Truth and knowing.
“What is truth?” — Pontius Pilate, the Gospel of John.
Truth is easy to explain but rather harder to understand. why? Because in its explanation we are trying to form a true statement about what it is to form a true statement. This leads to confusion, and unfortunately to the rejection of what is true truth (so to speak) and the clinging onto those rocks that we do understand (usually scientific truth or religious truth).
Knowledge on the other hand is not easy to explain. To know something one has to belief it is true and have that knowledge accord with something (usually ones perception of reality). Knowledge is also distinct from mere information. In that both concern a truth but knowledge has a purpose or use. It is also usually a learned experience.
So here we have our parameters of investigation. In answering the following questions and drawing the threads of their answers together under a general philosophical theory I hope to cast light into the darkness, or at least classify the dark better.
The questions are:
Are there really different types of truth?
What does it mean to know something, as opposed to just believing it?
Can we really know something is true?
These are of course Titanic questions that Philosophers and Scientists have struggled to answer for generations. A cop out here would be to just fill this post with quotes and analysis of other thinkers works, but i prefer to actually try and think of some answers myself in my admittedly limited capacity to do so.
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” — Sherlock Holmes (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“I am” is taken as the most fundamental truth of all. But why? Simply because it is the easiest to prove. One can prove “i am” every single time one thinks it and by thinking it one can simply and clearly assert it and by proxy reject it’s negation; “i am not”. Once we have made an assertion that we are clear is true, we believe it. This proposition is now added to the pool of positive propositions, or what i call ideas. This pools of ideas are like bricks building a house. The most simple ideas are the foundation upon which are placed more and more ideas forming a wall. The walls of this house are held up by the simple truths of the provable simple ideas.
So what is a simple idea? Take the following:
I have a rock 0
This idea is simple. Its truth directly relates and relies on the fact it calls in place. I actually have a rock. I perceive that in my hand is a rock. This perception is so solid and consistent that I believe the statement is true because I can prove it in a millisecond by referring to my perception of the object in my hand. As long as that perception remains true, the idea is also true.
Our minds perceive reality all the time through the senses and the beliefs that this perception give rise to are what we take as true.
So, for me truth is a belief in the mental linking of a simple idea to a perception of reality. So, where is the problem with truth? The problem comes with compound ideas:
Say I have a rock 0
And I add another rock 00
Now I call into place a compound idea and, in the form of a special language (maths) that I have learned, i say that i have two rocks. I perceive the rocks in my hand. I say to myself “I have a rock” and “I have a rock”. That means I have two rocks. This is a compound idea, and idea based on language. In this case the language is mathematics.
Mathematics is a shared language with formal rules. I learned mathematical language at school by the teacher communicating the idea, the conceptual idea, of “two” to me. Once I have the idea embedded deep withing my mind, I cannot look at the two rocks without referring to them in this way. The concept “two” is not to be found in the rocks themselves and it doesn’t require i directly refer to reality. It is an idea over and beyond the rocks perceptions and a total construct of humanity. The wonderful thing about mathematical ideas is that because they are a special language they can operate on other concepts and ideas contained within their language. They are a special language because humanity has formulated rigid rules for the linking and further compounding, as well as the operation of these ideas and the creation of further rules and mathematical language.
The operation of this language takes place only in the mind. It manipulates ideas formulated by its rules and operates to produce results upon which we can (if we should need to) refer back all the way to the simple compound idea that we can perceive to correspond to reality. I have a rock.
I have said it before but I will say it again: The communication of ideas is the primary accomplishment of mankind. This combined with the formalisation of mathematics has given mankind a startlingly powerful tool for both the communication and operation of ideas.
