What is universal truth?

[Brooke Curto]

Yes, this topic is very broad but it has been the question that MANY people have tried to slove, but could not. Let's see who tried and came close... Socrates, Aristotle , and Plato. Plato had is allegory of the cave, but I am putting this debate up here so we could possibly brainstorm what truth might be and how to possibly find it! May the truth be with you :P ~

-Brooke "Alexios I" Curto  

^yes Alexios I was the king of Byzantium during the crusades XD 

**bad grammar may cause bleeding, narsissem, excessive laughter , unexpected Charlie horses, addiction to Dr. Who, strange affinity to fluffy pillows, seeing water talk to you, think that Kony is your best friend, pains in your neck, bloating, and voices telling you that you are the son of God... Please contact your doctor immediately if you suffer from any of these symptoms !**

[Jackalope Joe D'Antonio]

Universal truth does not exist. Truth is only as true as we decide it is. As a group we all pick what is true, that is why in the middle east Islam is the only truth and in western society Christianity is the truth. Nothing is true 100% of the time. 

[John Eric Tiessen]

2+2=4 :) That is truth! Also as far as religion goes, it isn't so much an issue of truth as it is an issue of legalese. It is very different for a dude to claim he is the messiah than it is for him to claim that he is a prophet. In Islam Jesus is considered a prophet, in Christianity the messiah. The truth then is that he was indeed a religious man. The disagreement is whether or not he was the "son" of God. Fundamentally Islam, Christianity and Judaism all worship the same God. The differences isn't a question of truth but rather interpretation.

[Jackalope Joe D'Antonio]

Even though math can also be changed? If right now everyone decided that 3+2=32 that would become the truth. If everyone decides that something is true it becomes true, that is my most history started as a lie at one point but so many people were fooled it became truth.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

No, you're misunderstanding. That would be changing what they symbols mean, it wouldn't change the truth of 2+2=4. That's logic.

[Melissa Avery]

Just because we all say something is true doesn't mean that it is true. It just means that we all are lying. like if we all decided to say that you don't exist would that be a truth even though you do exist? No it just means that we are all lying.

[Vertigo_One [Ops Mod]]

Just because we all say something is true doesn't mean that it is true.

That wasn't my argument. If you think it was, you are misunderstanding me. 2+2=4 is ALWAYS true, because of logic. Even if you change what the symbols mean, it makes no difference to the truth described.

[Melissa Avery]

I didn't mean to reply to you sorry I was trying to reply to Joseph

[CD]

As much as I'd like to agree with you,  the reason why it's always true is because the system of logic is self contained (not just because of the meaning of the symbols). 

To make 2+2 = 22 (just as example) would involve a different system of logic, possibly a system where 3+2=32, and 3+3=33 (changing what the symbols mean, as you said, in this case the symbol +).....not the same system as the other, but still self contained.

The system of logic that states  if  Premise A is supported by Evidence A and Replicated by Independant Observation B then Premise A has a probability greater than zero of not being false,  is known as science.  It's universally true in our system of observation when Observations C, D, E......find the same thing.  But it's not universal truth....it's just a well supported argument, stronger than arguments without evidence. And it's not the same thing as an ad populum fallacy, which assumes that something is true only because everyone else believes it, not because there's evidence to support the argument.

So if you could show me that  3+3 really does equal 33 (in the "real" world) then perhaps our mutual observations would contain an article of universal truths, within a mutually shared system of logic ;)....articles in this case being very small units of which the whole is comprised....like looking out the window and only seeing three trees when there is actually a large forest...

[John Eric Tiessen]

Well Euclid was the first dude in history to come across certain universal truths. These included the wonderful concepts of geometry and allowed him to do amazing things like calculate angles and find areas. Euclidean geometry has been one of the corner stones of mathematics for the last 2000 some years and has proven without a doubt to be true. In fact in geometry you can make "proofs" which prove that something is indeed true. Math is the only area of human exploration that can discover truly universal truths. No matter where you go on earth, solar system or the universe in general, 2+2 will equal 4.

As for other more mundane things like "is there a God?" Or "Is there really absolute morality?" The answer to these questions can never be fully answered. These questions are posed in such a way that they demand information that we cannot attain. To prove there is a God we would have to exhaust all possible dimensions both observable and non-observable that he could exist in. Furthermore, according to Physics and math it might be strictly impossible to determine some things. For example: According to Heisenberg uncertainty principle you can't know both the speed and position of an electron at the same time. Physics and math literally prove that certain things cannot be proven and cannot be observed. So in that sense, the answer to original question is no. Why? Because there are some things in this universe that we will never be able to observe or prove (not metaphorically but literally!). Universal truth will never be possible because we will never be able to grasp the entirety of all of the universe, the very small and the very large will forever remain out of our reach.

[CD]

Euclid's concept of dimensionality has been shown to be really, really, really useful.  But that doesn't mean it's universally true.   Kinds of falls on it's head when talking about points that don't have dimensions (and vice versa), and yet, some funky maths based on euclidean dimensionality still helps ;)

[John Eric Tiessen]

So long as math is universal I am fine with that! If you jump to page 5 you can see how I ended up in a rather interesting argument about the whole 2+2 thing. It might have started on page 4 I am not sure.

[CD]

yeah i saw that. 

check out one of my discussions, it's a quiz.  you'll need to do some philosophy just to choose the options.  be right up your alley.