Yes, but measuring and properly understanding and describing reality is the tricky part.
And math is always true, if a math model doesn't reflect reality, then its a poor model; however, the math is still true.
Okay, let me try to explain my position on "universal truth" a bit more accurately. since9 stated "You're joking, right? 1+1=2 is a universal truth." He did not say
adding two plus two", so my Boolean example (although presented somewhat inaccurately) is valid. Two or more minds experiencing the same event will generally
process the available information differently, and therefore often come to different conclusions.
Scenario: George Boole is shot to death on a busy city street at 11pm. There are multiple witnesses to George's demise, and one says the shots came from a northerly direction, yet another witness (to the same incident) says the shots came from the east side of the street. Another says the report sounded like a firecracker, but another says it was the loudest noise she had ever heard. Each of their truths is based upon personal perception and experience. The one truth/reality they
do share is that
George is deader than three boiled owls.
My proposition was not about the "math". It was about the
truth (or 'reality', as some have chosen to call it). In the preceding scenario, there are multiple individual truths, but only one shared (
limited "universal") truth among only those witnesses.
And I agree that math, when properly executed, is true within the parameters of the calculation. However, numbers themselves have no weight, no volume, no mass - they are simply our designated representations by which we describe/explain/record a
quantity of something. We were taught -
and we accepted as valid - that certain procedures must be followed when doing mathematical calculations. The ancient Egyptians didn't begin with calculus and trigonometry. Their initial system of counting was simply recording a count by ones, and using symbols
nothing like those we use today. The quantity of one was represented with a vertical line "|" and when the quantity of ten was reached the symbol was "^", a quantity of twenty three looked like "III^^" (yes, they wrote/write from right to left). The process of counting remains the same, but the
representational symbols are no longer the same.
We were also taught (since the 1930s) that Pluto is/was a planet (an
arbitrary designation based upon man-made conditions). In 1950, Pluto continued to be "universally accepted" as a planet, and it was still being taught as such. Today, poor Pluto has been stripped of its full
planet status, and is referred to by some as a "dwarf planet". Technically, Pluto's name is now 134340 after being declassified as a planet, yet there are those in the scientific community who believe Pluto should still be classified as a planet. Whose "truth/reality" is universal? How accurate was our initial classification of Pluto as a Planet? Is
everything we were ever taught as
factual, by anyone, "true" today? The answer to those three questions are, (1) Nobody's (2)Questionable, and (3) No. There is also the ongoing
butter-margarine battle within the medical community, between people who are
supposed to know, but can't seem to settle on which product is the least detrimental to our health. Their only combined
agreed upon position seems to be that neither is especially good for us. That's the
best they can come up with after
50 years of wrangling over it? And, if they ever do agree, will that necessarily qualify their findings as "reality"? No. What it
means is that one side capitulated in order to end the confusion and present a united front.
We all see life a bit differently, and also process our experiences in life differently. There are
innumerable "personal truths", and who walking this Earth is to say that any one is more correct than the others? There are many truths which we as a society have agreed upon - shared realities - but, another culture may find them to be mostly false within their belief system.
I accept that there will always be those who do not agree with a single word I say, just as there are those who will agree with any utterance I may make. Neither one really
changes my reality, but those who accept my philosophies reinforce it... while those who ridicule have little or no lasting impact. And
that, my friends, is my
personal reality. Pax...