03 What is TRUTH

CHAPTER THREE WHAT IS TRUTH? For hundreds of years philosophers battled over whether "truth" exists. The argument usually concerned "Truth" with a capital T, a kind of complete record of whatever was, is, or will be, error-proof, beyond doubt and dispute, a final test of the rightness or wrongness of people's ideas and theories. Those who accepted the existence of this Truth believed it was a spiritual reality, not a physical one. That is, it was not a celestial ledger or file-drawer – yet it was beyond time and space. It was considered an understanding among the gods, or an idea in the mind of God, or simply the sum total of Reality. Could human beings ever come to know Truth? Some said no, never. Others said yes, but only in the afterlife. Still others said that the wisest and best of humans could catch glimpses of it and that the rest of humanity could learn about it through these special ones. Those who rejected this notion of an awesome, all-embracing Truth argued that it was an empty notion. How could all reality be summed up that way? More important, what possible evidence could be offered in support of its existence? Many who reasoned this way dismissed the idea of Truth as wishful thinking, a kind of philosophical security blanket. A few went further and denied even the existence of truths (no capital). Our age has inherited the whole argument. The focus, however, has changed. It seldom concerns Truth anymore, most people seem to doubt its existence. And even if it does exist, they reason, it's of little help to us in our world and our lives because it is beyond human understanding. Even many people of strong and rather conservative religious views no longer consider the question of Truth important to the understanding or practice of their faith. Still the problem of truth (no capital) remains, and the position we take toward this question does have an important bearing on how we conduct our thinking and acting. Unfortunately, there is a good deal of murkiness and confusion about the concept. The rest of this chapter will attempt to shed light on it. What comes through our senses exerts a powerful influence on us. It presents itself as true, and we are inclined to believe it. In addition, what we see is shaped by our individual way of seeing. We focus on what interests us. We filter out of our perception what seems unimportant to us. So each of us perceives the word around him, and the events that fill this life, in a unique way. No two people see the same event precisely alike. Now if we were to stop our analysis here and consider only the fact of our uniqueness, we might understandably conclude that truth is relative; that is, that it varies from person to person, that one person's truth is another's error, and that there is not higher claim to validity than individual viewpoint. · THE QUALITY OF PERCEPTION But there is more to consider. First, we can be mistaken in what we perceive. The barroom brawler may be so uncertain of his own worth that he sees everything anyone does near him as mocking him. If two students walk by him sharing a joke, completely unaware he is there, he will interpret their laughter as directed at him and start a fight with them. He will have heard them laughing and be absolutely certain they are mocking him. And yet he will be wrong! College students are often positive that their textbook contains a certain statement. So they answer an exam question with perfect confidence that they are right. Yet when they get the corrected test back and find the question marked wrong, then hurriedly flip open the book, and examine the passage again, they may find it does not say what they thought at all. Your parents probably watched in awe as Tarzan uttered his famous yell and swung through the treetops to catch the villain. Tell them that Tarzan never made that yell and they'll say, "False, we heart it with our own ears." And yet it's not false. According to one of the men who first played the role of Tarzan, Buster Crabbe, that yell was dubbed into the films in the studio. It was a blend of three voices – a soprano's, a baritone's and a hog caller's. At least a dozen times every weekend from September to January, the imperfection of human observation is underlined by that marvel of technology, the instant replay. Is there a fan left in the land who isn't occasionally to be found screaming, "Bad call," only to be proved wrong a moment later? We can be sure enough to bet a week's wages that a pass receiver's feet came down in bounds. And then that unemotional camera shows them plainly three feet out. · THE QUALITY OF INFORMATION Second, our information can be inaccurate or incomplete. The quality of a belief depends to a considerable extend on the quality of the information that backs it up. Because it's a big world and reality has many faces, it's easy for us to be misinformed. For example, which way does the water in a sink circle as it goes down the drain? Clockwise or counterclockwise? If you're more of an experimenter than a gambler, you'll find a sink, run some water, and find out the truth. The problem is you can only be half right that way (no matter how much your sink cost). If the sink is north of the equator, the water will circle counterclockwise, and if it's south, clockwise. Even in more common situations, it's easy to be misinformed. How many drivers take the wrong turn because of faulty directions? How many people get on the wrong bus or train? How many car owners put too much or too little air in their tires on the advice of some service station attendant? Now if misinformation is common enough in such relatively simple matters, how much more