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The more I try to find truth, the less truth I find. (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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When I was a young child, I naïvely believed anything I experienced or that anyone told me as true. As I started adolescence, I started to question that, and realised that people who tell me stuff might be mistaken, or intentionally lying to me. I became very interested in optical illusions, and realised my senses could be fooled too. I had to rely on measurable, repeatable truth that scientific experts had written in pop science books.

Then I thought about simulations, being in a story (like in Sophie's World), gods, and every other possibility that the entire world I experience is not real and is created to test me, to observe me, indifferent to me and I'm there by accident - whichever it was, I couldn't believe for sure that anyone besides me really existed, or anything I knew through my senses. Only my logical reasoning could be trusted. I am doubting therefore I exist, but I couldn't know anything else for sure.

Until recently, I realised when I was ruminating one time, and thinking about which is better: truth or happiness. Most of the times I'd ruminated, I knew I'd come to the conclusion that I'd rather be right than happy. I had logic to back this up, it's more important to know the truth because then I'm happy about being right. But when I'd been happier, I thought being happy was more important than being right - after all, what's the point of being right if it doesn't bring you pleasure, seeking pleasure and avoiding suffering being the whole goal of life?

I realised that what I thought was logical reasoning to support my conclusion wasn't logical at all. It was a rationalisation to support whichever conclusion made me happier at the time. When, for chemical reasons in my brain, I was happy, I wanted to remain happy. So I'd subconsciously convinced myself that I had logic to convince myself that happiness is preferable. When my hormone levels were low so I was feeling down, telling myself that at least I feel better because I know the truth is a way of coping.

And I realised that when my 'logical' reasoning is just a rationalisation for an emotional state caused by brain chemicals and my body, I can't trust any 'logical' argument my brain thinks of. I don't exist because I'm thinking, I exist because I have an innate sense of existing. So therefore, I can't trust anything I think is logical. But wait, that there is a logical statement! So I can't trust it either! And so on... aaaAAARGH!

The more I try to find truth, the less I find I know. I somehow get even more agnostic than I thought it was possible to be, I at least thought, 'Alright, I have no idea what the universe is, but as an external observer I know that I exist.'

I am no longer an external observer! My observations about how my hormones and body affects my emotions, which in turn affect how infuriated I am at the fact that I don't know stuff, that I don't have free will - not the other way around - means I can't even think anymore, as my brain is part of the compromised system. I am compromised.

The more I learn, the less I know.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Rips bong .... DUDE

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Fun read! Hope you aren't in to much pain though. Sometimes I think until any thought is uncomfortable. I agree with ya. Its unnerving to accept that there is no stable foundation to our knowledge. That you in fact cannot prove that you are right about anything. Not all the way through.

I've been trying to figure out how much I should push for the world I want given that I don't really know anything. I don't have an answer. I am starting to think that you just gotta keep on keeping on and change course when ya get feedback.

At the end of the day we are all just on a big wild ride together.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I had to rely on measurable, repeatable truth [...]

(I will ignore the context for the sake of argument)

The measurement itself can't be trusted. If you have a 1m stick and you measure it, its still is 1m stick. But if it's moving really fast (close to the speed of light) the stick is somehow shorter. We have made models to predict that but still we can't measure the true length of the stick. We can't know the true length of the stick. Just the approximation within quality of our measurement device.

There are actually two truths: subjective truth and objective truth. We can't really know objective truth but we can get really close to it with our subjective truth.

Subjective truth is really powerful concept as it can be modified by ourselfs. If your subjectivity taints your thinking then change it so it reflects your values.

The philosophy is a study of "How to think" even in the face of hormones and emotions. Thinking logically can be trained and it can be learned. It can also help state right questions and not all questions are logical.

Also not all thoughts come from logic. Some come from emotions or some other place some people call soul. The question "Do I prefer being right or being happy" is not a logical question. It can't be answered logically. The question should be: "Should humans strife for being happy or being right?" Is closer as it can be argued for one side or the other but emotions don't play a huge role in swaying the consensus of arguments.

[–] Kichae 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The measurement itself can’t be trusted. If you have a 1m stick and you measure it, its still is 1m stick. But if it’s moving really fast (close to the speed of light) the stick is somehow shorter. We have made models to predict that but still we can’t measure the true length of the stick. We can’t know the true length of the stick. Just the approximation within quality of our measurement device.

