How do people who believe 'There is no truth' function in society?

I was hands down the worst person in my life when I was an atheist. I thought that if there was no good or bad, I could do whatever I wanted and it didn't matter... As long as I didn't get caught.

I assume this is the same mentality held by a lot of the powers-that-be that sacrifice the well-being of others for profit.

a reply to: Profusion
Ok, interesting thread.

The quote:
"There is no truth. There is only perception." - Gustave Flaubert

I like what you said in a later post:

To me though, the fact it can be logically proven on one level that I'm sitting on a chair makes it truth.

One level? What's that mean? A crazy person might add they're presently sitting in the starship enterprise at least on one level. It's their experience. Isn't that one level? It feels plenty real to them!

To clarify: You were referring to the possibility you weren't sitting on a chair to a non-human perception. I have to think when you say "one level" you're alluding to shared reality. Given the collective knowledge of humans agrees you're sitting on a chair, it's truth enough.

Truth is shared agreement, isn't it? Just witnessing truth doesn't make it true until others can witness it with you.

But if just having some agreement is all that's required to state something is truth then how much agreement is needed? And what if the human collective perception is stuck in a paradigm and cannot see some truths, thus is imprisoned in a false truth only true to itself?

I think the problem with the quote is the word "perception". Maybe it should be "measurements." Or maybe "Shared observations." Perception, as a word, is too tied to the mind. And because reality is shared, it has greater meaning than something exclusively existing in the mind.

a reply to: cooperton

While I agree with the validity of your point, I find it rather distressing that some people need to believe in the threat of eternal damnation in order to have a set of morals.

a reply to: cooperton

That's you though. I've known great people for whom the opposite occurred when they suddenly became religious and turned into jerks.

Everyone's different. If you truly became a better person I'm glad for you, but not everyone needs someone to tell them right from wrong, and many who do, end up following the worst tenants of a religion.

There are good, logical, rational reasons and arguments to be a decent person and do right by others. Enlightened self interest.

a reply to: jonnywhite

Technically that's soft truth not HARD truth. Hard TRUTH exist outside human perception, in theory. It's there whether being observed or not in theory.

Also their mass hallucination, delusion ect.

No amount of people believing/perceiving something makes it change to hard TRUTH.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: jonnywhite

Technically that's soft truth not HARD truth. Hard TRUTH exist outside human perception, in theory. It's there whether being observed or not in theory.

Also their mass hallucination, delusion ect.

No amount of people believing/perceiving something makes it change to hard TRUTH.

It's the collective human perception that there're hard truths. Science is the greater part of the collective human perception, the least apt to be false. Yet the idea that the universe will continue on if we all die is collective in nature. It's through our experiences together and our confidence in our shared reality that we conclude these hard truths exist.

I'm not at all saying there're no hard truths. I agree that the universe is real and its laws are hard. And yet I also have to admit to myself that the only reason I agree is because of the shared agreement which is the product of the human collective, past and present.

a reply to: jonnywhite

Hard truth exist because it does. If we believe there's a world filled with other separate entities, but in REALITY there's only us and everything else is an illusion, then the HARD truth is that there's only us and everything else is an illusion.

HARD reality is what IS, it has literally nothing to do with perception or interpretation.

One can theoretically coincidentally believe in the exact same thing which coincides with hard reality, but they have no way of KNOWING that their beliefs coincide with HARD reality.

What we all perceive and agree on is not HARD reality, it's what we collectively believe is the most likely reality, and the most safest observations to make decisions based off of.

Nothing based purely off perception and interpretation can be for those reasons hard REALITY, as hard reality is the complete truth of it.

Like let's take an apple. You know what an apple is, right? Do you KNOW what an apple is? Do you know it broken down to it's smallest level? Do you know every bug that's ever landed on it? Do you know every stage of it's theoretical evolution? Do you know everything about the apple down to it's quantum level, do you KNOW what an apple is? No of course not. It's still an apple as we percieve and collectively understand it. But it's also an APPLE which none of us will ever truly know or be capable of knowing.