So what is the problem here? The problems are that for all it predictive abilities mathematical propositions are only perceived to be true. This is very hard to spot in the simple arena because the operation of math is so fast in our brains and it can always reduce to a simple perception of reality such as “I have a rock”. However, it is the case that at very high levels mathematicians themselves only talk about models. Models are math that is so complex or cutting edge that the reduction to a simple truth is not yet possible*. Mathematicians try and construct math ideas to explain their predictions or perceptions but we cannot actually call them true yet or even at all. Math models depend on variables and mostly what is called a priori variables (or what i would call the communicated shared idea independent of a perception of reality, as i don’t think a priori ideas exist. But then that is no where near as cool as saying “a priori” and i need to find a single word for it, preferably one in Greek!). The modeler tweaks the math until it “fits” or describes his perceptions of what is happening empirically.
This shows a very important thing. Math does not operate on reality only on our perception of reality and some math cannot and will not progress beyond models because the perception of reality is false. Mathematics is inherently incomplete and can involve paradoxes such as:
[quote]Will Rogers phenomenon is the apparent paradox obtained when moving an element from one set to another set raises the average values of both sets. One real-world example of the Will Rogers phenomenon is seen in the medical concept of stage migration. In medical stage migration, improved detection of illness leads to the movement of people from the set of healthy people to the set of unhealthy people. Because these people are not healthy, removing them from the set of healthy people increases the average lifespan of the healthy group. Likewise, the migrated people are more healthy than the people already in the unhealthy set, so adding them raises the average lifespan of the group.[/quote] WIKI
The Mathematical language is not complete and not fully reliable. One has to question whether it ever will be.
Math is not then a different type of truth, only a means of operating on ideas which has the ability to be reduced back to a simple idea. Simple ideas, remember, being linked directly to perception of reality via positive propositions. Also remember that because we are talking about actual truth, reliability doesn’t enter into it, since all truths are true totally.
What else then claims to be higher truth? Logic perhaps. Logic as I define it is the operation of reasoning on a proposition to produce a result that is not contradictory. Logic does in no way need to refer to a Simple Idea or to reality. In fact, despite my love for it, it can be “done away with” very simply in the following example:
What I am now saying is false, or meaningless.
This follows but cannot be true as that would prove it was false. Basically the problem is that because the rules of logic allow for self referencing one can construct propositions that cannot be successfully proved one way or the other. Logic is another language like math (very like in fact since one begat the other), but unlike math its formal rules are based not on new Independent Compound Ideas but on less reliable perceptions of General Compound Ideas such as those used in English. So, like math logic is not always true. Logic suffers something that math does not. It can operate on ideas that do not reduce to perceptions of reality. Logic isn’t a type of truth at all and I think it is a misuse of the idea “truth” to mix it up with Logic.
What of faith then? Can that be true? Here we come into the second of my original questions, regarding knowledge. Consider this,
The sun rose this morning.
I don’t need to have faith that this is true. I was there. I saw the sun rise and experienced the consequences of the rising sun. But can I know that the sun will rise tomorrow? The sun has always risen. This is a Simple Idea which is perceived relating to reality. Every day the idea has been proved and everyday the idea is strengthened. This strengthening is what is called Custom. It has become customary for man to perceive the rising of the sun everyday. We expect it. We believe it will rise tomorrow as an argument from inference:
The sun has always risen in the morning.
I infer that the sun will rise again tomorrow.
We believe this idea. Until it has happened we cannot prove it one way or the other, but it is a reasonable (to us) inference about our perceptions of the way the world works. This is belief. It is the same as saying “fire is hot”. This is an idea based on the historical data available to us. Fire has always been hot so fire will continue to be hot. We do not know that fire is hot until we check but we believe it will be because it customarily is. However, once the data goes the other way we get confused. Consider the sun again. imagine that today it didn’t rise. From this moment on how can i believe that it will ever rise again? The custom has been broken and I can no longer simply rely on a idea being reinforced every day. I need to have faith. Traditionally faith has been seen in this way, as belief in spite of the evidence, but i don’t think that it is necessarily so.
