Quote:
Originally Posted by Tormod
I would argue that there is no such thing as "truth" in any sense, only consensus, when it comes to arguments.
Our viewpoints are biased, and it's IMHO impossible to understand someone else's viewpoint "truly" (how would you define "truly understand"?).
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One way to define these things is as functions.
You can say you truly understand someone else's idea, when that person agrees that you do because you have been convinced. (Or alternatively, admits it is impossible for you to understand it because he now realizes it is wrong) This means in a disagreement, one person has to concede defeat to reach this point.
In truth, is this not the only time you can completely rule out the possibility that you are right and the other person is wrong? At first you might think this would render you powerless because you must get your opponent to admit he was wrong to be sure of what he was saying. However, if your opponent refuses to do so and yet cannot produce a convincing argument that addresses your concerns, then even the most open minded thinker would have no choice but to postpone consideration of his claims until such a time as he CAN produce a convincing argument.
Thus it is safe to define truth in a similar manner - truth is when believe an idea and openly confront all sources of information that could contradict it to the best of your ability, and yet are unable to disprove your idea. We are safe losing our ideas to any one off the street who disagrees with us because such people are not always going to be able to produce a convincing counter argument to our idea.
This is the best possible truth I can have.
Some people may not like it because it would call me to disagree with something that is agreed upon by many. But the only reason this happens is because that many is unable to present an argument that deals with your beliefs, which means that many has little understanding of that which they believe in.
