June 16, 2009
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Into the wild: thoughts on truth
A million things dance before our faces, distracting us from the ultimate. Could it be that they all are empty? Yes, it could be, until we face the ultimate and find what each thing is here for.
I want to live in a place where you can see the stars. We tell ourselves our hearts will remember, but it is easier than we think to drown out the voice of truth. Clear sight of the goal is always helpful.
The truth takes precedence over everything. What else could you want?
People don't look for truth because they don't think you can get it. But the question is not what we can get, it's what we should strive for while on earth. And after striving for it, you have to end up someplace. And if you strive for the truth, you will like the place where you end up better than the place you would have ended up otherwise.
But if we strive for mere pleasure and masked society, we shall be disgusted with ourselves. Really so worth it?
And what is the truth anyway? Philosophers think it is statements which properly describe reality. That is, if the statement is how we would describe reality if we could see behind it, then it is true. But is that truth? Is that what humans are meant for? Is that the relation humans must bear to reality—just true beliefs about the facts?
The man who thinks such shouldn't be able to think, for his heart is dead.
The truth is built in the human heart, in a quiet place where only the individual can see. Reality goes deep, though humans don't have to see anything they don't want to. We can build dams in our thoughts that no pleading, sermon, or argument can remove.
I often grow scared of all the reality I don't know, the stories of others' lives I haven't seen, what has happened while I haven't been there. What have I missed? Was it important?
But as I gaze at the stars alone on the mountain top, I realize that I am in a place and time in reality that no one else is. They all miss my story too. I am one part of reality they haven't mapped.
We often miss the flux of the story, the events which happen as moments continue, by staring at frozen thoughts of the world. It is as though it were a picture in our minds. But in fact on, on, on it goes, the plot always rushing onward without the paused thinkers.
Thus we see this tension—we must go after the truth in our lives as well as our minds. It is the whole human who looks for the truth. Those who limit in the search for truth do so to keep out the part of reality that would be let in if they admitted that other parts of the human condition could show the way.
Intentionally narrow down the sources of truth to just reason and all other ways will seem inferior. But if this is known through reason, one hasn't really gotten us anywhere.
Comments (12)
A friend once told me, "The truth can be fun if it's more brutal than any lie."
I suppose it is true. Truth has many different versions, I've observed. There is but one truth and that is God. But then, we live in a world of differences and how we each have our own versions of the truth.
In times of my aimless wanderings, I suppose it is not truth I am seeking, but connection. Real, deep connection with a few close friends, with God, with myself.
Again, I love the way you communicate.
I love truth. I absolutely love it. I love finding it, I love having it dropped in my lap, I love talking it over, I love knowing it is always there. I love the fact that real truth is outside of me. That I can't create truth, no matter how hard I try. I can point to it, dig it up, expose it, shout from the street corner, but I can't make it. Truth is true all the time, regardless of how I feel about it. And that comforts me quite a bit.
~Victoria
Perhaps the truth is not the collection of all of reality, but something that, in light of it, makes all of reality makes sense. So it has the opposite effect, if you understand the truth, you understand reality--not if you understand reality, you understand the truth. You need the truth to understand reality in the first place. "until we face the ultimate and find what each thing is here for." =]
Your last paragraph makes a very profound statement about reason. I'm not sure I understand it =P
Martha
you write so well and yet your post is so vague!
scientific truth is not cold or dead or without miracles; it's just that scientific "miracles" are observable, reproducible, and potentially explainable (in terms of other, more fundamental "miracles").
for instance, Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation was an empirical law that did nothing to address the question of *why* each massive particle (1) creates its own gravitational field and (2) responds to external gravitational fields.