A more cogent example. One day the sun will burn out and will not rise. There is no way for me to know when that day is going to happen and it could happen at any time. Since “to know” requires that i check, i cannot know until the event has passed. I believe the sun will rise because it always has, but more than this, because i also believe that one day it will not, it requires faith on my part to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. Faith is therefore not concerned with truth at all, only belief. It is a kind of hope mixed with (or mired with) a belief (the sun will rise) which in turn is reinforced by momentary knowledge (that moment when the sun does rise) and custom (it has always risen before). Truth only enters this in the moment, that moment when the sun actually is rising, the moment that my idea can be directly related to my perception of reality, in fact the moment that I know.
So my final question “how can i know something is true?”. For me you can only know something at all when you check. The famous question “what do I have in my pocket?” is not just asked of the viewer but also of the questioner for they do not know what is in their pocket until they too check (as, for example, it may have fallen out and they haven’t noticed). In checking they validate the idea of what they have in their pocket by the reference to their perception coming to them via the senses. But, until they check in some manner by looking, or opening their pocket they only believe in the idea they have of what is in there. Until they check they do not know. Once they have referenced the idea to their perceptions of reality, then the idea can be said to be known truth until the circumstances change and a fresh check is needed. This may sound pedantic and suggesting only momentary truth but consider that often only a check with the eyes or even an operation of math (based on Simple Ideas) will constitute a check. humans do this all the time, millions of times a second.
It is this that explains science being held as a high truth. Because science is a result of measurement (and a combination of math) it is constantly referencing its ideas to the perceptions of reality. It is the most “grounded” way of producing strong ideas available. It is very careful to remove as many variables as possible and to rely only on observations and their computation.
when it comes down to it, there are no different forms of truth. To say so is to court a misunderstanding of the terms and to ignore the fact that all that is considered true is constantly being reduced to Simple Ideas and referenced with the perceptions of reality.
The question left and rising from this is: What can we take to be reality?
[quote]As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. Albert Einstein [/quote]
Nash’
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December 1st, 2004 at 5:28 pm
I have had some comments on this article at the Wasteland. I will reproduce them here:
Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX
New Post psst: the earth goes round the sun
I don’t like the sun example. The sun does not rise, as it is (relatively) stationary: the earth goes round it. We know that the earth will continue to go round the sun for at least tomorrow because gravity will not stop working, and the earth will not stop spinning over the course of a day.
So yes, we do know that the ’sun will rise’ tomorrow.
We also know that the fuel the sun is burning will last a lot longer than tomorrow, although not indefinitely.
Answer:
Re: psst: the earth goes round the sun
Quote:We know that the earth will continue to go round the sun for at least tomorrow because gravity will not stop working, and the earth will not stop spinning over the course of a day.
You cannot know an event until it happens. You believe this is true, but can you show that belief corresponding to either a custom or to a Simple Idea?
As for the idea that the sun rises. This is what it appears to do for me, this is my experience. Oh, I believe in the sun being static and Earth moving, but I do not strictly know anything other than what I see.
Quote:So yes, we do know that the ’sun will rise’ tomorrow.
It is possible that the sun will not rise tomorrow. The possibility may be small (from our point of view) but it is still there.
However it happens, one day the sun will not appear to rise. There perhaps are ways of predicting this day, but it could occur by a method we have no way of knowing.
I agree, in general, that it is a small example and not meant to be taken too far. If you want a more rigorously scientific example use something like Schroedinger’s cat.
Nash’
December 3rd, 2004 at 10:50 am
More feedback!
————-
New Post Bet you a tenner
Quote:You cannot know an event until it happens. You believe this is true, but can you show that belief corresponding to either a custom or to a Simple Idea?
I know the earth goes round the sun. I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is not a belief: its based on evidence and knowledge.
This is more of this ‘types of truth’ stuff and it is complete garbage.
‘Elated? Pleased?’
‘Those are the closest words. There is an undeniable elation in causing mayhem, in bringing about such massive destruction. As for feeling pleased, I felt pleasure that some of those who died did so because they were stupid enough to believe in gods or afterlives that do not exist, even though I felt a terrible sorrow for them as they died in their ignorance and thanks to their folly.
