There's no such thing as true reality since even the idea of reality is part of our survival mechanism.
Interesting. When you say "there's no such thing as X", aren't you imagining a sphere of existence in which, whether we want it to or not, "X" does not appear?
Would you not call that sphere of existence "reality"?
If you're saying we can't perceive reality, well, that's what's being argued about in the article. If you're saying reality doesn't exist, you're contradicting yourself.
To put it another way, "there's no such thing as truth" is a claim about what's true. Imagine that you say "there's no such thing as truth" and I say "yes there is". What can you say? "You're wrong"? I would reply, "if I can be wrong, it means there is a Real Truth for my statement to contradict."
> What can you say? "You're wrong"?
I could say "ok, show truth to me or explain why you think truth exists"
I could also say "What value (fitness) does believing that assertion provide me"?
Obviously, if you assume that truth is necessary to evaluate statements or beliefs, then stating that truth doesn't exist will lead you to contradictions. However, there are plenty of other methods of evaluation are frequently used.
I would in fact argue argue that 'truth' is very rarely directly among the properties of an idea that we commonly use when evaluate it. The reputation of the source, coherence with other beliefs, effects on social identity, and cognitive efficiency seem to be the most common properties.
The idea that I can explain or argue anything presupposes that some things are true and other things can be shown to follow logically from them or be disproved by contradiction.
> I would in fact argue argue that 'truth' is very rarely directly among the properties of an idea that we commonly use when evaluate it.
Whether people commonly seek truth is a separate question from whether truth exists. "Do people evaluate ideas based on whether they're true or whether they make them feel good?" is a valid question, and you may be right in your answer. But look - "you may be right" means "your description may conform to the actual truth." We just can't even form sentences without assuming that some things are true and others aren't.
The idea that communication is dependent on pre-existing notions of truth and logic is flatly false. Now you might presuppose those notions when you communicate, but that doesn't make that presupposition necessary for communication.
> Whether people commonly seek truth is a separate question from whether truth exists.
True :). I'm not trying to convince you that truth doesn't exist. I'm trying to convince you that you can evaluate the phrase "truth does not exist" without pre-supposing the existence of truth. This is because you can (and people commonly do) evaluate such a phrase on attributes other than their 'truth'.
The phrase "you may be right" can mean all KINDS of things from "I don't have a definitive counter argument" to "It is possible your statement is true" to "I don't want to argue about that anymore".
I think you are too focused on how you tend to perceive the world and communicate about it. People don't all think and talk the same way you do and assuming that they do is doing them and yourself a disservice.
Elaborating, it is unlikely that something can be confirmed from multiple points of view(senses, math and science), unless it is true.
To say that there is no reality is self-refuting. To say that there is a reality but nothing is true of that reality is also self-refuting.
Therefore, some things have to be true about reality. We may not know what they are (we may not even be able to discover what they are), but there is a reality that is more than our senses and perceptions. Some things must be true of that reality.
If there is no reality, why must logic persist? (I.e. that there is such a thing as truth, statements can be true or false, statements can be contradictory and therefore false, etc).
If we can throw out reality, why not logic along with it? Doesn't it actually have to leave along with reality?
If there "truly" is no reality, there is no logic, either, since logic is part of reality. Right?
But see, you're making a logical argument there. If your position was right, then you can't do that...
The only way you can say that there is no reality is by making a statement that you claim is true about reality. The only way you have argued that there is no logic is on the basis of a logical argument.
In other words, we're attributing a truth-and-falsehood finding property to logic that it doesn't actually posses. So in the grand sense, it's meaningless, whatever it is we think we're getting from logic. It's like saying the Iraqi explosive detecting wand actually detects explosive. It's a phony tool, it doesn't work, but we trick ourselves into believing that it does.
True. Your position logically refutes itself, but if logic is meaningless, that doesn't matter. But your argument sure doesn't give me any reason to believe it. You've created something that cannot be refuted, but that doesn't make it useful, sane, or convincing.
If you accept this idea, then all logical discourse (or even all logical thought) is worthless, and is no different than illogic. Do you really think that's the world we live in? Do you really want it to be?
And, if it is the world we live in, I guess I don't want it to be, since I think this reality could be a lot better.
Not a sane choice.