Tag: truth

From Signs to Abstractions: The Slippery Slope of Meaning

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5–7 minutes

Welcome to Part 2 of a Week-Long Series on the Evolution and Limits of Language!
This article is part of a seven-day exploration into the fascinating and often flawed history of language – from its primitive roots to its tangled web of abstraction, miscommunication, and modern chaos. Each day, we uncover new layers of how language shapes (and fails to shape) our understanding of the world.

If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out the other posts in this series for a full deep dive into why words are both our greatest tool and our biggest obstacle. Follow the journey from ‘flamey thing hot’ to the whirlwind of social media and beyond!

Saussure and the Signified: Words as Slippery Symbols

Fast-forward a few thousand years, and humans are no longer just warning each other about hot flames or toothy predators. We’ve moved on to the exciting world of abstract thought, but the language tools we’re using haven’t quite caught up. Enter Ferdinand de Saussure, who basically waltzed in to tell us, ‘Hey, all those words you’re throwing around? They’re not doing what you think they’re doing.’

Saussure gave us the idea of the signifier and the signified. Now, don’t let the fancy terms fool you. It’s just a way of pointing out that when we say ‘tree’, we’re not actually talking about a tree. No, we’re using the word ‘tree’ as a symbol – a signifier – that points to the idea of a tree. The signified is the actual concept of ‘tree-ness’ floating around in your brain. But here’s the kicker: everyone’s idea of a tree is a little different.

And this isn’t just a language problem – it’s an art problem too. Enter René Magritte, the surrealist artist who really drove this point home with his famous painting, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (‘This is not a pipe’). At first glance, it looks like a straightforward picture of a pipe, but Magritte was making a deeper point. It’s not actually a pipe – it’s an image of a pipe, a representation. You can’t stuff it with tobacco and smoke it, because what you’re looking at is a representation, not the real thing.

Image: La Trahison des Images, René François Ghislain Magritte

In the same way, when we use words, we’re not talking about the thing itself – we’re just waving a flag toward the concept of that thing. So, when you say ‘tree’, you’re really saying ceci n’est pas un arbre – this is not a tree. It’s just a word, a placeholder, a verbal painting of something real. And just like Magritte’s pipe, it’s easy to get confused. You might think you’re talking about the same tree, or the same ‘freedom’, but all you’ve got is a symbol – and everyone’s symbol looks a little different.

This is where things start to unravel. Words are slippery symbols, and as soon as we move away from concrete, physical objects – like trees or, yes, pipes – and into abstract ideas, like ‘justice’ or ‘truth’, the symbols become even harder to hold onto. The cracks in language start to widen, and before you know it, you’re no longer even sure if you’re talking about the same concept at all.

Language, Saussure argues, isn’t this neat, objective system we thought it was. It’s a game we’re playing, and the rules are written in invisible ink. By the time we get to abstract nouns, we’re basically playing with loaded dice. You think you’re communicating clearly, but every word you use is just a placeholder for the idea you hope the other person has in their head. And nine times out of ten? They don’t.

So, while early humans were struggling to agree on the ‘flamey thing’, we’re here trying to agree on concepts that are infinitely more complicated. And Saussure? He’s just sitting in the corner with a smirk, telling us we never had control over language in the first place. “Good luck with your ‘truth'”, he seems to be saying. ‘I’m sure it’ll mean the same thing to everyone’.

Abstraction: Enter Freedom, Truth, and Confusion

Now that we’ve wrapped our heads around the fact that words are nothing but slippery symbols, let’s take it up a notch. You thought ‘tree’ was tricky? Try something more abstract. Enter: freedom, truth, justice. Things that can’t be seen, touched, or stuffed into a pipe. Here’s where language goes from being slippery to downright treacherous.

See, early language worked because it was tied to concrete things. ‘Toothey thing scary’ wasn’t up for debate. Either you got eaten, or you didn’t. Simple. But then humans, ever the overachievers, decided it wasn’t enough to just label the world around them. They wanted to label ideas, too – things that don’t have any physical form but somehow drive us all crazy.

Take ‘freedom’, for instance. Sounds nice, right? Except, if you ask ten people what it means, you’ll get ten different answers. For some, it’s ‘freedom from’ something – a kind of liberation. For others, it’s ‘freedom to’ do whatever you want, whenever you want. And yet for others, it’s an abstract ideal tied up in political philosophy. Suddenly, you’re not just dealing with different trees – you’re dealing with entirely different forests.

The same goes for truth. Is it objective? Subjective? Relative? Absolute? Everyone’s got a different take. Plato had his own grand ideas about ‘Truth’ with a capital T, while Nietzsche basically rolled his eyes and said, ‘Good luck with that’. You’re out here using the word, assuming it means the same thing to everyone else, but really you’re all just talking past each other.

And don’t even get started on justice. Some say it’s about fairness, others say it’s about the law, and still others think it’s just a nice idea for dinner party debates. The problem with these words – these abstract nouns – is that they represent ideas that live entirely in our heads. Unlike the ‘flamey thing’ or the ‘toothey thing’, there’s no physical reality to pin them to. There’s no universally agreed-upon image of ‘freedom’ that we can all point to and nod along, like Magritte’s pipe. There’s just… vague agreement. Sometimes. On a good day.

This is where language really starts to break down. You might think you’re having a productive conversation about ‘freedom’ or ‘truth’, but half the time, you’re speaking different languages without even realising it. Words like these aren’t just slippery – they’re shapeshifters. They bend and morph depending on who’s using them, when, and why.

