Truth.html

How to find it, how to use it.
by
Gernot M. R. Winkler

Decisions depend on our preferences and are guided by information. If this is wrong, or if we misunderstand it, the decision will most likely be wrong, too. The result could be terrible. One should think that with so much information around, we should have no problem. However, having lots of information without knowing how to use it, makes the problem worse. Ours became an Age of Uncertainty with the sifting of the true from the false now a major problem of immense consequences! We are ill prepared for freedom if we are unsure about the basics for making good decisions. For rejecting lies, we need to know what truth means and how to get to it.

What is the problem?

The idea of Truth is clear enough: it means agreement with the facts. (We ignore logical and mathematical truth which is much less of a problem). If we say: This is true, we certify a statement to be in agreement with the facts. So, what is the problem with truth? Is there a problem? Yes, indeed, to get to the truth has become a great problem and not just for the lies. Even the word truth has assumed additional meanings and many educated people I met, did not know what truth means! To be truthful can be very difficult - which an honest person may not expect. It is a problem that is not sufficiently known in its wide ramifications.

Here is an example [1]: I believe Pilate may not have said what is reported in the famous Bible quote! Taken literally, by taking the word of the evangelist (John 18, 38) , the text would imply that Pilate, not knowing what truth was, had to ask: “What is truth”? However, it seems that a confusion developed over time compared with the original text. In the Vulgata (the first translation into Latin) the word used is “veritas”, which also means truth; but the meaning in the original Greek (and in Latin) could have been different! Pilate questioned Jesus because he needed to know why the people wanted Him executed. What had He done? Their essential exchange was this:

Jesus said: “I was born that I should bear witness to άλήθεια . . . .
Every one that is of άλήθεια heareth my voice”.
After this explanation, Pilate said : "What is άλήθεια ?"

Αλήθεια , the word used by John, has a wider meaning than our word truth: it was understood as truth, veracity, uprightness, propriety. All of these meanings have once been given for “Truth”, too, but this is now archaic. They appear in various Greek texts and a good translation would require to find the word that fits in the context. If this is not done, the translation into our modern languages will be confusing for the reader. If we read “Truth” , we receive a much narrower range of meaning than if we did it in the old Greek (or Latin). The narrow, more specific sense in the context here, inevitably brings up the idea that truth must mean something by itself, perhaps “right belief”, or "belief in God". But, in the context of Pilate's question, giving “Truth” this vague meaning is not logical [2]. In addition to this problem with άλήθεια, we have one with the word that is used for “bear witness”, μαρτυρήσω which could be understood as “to confess”, “to praise”, “to commend”, “to be a model”. The more specific meaning of martyrdom that we perceive today came about later, through the biblical use.

From the story as related by John, it is certain that Jesus wanted to teach the people to do the right thing, to live right, to act right. Prompted by this statement, Pilate wondered “what is (for me) the right thing to do now?” This could be expected because Pilate had to decide what to do with Him and we can assume that what he said at this moment would reflect his intent to render justice. It makes much less sense to think that at this point he would wonder about the philosophical problem of truth, or what Jesus was teaching. If that was the intended meaning, John would probably have used another word, such as δογμα , to be translated by Saint Jerome as doctrina.

Therefore, we can assume that Jesus and Pilate must have meant propriety, i.e., right action, ethics, because Pilate had to decide and was unlikely to wonder about meanings of Truth in the sense of “agreement with the facts”. We can see how the two ranges of meanings of the word used in the Greek of antiquity, and what we mean today, create an ambiguity. The concept “Truth” itself became vague in one of the most widely used quotes of the Bible. I believe this effect can contribute over the centuries to an endemic vagueness in the thinking of uncounted numbers of people. The unfortunate tendency to speak in phrases without thinking about their exact meaning is encouraged. We need to know with all clarity our proper meaning of “Truth” - i. e., agreement with the facts. This involves details and difficulties of which we are not aware. Why is this important?

The idea that we must avoid lies and fraud might be ridiculed today as naive. Has our world not lost its appreciation of truth as the highest value? Is not advertising designed mostly in the interest of sales? Is our legal system not filled with falsehood, pretense, and distortion, as everything is construed in support of a case by attorneys, witnesses, and paid experts? By many of them, anyway. Furthermore, members of the celebrity elite, instead of being models of behavior, are guilty of the opposite (Charles Van Doren's acting as he faked struggling to answer rigged questions on a popular TV show, or Hillary Rodham Clinton's performance on the Letterman show)? We must not think these displays are without effects. The perpetrators will not admit this since in their success centered mind, they are making mere changes in emphasis, or leave out trivial details. All experience teaches, however, that this is not a sufficient assessment. Such actions are a corruption of the public spirit. We must uphold the importance of truth and honesty as the most crucial part of our social life, as Confucius (~ 500 BC.) stressed.