common is it in complex matters like law and medicine and government and religion? It's possible, of course, to devote a lifetime of study to a particular field. But not even those who make that kind of commitment can know everything about their subject. Things keep happening too fast. They occur whether we're watching or not. There's no way to turn them off when we take a coffee break or go to the bathroom. The college student who hasn't been home in three months may be able to picture the neighbor's elm tree vividly. Yet it may have been cut down two months ago. The soldier may have total recall of this hometown – every sight and sound and smell – and return home to find half of Main Street sacrificed to urban renewal, the old high school hangout closed, a new car in his best friend's driveway. · EVEN THE WISE CAN ERR So far we've established that people can be mistaken in what they perceive and that the information they receive can be faulty or incomplete. But these matters concern individuals. What of group judgment d—the carefully analyzed observations of the best thinkers, the wisest men and women of the time? Is that record better? Happily, it is. But it too, leaves a lot to be desired. All too often, what is taken as truth today by the most respected minds is proved erroneous tomorrow. You undoubtedly know of some examples. In the early seventeenth century, when Galileo suggested that the sun is the center of our solar system, he was charged with heresy, imprisoned, and pressured to renounce his error. The "truth" of that time, accepted by every scientist worthy of the name, was that the earth was the center of the solar system. A little more than a century ago Darwin scandalized the Western world with his claims that the earth was far older than 5,000 years and that human beings descended form apes. The error of this was obvious to every schoolchild. The truth of the traditional view was based on the Bible itself. How could it possibly be wrong? Here are some examples you may not have heard of: · For a long time surgeons used talc on the rubber gloves they wear while performing surgery. Then they discovered it could be poisonous. So they switched starch only to find that it too can have a toxic effect on surgical patients. · Film authorities were certain they were familiar with all the films the late Charlie Chaplin ever made. Then in 1982 a previously unknown film was discovered in a British screen archive vault. · For hundreds of years historians believed that, though the people of Pompeii were trapped by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, the people of neighboring Herculaneum escaped. Then the discovery of eighty bodies (and the hint of hundreds more) under the volcanic ash revealed that many from Herculaneum were also trapped. · Your grandparents probably learned that there are eight planets in our solar system. Since Pluto was discovered in 1930, your parents and you learned there are nine. But if the observations of Joseph L. Brady of the University of California prove correct, your children will learn there are ten. · After morphine was used by doctors for some years as a painkiller, it was found to be addictive. The search began for a nonaddictive substitute. What was found to take its place? Heroin. · TRUTH: A DEFINITION Where does all this leave us? If an individual can be wrong and even the most widely endorsed conviction of an age is not necessarily correct, what can truth be? The truth about something is what is so about it, the facts about it in their exact arrangement and proportions. Did time run out before the field goal was kicked? How does gravity work? Who stole your hubcaps? Are there time/space limits to the universe? Who started the argument between you and your mother last weekend? Have you been working up to your potential in this course? To look for the truth in any of these matters is to look for the correct answer, the answer that completely expresses reality in the matter. What ever difficulty we may find in discerning or stating the truth is beside the point. That last sentence deserves emphasizing. Much of the confusion about truth arises from complex situations in which the truth is difficult to ascertain or express. Consider a question like "Are there really UFOs that are piloted by extraterrestrial beings? Although the question is often hotly debated, and people make assertions that purport to express the truth, there is not yet sufficient evidence to say we know the truth about UFOs. That, however, doesn't mean that there is no truth about them or that people who affirm their existence and people who deny it are equally correct. It means that whatever the truth is, we do not yet possess it. Similar difficulty arises from many psychological and philosophical questions like "Why are some people heterosexual and other homosexual?" "Is the cause of criminality genetic or environmental or a combination of the two?" Are human beings inherently violent?" "Is there an afterlife?" "What constitutes success?" The answers to these questions, and to many of the issues you will encounter in the applications in this book, will often be incomplete or tentative. Yet that fact should not shake your conviction that there are truths to be discovered. Having the right frame of mind can make your pursuit of the truth less burdensome and give it some of the adventure the greatest thinkers of history experienced. A good way to begin is to keep the following thought in mind: "I know I've got limitations and can easily be mistaken. And surely I'll never find all the answers I'd like to. But I can observe a little more accurately, weigh things a little more thoroughly, and make up my mind a little more carefully. If I do so, I'll be a little closer to the truth." That's far different from saying, "Everyone makes his or her own truth" or "It all depends on how you look at it." And it is much more reasonable. · APPLICATIONS 1. For years grade school students faced this question on their science tests: "True or False – The famous rings of the planet Saturn are composed of solid material." If the students marked "true," they lost credit, because the "truth" was that Saturn's rings are composed of gas or dust. Then in 1973 radar probes revealed that all those wrong answers were right. Saturn's rings are in fact composed of solid matter. 