What is truth?

I've been looking at this now dear A, for the better of ten minutes, and all I can come up with is, accurate. Hardly even close to the sentiment of the word truth. Good Question!

Your premise is that truth and fact and accuracy are all synonymous; they aren't.   

A mathematician's answer. Thank you. I like it.
The more one thinks it the deeper it goes.

First one must have a definition of what truth is before we can know what the synonyms are, if any.
For some people, faith is absolute truth, and so cannot be synonymous with fact.
For others, faith plays no part in their perception of truth, but only fact and logic rule.
For yet others, truth is a mystical realisation of oneness with the consciousness of the universe.
I am hoping to hear many answers here.
Accuracy also embraces mathematics, logic, the mechanics of perception, and honesty with one's self. I think the idea goes a long way. It's worth contemplating.
Would you share with us, Thrifty, a little more about your definition of truth?

That which is accurate, especially in the face of intense scrutiny.

Given my inferior intellect, I defer to those more intelligent than myself for the collection of facts which rank well above my pay-grade, but always I subject them to scrutiny / competing information before adopting them as accurate.

I am capable of acknowledging that I don't know everything and that's okay, I don't need to know everything, not so long as I know and am intellectually honest about what I don't know.

I find these tidbits, lock them in the head-vault, sort / compartmentalize them accordingly until a new set of facts or variables arise which warrant attention, if they survive the aforementioned process then they too are incorporated, reorder and compartmentalized as well.

Along the way, I try not dismiss, outright, possibilities which conflict with the current load of info on 'just cuz' pretenses. And I'll admit, there isn't a whole lot that makes its way passed this litmus. Just one woman's method.

:)

Thanks for enlarging so beautifully on the theme of accuracy! :)

Mmm - like a version of the accuracy theme,

but taking into account the realities of sensory perception,

which can shift what is in the world to what we know inside

the way light appears to distort the shape of a spoon in a glass of water.

:)

I think Thrifty was intending to comment on NotFrodoBaggin's reply.

Truth is beauty.

I think it may sound more eloquent than it actually is. lol

I've been told that a good scientist starts by asking the right questions, I've yet to discern if the reason so little makes its way through is due to too much skepticism, too little or simply failing to ask the right question. Difficult to account for the absence of something ;)

Or, that which is true, we find beautiful.

For this to be so, we must have a character or set of values which prefers truth irrespective of pleasure or pain.

That you have this value is one of the things I like so much about you, Marguerite.

Some truths are ugly, such as the dark side of human nature, and yet in great literature one of the things we find most beautiful is not just the poetry of the words, but the insights into motivations, how we change, the chemistry of what we are.

The Arabs have a saying, "He whom the heart loves best is ever the most beautiful."

When we love truth, when we have a commitment to trusting our sense perceptions and observing things just as they are, reality tends to reveal and reliably confirm itself.

I place high value on the discoveries that arise from science.

It still contains many interesting mysteries: What was before The Big Bang? Exactly what is "dark matter?" What is the precise biochemistry that gives rise to consciousness? Is it possible that the sum of all intelligences could form a universal intelligence, and if so how, and what is its nature?

We began modern scientific thinking with conceiving of the atom in 600BC. In the 2616 years since then, we have accumulated enough atomic bombs to blow up the entire planet many times over.

We began the study of modern psychology with Freud, a bit over 100 years ago - so our understanding of human nature and how we know things is still only in kindergarten, learning our ABC's. How will the new knowledge - about how we know and how we perceive truth - affect the way we live and behave? Will it, can it, make a positive difference over all?

I think your reminder about asking the right questions is just what we need.

:)

the truth

The truth is an imaginary size. It will depend on who you ask and their belief system. By society we have established some of the things as the truth. We have made/established scientific and artistic alignments to have some sorts of common "rules" to go by.

Thank you.

Truth is something we imagine, or a cultural consensus.

In that case, are we ever capable of knowing a truth which is independent of our perceptions or instrumentation?

I find this idea alarming - but worthy of serious consideration.

Thank you. You're a deep one, Sapphic. :)

I seriously doubt we ever can find a truth independent of our perception or instrumentation. This is why we can look at the same incident and yet not agree on what we saw, and what we perceived. We will agree on 2+2 is 4 as we all can see how it might help us organise stuff mathematically. But just like the deffierent measuring scales, or ways we count the years, or the length of a year, who are we to say it's the only correct numbers, and what are they defined by? Just like letters or languages, the meaning of words and how to define them as our perception of them during talks with another person. It is rather interesting to see how people perceive a phrase, or single word and its meaning differently when asked. I've done that experiment here, but even more during my stay at EP.

Hello h:

I would not be so arrogant as to suggest that I KNOW the truth, or even what it is.. Some people defer to the Bible for guidance.  I defer to our founding fathers.  This is what they said.. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.." 

excon

TRUTH -

"Don't bad-mouth coffee while

   on the AnswerMug site!!"

Anything with a "#" in front of it.

#Truth

You need not try to discover my intent.  It is always clear.  If I wanted to comment to someone else's answer that's what I would have done.  My post is an answer................ you know, no number in front of it. 

Look again.