To KNOW something requires omniscience and perfect understanding.

a reply to: Puppylove

You are one of the few people on here
IMHO that seems to have studied epistemology
or maybe it just comes naturally in your case.

Might be a teence platonic idealism in
there... but that's reasonable...

I star most things you write....of course
I have two puppies... so maybe it's
just selection bias on my part ;-)

A preponderance of the currently knowable
facts must suffice. There is no other option.

Labeling anything Truth is just a form
of self delusion and ego aggrandizement
IMHO.

Of course I accidentally use that word
on occasion, as a few things are pretty
obvious - such as the fact that we live
in a hostile Universe or simulation of
a Universe that will kill us dead in an
instant.

So such people do extraordinarily well
in many cases...not being loaded down
with self delusional existential angst
twaddle and societal meme gunk.

Kev

a reply to: Profusion
I agree with you completely, from an anecodotal experience, and watching others reach the same point. It becomes impossible to function in an effective and "healthy" way, for truth involves trust, intimately and necessarily. If there is no truth, nor trust, then….the nightmare only glimpsed at, at times, can become disturbingly real.

At those times, the only functioning becomes, necessarily, an unsteady and unwavering belief in yourself. In this, I mean, totally yourself. What you may think or think you know about others, even, is up for grabs. But knowing what you are and are not is imperative. This, IMHO, is then how you continue functioning. That simple belief.
tetra

a reply to: KellyPrettyBear

Naturally in my case, I'm a thinker and daydreamer. I never studied it in any real sense. I just spend a lot of time lost in thought.

a reply to: tetra50

One can have trust without believing you know the TRUTH.

If someone was to tell me my lover was, say cheating on me, and I chose to trust in my lover over the gossiper, it does not require me to believe such is an impossibility. It only requires to place more faith in my lover not cheating on me than the gossipers statements. The key is more faith, not 100%. I'm not being disloyal to my lover by acknowledging there's a chance I'm wrong, nor am I forced to become paranoid and neurotic because I'm willing to acknowledge there's say a 5% chance the gossiper is telling the truth for example.

In fact real trust requires the acknowledgement you could be wrong. For if there's no chance you could be mistaken, no risk is taken, and in the end, it's not really trust at all.

a reply to: Puppylove

Hey Puppylove:

Thanks for your reply.

In fact real trust requires the acknowledgement you could be wrong. For if there's no chance you could be mistaken, no risk is taken, and in the end, it's not really trust at all.

Actually, no that's what faith requires, as it's the more reliant upon what's underserved, than trust, I believe. But this is just my sense of these words and their definitions. I see what you're defining there, completely, as faith: a belief in what is not observed (i.e., experienced.)

Trust by Merriam Webster, in this context:

belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective,

Trust is not about taking risks. It's about the observed experience, therefore, and our belief in its honesty, necessarily. Faith is about taking the leap, without knowing or observing.
respectfully,
tetra

a reply to: tetra50

Note that in the definition of trust, is the acknowledgement that it is the belief that something is those things, not that it actually is those things. When I say believe 95% that the gossiper is wrong, that's because I have the belief that my lover is all those things in the trust definition. Having that belief, does not require me to remove the acknowledgement that it is my belief and thus open to being wrong. Which is where that theoretical 5% comes from.

Addendum to be more clear: The second something becomes "FACT" it longer requires "belief". Trust requires belief, which means, it requires the possibility of being wrong.

Fact is in quotes ect, because obviously I'm other the belief what we generally call facts, are soft facts, not HARD facts.

Conceptually though a fact removes belief. Considering some of the finds and changes in science, as well as exceptions to our "facts" I don't buy into facts as we call them being FACTS like so many do.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: tetra50

Note that in the definition of trust, is the acknowledgement that it is the belief that something is those things, not that it actually is those things. When I say believe 95% that the gossiper is wrong, that's because I have the belief that my lover is all those things in the trust definition. Having that belief, does not require me to remove the acknowledgement that it is my belief and thus open to being wrong. Which is where that theoretical 5% comes from.

Well, of course, belief informs both trust and faith. The difference being, faith is more of a suspension of belief. Trust is based in belief. You may choose to have more faith in your partner then the gossiper…..and put your trust there, in your partner, then, rather than the gossiper. And this then would be totally informed by what you choose…..and that is usually about emotion and need, then, further….at that point.

