What is truth

What is truth?

What is truth:
As a Professor Person, I value Truth a lot and I don’t like to see the concept perverted.

Of course the world isn’t flat, popular book title notwithstanding. The evidence is overwhelming that it is very nearly a sphere. But the Flat Earth Society claims it is and summarily rejects the evidence to the contrary. I could attach a url to their homepage, but they don’t deserve the visibility. Very simply: Their beliefs are wrong. I’m not making a moral judgment – they might be very fine people, perhaps even qualified to run for VP on the GOP ticket – and they are entitled to believe anything they want. But it is a fact that what they believe is not correct. They are wrong, mistaken, in error. Their beliefs do not correspond to the Truth. As a person, I grant each of them the right to believe any hare-brained absurdity. I don’t grant any of them the ability to make it true. I can’t grant that, since I don’t control the Truth. Truth is.

Truth is.

Truth is that the Theory of Evolution explains how biology works and is brilliant Science. It predicts the results of experiments and we use it all the time to make sound medical and financial decisions (like which hybrids to plant).

Truth is that the universe is about fifteen billion years olde (Very Olde!) and expanding and cooling. This is based on Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which has been validated by experiment and observation thousands of times, and the Red Shift and detection of the remnants of the Big Bang. And by the way “Theory” in these sentences does not mean “guess.”

A smart guy named Alfred Tarski defined Truth in 1933 in Polish. The essence of that one hundred plus pages of carefully reasoned logic is that a statement like “Snow is white” is Capital-T True if and only if real-live snow is real-live white.

The point: You don’t get to choose what is True. The universe determines Truth.

So you can believe the Moon is made of green cheese, humans and apes were created as is 6000 years ago, the world is flat and sits on the back of a big damned elephant, or π = 3. Believin’ don’t make it so.

What is freedom?

What is freedom?

What is freedom:

I think a lot of people use the word freedom to express a desire to be left alone. But Eremites weren’t free, they were just lonely. And the separatist crazies holed up in caves in West Virginia or isolated compounds in the West are just thieves, stealing the protections the rest of us pay for.
Others use the word freedom in the context of free, meaning without cost. Nothing could be further from the truth. Millions of people have paid the maximum price for their loved ones to have freedom.

“Freedom from” is quite different from “freedom to.” And each is different from “freedom of.” Freedom isn’t license. I wish I could be free of the propensity to overeat or pass judgment on fools.

So if freedom isn’t free, and freedom isn’t license, what the hell is it? It depends on the context. Is freedom obtainable at all or simply as aspiration? Maybe freedom is just a word politicians toss around so you don’t look under their mattresses for what they’ve stolen from you.

Is “freedom” a right or an obligation? Don’t answer too fast, the answer might hurt you.

What is equality?

What is equality?

What is equality:

The math nerds have a definition. Writing x = y (or 3x +xy3 = cos17/x +17 or whatever) has to mean that stuff on one side of the equal sign can re replaced with the stuff on the other side in any situation with no loss of correctness. Well, that’s really understandable.

No the idea is really simple. For math nerds, equality means functionally identical. Use one, use the other, machs nichts.

That’s not what we usually mean for humans (as opposed to math nerds).

I would argue that the only things in the universe that are truly equal are in fact things that are identical: Two electrons for example. If they have the same kinetic energy. Otherwise we have certain degrees of functional equality. For example, the right to vote. In theory all votes cast in the same jurisdiction are equal. Every vote cast in IN for Prez is equal to every other vote cast in IN for Prez, because functionally they each add one check mark to one side of a ledger. Even if mine is right and yours is wrong, they’re equal in value.

Or for example, the right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Careful! In what way are we equal when these are considered? First, being in the Declaration of Independence, these things have no force of law. Second, even if they did, we could argue that the words were only intended for White Men, or White Men over 21, or White Men over 21 who owned Property, or…. Third, what’s really being promised isn’t equal rights to Life or Liberty or Pursuit, but rather the universal opportunity to have/covet/seek those.

How close is “maybe kinda the same amount of opportunity to Life” to “equality of Life?” Does that even mean anything?

What is knowledge?

What is knowledge?

