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Which is more important to you? Truth or Humanity?

Would you sacrifice "truth" in order to progress humanity? Would you let humanity die in order to progress truth? Do you value something else, such as life or animation?

What if your chief, intellectual priority?

Who is the observer that defines "truth" outside the context of humanity? If there's no observer or humanity to act as an observer, the question is moot.

Like what Jerk said, what's the point of truth if no one is there to conceive it? Truth is a concept only understood by humans, and having it without humans seems generally pointless.

And even then, sacrificing an entire race simply for truth seems overkill. I may be acting as a bad influence here, but isn't ignorance bliss anyway?

This post has been edited by MintyFishbowl: 27 August 2012 - 11:06 AM

I actually believe the two are quite inseparable.

Without humanity, truth is, as stated before, unable to be percieved and therefore
cannot exist.

Vice versa, due to the inquisitive nature of man, removing the search for truth
would deprive mankind of its raison d'être.

Jerk, on 27 August 2012 - 10:16 AM, said:

There doesn't need to be an observer defining truth outside of humanity. It is irrelevant.

MintyFishbowl, on 27 August 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

And what is the purpose to humanity? Does having someone there to conceive it imply that truth has meaning? This doesn't defeat the question, it simply means you value humanity over truth.

Also, I suppose how much humanity would be sacrificed is a variable here. Instead, would you sacrifice any humanity for truth? Would you slow the progression of humanity for truth? Would you kill a single person to uncover something amazing, even if that thing was intrinsically worthless to humanity in a direct sense, and could only benefit us through the obscure idea of the mind itself expanding? Please, explain. I'm sure there are some people out there who, for the sake of truth, would allow humanity to die. And I know that doesn't make much sense at first, but remember that such a take on things is based in things such as honor, will to power, and Nihilism. But, make sense or not, it is simply the case.

DigiManiac, on 27 August 2012 - 04:12 PM, said:

I was waiting for someone to claim they're inseparable. Claiming they're inseparable means you value humanity, since you're willing to sacrifice truth if it means saving humanity.

This may seem like the obvious choice to most people, but some have their morels placed in more "divine" concepts, such as truth and logic, whereas humanity is considered a worthy sacrifice in order to maintain moral pride. Or maybe they just value power or honor?

In the context of this question humanity exists to observe this "truth" shit. The purpose is to observe facts and reconcile them into something like a full view of an idea. Truth. But only the facts exist a priori. If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, it still fell; but sooner or later someone has to come by and consider various points of it and what to do with it, if anything. Intellectual concepts themselves don't exist without observers; they need an architecture in the form of sentient thought.

I'm going to repeat this until you're fucking sick of it because you completely missed the point in both posts.

Jerk, on 27 August 2012 - 08:34 PM, said:

As insightful as this is, it doesn't contradict the question. Whether or not valuing truth over humanity is logical, it can still be done. And of course, I repeat that you can have allegiance to other moral aspects, such as pride and honor, both of which cease to exist upon death, but are still choices.

It's basically the same thing Digimaniac said, except phrased differently. It means they're inextricable; he even acknowledged I said it first. Except that acknowledging it doesn't mean you chose humanity. Since they're both wired together, you can still say "fuck it" and blow up humanity so there's no one left to bitch about whether or not you need someone to interpret truth or sacrifice truth and make reality unobservable for sentient beings. No one advances, innovates, creates. Nothing. And there's nothing inherently wrong with that either.

The truth exists regardless of humans' knowledge of it.

Fuck 'em both, drink a chocolate malt on a warm Saturday evening.

what

Is humanity intended as "human beings" or as "being human" here?

Human beings. Basically, would you embrace a lie if it were better for humanity? Or, would you accept the truth, even if it wasn't good for humanity?

If the lie does more good for humanity then sure. Human suffering would be too high a cost to learn the truth.

Oh I'd embrace a lie a day for the sake of a single human being.
As Cypher said in The Matrix "ignorance is bliss!"

Dr. Klaus, on 28 August 2012 - 12:25 AM, said:

Yeah, but isn't 'truth' an abstraction we apply to our perceived empirical knowledge of the state of things in the universe? If it's the universe's attribute's or 'actual' state of existence you're talking about, then why not just cut straight to it and just call it the universe?

Wen it comes down to it mankind will chose them selfs. Thats how its always ben trapiling over lower animals just becasue we have resoning we just asume were better.

CaptainBaconMan, on 29 August 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

Because of situations like this.

There is no objective truth, because objective truth implies objective falsity. Truth is a result of short-shortsightedness and the inability to recognize predetermination -- which just happens to describe humans fairly well. Since, as it stands now, knowing the future is impossible, then we have to live with truth so we can better understand and describe the perceived uncertainty around us.

Mambo jambo

It really is.

CaptainBaconMan, on 29 August 2012 - 03:26 PM, said:

So if I were to reform the question: Which would I rather attain; Securing Humanity at the cost of finding out the truth, or sell out humanity to its own destruction in order to discover the truth for myself?

SELL OUT THE HUMANS

Dr. Klaus, on 29 August 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

Yeah, but then you'd be all alone and WHO WOULD DRAW BCB???

cats would still exist