Why I Believe Truth=Experience

[RedDragon94]

Truth is knowable, experiential fact. No one can argue against what one knows they have come into contact with. It is their life experience that informs their way of life. Learning is a life experience just as much as pain or suffering is, it all comes from the same source. That source is life and nature. Experience is axiomatic. If you say experience is not an inroad to knowledge, how do you know anything?

 

[Politesse]

The problem being that we do not experience the world directly, but through the screens of the sense perception, cognition, physical position, and sociocultural orientation. So the world the individual experiences never lines up directly with what we model through intersubjective comparison.

 

[YmirGF]

Truth is knowable, experiential fact. No one can argue against what one knows they have come into contact with. It is their life experience that informs their way of life. Learning is a life experience just as much as pain or suffering is, it all comes from the same source. That source is life and nature. Experience is axiomatic. If you say experience is not an inroad to knowledge, how do you know anything?

As long as you allow for that supposed truth to be as a hairy little animal that can change over time, you might make some headway with this approach. The problem is in certainty. Once certainty sets in investigation ceases. The key, I think, it to never stop asking questions and never stifle the learning process.

 

[RedDragon94]

The problem being that we do not experience the world directly, but through the screens of the sense perception, cognition, physical position, and sociocultural orientation. So the world the individual experiences never lines up directly with what we model through intersubjective comparison.

So those things don't help us experience things or make the experience more clear?

 

[RedDragon94]

As long as you allow for that supposed truth to be as a hairy little animal that can change over time, you might make some headway with this approach. The problem is in certainty. Once certainty sets in investigation ceases. The key, I think, it to never stop asking questions and never stifle the learning process.

But it's the only one that makes any sense to me. How does one arrive at truth if not through experience (whether it be subjective or not)?

 

[YmirGF]

But it's the only one that makes any sense to me. How does one arrive at truth if not through experience (whether it be subjective or not)?

Don't become too fixated on so-called "truth". Easy, breezy, lemon squeezy...

 

[RedDragon94]

Don't become to fixated on so-called "truth". Easy, breezy, lemon squeezy...

Okay...

 

[YmirGF]

Okay...

Again, in my view, I don't work with "truth" very much. It is a value judgment based on relative experience. What was true today may not be true tomorrow. That's how I'm meaning this. The difference is that "Truths" tend to fall into an unchangeable category unfortunately reality isn't quite so neat and compartmentalized.

I try to work with what IS and allow my understanding to make of it what it will.

If you are meaning that truth is experience because it is always subject to change why bother calling it truth?

 

[RedDragon94]

Again, in my view, I don't work with "truth" very much. It is a value judgment based on relative experience. What was true today may not be true tomorrow. That's how I'm meaning this. The difference is that "Truths" tend to fall into an unchangeable category unfortunately reality isn't quite so neat and compartmentalized.

I try to work with what IS and allow my understanding to make of it what it will.

Oh, okay. To me there's a progression of sorts as far as Truth is concerned.

 

[YmirGF]

Oh, okay. To me there's a progression of sorts as far as Truth is concerned.

My klaxons just go off when I see truth spelled with a capital T, as if it is somehow absolute.

 

[Corvus]

My klaxons just go off when I see truth spelled with a capital T, as if it is somehow absolute.

Truth is like an Onion, especially in the world of Physics, many layers, maybe an infinite number of layers. Maybe there is no absolute truth anyway. I like the uncertainty, makes people think and allows for progress and utility along the way, burrowing metaphorically through the Onion, ever deeper.

 

[Corvus]

Oh, okay. To me there's a progression of sorts as far as Truth is concerned.

Yup, you are correct.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

Truth is knowable, experiential fact. No one can argue against what one knows they have come into contact with. It is their life experience that informs their way of life. Learning is a life experience just as much as pain or suffering is, it all comes from the same source. That source is life and nature. Experience is axiomatic. If you say experience is not an inroad to knowledge, how do you know anything?

agree with this, everything else is taking someone else's word for it..

 

[Corvus]

Truth is knowable, experiential fact. No one can argue against what one knows they have come into contact with. It is their life experience that informs their way of life. Learning is a life experience just as much as pain or suffering is, it all comes from the same source. That source is life and nature. Experience is axiomatic. If you say experience is not an inroad to knowledge, how do you know anything?

Two or more people witnessing the same event may all well have radically different accounts of events, in court this happens on a daily basis. The truth there is not simply what someone experiences. All the accounts of an event may have some features in common, so they are all approximations of what actually happened, which is unknowable, with 100% certainty. Some accounts will be more or less reliable than others for all kinds of reasons. You cannot rely absolutely on your senses to tell you what is happening outside of your body, everything you perceive is analogous electrical signals feeding information constantly to your brain which reconstructs the world you see and smell and touch in your mind, it is only a representation of reality, defined as your brain architecture determines. Thus there is much room for things to interfere in the process, such as subconscious drivers toxins illnesses hallucinations, emotions etc or just be beyond your senses to perceive

 

[Corvus]

agree with this, everything else is taking someone else's word for it..

You don't have to take someone's word for it when dealing with scientific truth, ie empirical fact.

 

[Guy Threepwood]

You don't have to take someone's word for it when dealing with scientific truth, ie empirical fact.

True, because the most empirical scientific evidence is the kind you can experience, observe, test for yourself

em·pir·i·cal
əmˈpirik(ə)l/
adjective

1. based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
   "they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument"
   synonyms: experiential, practical, heuristic, firsthand, hands-on;
   observed, evidence-based, seen, demonstrable

 

[Corvus]

True, because the most empirical scientific evidence is the kind you can experience, observe, test for yourself

em·pir·i·cal
əmˈpirik(ə)l/
adjective

1. based on, concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic.
   "they provided considerable empirical evidence to support their argument"
   synonyms: experiential, practical, heuristic, firsthand, hands-on;
   observed, evidence-based, seen, demonstrable

Works for me.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So those things don't help us experience things or make the experience more clear?

Our senses and brains are funny. They are far from perfect, they are prone to misfires and misinterpretations, and way more often than you realize they distort information and don't take it in as well as most people think (we actually consciously process only a small amount of what we are completely subjected to). There are vast amounts of psychology and sociology experiments and studies that show us multiple people will perceive or recall the same event in the same way, and there are even ways to deliberately trick the brain into taking in things incorrectly or inadequately (there is a show on Netflix called Brain Games if you have a subscription).
To base truth on how you personally experience the world, you might as well be saying the world revolves around you, because the full implications of "experience = truth" is about just as an arrogant conclusion.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

True, because the most empirical scientific evidence is the kind you can experience, observe, test for yourself

That's what makes sience great. It is not at all what "I saw" what numbers "I got," but what the community as a whole observes by replicating an experiment or not.

 

[PureX]

The problem being that we do not experience the world directly, but through the screens of the sense perception, cognition, physical position, and sociocultural orientation. So the world the individual experiences never lines up directly with what we model through intersubjective comparison.

Yeah, but, see, my amplifier goes all the way to 11! That's one more than 10!