Selection, Round 2, comments...

Alright, so how many people actually have to agree before something becomes official truth?

If I were drafting a victory speech, this is how I’d approach it.

I don't personally find that response to be particularly satisfying, so instead, I’m going to act as if my own answer was the one that swept the polls. With that in mind, I'll go ahead and pose a brand new question...

Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

James Lee77 said:Alright, so how many people actually have to agree before something becomes official truth?

I mean, look. For something to be an absolute truth, it either has to be so blindingly obvious that denying it makes you sound completely unhinged—like trying to argue that gravity doesn't exist while you're falling off a skyscraper—or it has to be able to withstand intense scrutiny, passing every single logical test without leaving any room for doubt.

That’s really the only way we can verify anything as truth. Everything else? Well, that's just someone's opinion.

jadeheron5 said:I mean, look. For something to be an absolute truth, it either has to be so blindingly obvious that denying it makes you sound completely unhinged—like trying to argue that gravity doesn't exist while you're falling off a skyscraper—or it has to be able to withstand intense scrutiny, passing every single logical test without leaving any room for doubt.

That’s really the only way we can verify anything as truth. Everything else? Well, that's just someone's opinion.

But I mean, there are definitely times where people claimed stuff and everyone just collectively decided they were crazy. Then later on, it turns out they actually were right (or, I guess, we just all agreed they were right now).

I could even give a specific example—there was this guy who was labeled a total crackpot, basically treated like he was losing his mind. Now, people think he was spot on: https://bkoznjak.wordpress.com/2021/...lice-znanosti/

So, like, was it actually true back then that he was a crackpot, or did the "truth" just change? Or maybe he was always right, and we just hadn't reached a consensus on it yet?

James Lee77 said:But I mean, there are definitely times where people claimed stuff and everyone just collectively decided they were crazy. Then later on, it turns out they actually were right (or, I guess, we just all agreed they were right now).

I could even give a specific example—there was this guy who was labeled a total crackpot, basically treated like he was losing his mind. Now, people think he was spot on: https://bkoznjak.wordpress.com/2021/...lice-znanosti/

So, like, was it actually true back then that he was a crackpot, or did the "truth" just change? Or maybe he was always right, and we just hadn't reached a consensus on it yet?

Oh, absolutely. Though, looking at what you’ve laid out here... I suppose I’d call it a "truth in the process of becoming." For something to be accepted as fact, people eventually have to be convinced, and ultimately, they have to reach an agreement that it is indeed true.
With more complex topics, nothing happens instantly. You need this whole long-winded process of critique, argumentation, and rigorous proof before we can finally settle on and accept a new reality.
In the end, I suppose my point stands again. Because, you see, when that particular saying first surfaced, nobody considered it true because they couldn't quite agree on its accuracy. But after the whole proving process played out, they realized they were mistaken and reached a consensus that it really was the truth 🙂

But honestly, how can we even be sure that in twenty, fifty, or maybe even a hundred years, they won't just decide this whole thing is garbage? I mean, if they agreed on one thing before and then flipped the script completely, how do we know they won't just change their minds again?

So you brought up gravity—that moment where we all basically agree on the facts and call it settled science. But honestly, before Newton came along, nobody really knew if it even existed. When he dropped his theory, some of the biggest names back then actually claimed he was just "adding magic to science" (looking at you, Leibniz and Huygens). Then Einstein comes along and totally flips Newton's script. Now, you've even got Landauer out there arguing that gravity isn't even real—just some kind of side effect from other phenomena. It makes me wonder, when can we actually say a theory is "done" and officially agreed upon? If we can't ever truly reach that point, then maybe truth is either constantly shifting or it just doesn't exist at all.

James Lee77 said:But honestly, how can we even be sure that in twenty, fifty, or maybe even a hundred years, they won't just decide this whole thing is garbage? I mean, if they agreed on one thing before and then flipped the script completely, how do we know they won't just change their minds again?

If that's the case, then we're just waiting for a new "truth" to be handed down. You brought up gravity, for instance... look, we accept gravity as an absolute fact today. But right now, you could hold the (incorrect) opinion that gravity doesn't exist simply because there's a collective social consensus that it does.
The moment someone actually proves gravity isn't real, only then could we collectively agree that the force itself was a fabrication.