Our ability to grasp reality is weak and attempts to obfuscate are an act of sabotage in our struggle with egoism and with nature. Misleading information is a most harmful corruption that threatens our civilization and goes counter to improving it. We must remember that our technological civilization works only since it is built upon objective knowledge and on exact communication. The same is true for the civic part of civilization. A huge amount of human effort has gone into the knowledge base, and the investment in the search for objective truth has paid off beyond the wildest dreams. Nature does not reveal its secrets to those who do not aim for truth, and only accidental success can be expected if decisions are based on fiction. This is obvious in the medical sciences and engineering, because the difference between quack medicine and real medical science is exactly the tolerance of fiction in the former. Social life becomes impossible if one cannot rely on the word of partners and friends, even of enemies, if this word has been given in a formal way. Decisions based on fiction bring about a terribly distorted world. If people knowingly prefer a more pleasant fiction, as many are wont to do, a high price for this foolishness has to be paid eventually by the people. It is remarkable that even Mao early in his "career" recognized this (24 April 1945) when he said that "A communist must always be prepared to defend the truth because every truth agrees with the interests of the people" ("Citations XXVIII", The Little Red Book). As is only too well known, the later exigencies of party life and government of the huge Chinese nation, made a cruel mockery of this noble pronouncement.

Schopenhauer has a drastic sentence about the importance of truth and the difficulty and effort needed for finding it (translated from memory): Truth is not a whore, he said, who urges herself on and embraces those who do not want her. She is rather such a shy and reluctant beauty that even those who devote the whole life to her, cannot be sure of her favors! Giordano Bruno, in one of his disputes, has this to say about the supreme value of truth: The participants asked what they should value the highest? What should be put on the highest place? The answer was: It must be Truth, because if we put anything else up as the highest value, then it could perhaps not be true, and therefore useless! It is true, an uncompromising truthfulness can be lethal, as Socrates, Jesus, Giordano and other superior people had to experience. But this shows most clearly how much lies corrupt the people. They destroy the confidence in the authority of the leader. People will not follow someone who cannot be trusted.

The Damaging effects of Political Correctness.

With obfuscation and distortion in language for whatever reason, it becomes nearly impossible to be objective, because it will only let us see things as others want us to see them. As George Orwell wrote, the first step to take before one can establish a total tyranny over people is to change the meaning of the words. Right now, this corruption is going on at full speed. Conversely, it is well known that the first step in correcting a problem is to call it by its proper name. True leaders have to insist on this. The ancient sage Confucius was adamant about the need to restore the words to their proper meaning as an indispensable action in all attempts to improve society. We can even expect that the pathetic hypersensitivity of the various activists to certain expressions will produce the opposite of the goal of their desires: By avoiding the words that Political Correctness has “charged”, we displace in our mind the subject, and thereby delay a social resolution until the substitute expressions have taken on the same connotations as the original ones. Displacing a problem does not solve anything, it rather prevents its solution and is an act of despicable weakness. Therefore, we should insist that words be used in their proper meaning and not twisted to support an individual case.

How to check the truth of a statement.

We need to see a claim's consilience (agreement in the most general sense) with everything else that we know about the fact in question, before we can accept it as probably true. The degree of correlation with all other information, is a measure of the confidence we can have in the statement. We know of no other way to legitimize a belief. What is claimed has to agree with the total of our knowledge; it cannot be in opposition to what we can know most certainly. If we find discrepancy, the statement can't be true. But it must also be a sufficiently complete description of the fact in question, otherwise we get into the problems of half-truths (see below). In court, the truth about what really happened is the basis for a just judgment. Justice without truth is impossible, while truth does not necessarily follow from justice.

Can averages lead to truth? Practitioners might believe that by taking an average of many measurements, a “true value” can be approached, but they are mistaken. An averaging process can only produce a measure of the precision of a single measurement or observation in the same set. It says nothing about its accuracy if no independent information is being used - because the whole process can be contaminated by systematic effects which measurements that are limited to a single set cannot reveal. Exactly the same problem exists when we approach truth by asking many different people. By itself, this does not remove contamination by a common bias (they may be reading the same paper). Their opinions have to be independent assessments of the situation. Otherwise, we are dealing with mere group think !

This is of the greatest importance for the decisions in a democracy where the majority opinion must be accepted. If we need specific information or an opinion, we may be tempted to believe that by taking the majority opinion in this case, too, we will get closest to the truth. However, this is not so. As history teaches, a majority is very often wrong because of the effect of group think, common bias, and insufficient discernment in a good part of the general population. For the democracy, this is a real problem as we learn from Thomas Jefferson's letter to Edmund Pendleton, of August 26, 1776. He writes: “I have ever observed that a choice by the people themselves is not generally distinguished for its wisdom.” Jefferson continues with the idea to improve the result by going through steps, in this case, by having not the people themselves but their elected representatives chose wise men for the Senate (unwisely, this was overturned with the 17th Amendment in 1913).

We must distinguish between the needs of the State and the problem of finding the truth. The latter has less to do with the problem of a democratic government that needs decisions by people with a variety of different opinions. In this case, peaceful decision making must have greater importance than finding the “truth”. In all other times, the finding of the truth is the important thing and in order to find it, we must take the facts as the criterion, and not the opinions of people who, more likely than not, suffer from bias and prejudice - or are satisfied with a superficial, misleading half truth.