So, while early humans were busy with their simple, effective ‘toothey thing scary’, we’re now trying to nail down ideas that refuse to be nailed down. What started as a useful survival tool has turned into a game of philosophical Twister, with everyone tied up in knots trying to define something they can’t even see. And, as usual, language is just standing in the corner, smirking, knowing full well it’s not up to the task.

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Written by Bry Willis

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Cognitive Processing Flow Model

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The Cognitive Process Flow Model illustrates how we process the phenomenal world. It’s reductionist and is missing aspects because it is just a back-of-the-napkin sketch. I created it because I uttered, “I can model it for you”. And so I did.

EDIT: I’ve updated the model slightly as the article head image, but the copy content refers to the first draft.

My response was to a person making the claim, that all you need to facts and logic prevails. Rather than restate the argument, I’ll just walk through the diagramme.

There’s meta information to set it up. We are subjective entities in the world. We have a sense-perception apparatus as we exist in it. Countless events occur in this world. We recognise only a few of them within our limited range, though technology expands this range in various ways.

Most of us interact in the world. Some are less ambulatory, so the world visits them. Some have sense-perception deficits whilst others have cognitive deficits. My point is not to capture every edge and corner case. This is just a generalised model.

All models are wrong, but some are useful.

—George Box

It starts with an event. Events occur ceaselessly. In our small portion of the world and elsewhere. For the purpose of the model, the first thing that happens is an event catches our attention. We might notice a shape, a colour, or a movement; we might hear a sound, smell an aroma, feel a sensation, or taste something.

A pre-emotion, pre-logic function serves to process these available inputs. Perhaps, you hear a report on anthropogenic climate change or read something about a political candidate. This emotional filter will police sensory inputs and unconsciously or preconsciously determine if you will react to the initial stimulus. If not, you’ll continue in an attention-seeking loop. Not that kind of attention-seeking.

As my dialogue was about the presentation of facts, our next stop will be logical evaluation. Does this make sense to us, or can we otherwise make it? This is a process in itself. I’ll assume here that it requires little elaboration. Instead, I’ll focus on the operating environment.

Our logical processes are coloured by past experiences and tainted by cognitive biases and deficits. We may also trigger the calling of additional facts through past experiences or the current engagement.

We’ll process these fragments and reach some logical conclusion. But we’re not done. We take this intermediate conclusion and run it through more emotional processing. Cognitive biases come back into play. If the event conforms with your past experiences and cognitive biases, we may run it through a cognitive dissonance routine. To be honest, this probably is part of the emotional reconciliation process, but I’ve drawn it here, so I’ll let it be. In this case, it’s just a filter. If it happens to conform to our belief system, it will pass unfettered; otherwise, it will be squared with our beliefs. Again, this leads me to believe it’s a subcomponent of emotional reconciliation. I’ll update the chart later.

In any case, we’ll end at Final Acceptance. This acceptance may be that we accept or reject the logic, but we arrive at an opinion that gets catalogued with the rest of them. Some may be elevated to facts or truths in the epistemological hierarchy. Although an end marker is identified, it’s really a wait state for the next event. Rinse and repeat until death.

I’ll update this presently. Be on the lookout. It could include more dimensions and interactions, but that might have to wait until version 3.

Meantime, does this feel right to you? Did it even get your attention?

An Example: Anthropogenic Climate Change

Let’s wrap up with an example. I’ll use climate change. An article comes into your attention field, and you have an interest in these things, so it passes through the emotional filter. If your propensity for these articles is high, it might race to the next stage.

You read the article, and it contains some facts—rather, it contains claims for evaluation. To do this, you’ll recall past experiences and cognitive biases are always lying in wait. You may have to look for new facts to add to the mix. These will have to take a similar route past your attention gatekeeper and emotional sidekick.

If you are already predisposed that climate change is a hoax, these facts will filter through that lens—or vice versa.

When all of this is resolved, you’ll have arrived at a conclusion—perhaps we’ll call it a proto-conclusion. It hasn’t been set yet.

You are still going to introspect emotionally and decide if this is a position you want to hold. Perhaps, you feel that climate change is a hoax but this doesn’t jive with that position. Here, you’ll either accept these facts and flip a bit to a sceptical believer or cognitive dissonance will kick in and ensure your sense of the world isn’t thrown off kilter. You may update your belief system to include this datum for future assessments.

Now we are ready for final acceptance. You can now express your established opinion. If the net event is to counter that acceptance, rinse and repeat ad infinitum.

Does Language Describe Reality?

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The topic of this video touches upon my insufficiency of language thesis. Tim Maudlin defends language realism but only to the extent that ‘we can use it to describe the world and that some of those descriptions are true’.

Video: Does Language Describe Reality? (IAI)

The challenge, then, is determining which descriptions are true. I’ve discussed a couple of my positions on this.

The Truth About Truth

Firstly, we can only perceive what is true as we have no access to absolute truth. The best we can achieve is an asymptotic function approaching truth, a notion that resonates with Hilary Putnam’s concept of internal realism (pdf). Putnam argues that truth is not a matter of correspondence with a mind-independent reality but is instead tied to our conceptual schemes. This means that what we consider “true” is always shaped by the language and concepts we use, making our understanding inherently partial and context-dependent. Even then, we have no way to determine how close to truth our perception is. It just has to feel true—an idea that aligns with Putnam’s pragmatic conception of truth, where truth is something that emerges from our practices and inquiries, rather than being a fixed point we can definitively reach. In terms of physics, this underlying reality may be relatively more stable than abstract concepts, which are ephemeral and shifting sands.