Einstein's Theory of General Relativity addresses this question by stating that particles travel along geodesics in four-dimensional spacetime and that the presence of matter introduces local curvature to an otherwise flat universe.
alternatively, some models of Quantum Gravity (not yet a fully developed theory that has made any testable predictions) address this question by hypothesizing that massive particles exchange virtual gravitons (massless spin-2 bosons) in analogy to the successful description of the electromagnetic force in terms of virtual photon exchange between charged particles.
but again... why should this be so? why should matter curve spacetime or emit and absorb gravitons? if a "miracle" is an as-of-yet unexplainable event, then science is full of miracles; it's just that they are a bit too sophisticated for popular taste.
the scientific quest for truth (or, more realistically, a close approximation to truth) is not cold or dead; rather, it is creative and exciting and often so surprising that we have a hard time swallowing the facts.
more importantly, it does not leave our souls unaffected. you'd be hard pressed to find a scientist who does not devote some fraction of her curiosity to thinking about her role in the cosmic dance--even if she is an atheist. as scientists, we are trained to question and probe our most fundamental beliefs.
although i suppose it is possible to separate a quest for "mere" universal truth from a quest for "better" spiritual truth, the two (should) go hand-in-hand. reason and logic are incredible tools for both pursuits. for instance, you *must* use reason and make inferences if you want to interpret (a) experimental data in the context of a given theoretical framework or (b) 21st-century ethics in the context of God's laws.
@c_jamaica - right~
@jim_the_american -
"you write so well and yet your post is so vague!"
Indeed. I write vaguely so you will know exactly what I mean.
Don't worry - I am about as far as a person can get from denigrating the use of reason in looking for the truth. But I think some people limit our search for truth to only reason, and that's just wrong. As a whole being, the human should not truncate any part of their experience from the pursuit of truth.
This is because in searching for truth we are not just searching for causes. We are also looking for the truth of making decisions, something which teaches us how to live. Something like that is often more subtly perceived than a inference from the data can show us.
But indeed I stand right beside you in disbelieving that 'the same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.'
@StrokeofThought -
an interesting counterpoint: often, our naive intuitions mislead us and we are left with a patently *false* understanding of the universe. as an example, until the 1950s, physicists believed that an experiment and its mirror image would produce the same result (this is called parity symmetry). in the summer of 1956, Lee and Yang discovered that this idea had never been tested for electro-weak interactions, such as beta decay. they quickly proposed an experiment to test parity symmetry in october, 1956.
Madame Chien-Shiung Wu completed the experiment in december--two days after christmas--and discovered an amazing fact: parity is violated by the weak interaction, that is, our universe is fundamentally different from its reflection!
if we had never bothered to question and test our naive intuition (both processes, questioning and testing, require logical thought), we would have never discovered this new truth.
it is not always wise to trust your intuitions, even those which seem simple, obvious, and benign.
how does this apply to moral/religious truth? even if you are really, really, really sure that Action X is wrong, it might turn out to be permissible according to a logical interpretation of the rules.
as far as the "rules" are concerned, i suppose the analogy breaks down. in science, we hope to identify the rules by figuring out what, exactly, is permissible. in religion, we tend to do the opposite since the rules are given.
is there any room for intuition when it comes to religious truth?
@jim_the_american -
"it is not always wise to trust your intuitions, even those which seem simple, obvious, and benign."
Certainly. Although you should trust them as long as that is all you have. Ergo the Principle of Credulity: you ought to believe what seems to you to be the case in the absence of defeating counterevidence.
This seems like a pretty fundamental principle: so long as there was no falsifying experiment as a counterexample, I think we all agree that scientists were warranted/rational in believing parity symmetry.
However, although some humans are limited in time and space and thus cannot find evidence to the contrary, we ought to esteem searching for evidence to the contrary of what initially seems to us to be the case. Often times reality can lead people to have false, though at that time rational, beliefs. So I agree we ought to try to falsify our beliefs.
In terms of applying this to religion, it might seem to the young reader that God made the universe, including life and humans, in a week. However, there is defeating counterevidence to this. It is probably not rational to interpret creation as having happened in a week in light of current astrophysics.
Sometimes we can find counterevidence, but not defeating counterevidence. Exorbitant amounts of human and animal suffering is at least prima facie evidence that God is not perfectly loving. But if we can meet that with a reasonable explanation for why a loving God would permit such suffering, or we can defeat the argument with stronger arguments to support God's loving nature, then we do not have defeating counterevidence.
So I think we agree in the same process. We have perceptual beliefs, but when new evidence arrives we have to perhaps change our minds if the evidence defeats our initial belief.
