Exploring Truth

Can we define Truth? What is Truth? Can we extract the meaning of “Truthiness” from what we experience every day? That is what I am going to explore today and if you are interested, come along for a ride.

We all know that certain things are true or false:

Earth is round – true

Men are mortal – true

Moon is made of cheese – false

1+1=10 – false

The ratio of the circumference to the diameter is constant irrespective of the diameter of the circle - true

On a bright sunny cloudless day, the sky is blue – true

When we look at this analysis, we see the common aspect is that all of them are declarative statements. These are all premises that we examine for truth or falsity. If we are looking for the Truth, it is immanent to the “true” statements and is absent from the “false” statements. So the Truth is not a substance or a material object per se, it is in our understanding of the substance or an event. Our knowledge of the reality dictates what is true or false. If it is close to reality then we say it is true, otherwise we say it is false.

Now let’s examine the statements one by one. If a cartographer looks at the first statement, he may balk at it saying that the earth is truly a spheroid, more like an oval than a round. He may mark it as false.

The second statement at first glance looks incontrovertible. However, if we locate the genes for mortality and youth, theoretically we can modify it to live as long as we wish to lead a healthy youthful life. It is also possible that we may achieve immortality by transferring ourselves into a more durable media such as silicon chips rather than the biological skin in which we reside. These are the stuff sci-fi is made of and nobody can say that it is not a possibility even though it is highly improbable.

The third statement “Moon is made of cheese” cannot be proved false by a primitive tribe. If a shaman says that it is made of cheese, the tribe will accept it so. It is the knowledge we have accumulated as human beings through the ages that rules out this statement being true. We have brought a moon rock back. It is a rock and not cheese.

The fourth statement ”1+1=10” is true if you are doing binary math for computer science. It is false for decimal system and is true for binary arithmetic where there is no number symbol greater than 1.

The fifth statement regarding the constancy (pi=3.141…) of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter for a circle is true for a flat Euclidean plane and can be shown to be false on a spherical topography. Let’s imagine that you are standing on top of the North Pole and try to draw a small circle with the string attached to the North Pole as a center. You will find the ratio to be pi. Now you gradually increase the diameter of the circle and larger the circle you make the smaller the ratio would become. In the extreme case when the circle is at the equator, you will find the ratio is closer to 2 and not pi.

Can we dispute that the sky is blue? Yes, if we are totally colorblind and what we see are only shades of gray, black and white. Since we cannot see the vivid color spectrum available for the average human being, we don’t see much of a difference in various colors. We would say the sky is gray. (Of course in space the sky is black as there is no atmosphere to scatter the sunlight)

What does this collection of statements prove? Essentially whether the Truth resides in a statement or not, is decided by the knowledge level, the location, the time, and the observer.

Truth then is the collective knowledge base of the society on the reality and a premise is true for that time and for the observer if it is within the knowledge base that exists at that date. Since the knowledge base of the society is derived from the senses and the collective logic, we are really talking about the shadow play in Plato’s darkened cave where the men are chained facing the wall and the outside reality can only be glimpsed through the shadows.

Looking at the problem in a modern perspective, we compared the Faith on which the world views are based to an operating system of a computer. What then is the Truth? The Truth is then a database program on the computer. If the premise falls within the database, it is true otherwise it is false.

If we have to choose between Faith and Truth what would you choose? Faith (operating system) of course, as it is the foundation on which Truth (database program) resides. You need to choose the Faith first which would automatically lead you to a set of Truth that are available for you to access the true premises.

Which faith and which truth then should we select? That is the topic of another post.