I find this a supercilious argument regarding what I've responded to the thread writer, though. My point, overall, is it's difficult, for sure, to exist within society or in any defined concept with other people and the general economy we all participate within, and the particular "beliefs" ascribed to that support the paradigm, (such as religion and money, and "In God We Trust,"), if we don't trust, believe and have faith in the paradigm and its principles, and the information at hand to support it in its belief structure, in general.

a reply to: tetra50

I see what you're saying, but I don't think it requires trust in any particular faith or paradigm. One can be a decent person simply via philosophical concepts and understandings, completely free from any codified laws or religion.

One can function in society simply by applying faith of various levels where it feels deserved for many different reasons. Yes people need faith and trust to exist, but that can come from so many many different sources.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: tetra50

I see what you're saying, but I don't think it requires trust in any particular faith or paradigm. One can be a decent person simply via philosophical concepts and understandings, completely free from any codified laws or religion.

One can function in society simply by applying faith of various levels where it feels deserved for many different reasons. Yes people need faith and trust to exist, but that can come from so many many different sources.

This is where I disagree with you. Yes, perhaps, one CAN…..but it becomes, then quite difficult, if you begin to doubt everything that informs the attendant paradigm and its institutions.

Example: Cash seems to be king here in America, at least. Advertising seems to be next. And everything seems to be a result of perceptions twisted and informed by those two things.

LOL. I am quite a cynical person. You are in this thread to perpetuate hope despite what I suggest, I think. Cudos to you, for that….
regards,
tetra

a reply to: tetra50

There's a risk in becoming lost in any paradigm. When one puts too much faith in something like money, advertizing, media, ect, they fail to ever see through it's bs. One needs a healthy bit of skepticism in all things or you get suicide bombers.

originally posted by: tetra50

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: tetra50

I see what you're saying, but I don't think it requires trust in any particular faith or paradigm. One can be a decent person simply via philosophical concepts and understandings, completely free from any codified laws or religion.

One can function in society simply by applying faith of various levels where it feels deserved for many different reasons. Yes people need faith and trust to exist, but that can come from so many many different sources.

This is where I disagree with you. Yes, perhaps, one CAN…..but it becomes, then quite difficult, if you begin to doubt everything that informs the attendant paradigm and its institutions.

Example: Cash seems to be king here in America, at least. Advertising seems to be next. And everything seems to be a result of perceptions twisted and informed by those two things.

LOL. I am quite a cynical person. You are in this thread to perpetuate hope despite what I suggest, I think. Cudos to you, for that….
regards,
tetra

Don't be an asshole should be all the philosophy/morals/ethics us humans
need. But no, we humans had to invent god as a cover, to give us permission
to kill people who look different from us and think differently.

Of course 'modern' religions don't kill anymore.. they just wish everyone
who thinks differently than them into hell and pat themselves on the
back for being loving, all the while doing basically nothing their own
religion tells them to do, such as sell everything they have and give it
to the poor.

Kev

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: tetra50

There's a risk in becoming lost in any paradigm. When one puts too much faith in something like money, advertizing, media, ect, they fail to ever see through it's bs. One needs a healthy bit of skepticism in all things or you get suicide bombers.

Money, advertising, media, etc. are what inform the paradigmic "reality" you exist within, friend. That's what our institutions are informed by and explained and expressed with. It's a total package. From there, when you go to Starbuck's or buy some sneakers and find out where they got the labor for the sneakers and how they treat those people, or where the coffee beans are farmed and what the trade practices are in place for that….THIS is part and parcel, the reality of PARADIGM and ITS EXPRESSIONS.

Lost in a paradigm? You live in it. It provides you nourishment, definition of what "life" is, what's legal, etc. Now, if you wish to describe life separate and apart from paradigms and control systems, and scripted, controlled environments and histories, and the magic of the VERY unusual, unplanned for happenstance that extremely rarely happens apart from all that is paradigmic…..fine. Skepticism and belief inform the actions of suicide bombers, probably quite equally.