Does the existence of paradox mean there are two truths?

Question

(i.e. the duality of light, a particle AND a wave...
or more confusing - the sound of one hand clapping...(but focus more on the first example - it's simpler))

I'm assuming that "truth" is never relative, but I could be wrong.

"Nothing is neither good or bad, but thinking makes it so." Shakespeare

I guess truth could be relative based on the way we define it, but isn't it by it's very nature SUPPOSED to be constant? When we eliminate all bias (such as the mind) in a blind experiment, we say we are getting to "the bottom of things" - the "truth" - so why are you all including perception in your answers?

The only way I could see any of your answers as valid would be: we use science to separate things from our selves, to analyze from a distance, yet we are forced, in the end, to interpret it into at least two categories (of what is and isn't, for example, as we imagine must be facts). This is odd, but unsurprising that we come to a conclusion that "it's impossible to prove anything false" in this system. By that logic anything could be possible since the only other option we could classify out of "is or isn't" is "is". So is everything true, since truth is relative anyway?

Logic sucks.

Yaybob - I'm assuming that a person can understand anything if they can imagine anything and more, so you're still talking about perception.

Answer 1

Actually the opposite, to me it means that truth is always relative.

Is it a wave or is it a particle? It depends on how you ask the question and who is the observer. Its a wave if you want it to be and its a particle if you want it to be.

They're both 'true' and yet they're both 'untrue' (in any absolute sense). Context is needed in order to bring truth to it and there is no absolute truth without the context. Its relative.

Answer 2

Paradox merely reveals a limitation of understanding. We use the word when something seems to be in conflict or contradiction with itself, such as the idea that the universe must be bounded and cannot be bounded. Then we discover some new geometry and the paradox unravels, like the surface of a plane in three-dimensional space, which, for a two dimentional thinking being living on its surface would explain why his flat space was at once both bounded and unbounded, if only he could conceive in three dimensions.

Wave-particle duality is like the direction northeast to a mind that can only think north-south or east-west. How, it thinks, can anything move north and east at the same time when those are separate domains? We conceive of particle-waves as particles or waves because apparently we must.

How about ice and water? Where's the ice when it's water? Well, it's just a matter of understanding the problem right. The H2O molecules just changed their motions. We don't experience H2O molecules or their motion directly per se. Our mind shows us freezing solids and cool liquids. No paradox, really.

Truth is the description of reality. When reality seems to be contradicting itself, you can be sure that it is the way that reality is presented to consciousness that is incomplete or in conflict.

EDIT - to trbandit

I don't see how you can separate the concept of truth from that of perception. Truth is the quality that facts possess, namely, an accurate mapping of reality onto consciousness in its own conceptual language. How do you do that without perception?

Answer 3

Don't confuse our description of a thing for the thing itself. Just because we describe a things as behaving like two things does not mean that it is in fact two different things. Your "paradoxes" don't exist anywhere besides your brain.

Edit: Classifying things into categories of "is" and "isn't" is necessarily problematic, because none of us has any experience with anything that "isn't." The closest we can get is absence, but the absence of something never really constitutes a paradox. Though you named some examples of a sort of descriptive paradoxes (like light being both waves and particles), you don't have any concrete examples of paradox. Light behaves in a way which can be described two different ways, but it isn't two necessarily incongruous things at once. Furthermore, the sound of one hand clapping is not a reality; it is an idea. A real paradox, i.e. an object which exists in two incongruous states simultaneously (like a material which in both boiling and frozen at the same time or an object without mass), cannot exist outside of a conceptual understanding. That is the definition of a paradox.

Answer 4

True is a construction of our perceptions. Your perception are influence by the cognitive level that you are. That is why some people see just positive and negative and do not see the gray parts. It also happened with society. Social construction is what we **force** that is true.

Is this true??

Answer 5

They mean two ends of the spectrum and two sides of the coin.

Answer 6

Truth is always relative!!!

Answer 7

The only "truth"...is that Mind "makes it all up"!

End "mind"...and truth is there!

