And if 10 different people have 10 different reactions then the truth is .....?

What has been "conveyed"? You're embuing cliffs with "fearatrons" or "aweglobs" or what do they have that somehow is shipped or conveyed to me?

And I'll link you as well: a discussion by Noam Chomsky on the ontology of scientific models. I'm afraid he does have a portfolio though, holding the most prestigious philosophy chair in the world and all...

proposition1:

I wandered lonely as a cloud.

I propose that he did

Proposition2:

she walks in beauty like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies
and all thats best of dark and light
meets in her aspect and her eyes

I propose that she did indeed.

Proposition 3

So long as men can breathe and eyes can see
so long lives this and this gives life to thee

I propose it did indeed give life to her.


I also propose that it is not through a scientific way of thinking that we can arrive at these conclusions.

Nontheless they remain useful descriptions of feeling, and relate truths of the human condition.

It's surreal, honestly. Like: "Any fool could sequence the genome or build a generative grammar for language...that's very well if you're content with surface truths! But look more deeply and you'll see---<*significant look*>"

Yes, and I travel as a phantom now / for people do not wish to see / in flesh and blood so bare a bough / as Nature makes of me.

But anyways, let me get this straight. These are "propositions" that K. couldn't discover the "truth" of?

This started as presenting other ways of discovering "truth", since science can only discover some apparently. in scare quotes for good reason.

We watched "Mulholland Falls" and one commented " what a love story" and the other "great thriller". So THE truth we discovered was ..... ?

You have focused on your personal emotional experiences and now on a description of them or perhaps actually just pointing to objects which stir them up. Poetry typically doesn't describe emotion as evoke them, just as mountain mists do. Yet, at best, all you'd be able to claim is "I experienced X". I'm not following where this new method that discovers truth that you started this with went to.

It went to the same place that most other focal points go when you're talking to theists trying to refute your point; it got derailed and watered down into nothingness. This is what Aaron does consistently in his debates. I guess the others are learning from him.

Seriously though...

Nobody has provided a new method trustworthy enough to work better than, or side-by-side with, science. All they keep saying is that science can be wrong or that science doesn't cover everything. That's fine to say, but mere words is where it ends. Without any backing, these words could hardly be fostered into a methodology capable of discerning/discovering truth.

Actually, you do. Would you be able to experience your wife's love if you were unable to see, hear, smell, taste, or feel her actions?

How would you differentiate a nearby loving wife from a nearby rock? In the words of Subfallen, be specific in your answer.

Science doesn't allow me to do these things.

"Truths about the human condition" are not the same kinds of truths as "truths about the universe."

You might say there is "truth" in young love and its attendant hyperboles, but it's clear that this "truth" is represented in the overreaction of a youthful brain to hormones.

For example, it is unlikely you could predict anything about a woman from a man's love poetry to that woman. Furthermore, if we were to assume the man's writings were accurate, then we would have to assume the woman he wrote love poems about early in the relationship was not even the same person as the woman he wrote spiteful rants against after the breakup. This is how fleeting and arbitrary these feelings are. Considering that love can turn to hate in the blink of an eye, it is naive to suggest that love represents something stable, much less immortal.

I know what it's like to be obsessed with science, but that's going a bit too far, man.

The same objective truth may be interpreted differently - our subjective evaluation doesn't change the objective truth.

It can't. But you see, when you factor in percentages, your argument for a new/different/better method falls flat on its face.

"The sun will rise tomorrow."

Objectively True or No?

Saying the sun will rise tomorrow is a scientific claim. Sure it can be wrong. It's not 100%, but it's real damn close.

"It's good to help others."
"That painting is beautiful."
"Anal sex is wrong."
"Dogs are big."

Objectively True or No?

Assign percentages of truth (like I just did with the Sun using science). Feel free to use your methodology and make sure you explain how you arrived at your figures. One thing you absolutely CAN'T use is the Bible, sorry.

I'm not the one who limits science - modern scientists do that themselves.

Wow, that is the boondocks - unlike the thriving metropolis of central Louisiana.

Pardon the grunching, I will go back and read all the intervening messages, but I'd like to get this out there sooner rather than later. And pardon the rough draftyness of my reply. I could refine it, but again, I just want to get something out there now, and I don't have much time.

Science cannot be used for everything; but you are stretching the word "truth" when you use it interchangably with "pleasant" or "likable" (e.g. the music of Mozart is true to me).

As far as emotions go, I think there are two points to be made. The kind of claims having to do with your wife loving you, etc., are not being laid out very well. What is it that you think science cannot do? Because we can understand something about emotions, what causes them, how to effect them, etc. Just because something is amazing, doesn't mean we can't understand it -- and understanding it does not make it any less a genuine emotion in our brains. But we can scientifically observe the way people interact and get a pretty good guess as to who loves whom, employing the scientific method.