Typical are the “balanced “ reports with two sides of the information on equal standing. This is claimed to be fair, but it makes it more difficult to recognize the truth. The danger is great to strengthen confidence (because it is “fair”), even if both sides are wrong. Finding the truth requires a much greater effort than just repeating popular opinions without checks and judgment. On the other hand, increasing the number of sources is the best way to increase the probability of their independence. It could be expensive to do so, but is indispensable because, beyond not being independent, many sources of information actually copy from each other (which could be fraudulent).

By far the greatest problems for finding the truth are psychological; foremost bias and hate. It is necessary to be suspicious about anything that could be clouding the judging mind. Not only a leaning in the favored direction must be brought into the open. Much more important are the subconscious effects, e.g., when people influence each other to please, or to work against a perceived interest of another party. Hate and bias are such powerful motivations that people refuse even to see or hear evidence that contradicts their position [3]. Or, as the Spanish say, no hay peor sordo, que el que no quiere oir.

This makes it necessary to look calmly and objectively at the grave problem of an almost unbreakable link of education and early experience with our whole outlook and attitude toward others, the world, and especially also toward finding the truth about things. During growing up, we all are slowly set into concrete, so to speak; our outlook and beliefs begin to solidify and will stay with us for life. Of course, this is well known to all those who want people to behave according to a plan or belief system - that is why they attempt to control the schools. The most tragic results are the religious or political fanatics. But we should also be aware of the mental chains that limit our own freedom without our being aware of it. I am convinced that this is the real reason for the sad fact that, as a rule (which has exceptions), people after age 30 become practically immune to education, and blind to facts that they do not like. They hear the words and see the sights, but they mean little if they do not conform with the solid convictions into which they have “retired”. Only in the rarest of cases can important decisions be made on the basis of a truly objective view of the situation. In order to be able to reach such an objective view, to get to the truth, one has to literally forget oneself, which would mean that one can see oneself as a stranger who does not concern us more than as a matter of curiosity.

The deep reason for this can be understood if we remember how the Darwinian process has worked in our survival. As the result, we are most attentive for those events or things that have an immediate and obvious importance for us. We are less sensitive to the relations of the much larger number of events between each other. We might become aware of them if we are at leisure, and it is a huge, time consuming task. Nevertheless, for our dealings with the objective world, those mutual relationships of the events with each other are of great importance because these will be the major factors for the future. If we realize this, as science has realized it as all-important, we must get our information about this objective world in an “objective” way, by “subtracting” or suppressing the effects of our subjective interests. This is extremely difficult and requires the “depersonalization” of our experience, as mentioned above.

A further problem with the finding of objective truth is the widespread lack of “common sense”. We need good judgment to sift the important aspects from a confusing amount of details. If we cannot do this, we will not reach understanding of what is true. But we need to be very cautious because we tend to vastly overestimate the individual intellectual capability of man in the objective world. In this, we must not be misled by high I.Q.'s, great reputation, fame or by personal success. The finding of objective truth in dealing with our problems is, once more, extremely difficult. To understand the difference of our collective achievements, which are phenomenal, from the poor individual ability to assess what really happened - an ability which is much too little improved in schools - consider this. It took mankind from the time of Aristotle (~330 B.C.) to Galileo (1590 A.D.), to understand Inertia which, once you understand it, is just about self-evident and in front of everybody. Aristotle got it wrong, and this was thoughtlessly copied by thousands of learned men, for almost two millennia! Only the independently thinking mind of the ingenious Galileo was able to understand it and this became a key event at the beginning of modern science. If we keep this in mind, we should not be surprised to discover the painful lack of perception and judgment in most of what is being written every day.

Claims without an independent corroboration, claims that hang in mid air without connection with reality, can be accepted provisionally, as a working hypothesis, but only if it is possible in principle to obtain corroboration. It is not sensible to accept totally arbitrary claims, or take them as part of metaphysics, since metaphysics is only useful as a reasonable Extension of physics, to serve as its interpretation and quasi foundation. We need always some, at least tenuous connection with reality.

The notorious half-truth amounts to a sophisticated lie. What can it mean to say This is the truth, but not the whole truth? We might be in a situation when we are forced to admit some truth, and yet we know that the statement is misleading or incomplete and will produce wrong conclusions (particularly if there are tacit qualifications). In this case, it will be best to say that the statement, as it has been made, is really not true because it is not the whole truth! For this purpose it is useful to accept the clear definition of Truth by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) as adaequatio rei et intellectus, as the match, or the fair, sufficient representation of object by thought (or speech). A statement that is not adequate, is simply not true, object and statement do not sufficiently agree, and we have to add details.

Of course, not all people will follow us and in court, when you are asked - is it true? Answer with yes or no! - , you could be in a kind of quandary. But saying no and quoting Saint Thomas Aquinas by explaining that the statement has not been a fair, sufficient representation of the facts should get you out from it! It is the shortest, the most honest, the best answer we can give. Therefore, people lie not only with what they say explicitly (for which a court could hold them responsible), but more conveniently with what they do not say and thereby let the listeners draw wrong conclusions (for which it is much more difficult to hold them responsible). This is why half-truths are so harmful, very popular among the demagogues who seduce the people to follow their siren songs by giving only their side of a complicated story. To protect ourselves against this, we have to insist to get the whole truth, the complete explanation, and then, we must do lots of critical thinking ourselves to check the consistency.