The Rhetoric of Truth

Secondly, given that we have no access to objective truth, we can only expect subjective or relative truths. This brings us to Putnam’s critique of the metaphysical correspondence theory of truth. According to Putnam, the idea that language can perfectly correspond to an external reality is flawed. Instead, truth is what can be justified within a particular conceptual framework, making all truth somewhat relative. This leaves us open to rhetoric—the more convincing argument wins, regardless of whether it reflects an objective reality. In fact, as Putnam’s ideas suggest, the most persuasive argument might favour an incorrect position simply because it resonates more with our internal conceptual schemes, not because it corresponds to an external truth. This has happened many times historically—or has it?

Conclusion: Language, Truth, and the Influence of Rhetoric

Putnam’s work reminds us that language is deeply connected to our understanding of the world, but it is also limited by the conceptual frameworks within which it operates. While language helps us navigate and describe the world, it cannot provide us with direct access to objective truth. Instead, it gives us tools to construct truths that are internally coherent and pragmatically useful, though always subject to change and reinterpretation. As we engage with rhetoric and persuasion, we must remain aware that the truths we accept are often those that best fit our current conceptual schemes, not necessarily those that best correspond to an elusive objective reality.

Declaration of Independence

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It’s July. The season of independence in the United States. Independence from the overt tyranny of Britain, but not from the tacit tyranny of their government—the government purported to be ‘of the people, by the people, and for the people‘ per Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address. As their Constitution reads, ‘We the People‘. Governments may be of the people and by the people, but governments are an emergent phenomenon as happens when oxygen and hydrogen combine just so and create water. Two gases combine to create a new substance—water. Some forget that, like water, government are a distinct element to the people that constitute it. Some think it resembles them. It doesn’t. It’s Hobbes’ Leviathan—or a Jabberwok.

In preparation for the traditional Summer season, I took to reading Derrida’s 1976 essay, Declarations of Independence. It was interesting, but I was hoping to get more from it. I decided to deconstruct the opening paragraph—the preamble—of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Deconstructing Binary Oppositions

Self-Evident vs. Non-Self-Evident

The Declaration boldly asserts that ‘these truths’ are ‘self-evident’,’ a claim that is nothing more than a rhetorical trick. By presenting these ideas as self-evident, the authors seek to place them beyond questioning, discouraging dissent and critical examination. In reality, these ‘truths’ are far from universal; they are the product of a specific cultural and historical context, shaped by the interests and perspectives of the privileged few who drafted the document.

Interrogating Assumptions and Hierarchies The Declaration of Independence asserts that certain truths are ‘self-evident’, implying that these truths are so obvious that they require no further justification. However, the concept of self-evidence itself is far from universally accepted. It is deeply embedded in the philosophical tradition of Enlightenment rationalism, which holds that reason and logic can reveal fundamental truths about the world.

  1. Philosophical Foundations of Self-Evidence
    • Enlightenment Rationalism: The idea of self-evidence relies heavily on Enlightenment rationalism, which posits that certain truths can be known directly through reason and are therefore beyond dispute. Philosophers such as René Descartes and Immanuel Kant emphasised the power of human reason to uncover self-evident truths. Descartes, for instance, argued for the self-evident nature of ‘Cogito, ergo sum‘ (‘I think, therefore I am’) as a fundamental truth (Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy).
    • Critique of Rationalism: Critics of Enlightenment rationalism, including existentialists like Friedrich Nietzsche and phenomenologists like Martin Heidegger, argue that what is considered self-evident is often culturally and historically contingent. Nietzsche, for example, contended that what we take as ‘truth’ is a product of our perspective and historical context, not an absolute given (Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil).
  2. Cultural and Philosophical Contingency
    • Cultural Relativity: Different cultures and philosophical traditions may not find the same truths to be self-evident. For instance, the concept of individual rights as self-evident truths is a product of Western liberal thought and may not hold the same self-evident status in other cultural frameworks. In many Eastern philosophies, the focus is more on community and harmony rather than individual rights.
    • Subjectivity of Self-Evidence: The term ‘self-evident’ implies an inherent, unquestionable truth, yet what one group or culture finds self-evident, another may not. This variability reveals the instability and subjectivity of the claim. For example, in traditional Confucian societies, the emphasis is placed on hierarchy and duty rather than equality and individual rights, demonstrating a different set of ‘self-evident’ truths.
  3. Constructed Nature of Truth
    • Language and Context: Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance illustrates how meaning is not fixed but constantly deferred through language. What we consider to be “truth” is constructed through linguistic and social contexts. Derrida argues that texts do not have a single, stable meaning but rather a multiplicity of interpretations that change depending on the reader’s perspective and context (Derrida, Of Grammatology).
    • Social Construction: Michel Foucault’s analysis of power and knowledge further deconstructs the notion of objective truth. Foucault argues that what is accepted as truth is produced by power relations within society. Truths are constructed through discourses that serve the interests of particular social groups, rather than being objective or self-evident (Foucault, Discipline and Punish).

Created Equal vs. Not Created Equal

The Declaration’s claim that ‘all men are created equal’ is a blatant falsehood, a manipulative promise designed to appease the masses whilst maintaining the status quo. The glaring contradictions of slavery and gender inequality expose the hollowness of this assertion. Equality, as presented here, is nothing more than an ideological construct, a tool for those in power to maintain their dominance while paying lip service to the ideals of justice and fairness.

Creator vs. No Creator

The Declaration refers to a ‘Creator’ who endows individuals with rights, grounding its claims in a divine or natural law. This invokes a theistic worldview where moral and legal principles are derived from a higher power. However, Derrida challenges this by showing that the concept of a creator is a cultural and philosophical construct, not a universal truth.

