What is Truth?

Good morning everyone!

I just received this message and I'm including my response verbatim. Kathryn raises some good questions, and today's post just looks at them.

Have a great day!
Nick

###

Nick, What a brave endeavor! You website is very attractive and well written. I have a couple of suggestions on the introduction which I'm sending to you separately as I wasn't sure how to respond to just the introduction, or for that matter, how to post an idea or comment that isn't in reply to one of your postings.

I was going to suggest you use common words as I found myself pulling out the dictionary to get through the first two paragraphs. After looking up screed and recidivist, I understand why you chose them and congratulate you on an impressive vocabulary. Still, it might be off putting to some. Perhaps you could include definitions when you use uncommon words. Or, if that breaks the flow of your writing, perhaps the words could be linked to a definition that opens if someone clicks on the word. If that is too complicated, don't worry about making changes; I'll just keep the dictionary nearby.

In your introductory paragraph I'd suggest changing "explore the truth" to "explore ideas" or "explore opinions". Someone told me years ago that the truth is constantly changing and is different for different people. I was shocked and offended. I argued vehemently that truth is constant and never changing -- that's why it is the truth. I never considered truth could vary from person to person. Opinions could vary, experiences could vary, and values could vary but not the truth ! I was wrong. My truths are simply deeply held convictions and core values I that never questioned believing they were universally shared. Turns out they are not. One of the fundamental problems today, is that people are so committed to their own truths that they cannot see beyond them and they haven't examined what shaped them. Getting to the bottom of our different truths, means getting very personal and exposing the raw building blocks of who we are, what makes us tick and putting that out there for the world to see and comment upon. Very few people will do that.


Kathryn,

You're very kind. I can't take any credit for the appearance of the site, since I just picked one of the Blogger.com standard templates. I'm just a couple of days into it, so I'm not as familiar with the functionality as I would like. If you would like, I'll just post your comments verbatim in a new post, with my acknowlegement.

Good point about vocabulary. I've gotten so used to keeping a google window open with ___ definition in the search window, I sometimes forget that not everyone does the same. I'll give it some thought and figure out a way to make it more accessible.
I appreciate the point about truth, but I don't happen to agree. (And very importantly, I disagree with a good will, and remain fond of you; A statement I haven't heard in much in political discourse lately.) Although there is an element of Rashômon to any discussion of public policy, objective data do remain.

The sky is blue, measurable with certain scientific instruments to specific bandwidths with understood tolerances. There are x numbers of people engaged behavior y. We can disagree about how things are measured, how to interpret the data, what our working hypotheses should be, and what actions to take. So I will continue to extend my invitation to explore the truth together, and dialogue about our responses to it.

It may come down to a symantic subtlety, and it might be because we often use the word truth, when we mean some combination of beliefs and values.

The challenge I'm taking on is this; Can people of profoundly different world views, beliefs, and values, drill into the details together, get past their strongly held positions and come together in action that allow them to achieve some progress? I can well imagine in some cases it isn't even possible. But for others, I think people can surprise themselves.

As an example, one of the most hotly contested issues these days is abortion. It feels as though there are about 3 people on the planet that are lukewarm about it. For the rest, the other guys are so very wrong. But if the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life (Anti-Life and Anti-Choice, which ever way you want to describe it) folk could just sit down without hurting each other, they could discuss the actual situation. There are x millions of women who are pregnant every year, who may not want to be. Couldn't Pro-Choice and Pro-Life people both support efforts to help women avoid becoming pregnant in the first place, without compromising what they feel should be the public policy toward the unwanted pregnancies themselves? In the course to that work, the people from both sides could get to know each other as people, come to respect that they are acting on their convictions, and bring the level of discourse to another level. That's the sort of thing I hope for with this.

You may be right that many people wouldn't be willing to go through the self examination involved, but wouldn't it be a rewarding experience for those who do?

Thank you so much for writing.