Perfect truth about a fact in the world is often impossible to obtain, and perfection could be impossible in principle. Moreover, completeness and brevity are mutually exclusive, a fact about which the great Niels Bohr commented as a fundamental problem in communication. Every attempt to be brief can only succeed at some expense in truth content (unless the basic text was needlessly “enriched” with commonplaces) and we must strive to maximize the truth content of our statement, given the limitations of allowed length. Telling people that one does not know what truth is; or that it depends on the person and his social class; or that beliefs cannot be verified; or at least be made plausible; or the worst of them that “truth is in the eye of the beholder” - all this is done out of ignorance, if not for ideological reasons; it causes great confusion and, in its effect, is actually antisocial.

      . . . . . . non men che saver, dubbiar m'aggrata
                                                                               (Dante, Inferno, canto 11)
                                                   Not less than knowing, doubting pleases me.

It is antisocial because, as necessary as doubt is, and we agree with Dante on this, we must not overdo it! After all, knowing is primary: we must know something before we can doubt or act on it. While doubt is as necessary as disinfection is in hospitals, you cannot live from it, it is not positive. We need information because the truth can only be approached through consilience of all available facts! Doubt by itself is no guide, is worse than useless, and sole hindsight produces poor strategy (because it deals only with the past and not with what can or should happen in the future). The searching mind needs a positive attitude to find objective truth, which excessive doubt cannot give.

We face yet another difficulty: particularly if our range of past experiences has been too limited. We will not so easily recognize what we have never before seen or heard because we may be overwhelmed by the details. Most of us have perhaps never learned how to distill the essential facts from a confusing reality (how to separate the systematic from accidental details) and we are therefore limited to the highly superficial impressions of popular style. This is why, when we are confronted with an experience for which we lack a background to which we can connect the new, we may not be able to make much sense out of what we hear. Of course, the picture in our mind of what is happening will then be quite distorted and most likely misleading.

Moreover, nobody can be objective as long as he clings to pet ideas and has too limited visions. Examples are people who cannot see beyond gossip, personalities, and power struggles - as we can observe frequently in formal hearings, when people want to give a good impression, but have little of substance to say. Furthermore, few of us are sufficiently aware of the crucial selection effects in statistics, and most believe something on the basis of a ridiculously small sample. If we really want to know what is going on, we must be very critical and intellectually honest; which requires a deliberate decision, i.e., our innermost will and interest in the facts as they are. Therefore, any information professional who has given proof that he is dishonest, must be counted as incompetent and disqualified, whatever his qualifications.

Truth and our Scale of Precedence

The above means that in the decision of how we are to approach truth, we must give it a higher priority than all other considerations. But priority setting we need to do everywhere. We need a code of behavior, e. g., the biblical Ten Commandments, because of the unavoidable conflict of individual interests. But rules create the problem that we are forced to choose between violating one or the other of mutually opposing rules or incompatible goals. This does not mean that for this reason, we cannot follow rules at all, which is a convenient excuse for rascals. It also does not mean that we should not act at all so that we do not have to violate rules. But it does mean that we need a clear scale of precedence of values and rules. In this scale, the highest priority must go to the protection of life, the avoidance of harm, telling the truth and to actions that affect a large number of people. Do not hurt! must be the top prescription (if hurting some is necessary, hurt the fewest). An example would be also if, by telling the truth, we cause harm to others. This case is frequent and even Jesus seems to have told an untruth deliberately (John, 7, 8 ff), as we believe, for this very reason.

Otherwise, to be truthful must always get highest importance, even above justice. This is not understood by those who think that their cause in the pursuit of justice is so important that it must be helped by tampering with the truth. This is a grave mistake, and shortsighted, because no good cause can continue to succeed by obfuscating the facts. In fact, it is the arch sin of “activists” and organization men for whom their case is more important than everything else. They cannot see into the future when their lies will inevitably harm them. Moreover, it is as bad to seduce others to say an untruth, as it is to do it yourself. For this reason, subornation is as much a crime as perjury itself. Even if we lack tact and ask embarrassing questions it is bad, but much less so than subornation.

How important the regard for truthfulness is, has been understood by the oldest teachers of mankind. As mentioned, Confucius insisted that improvements in society are only possible if the words are restored to their real meaning. The Iranian sage Zoroaster (~ 600 B.C.), taught that the regard for truthfulness is a basic decision that must be made by every person. There is no reversal or deviation possible once a man has made his decision. Therefore, even in the case of violating truthfulness in the interest of saving lives, this does not excuse the violation which is still most serious and must be avoided as much as possible. Most importantly, truth must always get a higher priority than justice and any other consideration except direct harm. This is necessary because without truth we cannot rely on anything and social life is severely degraded. A lower precedence must be given to actions that are beneficial to the social system and still lower to actions of purely personal importance in the measure of additional factors.

