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.

On Faith and Science

Faith is the foundation of any religious system. It is the belief system on which the world view of the particular religion rests. They are the unproven and untestable assumptions you take for granted which are axiomatic. Based on these axioms the religious philosophical thinking is evolved.

It is antithetical to any critical thinking to have unchallenged assumption as the foundation of the understanding process of the society, the world and the universe. It is however essential to any religious world view. You cannot get away from it if you want to be part of the religious process.

Of course this leads to superior smirking from the scientifically bent who believe that they are above this type of axiomatic thinking process. They react petulantly when it is pointed out that the science rests on as much unprovable assumptions that are axiomatic as Faith based religions.

The world view of Science is based on the assumption that the order exists in the universe and can be searched out by systematic scientific methodology i.e observation, hypothesis, testing and verification.

It is like the kids going on an Easter Egg hunt. They have faith that the Easter Eggs exist and can be found out by diligently searching for those. They are not at the stage to wonder why there should be an Easter Egg carefully hidden for them to find out. The scientists are similar to the kids on the Easter Egg hunt. They use scientific methodology and find the Easter egg that is a new scientific order.

Scientists do not question why the order exists; they only assume that the order exists and go about looking for it. That is fundamental assumption or an axiom. Thus Science is clearly a subset of world views that uses Faith as an under gird. It is slightly unsettling for the scientific rationalists to take it in but this is the truth they have to face one time or another if they sincerely look at their foundational philosophy.

Coming back to the existence of order in the Universe. There are two streams of thoughts on that - one would say that the order exists because some one planted it much as the adults know that the Easter Egg hunt better be prepared carefully to make it enjoyable for the kids, and the other point of view is that the order is the creation of human mind - what we have in our mind is reflected in reality. Light is a simple example of how the explanation evolved as the human mind evolved - Newton said Light was made of particles (Corpuscular theory), Huygens said it was made of waves and the later quantum theorists would say it is a wave and a particle simultaneously. Every one of the explanation made sense at the time of pronouncement. The order we seek thus is constrained by the knowledge at the time of discovery and is essentially a reflection of our own mind set at that time.

Humanity needs Faith to understand the Universe and function in it. It cannot be avoided. The only real question is how do we choose between different Faiths? That is a subject matter for another post.