I do not, by the way, believe that intuition is an a-rational force within humans: usually it means if someone is putting things together. If someone has an intuition which ends up false, it is just because the data/experiences which made them have that intuition were misleading, though they interpreted them rationally. I don't agree with this weird notion that intuition is the equivalent of quantum particles, springing up within humans out of nowhere. So I don't see anything illicit about it, though I do of course agree that we must vet all the evidence.
@StrokeofThought -
i agree that intuition is not necessarily harmful; it has been demonstrated that infants develop an intuitive theory for conservation of matter before they can even walk. (the experiment is pretty simple: first, a block is placed in front of the baby; next, a screen is lowered between the baby and the block, hiding the block from view; the block is put away; finally, the screen is lifted and the baby sees that the block is missing. "young" infants won't be bothered by this fact whereas "older" infants will search for the missing block. this suggests that they believe that matter cannot disappear; the block must be *somewhere.*)
by the age of five, a child has developed a naive understanding of the world around him/her. often, college graduates have the same misconceptions as preschoolers. that is, people stop "updating" their worldview after they've collected enough data to develop a "functional" theory.
one of the biggest challenges of a science teacher is to identify and reconcile these naive misconceptions. for instance, today in the classroom i faced severe opposition to the idea that all objects fall at the same rate because our human experience is that a piece of paper falls more slowly than a brick.
as far as physical understanding goes, misconceptions can be benign, annoying, or--at worst--counter-productive in the sense that it prevents the implementation of a new technology or hinders new research (e.g., people who are scared of irradiated milk, which is actually perfectly safe and has an amazingly long shelf-life).
however, the analog for Religious/Moral Truth is not so inconsequential. by the age of five, most people have developed a moral worldview, often similar to a good guys vs. bad guys scenario. unless that worldview is challenged, *it will never change.*
- iranians are bad, americans are good.
- gays are bad, heterosexuals are good.
- the christian right is bad, the liberal left is good.
- taxes are bad, capitalism is good.
rarely do adults approach social, political, or religious conflicts with a genuine understanding of morality. rather, they resort to their innate understanding--which is no different from a preschooler's--and present such situations in boolean terms: us vs. them.
it is of utmost importance that each of us examines his/her "fundamental" beliefs rationally; why do i believe X? what are the arguments in favor of X? against X? are there alternatives to X? to rely on our naive moral intuitions is to rely on the guidance of toddlers.
@jim_the_american -
Good words, my friend. I agree entirely.
By the way, I just want to mention how propitious it turned out that you fashion yourself as an arrantly scientifically minded person. I had no idea that this was the case when I appealed to explanatory power and simplicity in our other discussion. It took me a few days before I realized that it had turned out that way, despite the fact I had no inkling that this is what the situation was beforehand. Go figure.
(And thank you for becoming a vocab father to me: the word 'boolean' has been noted and logged away for further use.)
@StrokeofThought -
i want you to know that i had to google 'propitious.' i suppose that means we're even...
actually, i'm getting my PhD in physics; i'm an experimental atomic physicist. i also teach physics to undergrads at my university and to prisoners at the local prison.
what's your story?
@jim_the_american -
"i want you to know that i had to google 'propitious.' i suppose that means we're even..."
Haha . . . I guess if you mean who profits more from our exchanges. I consider myself the victor if I ever learn anything.
"i also teach physics to undergrads at my university and to prisoners at the local prison."
That's awesome - beyond the call of merely visiting them. That's really cool.
"what's your story?"
I'm currently doing my undergrad in philosophy and Italian at The Ohio State University. I do pay particular attention to the philosophy of science, but also philosophy of mind/religion. I'm not sure exactly where I want to go with any of this as of yet, however.
So yes, that perhaps further illuminates that I do indeed think it important to have arguments for one's position and appreciate all the arguments contrary to that position as well. It could be said that doing thinking of such argument for/against a position is how I spend my time.
Last month I saw a presentation by Craig Gross and then got to talk to him afterwards. That was pretty exciting. I got a laugh out of him, so I suppose getting a Nobel laureate to laugh is one less thing on the list of things to do in life!