Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Debates Rage On

12. Truth

Wikipedia's entry for "truth" should be applauded for its cleanliness and concision; it touches on schools of thought like constructivist theory and philosophers like Kant, then directs users to those respective pages. But the battle behind the scenes is much uglier, running through 12 archived pages with subject headings that range from "truth in jurisprudence" and "the semantic theory" to "Oi! You SIMPLIFY!!!!!" and "Please Kill Me Now!" The behind-the-scenes discussion captures Wikipedia's tendency to collapse into autobiography. "When you trace out all availible information from science and experiences," Jiohdi says, beginning a long take on a personal approach to truth, "they all trace back to one core understanding, namely, that everything perceived is generated by the perceiver and is thus not a completely reliable guide to reality nor truths about reality." "These," Rick Norwood responds, "are beliefs discovered by most people in their sophomore year."


Too bad The Great Orange One's page didn't make it to the list. That cobag can't even get decent ratings with the Onion.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Truth? That is not something Agent Orange was ever part of.

Here's an AG question: How many jobs does a man have to be fired from before he can be openly talked about on the Internet?

Just wondering.

Kathleen said...

I would've gone with

Archaeology is the search for fact not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall.

that pretty much covers it.

Anonymous said...

By the way, chuckbag, are you in the mood for enormous quantities of meat any time soon. If you also have spare weekday lunch time and $35 to drop, I might be in town.

Anonymous said...

Oooohiie, AG wants to go! AG may be in DC the last weekend of the month.

Kathleen said...

ok this debate is raging on long enough.

Adorable Girlfriend said...

If you abandon your blog like this for sex and girls, I'd hate to let you watch AG's children.

Oh wait, AG is too busy with the sex and girls for that too.

Mea culpa.