You mentioned I should have gone into more detail, arguing that it can't just be about consensus. Well, I could have written a whole essay, truly, but I figured I'd just kill two birds with one stone here. Usually, when something is true, it's straightforward enough to say plainly. Honestly, I saw this as a bit of a little IQ test—just to see if anyone would stop and give it a second thought. And what did I get? Zero votes.😁

So, I think I get your point: basically, gravity didn't even exist before Newton because nobody had agreed on what it was yet. Then, once Newton showed up, it suddenly became a thing. And after Einstein, it still exists, but it shifted because he convinced everyone to buy into his theory—which is kind of different from Newton’s anyway. So, if Landauer manages to talk everyone into his theory, I guess gravity just vanishes?

I bet this is just another one of those little intelligence tests you're throwing at us. 😉

James Lee77 said:So, I think I get your point: basically, gravity didn't even exist before Newton because nobody had agreed on what it was yet. Then, once Newton showed up, it suddenly became a thing. And after Einstein, it still exists, but it shifted because he convinced everyone to buy into his theory—which is kind of different from Newton’s anyway. So, if Landauer manages to talk everyone into his theory, I guess gravity just vanishes?

I bet this is just another one of those little intelligence tests you're throwing at us. 😉

With every new discovery, we craft new truths. In other words, truth itself is fluid.
We humans aren't perfect, and we certainly don't possess absolute knowledge of everything; we simply reach a point where we collectively agree on what we’ll accept as truth or fact at any given moment.
That seems to be how it works with science and all these complex subjects.
For instance, did you personally sit down and calculate that the Earth revolves around the Sun, or did you just accept the societal consensus that emerged from years of rigorous debate and proof?
If you didn't do the math yourself, then you're technically rejecting the general agreement. You end up being labeled a flat-earther or a lunatic, simply because your individual perspective—your very existence, since you walk around on what feels like level ground—clashes with the established consensus. It's a bit of a trap, isn't it?

But when you strip it down to pure logic, things are much more straightforward. For example, anyone capable of thought will inevitably hold opinions. We can all agree on that, can't we? That's one thing we won't have trouble settling.

So, are all those various opinions we hold—which you don't seem to value much, if I've understood you correctly—actually relevant to our agreement on what constitutes truth, or are they just noise?
If opinion doesn't matter for the sake of our agreement, then what does?
Is it evidence?
But doesn't the very interpretation of evidence rely on opinion anyway?

Amanda Jackson5 said:If I could actually get an opinion that was purely yours—without any outside influence creeping in—it wouldn't carry much weight anyway. When you're looking at an argument, what really matters isn't whether someone is trying to feed their own ego by being "original" just for the sake of it; what matters is whether the logic holds up and if the facts are actually true. It’s about the substance and the structure, not some desperate grab for uniqueness.

So, that’s basically how it works: there’s this object out there, you’re fully aware of its existence, and you just picture it exactly for what it is.

Initially, one might view this as a logical critique, perhaps even a textbook example of projection.

To be blunt, you aren't making any sense to me. None at all. Is your entire thought process constantly conditioned by something else or by a relationship to something external? You seem to "separate" things far too much.
Are you truly suggesting that "perceiving" is synonymous with "imagining"?

p.s. I actually meant "To me" instead of "You to me" at the start of that thought.

George Wood2 said:Initially, one might view this as a logical critique, perhaps even a textbook example of projection.

To be blunt, you aren't making any sense to me. None at all. Is your entire thought process constantly conditioned by something else or by a relationship to something external? You seem to "separate" things far too much.
Are you truly suggesting that "perceiving" is synonymous with "imagining"?

George Wood2 said:p.s. I actually meant "To me" instead of "You to me" at the start of that thought.

Look, my friend, I have no idea what you're trying to say. If you aren't willing to put in the basic effort to construct a coherent or even remotely intelligible sentence, then don't expect me to play detective and try to decode whatever word salad you've thrown out there.

Amanda Jackson5 said:Look, my friend, I have no idea what you're trying to say. If you aren't willing to put in the basic effort to construct a coherent or even remotely intelligible sentence, then don't expect me to play detective and try to decode whatever word salad you've thrown out there.