2. The scene is a dormitory head resident's office. Two students are being questioned. A few minutes earlier they were engaged in a fistfight in the hall. The head resident asks them again and again how the fight started. The stories conflict. Because each student seems genuinely convinced that the other one was the aggressor, and there were no witnesses, the resident ahs no hope of discovering the truth. But is there a truth to discover? Or are there two truths, one for each student's story? What light does the chapter shed on these questions? 3. A strange phenomenon that affects a tiny number of the world's inhabitants has interested psychologists for some time. It occurs during what Norwegians call the murky time, the two months each year during which areas above the Arctic Circle experience almost unrelieved darkness. The effects on people have been discovered to be unfortunate, even dangerous. At worst, people experience severe tenseness, restlessness, fear, and a preoccupation with thoughts of death and even suicide. At best they experience an inability to concentrate, a tiredness, a lack of enthusiasm for anything, suspicion, and jealousy. Part of the cause is seen as lack of sleep. Accustomed to day and night, people become confused by constant darkness. This phenomenon poses an interesting test of truth. Would it be proper to say the phenomenon was true before it was recognized and acknowledged by psychologists? Or did it become true only when they became aware of it? And what of your relation to the phenomenon? Before you became aware of it for the first time, whether reading it here or elsewhere, it was not "true to you." But did that make it any less true? Explain in light of this chapter. 4. Evaluate the following dialogues in light of what you learned in this chapter. If you lack sufficient knowledge to judge the issue, do some research. a. Lois: We should really quit smoking, Francis. The evidence is growing that it's a factor in a number of diseases. Francis: Don't get nervous about it, Lois. So far there has been no definitive study – only theories and speculation and "suggested links." Nobody ever died from those. If they come up with a conclusive link between smoking and disease, there will be time enough to quit. b. Martha: I don't care what the courts say about abortion – I'm convinced it's murder because the fetus is a human being. Marian: If you want to believe that, fine. Just don't impose your beliefs on others and prevent them from exercising their rights. Martha: You don't seem to understand. It's no just a fetus in my uterus that's human but the fetus in the uterus of every pregnant woman. Marian: Nonsense. You have no right to classify what exists in someone else's uterus. That's her business. You should mind your own business. c. Barbi: Television shows about suicide should not be aired. Ken: Why? Barbi: Because they cause people to commit suicide. Ken: That's ridiculous. How can a drama or documentary that show the tragedy of suicide cause people to commit suicide? Barbi: I don't know how it happens. Maybe some people have thoughts of suicide already and the show reinforces them. Or maybe they focus on the act of suicide and lose sight of the tragedy. All I know is that attempted suicides increase after the airing of such shows. d. Mabel: I notice when you get a newspaper you immediately turn to the astrology column. Do you really believe that nonsense? Alphonse: It's not nonsense. The planets exercise a powerful influence on our lives; their positions in the heavens at the time of our birth can shape our destiny. Mabel: I can't believe I'm hearing such slop from a science major. Alphonse: What you fail to understand is that astrology is science, one of the most ancient sciences at that. e. Jake: What did you think of the chapter "What is Truth?" Rocky: It's stupid. Jake: What do you mean? Rocky: It contradicts Chapter 1. Jake: I didn't get that impression. Where's the contradiction? Rocky: In Chapter 1 the author says that "I'm OK, you're OK" is a mature attitude and that we should strive to be individuals and think for ourselves. Now he says that his idea about truth is OK and ours isn't and that we should follow his. That's a contradiction. 5. Group discussion exercise: How many times have you been certain something was true, only to find out later that it was not? Discuss those experiences with two or three of your classmates. Be prepared to share the most dramatic and interesting experiences with the rest of the class. � Time, August 14, 1972, p.52. � "Chaplin Film Is Discovered," Binghamton Press, September 8, 1982, p.7A. � "Town's Terror Frozen in Time," New York Times, November 21, 1982, Sec. 4, p.7. � "A Tenth Planet?" Time, May 8, 1972, p.46. � Herrman L. Blumgart, "The Medical Framework for Viewing the Problem of Human Experimentation," Daedalus, Spring 1969, p.254. � "Back to School," New York Times, March 11, 1973, pp.57ff. � "The Murky Time," Time, January 1, 1973, pp. 57ff. P1-C03-6