In the use of precedence, good judgment is indispensable. This should be improved by teaching it in case studies with emphasis on criteria and rules. Such conditioning is most effective if it is received before the age of twenty. We see many people with strong egos, developing intellectuals, and fanatics who are notoriously incompetent in the making of rational judgments - all these do not know about the most elementary principles of social behavior and the making of sound decisions. They don't seem to care about the need for deep knowledge and for self-restraint, and therefore tend to drive every rule ad absurdum. Moreover, they do not apply rules of precedence in a rational procedure in the making of important decisions. These types are immature, they can be found everywhere, also among the followers of great men where they ruin the teachings of their masters with mindless extremism and lack of insight. They may be “brilliant”, have great memory and a facility for abstract reasoning, but no judgment.

These are the people who, in their moral fervor, overdo everything, and in the interest of saving lives, as they say, they shoot doctors. Or those who, driven by ardent humanitarianism, in order to improve society, seek first to destroy it - at any cost. Or those who, by citing humanitarian reasons, refuse to effectively protect humanity from villains that have killed, and have shown their intent to kill indiscriminately.

These are the people who argue that the Constitution requires us to do something stupid and dangerous. These are the pseudo intellectuals who worry about imagined causes of human catastrophes and engage in endless debates and speculations - instead of supporting the steps necessary so that the catastrophes do not happen. Many of these individuals with limited vision have moved - as said in the noted bon mot - into positions beyond their capability. We find them everywhere, even at high level, as “spiritual leaders” (Bishops!), as presidents of huge corporations, even of countries.

This reminds me of the claim that our society has advanced to a point when we all may actually be incompetent for the position which we have reached. After reading this, I suspect, the reader might have gotten the idea that this writer could also be poorly equipped, if not incompetent, for writing about this! Except, I trust that it is better to strive for the best and manage a less than perfect job, than to do nothing with the excuse that it would not be perfect. It is simply another case of a scale of values in action!

How could we improve this situation?

To improve the standards for search and appreciation for truth throughout society would create immense benefits for all because decisions that are based on more accurate ideas about the facts instead of superficial ideas, even distortions or lies, (and are based on a sound system of values) will be more realistic, i.e., more successful in the long run. However, this can only be done if we as a people improve our individual habits and our maturity. To achieve this requires that we prepare the young so that they can act more rationally as adults than what we observe today. We can do it even if it is difficult and cannot be perfect. It is not a new idea; Plato proposed it (~360 B.C.), but it has not yet been attempted in a systematic, secular way. The result of this neglect are the never ending troubles that only a greater human maturity could avoid.

What disturbed Plato was exactly this lack of maturity of the people in a free society who have to chose their own leaders. Clearly, it is a very old problem! Plato sought to improve this by education. However, we should speak about it as conditioning because what is needed goes beyond what today is commonly understood as education, i.e., a preparation for a future profession, which requires the learning of facts and skills. Nothing could be farther from Plato’s intent because he knew that this type of education by itself leads to an excessively banausic attitude, a danger for leaders and today, for all voters who need to gain a wider outlook. Technology has opened the world and we live in a global environment and not, as until recently, in a single city.

What Plato had in mind is this conditioning of the young person for a life in freedom, understood as a desirable acceleration of the process of maturation: a turning around of the soul, from domination by narrow, egoistic desires toward personal responsibility, and an improved ability to use objective reason with a vision for the consequences. The main requirement for this conditioning is a recognized civic code [4] that must be discussed repeatedly in the training sessions, in every detail, in all sorts of applications together with a sound scale of values, on the top of them, the need to be truthful. Examples from history and the criminal justice system can show the consequences of a failure to follow such rules with a sound scale of values [5]. Any success with this conditioning of the young population will have inestimable benefits for all.

Conclusions

A main problem with Truth is that the effort required for reaching it is not expected; it is commensurate with the severity of the standard used for accuracy and completeness. It requires very often lots of work and good judgment. This effort is not appreciated as we can read every day in the papers which seem to have, if any, insufficient standards for accuracy and completeness. Truthfulness, i.e., the habit of giving a fair and sufficient representation of facts, is nevertheless extremely important.

Lies, or just confusion and lack of thoroughness, reduce the ability of others in society, or of society as a whole, to act realistically and thereby as optimally as possible. Life is not a zero sum game: Even mere prevarication or careless reporting of facts, is in the long run damaging to everybody. The liars cannot see this and yet, it is a truth they discover when they believe their own lies - to their detriment. Therefore, we must stress the aspect of truth as an accurate objectivity that is as complete as possible, free from personal interest and preference. To see things precisely as they are is a very high art, it does not come naturally and requires acts of intellectual self-denial as a matter of habit.