The presence of the creator in the text serves to legitimise the rights it declares. However, this legitimacy is contingent on accepting the cultural narrative of a creator. Secular and non-theistic perspectives are marginalised by this assertion, revealing the ideological biases inherent in the Declaration. The authority of the declaration is thus shown to be dependent on particular beliefs, rather than an objective reality.

Unalienable vs. Alienable

The notion of ‘unalienable Rights’ is another empty promise, a rhetorical flourish designed to inspire loyalty and obedience. In practice, these supposedly inherent and inviolable rights are regularly violated and denied, particularly to those on the margins of society. The Declaration’s lofty language of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’ rings hollow in the face of systemic oppression and injustice. These rights are not unalienable; they are contingent upon the whims of those in power.

Conclusion

Through this deconstruction, we expose the Declaration of Independence for what it truly is: a masterful work of propaganda, filled with false promises and manipulative rhetoric. The document’s purported truths and self-evident principles are revealed as arbitrary constructs, designed to serve the interests of the powerful while placating the masses with empty platitudes.

As some celebrate this 4th of July, let us not be fooled by the high-minded language and lofty ideals of our founding documents. Instead, let us recognise them for what they are: tools of control and manipulation, employed by those who seek to maintain their grip on power. Only by constantly questioning and deconstructing these texts can we hope to expose the truth behind the facade and work towards a more genuine understanding of freedom and equality.

References

  • Jacques Derrida, “Declarations of Independence,” in Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews 1971-2001, ed. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).
  • Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976).
  • Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
  • Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage Books, 1995).
  • Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
  • René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Objective Challenges

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I’ve just published this video on YouTube, and I want to extend the commentary.

Video: What do Objective, Relative, and Subjective mean in philosophy?

Many people I’ve encountered don’t seem to grasp the distinctions between objective, subjective, and relative. Subjective and relative seem to be the biggest culprits of confusion. Let’s focus on morality just because.

There are really two main perspectives to adopt. If one believes in Objective Morality, one believes morality derives from some external source and is bestowed or mandated upon us. The source might be important to the believer, but it’s unimportant for this article. If one believes in Relative Morality then the source is socially dictated and has similar challenges to the notions of Social Contract Theory insomuch as one may not subscribe to the expectations.

For the Objective moralist, there may exist a schism between the expectations of the mandate and the subjective feelings of the individual. In fact, this may occur for Relative moralists as well. The individual will always maintain some subjective perspective on morality and then compare and contrast it with the higher order, whether Objective or Relative. In either case, acting on this subjective impulse risks being at odds with the members of the higher order. If this morality is codified into law – as it often is – then to act on that impulse makes one a criminal.

Take abortion for example. Whether this is an edict from God or just a social construct doesn’t matter. If one is in a society where abortion is seen as ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’, one’s subjective position on the matter is of little value. However, a Relativist society might also adopt a position of tolerance that is less likely to come from Objectivists.

A challenge is that a Subjectivist may only become apparent if one is counter the Relative or Absolute position. If your society is against abortion and you are, too, is this your subjective position or have you been indoctrinated with it and accept it uncritically, whether it’s deemed Objective or Relative.

Perhaps you feel that eating dogs or monkeys is immoral if not disgusting, but if you had been reared in a culture that does this, you might find it immoral to eat pork or beef. The question remains, is this a Subjective position, or did you merely inherit the Objective or Relative stance?

This question is very apparent in which religion one adopts. It is no surprise that the largest factor in which religion you choose is the religion of your family and their family and so on – so not so much a choice.

I was raised in a WASP family in New England among predominately Italian Roman Catholic peers. Despite this, I identified as an atheist early on. In my late teens, I stumbled on Buddhism and identified with it. However, I remain ignostic except when it encroaches on my personal autonomy – for example in the case of laws restricting access to safe abortions.

Rhetoric is Truth; Morality, Emotion

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I’ve been reengaging with philosophy, though my positions haven’t changed recently. My last change was to shift from being a qualified material realist to a qualified idealist in the shape of Analytic Idealism. In most matters I can think of, I am an anti-realist, which is to say concepts like truth and morality are not objective; rather they are mind-dependent.

I’ve long been on record of taking the stance that Capital-T Truth, moral truths, are derived rhetorically. There is no underlying Truth, only what we are aggregately convinced of, by whatever route we’ve taken. As a moral non-cognitivist, I am convinced that morality is derived through emotion and expressed or prescribed after a quick stop through logic gates. Again, there is nothing objective about morality.

Truth and morality are subjective and relative constructs. They resonate with us emotionally, so we adopt them.

Were I a theist — more particularly a monotheist —, I might be inclined to be emotionally invested in some Divine Command theory, where I believe that some god may have dictated these moral truths. Of course, this begs the question of how these so-called “Truths” were conveyed from some spirit world to this mundane world. I have no such conflict.

But let’s ask how an atheist might believe in moral realism. Perhaps, they might adopt a Naturalistic stance: we have some natural intuition or in-built moral mechanism that is not mind-dependent or socially determined. I am not a naturalist and I don’t take a universalist approach to the world, so this doesn’t resonate with me. I can agree that we have an in-built sense of fairness, and this might become a basis for some aspects of morality, but this is still triggered by an emotional response that is mind-dependent.

Another curious thing for me is why non-human animals cannot commit immoral acts. Isn’t this enough to diminish some moral universal? In the end, they are an extension of language by some definition. No language, not even a semblance of morality.

Anyway, there’s nothing new here. I just felt like creating a philosophical post as I’ve been so distracted by my health and writing.

The Matter with Things: Chapter Eleven Summary: Science’s Claims on Truth

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Chapter eleven is the first of three chapters discussing truth from the perspective of science. These chapters are followed by truth as seen from other perspectives, namely, reason and intuition.

