From: Case (Case@iSpots.com)
Date: Sun Dec 04 2005 - 17:36:00 GMT
> [Platt]
> No. I don't subscribe to truth by taking polls.
> [Case]
> What standard would you apply?
[Platt]
There are several standards. If you want to discuss "What is truth?" let's
make it a separate post. We've discussed it on this site many time before,
so why don't you start it off again by citing your own standard(s) of truth.
If interested, others can chime in.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
[Case]
And with that he says, “Take it away, Case!”
Gee, Platt thanks for the easy question.
Rather than start with something specific and didactic; here is a shotgun
approach. Just random thoughts on truth and then when everyone ignores this
I can get back to arguing about consciousness with Scott and purpose with
Platt. And in general trying to persuade everyone that reality is a
probability distribution.
My first thought on the question at hand is: this is what Pilate asked Jesus
at his trial for sedition. Unfortunately Jesus’ answer is not reported.
Two thousand years later the scholars from the Jesus Seminar established
criteria for estimating the probability that the words of Jesus, printed in
red in the some editions of the Bible, actually came from Jesus mouth.
Various criteria were set forth for making these judgments. Among these was
the criterion of multiple attestations. So in the example above Pilate’s
question would fail the test since it is only recorded in John. This of
course is not a red letter quotation but neither is Jesus’ Mu-like answer so
perhaps it evens out.
-----à So one criterion for truth might be that independent observers can
agree upon it.
Besides this is an episode so riveting that whether it is factual or not is
irrelevant. The Roman Governor asks this man, said to be the incarnation of
Yahweh, “What is truth?” and gets no answer.
-----à Another property of Truth might be that is does not depend in facts.
Once on the cover of an R. Crumb Comic, Flakey Foont asked, “Mr. Natural!
What does it all mean??” Without turning his head Mr. Natural answers,
“Don’t’ mean sheeit…”
-----à Another property of Truth is that looking for it may give you a
headache.
In contrast a group of Greeks decided they could define it, measure it, draw
it, catch it and paint it green. Much has said in the MD about the Greek
philosophers. But I would say that the influence of the Greek mathematicians
was vastly more far reaching. I would be surprised if there are more than a
handful of places on this planet today where high school students are not
taught Euclid.
Those same students may hear about Plato in history, humanities or even
English courses but they will study Euclid in something very close to the
original in a geometry class.
-----à Some Truth is true because it is defined as Truth.
Euclid’s Elements starts with this: “A point is that which has no parts.”
From there he builds all of reality as a set of relationships. Euclid was
most likely an editor and compiler of the Pythagoreans and other early Greek
mathematicians. One of things that troubled these fellows was the notion of
the irrational number.
In a recent MD thread Scott said:
“Irrational numbers are no problem (as a math major I learned that they are
no more 'irrational' than integral ratios, likewise so-called 'imaginary'
numbers' are just as real as so-called 'real' numbers.)”
I don’t think it can be dismisses so easily. The Greeks believed that any
number could be expressed as a ratio of two whole numbers. But the square
root of 2 was an irrational number; that is, if you have a square with an
area of one square foot then the ratio of it to a square with an area twice
its size can not be determined exactly.
Instead, if you try to calculate this ratio you get a never-ending string of
numbers that never repeats itself. This disturbed the Pythagoreans so much,
they are said to have rowed the discoverer out of sight of land and dumped
him into the Mediterranean. An irrational number is an example of what I
would call a self sustaining reaction. Once you start the process it never
ends. I am tempted to call this the first proof of the existence of God.
-----à Some Truth is unexpected.
The Golden Section, another irrational number, is used to show perfect
proportion in Greek architecture and in places as diverse as the Great
Pyramid of Egypt and the paintings of Leonardo De Vinci.
What makes the Golden Section so interesting is the Fibonacci series which
is derived by taking two numbers adding them then adding the last number to
the result and so on:
0+1=1 1+1=2 1+2=3 2+3=5 3+5=8 5+8=13…
If you divide each number in the series by the number that comes after it
you get:
0/1=0 1/1=1 2/1=2, 3/2=1.5 8/5= 1.6 13/8= 1.625
This whole series of numbers works to provide successive approximations of
the Golden Section: 1.6180339… also call the Divine proportion.
The Fibonacci series appears in many places in nature from the chambered
Nautilus, to flower petals to pine cones to animal populations. It is though
Nature itself is to attempting to resolve this irrational number.
-----à Mathematical “truth” is often expressed in nature.
In a post in September Gav said:
“The more specific a truth statement, the more provisional it is, ie the
more you pinpoint the truth the less you know about how that truth is
evolving, moving, going (its momentum); conversely the more general a truth
statement the less provisional but also the more vague.”
I would add that this phenomenon demonstrates self similarity across scale.
Look at most of the threads in the MD. They often start with a long post
like this. Then different people comment and the conversation fragments into
branches and twigs and leaves or it just dies. If a thought proves fruitful
enough it spawns a new thread. You have only to look through almost any MD
thread to find this nearly organic structure. I once described the physical
shape of this structure in a post to Erin like this:
“It allows the greatest number of possible interactions in the smallest
possible space. Well more or less.
It appears often when energy is being disbursed.
In addition to being common to both plants and animals
It shows its face in lighten bolts and
River deltas if you prefer two dimensions.
Make your own list.
My favorite example is broccoli.
If you cut off just the buds for a salad
You can dissect the universe with a kitchen knife.
This structure is static if only though shear pattern repetition. Yet it
becomes static as a result of its efficiency in allowing dynamic
relationships to transpire.”
For Descartes all knowledge was like a tree-with metaphysics forming the
roots, physics the trunk, and medicine, mechanics, and morals the
branches-on which the fruit of knowledge is produced.
-----à Truth may have structure.
It would appear Truth can be hard to pin down. In the proof of his
Incompleteness Theorem Gödel distinguishes between what is true and what is
provable. So that what is provable may be true but what is true may not be
provable.
Which rather leads us back to the great undefined Quality at the center of
the MoQ.
In short I do not know the answer to the question but I would say this about
truth:
It resides in the correspondence between the external world and internal
world each of us recreates internally. In order to be relevant truth must be
inter-subjective. Or to return to Jesus:
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the
midst of them.”
So with that I would say thanks Platt for dropping that in my lap and I hope
someone else has if not a better than at least a shorter answer.
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