What is knowledge:

Knowledge is different from truth. Truth is. Knowledge is acquired by dint of fair amounts of sweat and luck. If we’re lucky our knowledge is a good approximation of the truth, provides a basis for approximating the truth, or an understanding of truth. But be careful: It is also true (hah!) that knowledge might not correspond to the Truth. Good book learning in Europe six hundred years ago included knowledge that the Earth was the center of the universe. We know more now, that is our knowledge has changed. It’s important to remember that as we study and quest for the Truth (capital T, pay attention.), what we actually acquire is knowledge.

Demagogues claim a devine path from the Great Somebody to themselves, delivering Truth. “God has told me that xxxxx.” Well, maybe. I can’t know if 1) the communication took place, 2) the receiver heard it right, or 3) the speaker is correctly reporting what she was told. But even if all three of these is a yes, the speaker at best is dealing with knowledge, not truth.

And by the way, xxxxx is usually something for which no educated person would proclaim an absolute T exists.

Does that mean Truth is better than Knowledge? Not if knowledge is out there to be had and Truth is a bit tougher to guarantee.

What is dignity?

What is dignity?

What is dignity:

Whatever is it, I’m not sure I want it. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I want to be treated “with dignity,” and I try to treat everyone else the same way. But being treated with dignity isn’t the same as having dignity. [Being treated with insulin isn’t the same as having insulin. If you had it, you wouldn’t need to be treated with it.] How do you treat a masochist with dignity? Smacking him around doesn’t seem right.

In some ways this is like the difference between childish and childlike. I hope I’ve dispensed with the former behavior and hope to find a bit more of the latter. I’m not sure I ever want to be dignified, but I always want to be treated with dignity.

What is right?

What is right?

What is right:

Abortion is not right. Forbidding abortion is not right. Unwanted babies are not right. Killing unwanted babies (pre or post) is not right.

Bush vs. Gore was not right, just legal.

Why is it easier to find stuff that isn’t right? Can we define what is right by determining what isn’t right? Not likely. Keep in mind that logically these two statements are identical:

Every crow is black.
Everything that isn’t black isn’t a crow.

The first I can check by looking at the (pretty small) collection of every crow in the world. The second one is impossible to check, because there are an infinite number of non-black objects to check for non-crowness.

So if I want to say what is right I can’t just list the crap that isn’t.

Hypothesis: Murder is not right.
Contrary opinion: Sometimes murder is right. Murdering Hitler when he was a youth would
have been right.
Counter-contrary opinion: Murdering him before he did anything bad is just the murder of an
innocent.
Contrary: Consider the two scenarios Hitler/No Hitler. No Hitler is infinitely better.
Counter-Contrary: Not for Hitler’s mother.
Contrary: Globally, the world would have been enormously much better with No Hitler.
Counter-Contrary: So right is just a matter of expedience, of convenience, of degree? If one of
two alternatives is better, doing whatever to get there is right? Where have I heard this
before, something about ends and means?
Both together: But we’re talking about Hitler!

By the way, sometimes abortion is right. And sometimes forbidding abortion is right. So figure that out.

What is success?

What is success?

What is success:

Maybe success is just having enough.

The legality of sexual harassment in the workplace is that the crime is defined by the victim.  If I think you’re sexually harassing me, then after following the appropriate protocol, by God you are.  Success ought to be like that, too.  That is, self-defined and self-determined.  I heard a taxi driver on NPR say that he was happy as a hack driver because he was just a dummy, but his mother had always told him that if he had a dollar in his pocket and didn’t owe anyone anything, then he was a rich man.  I have no quibble with his limited desires, but that’s not enough for me.  Does that make me seem greedy?  Do I care how I seem?  (Well, yes, because I want to be loved.)  My personal definition of success is more complex.  And unfortunately, success doesn’t always include happiness.

An olde joke: Guy in a bar with his friends.  Puff of smoke and sultry genie appears.  Genie will grant him one wish: Either money, fame, or wisdom.  The friends are all looking at him and he wants to appear cool so he chooses wisdom.  Genie nods and smacks him in the head with her fist and disappears in another puff of smoke.  Silence.  The friends are all looking at him, wondering what wise thing he’ll say.  Silence.  They’re looking at him.  Finally he says, “I should have taken the money.”