To get to the true facts of an issue is so difficult for mainly two reasons, in addition to the problems with deliberate swindles and distortions by selectivity. The first has to do with our own character! Very often, we do not want to know the truth ourselves because we are afraid it could conflict with our cherished preconceived opinions - which closes our eyes to the most obvious facts. This is a serious character weakness, noticeable especially among highly intelligent people. It has had catastrophic consequences in history and is a major hindrance even in science. Of course, to be satisfied with superficial half-truths is also a character problem. Indeed, we have a serious problem also in a different way. To believe that we possess the total truth about something is not advisable. We must maintain a degree of doubt that keeps our mind open to new information. On the other hand, too much doubt saps our confidence to defend our case effectively and to maintain good morale in the search for truth. I have found a solution in alternating from one to the other, times of doubt to confidence that we have reached an acceptable accuracy.

If we ever have the feeling that we are in a “gray area” between true and false, this must be taken as a warning sign that we must get more information. No such gray area must be allowed to exist in our mind except very provisionally when we withhold judgment until we can see sufficient consilience and are certain to understand the issue clearly. We must be guided by the old rule to wait with our judgment until we, not only have all facts, but really do understand them.

Second, much of the available information is not coming from independent sources. Not only are many people copying from each other, they are using the same sources and the influence is not at all obvious, yet it is very real.

To overcome all of this requires that we reinforce ourselves in the love of truth and in our ability and willingness to face the facts whatever they are.

Finally, we must actively seek complete information and confirm it with several independent sources of information.

But again, as long as we do not want to know the truth, really want to know it regardless of our feelings, none of the above is of any importance.

Notes and References

[1] The quote from the Bible is used here only to demonstrate problems that we encounter when we attempt to be as accurate (truthful) as possible. The different range of meanings of corresponding words in the various languages causes ambiguities in the translations, a danger of which persons who use but a single language may not be aware at all. It is a potentially grievous source of error, given the global environment and the intense interchange between people of different languages.

I should also mention that my knowledge of Greek and of Theology is quite insufficient for making claims that go beyond the text as an example that is most widely known. Therefore, you should not get stuck with this example (for the different ranges of meaning) - the message of the essay goes well beyond it because the problem of finding truth by using high standards is a most important social issue.

Nevertheless, an additional aspect will be illuminating. Lucretius (I: 136-139) mentioned already why it can be difficult to translate Greek. The word in question here, the antique Greek άλήθεια , shows moreover how ideas can become more specific with the use of new words in the course of time and development. Aristotle (d. 322 BC) writes in his Metaphysics (II, 20): “Philosophy is rightly called a knowledge of άλήθεια “. He continues by explaining that this involves two aspects, theoretical and practical - which we see today as the two different subjects: knowledge and how to apply it, i.e., truth as agreement with the facts, to be distinguished from ethics. I believe that Jesus and Pilate meant ethics when they spoke about άλήθεια , and not truth, as we see it translated.

[2] The use of Metaphors can be a source of confusion and misunderstanding in the search for truth even if a single language is involved. Interesting examples can be found in the discussions that involve the original meaning of the Constitution and its past interpretations: “Metaphors are a valuable literary device. They enrich language by making it dramatic and colorful, rendering abstract concepts concrete, condensing complex concepts into a few words, and unleashing creative and analogical insights. But their uncritical use can lead to confusion and distortion. At its heart, metaphor compares two or more things that are not, in fact, identical. A metaphor’s literal meaning is used non-literally in a comparison with its subject. While the comparison may yield useful insights, the dissimilarities between the metaphor and its subject, if not acknowledged, can distort or pollute understanding of the subject. If attributes of the metaphor are erroneously or misleadingly assigned to the subject and the distortion goes unchallenged, then the metaphor may alter the understanding of the underlying subject.” Taken from “Origins and Dangers of the ‘Wall of Separation’ Between Church and State” by Daniel L. Dreisbach, October 2006 (by permission from IMPRIMIS, the national speech digest of Hillsdale College, www.hillsdale.edu.)

The fact that languages divide people form each other, not so much because they use different words, but because they use different ranges of meanings, has been brilliantly illuminated by Ortega y Gasset. He even claims that any translation, strictly speaking, is actually a fraud, see his excellent essay Miseria y Esplendor de la Traducción (la Nación, May/June 1937, and reprinted several times). Of course, we need not usually go to such extreme standards of accuracy in order to claim truthfulness, but we must be aware of the problem and be open about it.

[3] I have met countless cases of a genuine aversion of highly intelligent people to see or read evidence that is incompatible with their cherished opinion. To understand this strange behavior, we must realize that to be able to face unpleasant (or just difficult) facts, requires an act of self-control, or even self-denial, for which only few are ready. The right way to model the situation is to say that our intelligence is under the control of the ego. It is not allowed to go out on its own and look at the situation. High intelligence is therefore not sufficient to see the things as they are. The most disastrous, a truly phenomenal case of self-deception has been Adolf Hitler. As it is known beyond any doubt, by attacking Poland during peace on 1 September, 1939, he had caused the unprecedented conflagration of World War II with up to one hundred million killed, many under the most barbaric, cruel circumstances, whole populations uprooted and starving, and vast destruction all over Europe. However, to his very end, according to his last minute “Testament”, Hitler did not think that he himself was responsible for this terrible war! Immature to his end, he blamed others to have it “forced on him”. In his last bunker in the destroyed capital city, surrounded by the victorious Soviet troops, in this totally hopeless situation, he made detailed plans for a new Nazi government that should take over after his suicide. Of course, he saw his own end as imminent, but he still refused to see the end for his “cause”.