But in a more abstract sense, I think you have a bit of a category error. "Science can't prove art, or love, or justice," etc., are akin to saying "science can't prove balance." Right, because balance is not a hypothesis; science cannot prove it. Nothing else can, either, for that matter. But if you want to make a claim about balance, science is the best method for sorting out the truth about it.

There are limits on research funding. There are limits to how much superstition even Americans want to teach their kids. There are limits to how long "philosophers" can refrain from "defining" things. There are limits to the perspective humans can get on their emotions. Etc.

But there aren't any walls between 'science' and 'truth'. (Besides...both those concepts have such fuzzy borders, that even trying to build walls around them is suspicious.)

What's absurd is the notion that you have determinate concepts for either 'truth' or 'science.' YOU DON'T. But I think you're ignoring me, so I won't elaborate at all.

I'm sorry I skim read the thread. I was reacting to the position of someone called K. who said

"I believe that science is the only way to discover and describe truth."

Poetry, art, music etc allows you to discover truths about yourself and communicates them to others. Try expressing your feelings by writing a poem, or expressing yourself through a piece of music. See if you don't reach a greater understanding of yourself and what you felt.

Now, it is clearly obvious to me that poetry isn't going to be able to give my father a heart bypass, or be able to describe accurately the movements of the planets. These are, as you say, "truths" that can only usefully be expressed through science.

nonetheless it is clear to me that as mind bogglingly useful as the scientific method is it is pretty useless at conveying to me emotions which appear to be universal to the human race.

These emotional "truths"(in scare quotes for good reason) are far better described, evoked and discovered through the creation and dissemination of the arts.

I'm not ignoring you, just tired of the argument. Science is truth, but truth is not science. Can't think of much else to say about it.

Ok, quick question: does art also allow you to discover falsehoods about yourself? Imagine, for example, that you're listening to Beethoven. You feel that you gain a deeper understanding about yourself...call that understanding 'X'.

Now is it possible that you're wrong about X; that you actually understand yourself less than you did before the Beethoven?

I don't know if Sklansky is still trying to write a RGT-themed book, but I think the relationship between these concepts (science/truth) should be the driving motif. Edit - dunno, maybe still a decade too soon.

Edit Again - and that was Jibninjas I quoted. Pretty sure he IS ignoring me.

I would agree entirely that there are different kinds of truths. There are different types of truth in young love. That described by science, but also that expressed through art.

It may well be 'naive to suggest that love represents something stable, much less immortal'

Nonetheless a sonnet/painting/fugue etc stands as a stable testament to that fleeting moment.

The reason why such art endures is surely because it reflects and describes something integral to the human condition to which we all relate and to which we attach great importance, however fleeting these things are.

Now let us say, that instead of just one poem about love or hate we have a compendium of such. Some which write about young love and its 'attendent hyperbole' some which deal with the hatred of love betrayed and others that reflect on love which has passed.

After having read all these poems, and perhaps attempted to write some of our own, I think we might arrive at a much greater understanding as to what is meant by love and what it means to feel love than if we merely concentrated on hormones and synaptic processes alone.

Perhaps I am using the scientific method of assessing the available evidence to come to a conclusion though hmmm?

I wouldn't say I could understand myself less than I would before listening to beethoven any more than I would say I could understand the natural world less after reading the origin of species. It might open up more questions than it solves, but it would certainly add to my understanding - just as I think listening to Beethoven does on an emotional level.

Origin contains a lot of truth. But I'm sure some of Darwin's ideas were false; and in principle, all of them could have been false.

I'm asking if the understanding you get from Beethoven has the same property. Could it be false?

I don't know, I read Catullus and I didn't have any exceptional understanding afterward. I don't believe that those who have read love poetry before having their first romantic relationship tend to be better at managing the relationship, nor do I believe that they have better relationship outcomes. (But hey, that's not a bad idea for a scientific study, is it?).

Whatever else may be the case, science in the last 50 years has revealed much about human emotion and how it works that was never recognized beforehand. People have been reading poetry and experiencing art for thousands of years, yet all they've been able to do when predicting how humans act is contradict one another. The "best" minds were able to come up with explanations for emotion including the four humours and female hysteria. None of the connoisseurs of the arts contradicted their (obviously wrong) views, which doesn't say much about their real understanding of emotion. But as soon as we employed scientific methodology, things changed.

It wouldn't be hard to reach some preliminary scientific conclusions based on responses (either physiological or even just subjective) to various pieces of art and poetry. If you want a truth that can actually be applied, you'd have to start working in a scientific context.