Check out the table of contents for this series of summaries. I continue to render interstitial commentaries in grey boxes with red text, so the reader can skip over and just focus on the chapter summary.

The author posits that in the West, most of us trust science to deliver the truth of the matter, as “science alone holds out the promise of stable knowledge on which we can rely to build our picture of the world“. He admits that it does have value, but it has inherent limitations and yet draws us in like moths to a flame. Here, he distinguishes between the discipline and practice of science and Scientism as it is practised by laypeople. Science understands its place and domain boundaries. Scientism is omnipotent with delusions of grandeur that will never be realised.

Some philosophically naïve individuals become very exercised if they sense that the status of science as sole purveyor of truth is challenged

— Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, chapter 10

Politicians who promote science as a bully pulpit prey on the public in a manner similar to bludgeoning them with religious notions.

Science is heavily dependent on the exercise of what the left hemisphere offers.

ibid.

The point the book makes is that like the turtles that go all the way down, science doesn’t have a grasp on what’s beyond the last turtle. Like trying to answer the toddler who can ask an infinite number of ‘why‘ questions, the scientist gets to a point of replying ‘that’s just the way things are’, or the equivalent of ‘it’s bedtime’.

Scientific models are simply extended metaphors. A challenge arises when a model seems to be a good fit and we forget about alternative possibilities getting locked into Maslow’s law of the instrument problem, where ‘to a man with a hammer, everything begins to look like a nail’. Moreover, the left hemisphere is fixated on instrumentation, so it’s always trying to presume a purpose behind everything. Nothing can just be.

This is likely where Scientism begins to trump science.

He quotes:

Dogmatism inevitably obscures the nature of truth.

— Alfred Whitehead

McGilchrist points out that a goal or promise of science is to be objective and take the subject out of the picture. Unfortunately, this is not possible as the necessity for metaphor ensures we cannot be extricated. Objectivity is legerdemain. We create a scenario and claim it to be objective, but there is always some subject even if unstated. He goes into length illuminating with historical characters.

The sciences do not try to explain, they hardly even try to interpret, they mainly make models … The justification of such a mathematical construct is solely and precisely that it is expected to work.

— John von Neumann

In fact, science itself is predicated on assumptions that have not and can not be validated through science.

In conclusion, McGilchrists wants to emphasise ‘that just because what we rightly take to be scientific truths are not ‘objective’ in the sense that nothing human, contingent and fallible enters into them, this does not mean they have no legitimate claim to be called true.’ ‘The scientific process cannot be free from assumptions, or values.’

Following this chapter are several pages containing dozens of plates of images.

The Matter with Things: Chapter Ten Summary: What Is Truth?

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In this first chapter of the second section of The Matter with Things, Iain McGilchrist asks, What is Truth? Section two has a different focus than the first, which was focused on foundation building. From here on in, he wants to build on this foundation.

Check out the table of contents for this series of summaries. Note that I have rendered my interstitial commentaries in grey boxes with red text, so the reader can skip over and just focus on the chapter summary.

At first, he establishes that each hemisphere ‘thinks’ it knows the true truth and has the best vantage on reality. He makes it clear that a short chapter will not do the topic of truth the justice he feels it deserves and notes that others have written books on the matter. He just wants to make a few points and clarify his position.

As we discovered in the first section, the left and right hemispheres perceive the world differently. The right hemisphere experiences the world as it is presented in a Gestalt manner. This is contrasted by the left hemisphere which views the world as a symbolic re-presentation. It’s not unfair to say that the right hemisphere experiences the world directly whilst the left hemisphere views a cache of the world.

In this chapter, McGilchrist (Iain) attempts to convince the reader that one side is more correct or correct more often than the other and so is more veridical. As he says, the left hemisphere ‘is a good servant but a poor master’. Of course, if we had a third hemisphere [sic], we might think it could mediate the other two, but then we’d need a fourth and a fifth, ad infinitum to act as the new arbiter.

Spoiler Alert: The right hemisphere wins the battle on truth pretty much hands down.

He wants to make it clear to the reader that he is no strict idealist. There is a reality ‘out there’ apart from mental processes that objectively exists even in the absence of a subject. Reality is not exclusively a projection of the brain.

His choice rather relies on the correspondence theory of truth, which is to say that the hemisphere that conveys perceptions more correspondent to our perceived reality would be more veridical.

Here, I challenge his reasoning on two accounts. In the first place,each hemisphere may operate better in one context versus another. In the second case, there may be a consequential factor, which again distils down to context. In risk management, there are notions of probability of failure and consequence of failure. For example, a failure to recognise the truth of a matter (we’ll use truth as a proxy for ‘fact’), may be inconsequential. If I am assessing the probability of a pipe bursting in a nuclear facility and the pipe is connected to a sink to deliver tap water, the consequence of this failure is practically insignificant. But if I am assessing the probability of a pipe containing radioactive materials, even if the probability of failure is low, the consequence of failure may be catastrophic.

Evolutionarily speaking, if you mistake a garden hose for a venomous snake, the consequence of failure is trivial. Turn the tables, and mistake a snake for a garden hose, the consequence may be fatal. I am not attempting to claim that one hemisphere interprets the low consequence scenario and the other interprets the high. I simply want to raise this nuance.

He makes the point that if we compare some known authentic object to a recollection, we want to retain the one that is more accurate.

I see a similar challenge. Hypothetically, let’s say I present a red disc and manipulate the hemispheres to activate only one at a time, asking to recall the object. If the left says it’s red and the right says it’s a disc, which is more correct? Again, I am not claiming that this is a real scenario, but if one side possesses facts unavailable to the other side, we’ve got a problem in making a truth claim.

