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Working on a ‘truth system’
Throughout history humanity has had many different ideas and stories about who we are and where we come from. Such ideas were integrated into cultures and belief systems of which some got marginalized and forgotten while others spread rapidly all over the globe. Only recently a completely different story came to light. A story that cannot be found in ancient texts or be derived from any belief system, as its source is in the present. It is a story that is written and rewritten as it emerges from a combined effort of millions of humans working together in the study of nature. This story is the first story about ourselves coming from a unique ‘truth system’ that humankind has developed. Not based on belief but on rational deliberation based on facts and observations obtained by an imperfect method that subjects itself to critical scrutiny and is open to new information. A truth system that explicitly aims to find the truth, whatever it is.
Origins of a truthful way of thinking
A truthful way of thinking has always been part of our human capacities. Greeks such as Aristotle and Socrates expressed many of its most relevant attributes already thousands of years ago. The most relevant period however for the purpose of this website is ‘the enlightenment’, as the development of this way of thinking and its subsequent truth system then seriously took off on a global scale. A simple but powerful idea played a major role in this development as it took hold on ever more people: If God had created the universe and all that we call nature, then studying nature was a way to study the architect of nature and thus a way to be religious by honoring creation as well as its alleged creator. This caused many studious and curious humans to shift there attention from religious writings to the direct study of reality. For many, reason rather than faith started to be the most fruitful way to be religious, as they came to believe Reason itself was given to mankind by God to study his works and thus his supreme reason. The era that followed is characterized as a shift from darkness and ignorance to a better understanding of the world in the light of reason and its method: science. Ultimately this process lead to a significant displacement of belief from its former center stage position. The dubious nature of many things that were believed was exposed along with an ever growing insight into the true workings of the world. Insights that have in general made us less vulnerable to all kinds of misfortune and our lives happier and longer.
Why this website
With this website I want to contribute to a way of thinking that has truth rather than believe at its core. A way of thinking that is “open and free but bound to reality by its love for truth”, as G.W. Leibniz so beautifully called it in the early stages of its development. It is fundamentally different because it does not accept a belief to be true without subjecting it to the sort of critical scrutiny that we all implemented to distinguish truth from speculation. Also, it does not try to nurture our capacity for blind faith, but rather our capacity to think for ourselves and pursue truth and understanding. History shows clearly that what is believed is not necessarily true. On the contrary, our growing understanding of reality often goes against what is generally believed. An important consequence of adopting a truth-system is thus the commitment to learn and to accept new insights about reality and the changes that it brings to the way we understand ourselves and the world. It means the acceptance of our ignorance in many matters of human life rather than anchoring one’s thoughts in ancient texts or myths that inevitably express the prejudice and ignorance of the time in which they were written or put together. There can be truth in those texts or ideas, but if that is the case one can try to argue why, with reasonable arguments, addressing our capacity to understand rather than to belief. Moreover, people that ascribe certain real moral insights to a specific belief system partly destroy the potential of such insights by allowing a belief to be the ultimate ground for moral judgement. The consequence of which is that it indirectly validates the judgment of others who do the same, but on the basis of a different belief system, even when their beliefs lead to unnecessary violence and the violation of basic human rights. There is a much better way to distinguish between right and wrong, that all humans can grasp. When truth and reasoning are given the upper hand, then different parties can engage in a fair discussion about how to advance reasonable human goals, such as promotion of peace and well being.
Why bother?
Why bother that some believe one thing and others another? Is it really important? Hasn’t the whole idea of ‘truth’ been discarded by (post-)modern philosophers? Isn’t a believe in truth somewhat similar to a religious conviction? Doesn’t everybody believe in his or her own truth? Doesn’t everybody have their own belief system? How is the way of thining discussed on this website any different?
Although it seems sympathetic and respectful to state that everybody can have his or her own truth, it is easy to see how that cannot be the case. Can everybody have his or her own truth when it comes to calculations? We also share the same planet, which is a place in the universe that has very specific characteristics. Contrary to the many different myths humans have believed in, there is now a unique story that does not belong to any belief system but to a knowledge system. It slowly came to light by generations of thinkers who have been piecing together information obtained from careful observations of reality. A story that emerged despite the often violent oppression of the love for truth that brought it to light.
What we believe matters. Adolf Hitler believed for example that ‘the strong should dominate the weak’ and that waging war was an heroic act in accord with ‘natures divine providence’. That same century, someone like Martin Luther King inspired millions to protest non-violently against injustice, urging his nation to ‘rise up and live out the true meaning’ of the constitutional creed that all men are created equal… Very different believes with very different consequences. How do we tell which is the most truthful? Which one is right? The way of thinking described on this website will show that the fight for human rights, such as that of Martin Luther King, is much closer to a ‘truth-system’ then to a ‘belief-system’. Hitler’s beliefs on the other hand can be shown to be uncritical and highly deluded by mythical beliefs about nature and the value of race.
Truth?
If we want the word “truth” to have any meaning we can best start by defining it within the context of this website.
Let’s first consider that the claim for something to be true depends on the specific frameworks of information the claim refers to. To clarify this dependency of truth on it’s context, let’s consider three fundamental frameworks in human thought.
1. Mathematical or Geometrical (truth by definition)
2. Truth within specified frameworks that make up for example myths and fairy tales.
3. True claims about reality (claims about our world referring to the way we can experience and observe it).
In mathematics, questions often already have the answer within them. To state the question 3+3 , is to ask for a number that is defined by being 6×1, which is 3×1 + 3×1. Here few of us will think different and we all understand that thinking truthfully is to respect the definitions and rules of calculation that make up the meaning of the numbers and symbols used in the specific system of calculation. In this area of our thinking, one will not find many conflicts between people who aspire a truth system and people that hold a believe at their core. Both ‘types’ will agree on the validity of the outcome of a calculation as being true or false.
When talking about truths referring to fairy tales or myths, there are no problems as long as the ideas or stories are considered frameworks of information independent of reality. I can make up a story right now about a pink house with a magical tree next to it. The tree being magical because people could simply disappear into it…. Anyone can immediately accept this imaginary story and make true and false statements about it, such as that the magical tree was next to the pink house. Both those who aspire a truth-system and those who have a belief-system at the core of their thinking can easily agree upon such stories as independent frameworks of reference. Those aspiring a truth-system and those who participate in a specific belief-system part ways when the latter make claims about reality based on a belief, not based on the study of reality. The reason is obvious: not everything that is believed can be true. The only way to show the truth of a claim about reality, is to show how the claim and reality are related. To be able to relate the claim and reality, one not only needs knowledge of the claim, but also knowledge of reality. As long as that connection is not made or demonstrated, a claim is as good as false, or as good as any unfounded claim. A truth system on the other hand is build on careful observations of reality and truthful rational deliberation based on those observations. Claims obtain their validity precisely because they can demonstrate their relation to reality and persist as truthful despite the constant critical scrutiny to which those claims are subjected in a system aspiring truth.