At puberty, I was sworn to secrecy by the international brotherhood of lying fickle males.
Booger
The egg man
Posts: 1203
(12/1/04 7:29 pm)
Reply New Post ‘The sun rose this morning.’ Or the horizon moved down. Firesign Theatre. “The sun is going down” “No, the horizon is moving up.”
Nashawan
Quantum Monkey
Posts: 1145
(12/2/04 8:10 am)
Reply | Edit
New Post Re: Bet you anything you like. Your understanding is woeful.
The whole post is actually a refutation of the “types of truth stuff”, where I try to show LeRoque that there is only truth and not types of truth.
Quote:I know that the sun will rise tomorrow. It is not a belief: its based on evidence and knowledge
You have no evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow because it hasn’t happened yet, and as I have tried to show you cannot claim to know the sun will rise either because to know means relating the simple idea to the perception of reality.
All you have is
Custom - the sun has risen all times before
Belief - A Valid inference from the above custom
Please show me the evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow? By its very nature this is an impossible task.
There is no knowing of future events, there is only inference (which can also cover prediction) and belief.
You are the one talking garbage my friend, in my very first section is said:
Quote:Truth is easy to explain but rather harder to understand. why? Because in its explanation we are trying to form a true statement about what it is to form a true statement. This leads to confusion, and unfortunately to the rejection of what is true truth (so to speak) and the clinging onto those rocks that we do understand (usually what is called scientific truth or religious truth - i plan to show there is no such thing).
What I mean is that the meaning of the word truth has been hijacked to cover prediction and knowing.
OUTSIDE CONTEXT JOURNAL
Edited by: Nashawan at: 12/2/04 8:27 am
mattg500001
We used to kick our way
Posts: 4508
(12/2/04 9:50 am)
Reply New Post That is not quite fair….
Quote:You have no evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow because it hasn’t happened yet,
If you said he had no proof, then you would be correct, but I submit that he has plenty of evidence.
There is fact NOTHING we can KNOW beyond doubt.
Nashawan
Quantum Monkey
Posts: 1146
(12/2/04 10:10 am)
Reply | Edit
New Post Re: That is not quite fair….
Quote:ev·i·dence Audio pronunciation of “evidence” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (v-dns)
n.
1. A thing or things helpful in forming a conclusion or judgment: The broken window was evidence that a burglary had taken place. Scientists weigh the evidence for and against a hypothesis.
The defintion comes after the fact. A broken window. not a non broken window that someone will break. He has evidence that the sun rose today, but he has none that it will rise tomorrow. What he has is:
Quote:Main Entry: in·fer·ence
Pronunciation: ‘in-f&-r&ns
Function: noun
1 : the act or process of inferring; specifically : the act of passing from one proposition, statement, or judgment considered as true to another whose truth is believed to follow logically from that of the former
2 : something inferred; especially : a proposition arrived at by inference —see also permissive presumption at PRESUMPTION
3 : the premises and conclusions of a process of inferring
Especially part 1. We consider that the sun rose today as true. Plus we consider that the sun has risen all the days before as true. Therefore we make an argument from inference to say that this will continue tommorow. But! it may not and one day we believe it will not.
It has become a custom
Quote:cus·tom Audio pronunciation of “custom” ( P ) Pronunciation Key (kstm)
n.
….
3. Law. A common tradition or usage so long established that it has the force or validity of law.
to believe it will. Custom, inference and intuition are life savers. Without them we would not believe fire is hot without getting burned everytime.
Nash’
OUTSIDE CONTEXT JOURNAL
mattg500001
We used to kick our way
Posts: 4509
(12/2/04 11:20 am)
Reply New Post Not convinced. We have EVIDENCE that the sun rises on a 24 hour cycle. We have evidence that sun is halfway through a 12 billion odd lifecycle. We have NO evidence that the sun will do anything out of the ordinary in the next billion years.
I submit that I have EVIDENCE that the sun will rise tomorrow.