Emphasis mine.

You seem to be conflating a couple of things here. Relativistic effects and the finite resolution of our measuring tools are totally different things, and neither make a case for objective truth not being "knowable", unless "knowing" means "with absolute certainty". But if truth being knowable requires such, then "subjective truth" suffers from the same issue of lacking absolutes.

Sticking with the metre stick example, there are a number of reasons why we cannot know, with absolute, unquestioning certainty it's exact length, the major one being that, at the molecular level it has not absolute boundary. There is no firm boundary between "metre stick" and "not metre stick" once we look at that scale, just as for the Earth there is hard and firm boundary between "the atmosphere" and "the vacuum of space". In both cases, there is only a gradation of molecular density.

But let's stick to the macro scale here. Now, yes, we run into an issue with it not being possible to craft measuring devices with absolute accuracy or precision. The gradations printed or etched into them are not always totally and absolutely perfectly placed, and they are not perfectly thing. There will be some level of inaccuracy in our measurements because of this, and because of basic things like human error. This is where we get into the whole "just an approximation" thing. But it's also where we get into the "to what degree of precision do you give a shit" thing. We already know the boundary between metre stick and not metre stick is fuzzy. On some level we've decided to not care about that. So, what is the level where it is useful or meaningful for you to care?

Because when taking measurements, you want to make sure your measuring tools are at least as good as that threshold. And then, you follow a procedure to start eliminating lengths that the metre stick is not. Through repeated measurements -- usually a lot of them -- you can say with a large amount of (but not absolute) confidence that the metre stick categorically is not more than 1.1m long, nor less than 0.9m long. Or not more than 1.01m long and not less than 0.99m long. Or not more than 1.00001m long and not less than 0.99999m long. Or... you get the picture.

At some point, you will either decide that knowing that the length is quite definitively between two numbers is good enough, and/or you will decide that the metre stick has no boundary. Both are true statements, and both can be held within you without contradiction.

So far, I'm just repeating what you've said, but using many words when few would do, right?

But the thing is, none of this is related to the bit about relativistic effects. The fact that lengths contract along the direction of movement is not in any way a measurement accuracy issue. And it's not a mathematical hypothetical. It's something that can be measured directly, and has been. It's also something that can and has been measured by proxy, because length contraction is a corollary of time dilation.

The thing with relativity and relativistic effects is that all measurements require some kind of reference, and there is no universal reference. It can be easy to read that and think it means "my measuring stick will read something slightly different from your measuring stick, and so we cannot know what is the true number", but that's not what it's about at all. Using the same measuring device, you will get different measurements of the same object based entirely on what the relative velocity is between them. And, if we assume (for fun) that the boundaries of objects are not fuzzy at the molecular level, this would be true with an absolutely perfect, absolutely precise measuring device.

But also, if you know the relative speed between the measured and the measuring, you can transform that measurement back into the "rest" measurement, which is what you would get if the measurement device and the metre stick were moving with 0 velocity relative to each other.

This is known as a "rest frame" measurement, and it's the one we generally treat as both the natural measurement and the "true" one in daily life.

The classic thought experiment around this is the airplane and the barn. Imagine an airplane that is 10m long, and a barn that is 9m long. The barn has doors at the front and back large enough for the plane to enter/exit, but there is no way to fit that plane inside the barn with both sets of doors closed. But a funny thing happens if the plane is flying fast enough relative to the barn (131,000 km/s or faster): The plane fits totally inside. You can close both sets of doors, and the plane will not intersect them.

At least, you know, until it plows head on into the now-shut doors in front of it.

But the thing is, if this was just some trick of measurement, the plane just wouldn't fit.

I know you get this. You're subtly using this as a way of saying that there's no objective length measure. But there is. Everyone standing at rest relative to the barn will see the exact same thing. There will be total agreement on how long that plane is, with their infinitely precise, infinitely accurate measuring devices.

And when the plane comes to a stop and they measure its length, they will all agree once again.

Just on a different value.

It's not that the plane does not have a "true" length, it's that that length is a function of something else: the relative velocity between the measured and the measurer. You can -- and we do -- define a natural (or proper) length for an object by using the rest frame of the object itself, that is by measuring it when the object is at rest relative to measuring device. To the object itself, it will always be that length (barring issues of damage or molecular decay), so this is equivalent to its self-measurement.

