Objective vs Subjective Truth

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Apoorve84
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Apoorve84 »

Fact can be explained scientifically but truth can not - as I wrote before
GE Morton
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by GE Morton »

Apoorve84 wrote: July 20th, 2019, 10:35 pm Fact can be explained scientifically but truth can not - as I wrote before
Which makes it non-cognitive and meaningless.
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Apoorve84
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Apoorve84 »

Only facts hold meaning, truth does not. What is meaningless or not also depend on person to person. But facts stayed the same whether you find it meaningful or not.
Kaz_1983
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Kaz_1983 »

GE Morton wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:04 am
Apoorve84 wrote: July 20th, 2019, 10:35 pm Fact can be explained scientifically but truth can not - as I wrote before
Which makes it non-cognitive and meaningless.
Explain what you mean by the above being "non-cognitive" and "meaningless"?
GE Morton
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by GE Morton »

Kaz_1983 wrote: November 9th, 2019, 12:37 am
GE Morton wrote: July 21st, 2019, 10:04 am

Which makes it non-cognitive and meaningless.
Explain what you mean by the above being "non-cognitive" and "meaningless"?
To say a proposition is cognitive means that there is some method, implicit in the proposition or generally understood, for determining whether the proposition is true or false. I.e., that it has a determinable truth value. A proposition with no truth conditions agreed upon by all parties to the conversation is cognitively meaningless --- it conveys no information. It may, of course, be meaningful in other senses, e.g., it may arouse some particular mood or other emotional response in hearers. But it tells them nothing about the world.
Steve3007
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

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https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-student-r ... ct-1472008

Should we worry that in the state of Ohio, in the US, at least, the new "Student Religious Liberties Act" has declared that the truth is whatever our personal desires (such as our religious beliefs) want it to be?
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Sculptor1
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

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Steve3007 wrote: November 19th, 2019, 2:48 am https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-student-r ... ct-1472008

Should we worry that in the state of Ohio, in the US, at least, the new "Student Religious Liberties Act" has declared that the truth is whatever our personal desires (such as our religious beliefs) want it to be?
If the headline (OHIO LAW LETS STUDENTS GIVE WRONG ANSWERS ON TESTS FOR RELIGIOUS REASONS) is an accurate description of the result of this law, then Americans certainly have much to worry about for the future.
My advice would be to treat any emerging adult in the next decade from Ohio with extreme prejudice when it comes to holding a responsible job or holding office.

I would have thought this was a massive can of worms. Who judges valid religious reasons? Would a Muslim, Jew, or Hindu be allowed to answer a question wrongly when it is a matter of Christian stupidity? Or vice versa?
What sort of tests are we talking about here?
What is the gestation period for a human baby? Zero; since all babies come from God?
Would that be okay?
GE Morton
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by GE Morton »

Steve3007 wrote: November 19th, 2019, 2:48 am https://www.newsweek.com/ohio-student-r ... ct-1472008

Should we worry that in the state of Ohio, in the US, at least, the new "Student Religious Liberties Act" has declared that the truth is whatever our personal desires (such as our religious beliefs) want it to be?
I'm not sure Newsweek's lead-in summary:

"The Ohio state House of Representatives has passed the Student Religious Liberties Act, which prevents teachers from penalizing students for giving incorrect answers on tests or other schoolwork if those facts would conflict with their religious beliefs,"

follows from the quoted paragraph of the statute:

"No school district board of education (...) shall prohibit a student from engaging in religious expression in the completion of homework, artwork, or other written or oral assignments. Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work."

Does selecting alternative "B" on a multiple-choice exam constitute "student expression" or "religious content"?

I suspect the meaning of that law won't be known until some suits have been filed and the courts have weighed in.
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Thomyum2 »

I would imagine that if teachers are asking a question on a test where the answer's correctness would vary depending on a student's religious beliefs, then they are probably not putting much thought into their tests. It reminds me of a time many years ago when I was in nursing school and they teaching a section on cultural sensitivity and they gave us a question on one of the tests that said: 'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans'.
“We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”
— Epictetus
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Felix
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Felix »

That House bill seems vague and useless: "Assignment grades and scores shall be calculated using ordinary academic standards of substance and relevance, including any legitimate pedagogical concerns, and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work."

What exactly does that mean? If the student's work includes a lot of irrelevant or mythical religious content, that won't affect the grade he'll receive on it?
'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans'.
LOL, I hope they said "False" is the correct answer.
"We do not see things as they are; we see things as we are." - Anaïs Nin
Steve3007
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Steve3007 »

GE Morton wrote:I suspect the meaning of that law won't be known until some suits have been filed and the courts have weighed in.
Yes, that's an interesting aspect of the way that law works. The full meaning of a law is (sometimes) only defined after it has been tested by lawsuits and precedents have consequently been created which can be referred back to in future lawsuits. I guess it's no different, in that respect, to scientific laws. Scientific laws are meaningless until tested. But obviously the difference is that one is prescriptive and the other is descriptive.
Steve3007
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Steve3007 »

Thomyum2 wrote:I would imagine that if teachers are asking a question on a test where the answer's correctness would vary depending on a student's religious beliefs, then they are probably not putting much thought into their tests. It reminds me of a time many years ago when I was in nursing school and they teaching a section on cultural sensitivity and they gave us a question on one of the tests that said: 'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans'.
Obviously the question "'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans" is loaded because the term "real", in this context, is value laden. But a question like "how old is the Earth?" is not so value laden. Yet the law would appear, at first glance, to imply that a student who answers "about 6000 years" should be given equal credit to the student who answers "about 4.5 billion years".
Steve3007
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Steve3007 »

Felix wrote:If the student's work includes a lot of irrelevant or mythical religious content, that won't affect the grade he'll receive on it?
Yes, it seems that the condition:

"...and shall not penalize or reward a student based on the religious content of a student's work."

if taken at face value, means that a student is free to pad out his/her work with propositions based on religious belief and all of these propositions should be ignored (neither penalised nor rewarded). I suppose this means that the student should still be marked on content which is not based on those beliefs. So, in order to gain marks, the student may state mutually contradictory things in their answer.

So presumably if the question was "how old is the Earth?"

the answers:

"It is both 4.5 billion and 6000 years old."

and:

"It is 4.5 billion years old."

would be regarded as identical and would receive the same marks.

I think the court case over this might make a good movie.
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Sculptor1
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Sculptor1 »

Steve3007 wrote: November 20th, 2019, 7:45 am
Thomyum2 wrote:I would imagine that if teachers are asking a question on a test where the answer's correctness would vary depending on a student's religious beliefs, then they are probably not putting much thought into their tests. It reminds me of a time many years ago when I was in nursing school and they teaching a section on cultural sensitivity and they gave us a question on one of the tests that said: 'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans'.
Obviously the question "'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans" is loaded because the term "real", in this context, is value laden. But a question like "how old is the Earth?" is not so value laden. Yet the law would appear, at first glance, to imply that a student who answers "about 6000 years" should be given equal credit to the student who answers "about 4.5 billion years".
It's ALL loaded. "American" comes from Americio Vespucci, or the map maker Richard Americk.
So calling a "native" of that continent "american" is a misnomer in the first place.

What is real about an indelible association of a human and a piece of arbitrarily nominated land anyway?
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Sculptor1
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Re: Objective vs Subjective Truth

Post by Sculptor1 »

Felix wrote: November 19th, 2019, 7:10 pm
'True or False: Native Americans are the only real Americans'.
LOL, I hope they said "False" is the correct answer.

Seriously I'm wondering if such a stupid question would ever end up on a question paper.
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