I think the problem is that the sun is not a good example for this discussion.
Baron Hurlothrumbo IIX
Sad, weary women
Posts: 1650
(12/2/04 1:51 pm)
Reply
New Post I know you disagree with parts of LeRoque’s essay I know you are not in agreement with LeRoques work; but what I mean was (and with hindsight could have been more clear about) that your reply was more of this nonsense about subjective beliefs being true.
Quote:You have no evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow because it hasn’t happened yet, and as I have tried to show you cannot claim to know the sun will rise either because to know means relating the simple idea to the perception of reality.
The sun rises as a result of the earths rotation on its axis. In order for the sun not to rise tomorrow, the earth would have to stop rotating, be completely destroyed, or the sun would have to be completely destroyed. The energy or forces required to acheive this are inconceivably great. To stop the earth’s rotation, a body of matter roughly the size of a planet would have to hit the earth in a certain direction at a certain angle. Such a body, travelling towards the earth, would be seen in advance of 24h from impact. So tomorrow is safe from this scenario.
To destroy the planet or the sun, still larger masses would be needed, or perhaps a black hole; which would also be seen before 24h away because of its effect on the starlight passing it or not going through it, coupled with its effect on outlying planets.
The sun will rise tomorrow. That is a demonstrable fact.
Tenner please.
We cannot be sure that it will rise much beyond that - for the scenarios already mentioned - but tomorrow is close enough to know that none of them are going to happen.
You lose.
Who is hijacking the word truth? IMO its the people trying to argue subjective beliefs as truth.
Truth: conformity to fact or actuality. Is this a new definition? Have all the dictionaries got it wrong? (seriously - dictionary makers are not infallible)
Creating a paradox with inadequate language does not change anything.
‘Elated? Pleased?’
‘Those are the closest words. There is an undeniable elation in causing mayhem, in bringing about such massive destruction. As for feeling pleased, I felt pleasure that some of those who died did so because they were stupid enough to believe in gods or afterlives that do not exist, even though I felt a terrible sorrow for them as they died in their ignorance and thanks to their folly.
At puberty, I was sworn to secrecy by the international brotherhood of lying fickle males.
Nashawan
Quantum Monkey
Posts: 1147
(12/2/04 1:53 pm)
Reply | Edit
New Post Re: Not convinced. Ok I agree the rising of the sun isn’t a strong example, its just a nice easy one.
So, consider:
Premise 1. Outcome A happens every time I do action B.
Premise 2. I have performed action B a million times and every time I perform B I see outcome A.
It is fair to assume, to infer, that the next time I perform action B that again I will get outcome A because the historical data shows this is what occured before (custom).
I therefore believe that B causes A. It is a belief. Probably a good belief to have since I have a million checks that all came up trumps.
However! And its a big however, I can only know that the proposition:
B causes A
…by checking. Otherwise how can I be sure that the custom continues? Imagine that randomly, once in a billion times:
B causes C
How can I possibly know that A will follow from B this time? Only by checking.
Knowledge is based on experience. I can only have experience of an outcome that I have performed. I can hardly have experience of an outcome before I perform it can I? I can only infer from previous outcomes and trust (believe) that B will cause A this time.
Imagine that I hadn’t performed B before. I only have a book written in badly translated Japanese that when they performed B that they saw A’s. Could I be said to know B causes A? No, of course not.
I fully realise that it may not appear this way to us humans. How many million checks do we perform every second? hundreds. Every moment I confirm Gravity, every moment I confirm that I need oxygen to survive, and every moment I see that my perceptions of time are continuing. Turning to the “sun rising” example again, people might object that we have all sorts of peripheral checks being made all the time that surrounds the actual physical check on the rising of the sun. such things as mathematical knowing regarding gravity, orbits, atomic decay. Realistic checks such as simply checking to see the sun is still there, that we move around it, etc. All of these myriad checks are a worthy and beneficial thing to inferring with utmost confidence that the sun will come up:
that B causes A.