None of this is to argue against the idea that we cannot get to an arbitrarily precise measure of objective reality. Just that you've presented two very different things in a way that conflates them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

I have used few words and failed to convey what I meant. Thank you for better explanation.

I wanted to highlight how subjectivity is built in into the world by relativistic effects, and we need to know the reference frame to know if the object is contracted or not in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

We may be part of a simulation. Our entire universe may be a microscopic component of a much larger one. We may be weird 3 dimensional beings living on a planet inhabited by beings living in other dimensions that we cannot perceive. Their actions may affect our lives.

There are so many possibilities, I don't think it would ever be possible to truly know anything for certain.

I don't know for sure what I am, where I am, or why I am. But I am.

Other people and animals seem to have this same knowledge of their own existence. So I try to treat all humans and animals as I would like to be treated.

We don't know if we have a purpose but being kind, helping others, spreading joy and finding peace in beauty and love seems to be a pretty good way to go for me.

[–] SGforce 8 points 2 days ago

Existential dread. I know that feeling. Don't let the circular thoughts wear you out. Get rest and think about it later when you don't have more important things to do. Just remember "truth" is kind of in flux and there's an infinite amount of information about literately anything and worrying about any one thing non stop serves no ultimate purpose but wearing you out. That "bubble" of the extent of your worries should shrink down to the things that ultimately matter most to you in the here and now and you manage to reconnect to those close to you. What helped me immensely was just watching the birds on my walks home.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Idk I trust logic well, but not "my" logic - but a more formal logic system. I certainly never trust something as silly and malleable as my own observations and gut feelings and conclusions.

The things I see and causational relationships my brain tries to churn out could really be anything, like for instance with the toupee fallacy, it requires effort to figure against it and maintain at least an aspiration towards some degree of intellectual rigor.

If my reasoning is sound (not fallacious) and is based on valid premises (such as on sound established facts determined via the scientific method), then my conclusions from that process must also be valid propositions, as opposed to nonsense e.g. ("Sky is blue therefore it will rain next Tuesday").

I can speculate upon this information and guess as to theories, or I can act upon this information - again - as a mere guess if I'm sufficiently confident and hold it as a justified but untested belief.

Or if I wanted to really know the truth I could attempt to deduce it further via conceptual and other forms of analysis to seek other explanations (e.g. via Occam's Razors) until I arrive at a hypothesis that can be empirically & scientifically tested, and if this hypothesis is proven via repeated observation then I consider this as meeting the criteria for me to personally hold it as a Justified True Belief that may or may not be also Knowledge.

In either case though it's unproductive to dismiss a JTB as above, if it is a theory with predictive power (it's observations can be applied to other adjacent things and hold true for them) or - if we're very lucky - can even be extrapolated to other subjects as a principle - then we should hold it preciously and defend it from ignorant attacks because many such theories have been used to massively improve the quality of life for humanity worldwide from medicine to engineering miracles and infrastructure and civilization that has literally made life possible where for many of us it wouldn't have been and improved it endlessly for others.

(I'm near sighted, have ADHD and am trans, I would've been in a heckuva lot more pain without civilization and technology for instance, I often consider myself as a partially artificial being where a lot of important things in my body did not emerge "naturally" whether it's my very physical traits, sex hormones, genitalia or dopamine or serotonin that gets me to actually do things).

I think skepticism is valid and we must be harsh towards even foundational beliefs and especially those that in any way are formed by experiences of the senses rather than reason and evidence, but I don't think it's useful or productive to throw your hands up in the air and say truth can't be known or that we know nothing.

Maybe that statement is true, but this is an unfalsifiable proposition and as such is useless to us with our current reasoning devices, it is much more productive to accept and learn that being wrong is part of the road to being somewhere near correct, which is a momentous achievement even in fairly banal circumstances if you think about it, given the options and possibilities out there.

I was recently upset by my girlfriend when she told me atoms aren't held together by gravity but by some insane bullshit known as the "weak force" and my archenemy in every attempt to understand anything about the natural world - electromagnetism. God I hate electromagnetism. Inductance is magic.

Why was I upset by this? I'm not a physicist, I was in the lowest set for science at school and in fact failed both that and mathematics, idk, just an emotional irrational reaction, but after a bit I calmed down, and admitted I was wrong - and in retrospect I realize that in the grand scheme of things my reasoning towards that previously held belief was full of non-sequitur extrapolations and reasoning by analogy and other nonsense™️.

