The Truth about Truth

We tend to use the term, “truth”, when we really envisage “Absolute”, “Universal”, or “Objective” truth. Unfortunately, our truths can only be as accurate as the facts they are based on. We can only really establish “Empirical” or “Relative” true.

This is not the same as the “Absolute”, “Universal”, or “Objective” truth, but in practice we do employ our discoveries, as if they are Universal truths, until they turn-out not to be.

Pragmatically, we construct a narrative to define, or describe, the relationship between a collection of established facts. Each strand defines the relationship between several established facts, but will share some, or all, of these reference points with other strands (or truths) in a multi-layered construct. Our complete knowledge of the world we live in is comprised of a latticework of interconnected “truths”. In Physics this construct is known as the “Standard Model”, but the concept applies just as well to other sciences, as well as more empirically defined subjects such as Economics or History.

Any proposed narrative to be added would have to describe the relationship between a new sub-set of facts, otherwise it would be a duplication, a contradiction, or at best, an amendment to an existing proposal. It must also agree with the existing strands as to the value or description of the facts it seeks to link. It should however ideally provide some additional perspective, resolution or limitation on the existing facts, or infer the existence of hitherto undiscovered facts. It is this characteristic that makes the new truth testable. 

Classic examples would be the subsequent discovery of elements that filled gaps found when the Periodic Table was first devised, or more recently confirmation of the Higgs Boson.

If the predicted, or modified, facts are subsequently found, then the narrative may be regarded as being true, related to the truth, or containing some elements of truth. The need for a proposal to predict new or more rigorously defined measurable effects is widely accepted as a philosophical imperative since its absence implies that the narrative has no consequence and therefore no meaning.

That does mean there aren’t any such theories. Most multiverse theories, and pretty much anything the might have happened before the “Big Bang” currently fall into this category.

Perhaps more interestingly, Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Quantum Entanglement are examples that currently suffer from the inverse problem. We can measure the effects, but have no coherent narrative to relate them to our current model of reality. So far all the currently proposed explanations conflict in some measurable way with the existing lattice of interconnected physical laws, and theories, that we currently regard as being “true”.

When our “knowledge” fails us, the deviation from the expectation creates (or defines) a paradox. The discovery of new knowledge is largely driven by the exploration of such paradoxes. New narratives are constructed to encompass and explain the unexpected discrepancies or behaviour. To be accepted they must also remain consistent with the existing structure, but will be expected to reveal some current false assumption(s), or new previously unknown relationships that may be verified, measured or in some way corroborated by subsequent investigation.

However, this well established process only operates, by definition, in an environment of partial ignorance.

Consider the following famous statement by Donald Rumsfeld:-

Mr Rumsfeld was referring to intelligence data on threats to the state, but the underlying concept would seem to apply equally well to all forms of information or knowledge gathering.

This whiffs of Godel’s theorem, Richard’s Paradox, Rice’s theorem, the Halting Problem, etc. etc. 

Basically you cannot build complete knowledge from an initial starting position of partial knowledge.

It is not that you cannot know more,

Unknown unknowns can become known unknowns,

Known unknowns can become known,

But by definition you can know what unknown unknowns remain unknown.

For me this defines the demarcation between “knowledge” and “truth”. We ask for “truth”, we get “knowledge”. The knowledge we get contains some truth. We just can’t tell how much.