is ripped from their body.

The other one he had me, a materials scientist, trying to fathom is:

if a man repairs his car and throws the parts over his fence and his neighbour rebuilds the car as each piece is thrown over the fence, assuming that every piece is replaced and the neighbour uses only the original parts which is the real car.

cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 15:49

yeah, my lecturer pretty much discounted the soul. on the grounds that we intuitively feel that if there was another being who didn't have my body and didn't have my memories/thoughts, it just wouldn't feel like it was me. leaving no room for the soul as a separate entity.

wasn't convinced - identity seems to me to be such a tenuous concept - so hard to pin down - that i like the idea of something a bit mysterious that it resides in!

but - the car thing kind of throws a spanner in that - because identity there is also a tenuous concept, and i don't really want to say that the car has a soul!

cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 15:50

zippi - don't think it's a choice really. numbers / maths can only express truth if truth really exists. they can't solve that philisophical point. it's just that if truth doesn't exist, the mathematicians are all on dodgy ground! :)

katzg · 25/05/2006 16:01

i never got any of it!

QE · 25/05/2006 16:08

Shock if this thread is an explanation of truth then I am lying through my teeth for evermore! Grin

cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 16:24

btw - zippi - an hour and a half ago - i thought that was a really good point about truth! maybe we do have a use for a concept of truth that isn't Truth, after all :)

cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 16:25

i meant the point about telling the truth in court - should have made that clear! :)

JoolsToo · 25/05/2006 16:26

if you're you die

JoolsToo · 25/05/2006 16:26

drat

if you're born you die

cornflakegirl · 25/05/2006 16:33

are you suggesting that's an absolute truth joolstoo? because i'd want to disagree? i think it's in the same league as "the sun rises every morning" - it always has so far, but that doesn't mean it always will...

MrsBigD · 25/05/2006 17:07

my head hurts Grin

though I love the Schroedingers Cat thing.

truth? if you're born you die?
matter of perspective isn't it? some people believe in reincarnation Grin
also if you die does your soul?

Absolute truth?
eating lots of asparagus + drinking lots of water = very active bladder? Grin and in some cases = very active bladder and pongy pee Grin

Ergo truth is relativ which brings us back to that cat Grin

better go and grab an ice pack for my head now

JoolsToo · 25/05/2006 19:11

well Joolstoo will die - I may come back as a meerkat but I won't be Joolstoo and that is a fact! Grin

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