To reiterate, the left hemisphere is more analogous to a photograph or a video account whereas the right hemisphere is to be in the place that is being photographed. The right hemisphere is duratively presenced whilst the left is re-presented. We move from a nominative form to a verbial form of representing reality. This leads him to ask if ‘truth’ is a thing or a process.

He shifts to a linguistic argument. When people view ‘truth’ as a noun, as a thing, the expectation is that it is static. Moreover, the descriptors of truth are rendered mainly in the past tense—representation, fact, perfect, precise, certain, and concluded. He provides definitions. When viewed duratively, ‘truth’ becomes a process. It is an active relationship. It flows. It’s an intercourse.

We may not ever get to an agreed truth, but neither is every position valid. Interpreting a text, for example, may have several conflicting meanings, but the possible meanings are relatively finite.

Take a simple sentence such as, “The dog bit the hand that feeds him.” This could be meant literally or figuratively. We might imagine different dogs, hands and person to whom the hand is attached. Perhaps the hand is attached to a bonobo. Perhaps, it’s a robotic hand. These are among various possible interpretations, and we may not ever agree on the truth of the matter. However, we can rule out that a giraffe or a watermelon were central to this narrative for what it’s worth.

The bookgoes on to discuss the etymology of the word ‘truth’ and of its relationship to the word ‘true’ (faithful) which is further related to ‘trust’. I won’t exhaust his explanation.

He does discuss correspondence and coherence theories of truth and discounts others such as consensus theory and social constructivism. He cautions not to equate truth with correctness. This is a left hemisphere game insisting on dichotomising things.

The book declares the despite a general agreement on the source or nature of truth, there is something there, so don’t give up un it. In the end, he seems to settle for a Pragmatistic version à la William James.

Personally, I feel he and others are over-invested in the nature of truth. And inflate its meaning over ‘fact’. To me, Capital-T Truth is an archetype, but it doesn’t otherwise exist. We have facts, and truth is sort of a perfect version of a fact. Love is in the same category, though I know Iain would disagree with this assertion. Of course, James dismissed semantic argument as petty and insisted that people simply know the truth of something. I’ve always found this take to be dismissive. I also feel that Pragmatism is too steeped in Empiricism and loses hold of the notion that what happened yesterday may not in fact manifest today or not in the same way.

I’ll also argue as others have before me that (besides being archetypal) the term is a redundant filler word. On a minuscule level, if I say ‘The cup is red’, saying ,’It’s true that the cup is red adds nothing’. The equation was already asserted. This leaves one to wonder what the purpose of it is.

Returnng to the asymmetry of the hemispheres he cautions up not to take a position that one of the other side is correct. Rather, even though there is an asymmetry in value, there is still a synthesis.

Iain uses the example of Newtonian and Einsteinian physics. At one point, they are practically synonymous and interchangeable. Only as we reach the speed of light does Newtonian physic exceed the bounds of its scope. He also educated the reader on the difference between precision and accuracy.

I like to view this in a musical context. If I play two notes together, say a B over an E, neither is more correct than the other. Notionally, I am playing an E5/B. This is neither an E or a B. The chord is the result of the two playing simultaneously. In this case E and B are both true and not true because the E5 is a synthesis. If I add a G# I get an E-major chord, subsequently adding a D renders an E7. In each of these cases, the truth of the notes, B, D, E, and G# remain true to their identity, but the fact is that the individuality is subsumed by the collective. This is the prevailing truth even though a person with perfect pitch can still individually identify the constituents of the chord. I don’t know if this is more confusion than necessary, but it helps me.

I’ve always like this illustration with target grouping, but this was not referenced by the book.

Image: Precision and Accuracy Chart

Interestingly, he cites Jay Zwicky’s definition: “Truth is the asymptotic limit of sensitive attempts to be responsible to our actual experience of the world … ‘sensitive attempts to be responsible’ means truth is the result of attention. (As opposed to inspection.) Of looking informed by love. Of really looking.” He accedes that there are degrees of truth.

Truth is the asymptotic limit of sensitive attempts to be responsible to our actual experience of the world

Jay Zwicky

This asymptosis is how I describe Truth in my Truth about Truth post.

As the chapter comes to a close, he leaves us with a twisted categorical syllogism,

  • [p1] All monkeys climb trees
  • [p2] The porcupine in a monkey
  • [ c ] The porcupine climes trees

This structure presents a valid argument. However, it is not sound. It follows the Socratic logical syntax:

  • [p1] M a P
  • [p2] S a M
  • [ c [ S a P

Because of our exposure to and experience with the external world, we can assess this argument to be unsound, which is to say untrue by observation. Without this context, we could not render this assessment. He discusses the way right- and left-hemisphere occluded subjects respond to this discrepancy. In summary, an isolated left hemisphere with defend the logical syntax over the lived experience.

In conclusion, the hemispheres take different paths to assess truth and often end up at different destinations. The left hemisphere sees truth as a thing whilst the right views it as a process.

What is real? What is true?

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An online colleague published an essay on another essay (en français). The gist was to say that their ideas were the same save for whether a core foundation was reality or truth. I am going to stylise these and derivatives in capital initials, e.g., Real and Truth. I am not sure I see the connexion, and perhaps Lance will chime in here directly to correct any misunderstandings and fill in any holes.

Podcast: Audio rendition is this page content

At least in English vernacular, True and Real are close synonyms. I don’t feel they are as close as we may assume at first glance. I think each of these terms carries with it its own ambiguity and connotation, so a meaningful discussion may prove to be difficult.