I'm not philosophy major or remotely knowledgeable about epistemology, so anyone please feel free to correct me on anything here including my usage (and likely abusage) of the field's terminology.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

(This is not an attack on you as a trans person but an attack on your reasoning)

You say you are trans and that you don't trust your gut feelings and subjective observations?

Isn't gender dysmorphia based on internal feelings and observations?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

Gender dysphoria is pretty hard to miss honestly, at any given moment the sheer anguish and mental pain from it would follow me through life long before I even knew what a gender/sex was.

When I first read about it, it made a lot of sense to me, but I still carried out a lot of research before I did anything, I knew my parents wouldn't be accepting and as a teen in the third world making an enemy of your parents is a bad idea, so it better be worth it.

The difficult part is actually understanding that what you're experiencing is not universal and being able to detangle that from all the other feelings.

A year or so later I finally bit the bullet and started taking HRT in secret at 17.

Well that was 10 years ago now almost, I just had SRS (lower surgery in PC speak) last year, healed in about 6 weeks or so and I couldn't be happier, I'm an independent adult with degrees, a career, friends, an S.O. and way too many hobbies haha.

Every year for me is happier than the last and I'm so eternally grateful to those who came before me who shared their experiences and and the enormous amounts of luck it took me to get the healthcare I so badly needed.

My only regret is that I was never told as a kid that gender dysphoria was something that even existed or could happen to somebody as a medical condition, and that I didn't grow up in a society accepting enough where I could've gotten the healthcare (puberty blockers) I sorely needed and I could've just avoided both the suffering I endured as a kid and the physical scars of the wrong puberty that I'll never be able to remove from skull size to ribcage diameter.

Thankfully I'm never misgendered and "pass" in as far as I can tell, but I'll never not notice those things myself, even if cis people don't and don't get what the big deal is.

I've often consoled myself in carrying that burden with the hope that folks like me won't have to suffer so much in the future, saw myself as something of the last victim of a war that was largely over, but alas it appears the future even in the west where I live now will have enough suffering to go around for everyone, especially so folks like me.

If anything, the political and social situation has in fact only gotten worse in the past 10 years. And all of it so meaningless really. Sigh

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Thanks for that response, it was really long and thoughtful, and I appreciate the time and effort taken.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

https://ko-fi.com/covfefe84

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Lol. Money is the answer to finding 'truth' in capitalism, who knew?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 days ago

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

I have had the opposite problem you’ve had with direct observation versus dictation from scientific sources.

It is why I struggle with chemistry concepts. Sure, I can see the reactions, but I cannot see the atomic structure of compounds. It requires trust in something you can’t observe.

I learned that much of what I was taught as a child was either not completely true or entirely false, which led to apathy toward knowledge building. What was the point if so much collective knowledge is falsehood? How can one ever determine what’s truly true or really false? There are, of course, objective truths we’ve established through science, but what about things like the food pyramid, the sugar industry telling us that fat was the problem, or learning that our government does, in fact, spy on us through the telecommunications infrastructure? That last one was once the stuff of tin foil hat conspiracy theory.

Anyway, you sound smarter than me. I’m envious.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Interesting read.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

You might like the dialogues in Bateson's Steps Towards an Ecology of Mind.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think you're torturing yourself because you're smart. Do you have a thing about morality too?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I'm not sure what you mean. What is a 'thing about morality' and why would I have it?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you consider the morality of your thoughts and actions excessively?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No. But I doubt anyone would judge their own consideration to be excessive, I consider it exactly as much as I think I should, and do what I emotively feel is right.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

I'd consider your consideration excessive.. Most people would, I think. I can recognise my own over thinking, in that I can get stuck in loops which go nowhere and only annoy me.

The reason I asked is that I've spoken to someone about this before, both of us had a similar over consideration, but he also moralised his every action, thought and feeling excessively due to an illness called pure O, a variant of OCD. So I thought that might be worth looking into, but otherwise, like I said initially, in my experience this over consideration (or overthinking) is a feature of (a variety of) smart people.

You have to kind of come to the conclusion that you're only a puny human with ultimately a puny human intellect. You aren't ever going to come to a satisfying conclusion... Which can be a conclusion, if not satisfying.