Who shot JFK?

[ciphergoth]

For the purposes of this post, I don't really care who shot JFK; it's just a convenient mystery with which I can ask a question about truth.

Alice believes that Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. She believes that Lee Harvey Oswald was in the Texas Book Depository, aimed a loaded rifle and shot JFK, at which point his head visibly exploded as seen in the Zapruder video.

Bert disagrees; he doesn't know for sure who shot JFK, but the one thing he's sure of is that Lee Harvey Oswald was not pointing a loaded rifle out of the window of the Texas Book Depository at the President at the fateful moment.

What do I believe? As I say, I neither know nor care, but there's one thing I know for sure: one of Alice or Bert is wrong. In sufficiently weird conditions both of them might be wrong, but one of them is wrong for sure. We may never know which of them is wrong, but at least one of them is definitely wrong.

Does anyone disagree with this?

Comments

[werenerd.livejournal.com]

>> Does anyone disagree with this?

Yes. We could argue that point, and it would be just about as interesting as a discussion about the existance of God (although, I'm not sure which of us is cast in the role of the believer).

There is no truth, outside of our perception of the truth.

(or, if you prefer, without the presence of an omnipotent observer, the existence of a truth outside of our perception is irrelevant)

Both Alice and Bert’s positions are correct until such a time that one of them changes their opinion. Or until God comes down and adjudicates the question.

[werenerd.livejournal.com]

and to be clear, I consider discussions about the existance of God to be very very uninteresting :-)

In which case...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I'd suggest you look away now, as the old sports announcers used to say, because you'll probably not enjoy what's pretty obviously coming next.

Re: In which case...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

*penny drops* Doh! Of course. Given that, I think I'd want to defend my line above in conversation with djm4 even more strongly! For Alice, the key fact is that Oswald is guilty - how he did it is not terribly relevant. Bert might think he can prove that Oswald wasn't in the Book Depository, but that's not going to convince Alice, since for her that was only ever a trivial detail.

Re: In which case...

[djm4]

Well, yes, but if Chris turns out to be correct, then they still said things that they were wrong about, even if in their mind they classify it as 'well, maybe I was wrong about that, but it wasn't important and so doesn't change my basic point'.

Re: In which case...

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

True indeed - but I think that means that ciphergoth's position that "at least one of them is definitely wrong" might well be perceived by the participants as the least accurate of the three starting positions.

Re: In which case...

[djm4]

I agree, and I do think that's an important point, but that wasn't what I thought was being asked by ciphergoth.

[palmer1984.livejournal.com]

You can't know for certain which is true, but you can look at the evidence, and decide which is more likely to be true.

But that is dependent upon believing that there is a factual truth "out there" to be found (although we cannot always discover what it is); that truth is not entirely subjective. But surely, your claim that if there were an omnipotent observer, they could find out the truth implies that there is in an objective truth.

[djm4]

I, personally, am arrogant enough to use the term 'wrong' for something that I believe sufficiently strongly to be so, even though I'm agnostic about wehther or not there is some factual truth 'out there'. But I do acknowledge that I'm using it in this limited sense.

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

There is no truth, outside of our perception of the truth.

So ... you're saying that "There is no truth, outside of our perception of the truth" isn't true too, then - it's just something that you perceive to be true? (c:

[djm4]

That would certainly be my position, for what it's worth.

[adjectivemarcus.livejournal.com]

I had perceived it to be in the past too, but...

[werenerd.livejournal.com]

most certainly