I’m not sure if it’s a fair characterisation, but I feel that most people consider Real as what they can sense or experience. Some may not even allow for the experiential component. In my mind, metaphorically thinking, of course, a book might be real; an idea might be real; even the idea of a unicorn might be real, but unicorns are not real. If we want to claim unicorns as part of Reality or include it in the set of Reality, then it would be a second-order sort. Substituting Harry Potter for unicorns, the idea of Harry Potter is real, but Harry Potter is a figment. Of course, Harry Potter may be the name of a human or your pet otter, but this is not the manifest Harry Potter of the idea. And Harry Potter is not a unicorn.

Harry Potter is not a unicorn

I mention Harry Potter and, indeed, unicorns, because I have had people argue that these things are real. For me, they are off the table, whether real or imagined. I feel that some people may also reduce Real to material, so a Realist would be the same as a Materialist. That’s fine except we end up with obvious non-material stuff on the cutting room floor. What do we do with emotions and so-called qualia? Sure, some might equate emotions with biochemical reactions and some synaptic exchange in some parts of the brain, further articulated through facial and bodily expressions and gestures. For the Materialist, we may not yet know the mechanism, but it’s only a matter of time—in the same manner as atoms became protons and electrons, which became quarks with spins and colour, and this morphed into fields.

Being sympathetic to Analytic Idealism, I might argue that none of this is real because all we can experience is what we can sense, but what we sense is a second order of Reality. We can’t even experience the first-order variety. The usual analogy is to look at computer bits or the funky Matrix code, and it doesn’t reveal what we see or experience through the interface. In the case of the Matrix, the interface is their perceived reality. But perception isn’t Reality. At least Descartes suggests as much. If first-order Reality is unattainable, we can either consider this sensed and experienced world second order. This leaves our unicorns and Harry Potter to be third order. In this case, we might idiomatically consider the first-order to be understood to exist, but our use of Reality extends only to the second-order variety.

In any case, I don’t expect to resolve the mystery of Reality here and now, but it is a dialogue where accord is necessary to be on the same proverbial page.

But then what is True? What is Truth? I’ve written about this previously. Here, we are explicitly invoking the capital-T version of Truth, not the minuscule-t version where it’s synonymous with pedestrian ‘facts’ and tautologies. By True, are we asking what is objectively real—unadulterated by subjective experience, some universal and invariable condition? And is this Truth what is Real? Are there Truths that are not Real?

To sum it up, it is quite standard—although not universal by a long shot—to consider Real what we can experience whilst True is something that requires proof. A physical table might be real. Like unicorns, mathematic concepts may be true—I’d argue that this is tautological whilst others might defend some Platonic ideal—, but they are not real. They are an abstraction. I suppose my point is to not take these words for granted and presume they can be directly interchanged. I suppose in the adjective form, they are more apt to coincide—Is that a true Picasso? Is that a real Picasso? Clearly, when we are asking if it is real, we are asking if it is truly genuine rather than questioning its materiality.

It may be true that I am wittering away online in some masturbatory pseudo-intellectual frenzy, and the results may be virtually real, but I needed to let my mind wander for a bit. If you’ve gotten this far, bless your heart, and leave a comment.

And so it goes.

VIDEO: The Truth about Truth

Posted in Audio, philosophy, psychology, reality, science, Spotify, videoTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

I wrote about this content in 2019, but I wanted to revisit it for a video as well as create a podcast audio version.

Video: YouTube version of this page content
Podcast: Audio rendition of this page content

In today’s segment, I am going to share my perspectives on the truth about truth. To start, I’ll let the audience know that I do not believe in the notion of truth. I feel the term is ill-defined especially in the realm of metaphysics and morality. I feel that when most people employ the word ‘truth’, what they mean to say is ‘fact.’ That a fire engine is red, for example, may be a fact, if indeed the fire engine happens to be red, but it is not true. This is a misapplication of the term. If you employ truth as a direct synonym for fact, then this is not what’s being discussed here, and perhaps your time might be better spent watching some content by the Critical Drinker.   

My argument is that truth is not objective. Rather it is subjective and perspectival. I concede that there may be some objective truth out there somewhere, but it is not and will not ever be accessible to us because of limitations in our sense-perception faculties and cognitive limitations. Per Aristotle, we only have five senses with which we can connect to the world, and these senses are limited. If there is anything out there that would require another sense receptor—a sense receptor not available to us—, we would never be able to sense it, to even know of its existence. Perhaps the universe emits 100 sense signals, but we are only capable of receiving and translating five. We’d be oblivious to 95 per cent of reality.

I am not making any claims that this is the case, but human cognition is so limited, that we can’t even conceive of what another sense might be. If you can, please leave a comment.

To be clear, I am not talking about senses we know other species possess. Bats may have echolocation, and sharks may have electroreception. Some animals may have greater sensory acuity—superior vision and auditory senses, olfactory and gustatory, tactile, or whatever. Some can see into infrared or ultraviolet light spectra. Technology that includes biomimicry provides humans with microscopes for the microworld and telescopes for the macroworld. We have x-rays and sonar and radar, radios and televisions that extend our senses, but these provide no new sensory receptors.

Like the story of the blind people and the elephant, we are left grasping at parts. But even if we are able to step back to view the whole elephant, to hear the elephant, to touch and smell or even taste the elephant, if there is more to the elephant, we cannot know it. The same goes for ourselves.

I know that some people might inject gods or psychic or paranormal energy into this void, and sure, feel free, but I am looking beyond these pedestrian concepts. What else might there be?

But let’s depart this train and head in a different direction. I want us to focus on the senses we do have. For the typical human, sight is our primary arbiter of reality, at least as defined idiomatically. We tend to believe what we see, and what we see, we assume as real—even if we are later mistaken. I guess that wasn’t a unicorn or a pink elephant. I must have been hallucinating or dreaming. I could have sworn that was Auntie Em.