👍 🙂
Everything is fine. I am simply acting out of curiosity, nothing more—this isn't some personal attack.
If you didn't grasp the actual essence of my question, then I suppose I have received an answer that satisfies my curiosity.
There is absolutely no need for anyone here to get defensive, try to outsmart one another, or posture as the sole arbiter of truth.

George Wood2 said:👍 🙂
Everything is fine. I am simply acting out of curiosity, nothing more—this isn't some personal attack.
If you didn't grasp the actual essence of my question, then I suppose I have received an answer that satisfies my curiosity.
There is absolutely no need for anyone here to get defensive, try to outsmart one another, or posture as the sole arbiter of truth.

I didn't quite get it either.
The point is muddled and riddled with enough typos to make it nearly impossible to follow.

Furthermore, I fail to see how your—or anyone's—curiosity can truly be satisfied if others aren't even able to understand you.
At that point, you're just engaging in a self-indulgent monologue. It’s pure solipsism; all that "curiosity" is directed inward toward the self. The other person becomes irrelevant—just a screen onto which you project a phantom interlocutor, when in reality, you're just talking to yourself.

George Wood2 said:👍 🙂
Everything is fine. I am simply acting out of curiosity, nothing more—this isn't some personal attack.
If you didn't grasp the actual essence of my question, then I suppose I have received an answer that satisfies my curiosity.
There is absolutely no need for anyone here to get defensive, try to outsmart one another, or posture as the sole arbiter of truth.

I’m certainly not doing any of that, though I might indulge in a little mental gymnastics from time to time—it's just part of being human. But mostly, I’m just circling back to what I actually meant when I said these lines were:

George Wood2 said:Initially, one might view this as a logical critique, perhaps even a textbook example of projection.

To be blunt, you aren't making any sense to me. None at all. Is your entire thought process constantly conditioned by something else or by a relationship to something external? You seem to "separate" things far too much.
Are you truly suggesting that "perceiving" is synonymous with "imagining"?

...completely unintelligible.

George Wood2 said:Initially, one might view this as a logical critique, perhaps even a textbook example of projection.

To be blunt, you aren't making any sense to me. None at all. Is your entire thought process constantly conditioned by something else or by a relationship to something external? You seem to "separate" things far too much.
Are you truly suggesting that "perceiving" is synonymous with "imagining"?

What you're doing there, Sandra Murphy33, is exactly that little mental shell game our colleague was talking about; the funny part is he thinks I'm the one pulling the strings, completely missing the fact that he's doing the exact same thing to himself. 😁

Sandra Murphy33 said:I didn't quite get it either.
The point is muddled and riddled with enough typos to make it nearly impossible to follow.

Furthermore, I fail to see how your—or anyone's—curiosity can truly be satisfied if others aren't even able to understand you.
At that point, you're just engaging in a self-indulgent monologue. It’s pure solipsism; all that "curiosity" is directed inward toward the self. The other person becomes irrelevant—just a screen onto which you project a phantom interlocutor, when in reality, you're just talking to yourself.

I might agree with you if you were attempting to describe the "I" entity itself.
However, my interest lies in understanding the mechanics of how that "I" thinks; I am trying to approach its thought process from a different angle.
I have no desire to exhaust myself with grammar because I simply write as the thoughts occur; they move faster than my fingers can keep up. Lately, I have abandoned the need for perfectionism. I used to be quite meticulous about it, but now I just let it flow spontaneously.

I don't experience "thinking" as a distinct sensation. That is the only strange part—it feels like some sort of challenge, yet it isn't, because it is essentially just illuminating my own perception of a reality that differs from the reality of the "I think." It isn't complicated, nor is it personal. Whatever.

I don't get the impression you're actually thinking here 😛
So, regarding that specific point, you can rest easy—you’ve succeeded (assuming your goal was to reach some sort of non-linguistic state, or at least step outside the linguistic box without resorting to psychedelics; though that isn't exactly a novel concept. Human culture has documented similar attempts since the late 19th and early 20th centuries when experimentation peaked across all disciplines—just look at Dadaism or automatic writing...)

Furthermore, coherent expression isn't about being a perfectionist; it's a prerequisite if you want another "I" to understand you. To be perceived as a distinct entity. Because only then can one truly be considered "spontaneous."