Answer 8

Perception:

Mathematically speaking, perception is the integration of pieces information
provided by the senses.

http://www.gibson-design.com/philosophy/Concepts/$_PERCEPTION_1.html

The process of organizing information received through the senses and interpreting it. This is done by the conscious, mentally aware (faculty of) brain.

http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/search/dict-search2.html?bo1=AND&word=perception&search_type=normal&def=

Perception goes beyond plain sensation in that it includes the results of further processing of the sensed stimuli, either conceously or inconceously.

http://www.schorsch.com/kbase/glossary/perception.html

Recognition and interpretation of sensory stimuli based chiefly on memory.
The neurological processes by which such recognition and interpretation are effected.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/perception

In psychology. and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. It is a task far more complex than was imagined in the 1950s and 1960s, when it was proclaimed that building perceiving machines would take about a decade, but, needless to say, that is still very far from reality. The word perception comes from the Latin perception-, percepio, , meaning "receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses." (every moment).

Methods of studying perception range from essentially biological or physiological approaches, through psychological approaches through the philosophy of mind and in empiricist epistemology, such as that of David Hume, John Locke, George Berkeley, or as in Merleau Ponty's affirmation of perception as the basis of all science and knowledge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception_%28psychology%29

The faculty of perceiving; the faculty, or peculiar part, of man's constitution by which he has knowledge through the medium or instrumentality of the bodily organs; the act of apperhending material objects or qualities through the senses; - distinguished from conception. (Sir W. Hamilton.)

in psychology, mental organization and interpretation of sensory information. The Gestalt psychologists studied extensively the ways in which people organize and select from the vast array of stimuli that are presented to them.

Perception is influenced by a variety of factors, including the intensity and physical dimensions of the stimulus; such activities of the sense organs as effects of preceding stimulation; the subject’s past experience; attention factors such as readiness to respond to a stimulus; and motivation and emotional state of the subject. Stimulus elements in visual organization form perceived patterns according to their nearness to each other, their similarity, the tendency for the subject to perceive complete figures, and the ability of the subject to distinguish important figures from background. Perceptual constancy is the tendency of a subject to interpret one object in the same manner, regardless of such variations as distance, angle of sight, or brightness. Through selective attention, the subject focuses on a limited number of stimuli, and ignores those that are considered less important.

http://www.bartleby.com/65/pe/percepti.html

Perception (psychology), process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes one’s ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input.

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/refpages/RefArticle.aspx?refid=761571997

The 'how it is' to cognitive systems in the world. A means of distinguishing how things are from how a cognizer thinks they are.

http://philosophy.uwaterloo.ca/MindDict/P.html

Awareness of an object of thought, especially that of apparently external objects through use of the senses. Since things don't always turn out actually to be as they seem to us, there is ample reason to wonder about the epistemological reliability of sense perception, and theories of perception offer a variety of responses. The skeptical challenge to direct realism is often answered by representative realism, phenomenalism, or idealism.

http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/p2.htm#perc

Our minds are as different as our finger prints -
no two are alike. The perception of one person is
bound to be different from that of another person
- the process used is designated by the word "conception".
Still, all those perceptions are interpretations of
the same reality.

"Our two minds .... One is an act of the emotional
mind, the other of the rational mind. In a very
real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and
one that feels" (Daniel Goleman, Emotional
Intelligence, Bloomsbury Publishing, London, 1996,
page 8). This rational mind is also called the
faculty of logic and reason. The rational mind
handles the conscious perceptions. However, the
logic used by the rational mind has a drawback.

In the 1930s, Austrian mathematician Godel proved a
theorem which became the "Godel theorem" in cognition
theory. It states that any formalized 'logical' system
in principle cannot be complete in itself. It means
that a statement can always be found that can be
neither disproved nor proved using the means of that
particular system. To discuss about such a statement,
one must go beyond that very logic system; otherwise
nothing but a vicious circle will result. Psychologist
say that any experience is contingent - it's opposite
is logically possible and hence should not be treated
as contradictory.

http://www.search.com/search?q=godel+incompleteness+theorem

The arguments permitted by the theorem gives rise to
many interpretations of the same reality.

The Upanishads say that even a the smallest thing
in creation, say a one cell organism, is a microcosm.
The more you try to know about it, you will understand
that there is more to know. Reality has infinite
dimensions. Perception is an approximate interpretation
of reality.

Answer 9

truth is what happens when we quit "looking"

Answer 10

yes. always. good question by the way.