[4] The need for a secular (civic) Ethics, with the example of a Code, have been described in my Essay “Ethics” (#11-3 Ethics). The code is based on the single principle that social harmony is a basic necessity for any livable community. Kenneth Arrow in his Social Choice and Individual (1951), has demonstrated how irrationality is intrinsic and unavoidable in society. The source is in the individually different valuations of things and actions. Therefore, there is strife, often as intense as described by Thomas Hobbes (d. 1679) as the notorious bellum omnium contra omnes, unless the individuals exercise restraint to which they can only be guided by a common code. Laws as such cannot achieve this sufficiently well. With the basic irrationality in society, laws and the way in which they are made can lead to as much strife as illegal acts.

[5] The use of historical examples will achieve our purpose very well, if we present the situations of each case as general problems for man that can happen potentially to any person. This way, through the generality, we can forget our own person and interests, and become objective. Therefore, this is a specific and effective education for showing people how to be objective. Moreover, it must be so explained and strengthened in questions and answers.

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Discussion

The above essay has been left somehow incomplete, which is, of course, a serious fault. I was too naive in believing I could just stop without mentioning a serious problem in our society regarding the universal acceptance of truth. But it is best to be very clear about it by adding the following, which developed from the reaction of several colleagues. I have received these surprising comments (the positive ones are not listed):

1) There is no such thing as "Truth". Just as there is no way to determine whose concept of GOD is the correct one......

II) We are arguing at cross purposes - "Truth" as you appear to be looking at it, is what you believe to be true. If others have a different point of view, then the two "truths" clash and thus there is no agreement on what "truth" is and it is fruitless to suggest that there is a "truth".

III) People what strive for "truth" are the same ones that strive for Utopia and perfection. Perhaps a good goal, but largely unobtainable.

IV) You can find almost any point of view about truth, just as you can find almost any point of view when you get into discussions about religion.

V) True is what can be investigated and can be shown wrong. (This is perhaps a confusion with Popper's definition of a scientific problem).

VI) You also cannot find evidence of either truth, which religion is right, or God himself.

VII) Truth is a personal concept. Even scientists can disagree on what it is -- it's too vague a term for even science to debate.

VIII) I don't deny your belief that truth can be found, but I will state that, if you find it, it's YOUR truth and not necessarily the truth of others as they define truth. Nor can I intelligently discuss your article because it would be a fruitless exercise in frustration since both of us could be equally right or equally wrong. Like faith, these issues are really not debatable.

IX) I think we have evolved to debating how many angels can sit on the head of a pin with this one!

These writers are highly qualified PH.D's, one from Harvard, and one from, I believe, Stanford.

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How is this possible? Have the writers ever thought about how one resolves any dispute? Are disputes not about what is true in the case questioned? Or how the judicial system can function if there is no truth that can be found in the proceedings about what happened ? This shocking ignorance of the crucial importance of evidence , and the obvious intellectual confusion among graduates of our best universities, seems to prove my thesis (in essay #12) that the Western university education is too banausic. I have tried to explain that it is the lack of evidence which prevents an easy decision of questions such as in statement I), but something must be objectively true also in this case.

The problem seems to be that the writers of the above comments suffer from a general human weakness to use words without a clear understanding of what they mean. They may also be convinced of their superior intelligence that they are not interested to listen to any argument, or to read the essay. Therefore, statement IX) is a convenient end to terminate the discussion. This indicates a terrible confusion in the minds which merits examination. I am therefore grateful for the received frank comments, even though I disagree. Many people accept a meaning of "truth" that, in ignorance of Thomas Aquinas' clear definition, is kept vague and could mean anything, but seems to speak directly to their emotions as something extremely valuable. But, we can see how right Descartes was when he urged us, if we desire knowledge, to use clear and distinct ideas ! I am shocked that even pesons with an academic background don't seem to know this.

We are, I believe, touching here the consequences of a basic inconsistency in our system of values. We have learned to live with this and the minds avoid thinking about it. The problem was discovered already by Machiavelli (Gunther S. Stent, 1973, The Dilemma of Science and Morals, pp. 97 - 112 in Modern Science and Moral Values,Proc. Sec. Int. Conf., Tokyo. The International Cultural Foundation, Inc.). In his contribution, Stent explains the inconsistency as one reason to make the creation of a perfect society impossible in principle. The inconsistencey he means is the conflict of reason with belief. With the reference to the demands of our ethics, I think he goes too far, as I try to show in more detail in essay #13. I believe the dilemma, while real, is not necessary and fundamental beliefs in preexisting overall ethical principles or goals are as unfounded as other metaphysical beliefs which have their source in a subjective experience and not in physical reality.

