What is truth?

Ṁ533

resolved Jul 4

ALL

29%23%

Truth is the closest possible approximation to objective reality. The truth value of a statement can be measured by how well it corresponds with observations about the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correspondence_theory_of_truth

29%13%

Truth (noun) is objective reality itself, not its closest possible approximation. Statements are evaluated based on whether or not they correspond to truth, and sometimes we only give an approximation, but truth itself is objective.

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Beliefs determine experimental predictions, but only reality (truth) determines experimental results. Truths are the unalterable and objective facts of reality that don't depend on one's beliefs.

12%4%

An ironically named social media platform

12%6%

Beliefs which are verifiable and unlikely to change over time

25%

ANTE

P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B)

The Truth is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the twenty-fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 2000.

0.2%

Baby don't hurt me

0.2%

Beauty

A social construct

0.2%

A mobile army of metaphor

0.2%

Pilate, is that you?

Really good heuristics

0.4%

https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth

Will resolve proportionally to the answer or answers I like best. I'll resolve similarly to my previous open ended question market (linked below), but to raise the stakes a tad I will only choose up to 5 answers on this one. https://manifold.markets/MattP/what-is-love

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@MattP I'm really enjoying these questions and your responses. Hope to see more. It seems like the correspondance theory of truth and objective realism has won out, and you're definitely in great current and historical company on that front. Though maybe in a hopeless defence of some of the other answers, there are some interesting alternatives to that conception of reality and truth taken fairly seriously by both physicists and philosophers (which you may have already explored?). I've personally found objective truths unsatisfying, mostly because that claim requires a peek behind the curtain of perception. And since that isn't possible, it becomes impossible to claim something as true? General usage of the word seems to encode something along the lines of "a bunch of different agents have observed this value over time, so it *seems* like this is some constant and universal property that is extremely unlikely to change"

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Beliefs which are verifiable and unlikely to change over time

@akhil I think this is a good, practical answer (even if maybe not philosophically technically as correct as the top answers). 2 points.

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Beauty

@jfjurchen I'm sorely tempted, but although the poetry appeals to me I can't include this one in the top 5 (too many better answers). It's a lovely statement but not one I'm prepared to agree with in a firm sense.

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The Truth is a fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, the twenty-fifth book in his Discworld series, published in 2000.

@wasabipesto "what is truth", not "what is the truth", though. :)

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A social construct

@ahalekelly gonna have to hard disagree on this one I'm afraid. The specific ways we interact with objective reality may be a social construct, but saying that the entire concept of (or indeed, substance of) truth is a social construct is a bit of a train that runs nowhere IMO. Which is to say - you can make that claim, but it fairly quickly leads to being unable to make any other claims.

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Really good heuristics

@akhil decent answer IMO, but not in my top 5 I'm afraid. Heuristics are definitely useful, but often in spite of their lack of "true" content rather than because they contain inherent truth.

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P(A|B) = [P(A)*P(B|A)]/P(B)

@wasabipesto I *love* me some Bayes, but I don't know that his theorem is broad enough to qualify as "truth". Certainly *a* truth, though.

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A mobile army of metaphor

@SG it seems like there might be something to this one, but I'm afraid I am not clear on what it is. O_o

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Baby don't hurt me

@jfjurchen nice try!

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Pilate, is that you?

@Angela funny, but I already picked a (better) funny answer. :)

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https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X3HpE8tMXz4m4w6Rz/the-simple-truth

@Oevrlrod I penalized a link-only answer heavily in my last question market, and I'm going to continue that practice. Looking for answers in the options themselves. Won't be picking this one even if the post is good - sorry!

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An ironically named social media platform

@ahalekelly *sensible chuckle* (and also a correct answer, if an unexpected one). I'll award this one 2 points.

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Beliefs determine experimental predictions, but only reality (truth) determines experimental results. Truths are the unalterable and objective facts of reality that don't depend on one's beliefs.

@BionicD0LPH1N good answer, but somewhat redundant to the top two IMO. 3 points.

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@Angela definitely the answer I think is most correct and most descriptive, though after y'all's back and forth I have to give wasabi's high marks as well. 5 points for this one.

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@wasabipesto while my initial thought was that I agreed more with Angela's answer, I think y'all's back and forth in the comments was quite illuminating, and I come out thinking they're both very good (and the two best) answers. 5 points!

Still have to offer my apologies - internet at the hotel isn't great and when I tried to resolve my other closed YES/NO market I got an error. Will try again when I have better access to internet (no later than this Thursday when I'm back in the US).

Wait, maybe it's working now. Will try.

All, I haven't forgotten about this one - am on vacation and have spotty access to internet. Will resolve over the next few days for sure, though.

“I don’t know much. I don’t claim to know what’s good and what’s evil. I just have hunches; I don’t possess the truth. But I do believe it exists. I believe truth exists above, beyond, beneath, and behind the visible surface of this world, but I also believe it’s something you can touch. I believe that things have a “being-ness” – and that there lies the reality of the world, and the truth. People seek it out. Songs are sung about it, journalists do their best to get at it in the daily paper, and physicists try to calculate it. Sometimes it’s missing. Other times it’s apprehended in a specific work, squeezed into a three-line verse, or accompanying a piece of music. It could be, say, a sheet of music by Brahms, and here again one doesn’t know where to clutch at to get hold of it. Is it between the lines? Between the clef mark and the first bar? Should we pluck at the eighth notes’ little tails, or pump our fist at the blaring horns, or memorize the lyrics and recite them daily? I don’t have the truth, but I do believe it exists, and so does everyone else, or we wouldn’t bother saying that we wished the world would become a better place.”-Esther Maria Magnis (I know the market’s closed and I don’t expect this comment to be taken into consideration for resolution criteria, etc). I think this quote gets at something and I’m using this market as an excuse to share it. 🙃

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Beliefs determine experimental predictions, but only reality (truth) determines experimental results. Truths are the unalterable and objective facts of reality that don't depend on one's beliefs.

@BionicD0LPH1N Without rekindling centuries (millennias?) of debate between nominalists and realists, do you believe it is possible for anything to be unalterable or unchanged upon observation or measurement? Or is it possible that experiments and what we call reality are at least partially symbiotic with cause-effect running in both directions?

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A social construct

That is to say, truth is whatever society agrees is true, because inherent truth does not exist. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_theory_of_truth

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@Angela I think I agree with a lot of the points you're making, just not the terminology. I think what you call "truth" I don't have a great word for. "Objective reality" is not perfect but I think gets at the heart of it- there's something out there that we can attempt to measure and know, but which is fundamentally separate from us and is always filtered through perception. (I also think that colloquially this is not a distinction most people make, but is useful in science and epistemic studies.) I think your question about "telling the _" is a neat example, because it implies universal knowledge (or at least universal acceptance). Telling the time is one example: before accurate clocks were commonplace, "telling the time" was relatively rare, you had to judge the time by environmental factors or relative to other events. Only once one could measure the passage of time in increments could you say with any level of truth what "the time" was. I also think the internal subjective experience is an interesting caveat, and may ironically be more objective in some ways. "I feel this way" may be an approximation through language, but it describes an internal state that you are not measuring in the way you measure the mass of an object. Is that internal perception more or less accurate than a set of scales? "I remember this happening" is similar, you're describing memories you have and not claiming to have facts about the outside world (just implying it). I agree that making a promise to "tell the truth" will have the same effect no matter which definition you take (you'll try to speak as accurately about the world as possible) but whether the "truth" is the thing you speak or the thing you speak *about* is a tricky nuance.