Truth

[Michael Kirk]

Quick question:  who here believes that there is fixed, unchangeable truth?

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

The answer to the question depends heavily on your epistemology. Theory of Knowledge is (I believe) a class about epistemology.

Epistemology cannot be proven but they can be argued. As such, any answer would have to have an agreed upon epistemology, or at least part of one.

[Eystein,]

I believe in fixed, unchangeable truth. What is done is done, nothing can change that...

[Katie Bolan]

I find it very tempting to believe in a fixed and unchangeable truth, but unfortunately I am forced to recognize that this is probably not the case. To me the science of quantum physics makes it impossible to have an absolute truth because of all the uncertainty about exactly what is going on, and there are several possible truths that could lead to many of the results we see in our everyday lives.

[Hutch Hogan]

There is still certainty in quantum mechanics.  

There is also certainty in math. 

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

Agreed.

[Katie Bolan]

There is some certainty, but no absolute certainty, as stated in the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.

But, yes I agree there is certainty in math.

[Bryan Rosander, FL]

Isn't the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle certain itself?

[Abreo]

I heard a theory that much of the uncertainty in Quantum Mechanics may be due to the future affecting the past. There was a scientific experiment performed where a group of scientists observed a group of particles, and then later observed half of them again. They discovered that by observing them again they affected the original results. I can't claim to understand this at all but it's the only thing I ever heard that never ceased to blow my mind the more I thought about it.

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2012/aug/03/can-the-future...

That's not where I originally heard about it, but I figured I needed to back up my claim with something.

[Mary Napier]

@Katie (kinda), I agree with you on the idea that there is no absolute truth because of the science of quantam physics. But also the theory and study of quantam physics has a limit to where there are some truths, that are absolute and will not and can not be changed.

[Galen]

I believe that there must be an absolute context of which all sub-contexts fit within coherently. What we can say about such an absolute context is very little other than its existence is logically mandated by the apparent existence of anything at all. I would really like to put together syllogisms for this argument.

[Carl H]

I am not even sure how one would answer that question. What is truth? What is belief? Unchangeable? How would we recognize such a thing if it existed? Who are we? What is a question?

Maybe I am being excessively anal about it, but it seems to me that you are starting in the middle and I am not even sure if there is somewhere to begin.

[Abreo]

Well we'll never get anywhere with your method. If we can't all assume we know what a question is we can't even ask one. Not to mention if we can't assume some of the more basic meanings of words we can't communicate complexly even with ourselves, which is what you're doing by asking these questions. You're already arbitrarily assuming some knowledge while seemingly attempting to start from scratch, as though you knew nothing.

In any case, I also took the question posed by the op as being an attempt to define truth—since part of defining what truth is, is figuring out if it's fixed or malleable. Actually this question possibly asks one to dive in to several other of your questions when formulating an answer, since someone can't define truth without defining unchangeable and explaining how they could know if such a thing existed.

You're right though, we can never properly start from the beginning because we have to assume we have some knowledge if we even want to question our knowledge of anything. The question the op asked is fine, human beings have been questioning the world around them for a long time now, if we haven't reach the point where we can ask what truth is yet we're never going to get there. We have to be willing to make assumptions if we want to ask any question, and I think answering questions that are a bit ambiguous like "is truth fixed?" is better than not answering them until we, arbitrarily, attempt to define the universe beforehand so that this single question may become clear.