On a more serious side, here's my criteria for truth:

I accept some things as absolutely true. Not too many but still a reasonable number. For instance, I know I exist. I know other people exist. I know they are as conscious as I am. I know there are things other than myself and other people. I can never know what those things are, I can only have a mental representation for them.

The above pretty much sums up everything I know, all the rest I consider belief of some sort and is therefore open to speculation. These few things that I know, I consider them to be absolutely true.

How do I know they are absolutely true? It's quite simple: if they are not true then nothing else matters, nothing at all. The only knowledge I'm interested in are the informed opinions I can gather from those truths and from experience, everything else is just folly and completely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

I find that an extremely reasonable test for truth, one that puts a simple end to philosophical masturbation.

• The scale of reasonability - harvey1 - April 27, 2001 - 20:56 UTC