There are several competing theories around truth, but I’ll focus on the Correspondence theory, which is simply put, the notion that, proxying reality for truth, human perception corresponds with the real world. And a pragmatist might argue that’s close enough for the government.

Keep in mind that historically humans have contorted themselves into making calculations. Remember how long people had been tying themselves into knots to show planetary motion in a geocentric system creating epicycles and retrograde motion to map understanding to a perceived reality.

One might even argue that we’ve progressed. It wasn’t true or accurate then, but now it is. And perhaps it is. Let’s look at some illustrations.

NB: Due to an editorial mishap, this paragraph was dropped in the podcast, hence dropped from the video, which shared the podcast audio source. As such, this image was also not used in the video. This is unfortunate, as it was meant to introduce those with limited maths knowledge to the asymptotic curve, as described. Apologies, and I hope this serves to orient any travellers who may have lost their way at this point.

In this first illustration, we see Truth (or relative truthiness) on the Y-axis and Time on the X-Axis. On the top, we see a threshold representing Reality. In the plane, I’ve rendered an asymptotic curve, where over time, we get closer and closer to the Truth. But we never quite get there. More on this later.

The next illustration will help to demonstrate what’s happening.

Notice there is a gap between the curve and the Reality cap. For one thing, we don’t really know where we are relative to Reality. In the case of the geocentric system, we might have been at the leftmost space. Once we determined that the system is actually solar-centric, we might have moved right on the curve to close the gap. We might be tempted to defend that we’ve finally reached the truth, but we’d have been equally willing to make the same defence from the geocentric position, so we need to be mindful of the past.

Perhaps, this last example was too obvious. We feel comfortable staking a truth claim—or at least a claim of fact. So let’s look at another example.

Let’s re-use the same axes—Truth and Time—, but rather than an asymptotic curve, let’s presume something more polynomial in nature—or not particularly cyclic. Rather than retrograde motion in planets, let’s visit the supposed progress of Newtonian over Einsteinian physics.

This takes a bit more setup but bear with me.  In this case, I have taken liberties and illustrated the Einsteinian physics gap to capture an inferior vantage on reality over Newtonian physics. Granted, I need to rely on a bit of suspension of disbelief, but in the bigger picture, I am trying to convey a scenario where some new paradigm puts the prior knowledge in perspective.

In this instance, both Newtonian and Einsteinian flavours of physics are based on a materialistic, particles-based model, which is where the modern physics consensus resides. But, let’s say that consensus changes in such a way that it is determined that something else underlies reality, say consciousness per Analytic Idealism as proposed by Bernardo Kastrup or per Integrated Information Theory (IIT) as advanced by Donald Hoffman and others. As with retrograde motion, we might end up finding that we were barking up the wrong tree. This might be a bit different because the particles are a directly perceived manifestation of the underlying consciousness, but I wanted to create a scenario where knowledge thought to have advanced actually regressed, but this wasn’t revealed until a new perspective was available.

Yet again, an important aspect of note is that we don’t actually know the distance between our perceptions and real Reality.

This last illustration builds upon the first asymptotic chart but has an in-built error margin meant to reflect language insufficiencies. There is some concept that people feel they grasp, but the consensus is not as unified as the group thinks.

I’ll share two examples, the first being the concept of justice. To me, Justice is what I deem a weasel word. It’s a word we commonly use, but it means different things to different people. To me, it’s a euphemism for vengeance by proxy, but for others, it transcends that and mirrors some impartial dispensation of just desert—some good old-fashioned law and order.

[Justice is] a euphemism for vengeance by proxy

Without getting stuck down some rabbit hole, my point is that if we aggregate these beliefs, the asymptotic curve represents an average consensus vantage rather than something as obvious as 2 plus 2 equals 4. On this note, allow me to clear the air.

Some viewers might be clamouring to say, “but 2 plus 2 equals four is true.” But this is tautologically true, which is to say that it’s true by definition. It’s a similar tautology to saying that it’s true that snow is white, or coal is black. We’ve already defined snow, white, coal, and black, so these may be facts, but they are true by definition.

Revisiting the chart, notice that there are two curves in the space. In this case, I illustrate competing truth claims from the perspective of an omniscient narrator. The case is whether the earth is an oblate spheroid or is flat. I am going to go out on a limb and assert the earth is spherical, as represented by the top blue curve—and we have some margin of error as to what that might mean. The bottom red curve depicts the perceived truth of the flat earthers, who also have some room for semantic error.

Given that I am presuming that I am in the right adopting the majority position—please be right—, the blue curve is closer to Reality than the red curve. Of course, in the event that the earth is really flat, then it proves my point that we don’t know where we are relative to truth, so we assume that the state of knowledge at any given time is what’s real.

Again, forgive my fanciful examples. Please don’t tell me that this spheroid versus planer earth is tautological too because you’d be correct, but I am already aware. They are just nonsensical illustrations. Nonetheless, I hope they’ve served to express a point.

I could have as well created curves that depicted two cohorts’ beliefs on the efficacy of tarot or astrology in predicting the future. I am sure that it might render somewhat like the last chart, but I’d also presume that both curves would have very low truth values as seen from an objective observer. Secretly, I hope tarot wins the truth battle.

Before I end our time together, I’d like to convey that for an Analytic Idealist, these charts might be more acceptable at face value. For a Realist, Naïve or otherwise, they may argue that this curve is not asymptotic and may in fact reach some tangency. I don’t happen to believe this is the case or I wouldn’t have spent my time assembling and presenting this. Time will tell. Or will it?