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Originally Posted by gregorio
Let's analyze that: You define ethical standards (ethical standards are not absolute!), everybody who suffices these arbitrary standards tells the truth.
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I don't define ethical standards anywhere in this thread. Oops! Forgot that your reality is what you choose to believe.
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Originally Posted by gregorio
You use your personal experience (something highly subjective, also far from absolute), to identify liars -
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In combination with the other things I've mentioned.
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Originally Posted by gregorio
you have some profile and if somebody fits that profile (the way he talks, the way he looks, you will most likely be unable to identify what exactly is so suspicious about him), he has to be a liar.
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No I don't have some profile and never said I did. That 'reality is what you choose' crap is already getting annoying. Try choosing one that doesn't falsify what I've said.
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Originally Posted by gregorio
You claim to use logic, I doubt that. I will give you an example: Your neighbour says an flying saucer landed in his backyard last night. You look outside and you see the backyard the way you remember it from yesterday without any kind of UFO. And nobody else saw or heard anything either. What does logic tell you here? Logic tells you that either your neighbour doesn't tell the truth or that the UFO simply landed while nobody else was looking. The second possibility may seem less probable than the first according to your experience but logic itself will not prefer one possibility over another. In order to use logic to identify truth, you would at least need some other truth (and not just any truth - 'cogito ergo sum' is not sufficient) to start with, but you are judging based on your own experience - and your experience has nothing to do with the absolute truth, it is based on what you see and on what you remember and on what you WANT to remember.
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Your reality sure has me doing a lot of things here. Do I need to participate in this thread at all?
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Originally Posted by gregorio
And the fact that you do not even consider the possibility just proves that you blindly rely on information you received from sources that you could not verify, like "It's on the internet, so it must be true!" which is - and you can actually use logic to prove that - not true.
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If that were true I'd believe space aliens built the pyramids and other ridiculous information I've received. I've discarded plenty of information so I hope you'll acknowledge that I don't blindly rely on it.
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Originally Posted by gregorio
You don't seem to understand what I was aiming at. What people believe has nothing to do with the truth. Given the choice people will believe the sound lie, if the alternative was the unlikely and uncomfortable truth. In the UFO example from above, let us consider the following as the truth: Last night, there was an UFO in your neighbours backyard, and nobody noticed it, except for him. You won't believe the truth, it doesn't fit in your own reality, you will believe that your neighbour lied and you will call him a liar. And you will add elements of your neighbour to the profile of a liar that is based on your experience. You will be unable to reliably identify any further truth just because your liar-profile has been corrupted by your inability to see this one truth.
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Like I said before, you're assuming what people say about their beliefs is the truth. If you study psychology you'll find scientific studies showing that on certain subjects, particularly religion, many people lie about their true beliefs. So they're likely not as weak minded and irrational as you assume. You're also once again deciding what I would do in your hypothetical circumstances. You just can't help yourself can you?
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Originally Posted by gregorio
There is an absolute truth, there is an absolute reality. You will never be able to see it, - unless there is a god and you are dead.
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No need to get all pompous here. I'd challenge you to produce a proof but there's no telling what bullshit you'll make up. Reality is the universe we exist in, truth is the mental model of reality. There is only one of each.