In contrast, taking the social relations between men as the basis of an ethical system (such as Confucianism) is an empirical approach (Ethics , ,), which can avoid logical difficulties. A Pagan ethics (so named by Isaiah Berlin, quoted by Stent) can avoid them, and the absolutist Western (Christian) ethical system cannot, because a clear order of precedence can be used, as shown in my Ethics essay. In the traditional Western absolute system of ethics, this is not acceptable, one cannot be rational, which causes the endless arguments whenever a leader decides to take an action that will cost lives, but fewer lives than the avoidance of this action would entail. But this example is only a particularly crass one. We violate Christian commandments whenever we attach a monetary value to a human life. Or we violate them if we withhold a medicine to let a hopeless case die early and avoid long and useless (and costly) suffering.

I believe that for reaching a solution, we must distinguish sharply, and bring to full clarity the difference, between the two domains in our intellectual life, the subjective and the objective. Science is based exclusively on objective evidence. It is true, to find a valid evidence for the facts in certain matters is often not a simple thing and it requires careful checking and probing by competing investigators. But eventually, only objective evidence can decide questions; in this regard science is not different from ordinary life where we use evidence to decide court cases; evidence to design bridges and machinery to serve our critical needs; evidence to form judgments about most of our problems. -- For most, that is, except for the current religious beliefs ! Here, we accept hearsay and tradition, with the resulting uncertainties, and the absence of any objective evidence, under the highly questionable assumptions that in antiquity, when the myths originated, people had better insight than what is available today, that the old scriptures are genuine and complete copies, and that the oral traditions have not been changed in the numerous translations. But, of course, this is not evidence of the kind which we need and require for all our other applications.

Furthermore, these beliefs, when they refer to "facts" of the objective world, are most likely to get in flagrant contradiction with objective evidence that is before our eyes. They are also in a bloody conflict with teachings from other prophets. I am talking about the three main Mosaic (Monotheistic) religions, not of the hundreds of cults and heresies. It is abundantly clear that, unless Religion is kept as a strictly personal, subjective matter, its public, intellectual "cohabitation" with hard science and technology must create intellectual and credibility problems. These teachings of Religion claim to be on the same level as the objective facts of daily life and science in the modern Western world, when they are not at all on the same level having no credible, objective, hard evidence to show. Religion clearly belongs in the personal subjective sphere which has its own justifications. Of course, this deep split in our culture, even though it has been papered over after centuries of religious wars, it nevertheless generates endless confusion in the minds - a confusion from which many people can never free themselves, because they instinctively do not want to do it, being dimly afraid that it would endanger their faith. As we can see, however, the confusion damages the regard for truth in its post-classical meaning.

On the other hand, religion is strictly a personal matter between the individual and his creator, i.e., a purely subjective affair. It is not denied, and should not be, that in this personal relationship other criteria, purely subjective and not physical evidence, apply. The crucial point is that these criteria are very different, because highly personal. To drag them into the public, secular sphere, where they have no role to play, creates harmful conflicts almost by necessity because each person is different. To be clear, the critical point that is so harmful is in attempts to influence the public policy, but not in the assemblies, processions, monuments, even demonstrations. This situation is, of course, exactly what the American Constitution intended: A secular state in which any peaceful religion can be practiced with a minimum of mutual interference.

Again, the problem (and Stent's dilemma) comes about because of the fundamentally mistaken claims of universal objective validity of these beliefs and ordinances, instead of keeping them as a private matter (following Jesus' clear commandment given in Matth. 22/21). In Islam, this problem is not papered over as we do it, but has now been split wide open in the clash with Western civilization. It cries for a solution and is much more acute than in the West. In the course of advancing cultural integration it is now of global concern because the Islamic claim of universality is absolute. The word of one Prophet (or his current interpreter), and not an objective, physical evidence decides what is true, which is contrary to the basic tenet in modern secular Western thought, that only Nature, the objective evidence, can decide what we can accept as being true for public affairs. This is the reason why Western science and engineering succeeded so spectacularly as it did, and it is the reason why, in spite of many scandalous ethical failings in the West, Western people enjoy a high standard of living. To succeed in the world, one must accept the world's evidence and not some teaching that was conceived more than a thousand years ago, or dictated by an angel.

However, it is wise to hold the modern Western success as a fringe benefit and not as the reason why we should take physical evidence as the criterion for truth. It is also wise (and has been ordained) to keep those parts of our culture which do not accept this basic tenet, separate in their proper private domain. (See Essay #13 for more ( Plan) . Therefore, if we speak and act in the objective domain, we mean by Truth what Thomas Aquinas meant, and Galileo meant : agreement with the objective facts.

As can be expected, the crucial and decisive role of an objective evidence is deliberately ignored also by extremists on the opposite side, the political Left. One of their dogmas is the claim that there is not one Truth (as in statement I, above), but one truth for members of the bourgeoisie, another for the proletarians, and so forth. This confusion of Perception with Truth and the relativism of truth itself goes back to Hegel and Karl Marx . Of course, it produces the same problem of inconsistency when cases must be argued, hard evidence is needed, and when it is claimed that Marxism is scientific (which is ridiculous with the above statements as part of their teachings). It is likely that Hegel with his successors, who are the main culprits with their confusion of terms and concepts, are also guilty (as co-conspirators) for the confusion that has infected and damaged the modern intellectual culture.