This statement, given the previous comments and the context of the article, belies a certain depth, a conundrum I find myself facing periodically.
The basic notion being that, that which we believe, is true. This is nonsense on the face of it. Being nonsense doesn't prevent it from being a seemingly fundamental and perplexing aspect of being a human.
That claim is the basis to basically all other claims, it is fundamental to such a degree that questioning is in the realms of philosophy and not science. If it is false then just about everything humanity believes and knows is false.
> Nothing is purely true or false because everything falls on a continuum.
That statement sure isn't purely true. (Therefore, there must at least kind of be something which is either purely true or purely false.) Though perhaps the sentiment behind it might not be totally wrong?
Core values can't be falsified, but a belief system built atop these values can be shown to be inconsistent, meaning it can essentially be used to argue for anything. Like in mathematics, an ideal system would pick core axioms/values that don't lead to inconsistency.
> My believing something is something doesn't make it so.
Your definition is exactly about beliefs. It can never be precisely interpreted, each interpretation depends entirely on what you consider good or bad and why.
It‘s not more trivial than „Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.“ which is a useless criterion even for scientific facts.
What you‘re suggesting about a false belief is an „unknown unknown“ so again the criteria of the quote is pretty useless in practice.
everything that we have come to expect of all aspects of existence is only that way because it has been repeated enough to have been made a fact of reality
What does this even mean? Repeated enough to become a fact of reality? So before it was a "fact of reality" it was being repeated, but.. wasn't yet reality? Until it was repeated enough, and then it became a fact of reality?
It is true for everything in existence. It doesn't matter how complicated something is, or how difficult it is for humans to grasp: There is a single reality, and an explanation or assumption that does not explain it is either incomplete, approximative, or plain wrong.
Not sure that's true at all. Would need some further argument to be convinced. Essentially, does that mean that all people are fundamentally mean? That's trivially false.
I'm willing to accept the duality of this situation and that issues in life are full of nuances that are not so easily dismissed as entirely one thing or another.
I'm curious, for those that seem so absolutely certain that things are only exactly one thing, where does this confidence come from? I have yet to see any evidence that life is that simple.
That's postmodernist baloney. There is an objective truth, and we can asymptotically approach it. Humanity can access facts. It's nonsense to suggest that we can't distinguish between claims because everything is false.
But we are not capable of knowing that anything is true with 100% certainty, we can be very convinced with ample evidence that something is true, but that doesn't make it true. I mean, the whole science shenanigans is based in this principle, that is the reason they talk about theories and not universal truths, because what we call facts or truth is at best very informed interpretations.
We know no truth, so everything has to change and progress.
The claim “we cannot ever know anything with absolute perfect certainty” is a quite different statement than “nothing is true”.
Even “we aren’t able to properly conceptualize any true statements” is, while not plausible, is still better than “nothing is true”. (It may be that many things we think are true are fundamentally confused/slightly-nonsensical in ways that we can’t correct by virtue of how our thought processes work, but I don’t consider it plausible that nothing we can believe is entirely true.)
The basic notion being that, that which we believe, is true. This is nonsense on the face of it. Being nonsense doesn't prevent it from being a seemingly fundamental and perplexing aspect of being a human.
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