But you don’t know until it has.
This may seem nit picking and pedantic, but it goes to the heart of a lot of matters and is, I think, the building block to a stronger understanding and therefore a more able creative mental view point down the road.
Still, believe it or not. That is up to you. Belief is after all inference.
Quote:
A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn’t there. Darwin
Nash’
OUTSIDE CONTEXT JOURNAL
Nashawan
Quantum Monkey
Posts: 1148
(12/2/04 2:41 pm)
Reply | Edit
New Post Re: I know you disagree with parts of LeRoque’s essay
Quote:In order for the sun not to rise tomorrow, the earth would have to stop rotating, be completely destroyed, or the sun would have to be completely destroyed
There are a million billion things that could bring this about by tomorrow. Bloody great Space Monkeys could teleport the sun away 2 milli-seconds before the first rays would grace England, anything could happen.
Quote:That is a demonstrable fact
A fact? A FACT that something has happened? How can it be a fact that something has happened before it has happened?! It is a prediction! You are predicting based on the past occurrences and a myriad set of beliefs and knowledge available to your senses. It will only be demonstrable AS it happens, until then it is a hypothesis.
Quote:Who is hijacking the word truth? IMO its the people trying to argue subjective beliefs as truth.
Truth: conformity to fact or actuality.
Well,
Quote:conformity 1: correspondence in form or appearance
Quote:fact 1: Knowledge or information based on real occurrences
Quote:actuality 1: the state of actually existing objectively
So truth is a conformation of knowledge of a state actually existing objectively.
compare that to what I said:
Quote:So, for me truth is a belief in the mental linking of a simple idea to a perception of reality
To expound that out a little:
Truth is conformation a positive proposition relating a Simple Idea to a perception of reality.
These are the same really
I make a big deal about it being a perception of reality, since I have further things to say about reality and have read far too much good philosophy (not to mention Einsteins theory of relativity!) to accept my senses are showing me what is really real. And since the same senses also show me what is often not real I treat the information as sceptically as I can.
The important thing, I guess, is understanding what I mean by Simple Idea and what I mean by belief.
Simple Idea: An idea of very very basic type. A foundation of more complex ideas. something that can be very directly related to a perception of reality.
Belief: The self justification of an idea when one is unable to check, based on past occurrences, future probabilities and intuition. Exactly what you are doing regarding the rising of the sun.
Perhaps you are mixing it up with faith?
/shrug
Nash’
OUTSIDE CONTEXT JOURNAL
mattg500001
We used to kick our way
Posts: 4510
(12/2/04 5:33 pm)
Reply New Post For good orders sake… I agree that we do not KNOW the sun will rise tomorrow. For example, a race of crafty aliens could be in a spaceship, always staying on the far side of the sun, busily aiming a stellardestroya ™ missile at the sun, due to be fired at midnight UK time. Then the sun will not rise.
But you will recall that my objection was to your claim that we have no EVIDENCE that the sun will rise. I still say we have very strong evidence, we just lack proof, and by definition, will always lack proof.
jessop/ Are we clear? ARE WE CLEAR? /jessop
Edited by: mattg500001 at: 12/2/04 5:33 pm
Booger
The egg man
Posts: 1213
(12/3/04 1:34 am)
Reply New Post What you think you know Is based upon the assumption that the sun will exist tomorrow. As far as anyone knows, it could blow up before tomorrow and destroy the earth with it. You wont know for sure until tomorrow arrives.
Believing something true before it happens fits the description of ‘garbage’ well.
Nashawan
Quantum Monkey
Posts: 1149
(12/3/04 8:14 am)
Reply | Edit
New Post Re: For good orders sake… hehe we are clear.
I humbly submit that whilst we have evidence that the sun rose yesturday and we can use that to form the hypothesis that it will rise tomorrow, we actualy have no evidence of it rising tomorrow until said event takes place.
I can see that this is an issue with how we are both viewing evidence as a word.
fair enough?