From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Aug 31 2002 - 23:02:24 MDT
Charles writes
> On Saturday 31 August 2002 01:46, Lee Corbin wrote:
> > It seems to me that almost always the truth is obtained
> > after enough decades.
>
> Perhaps you mean a consensus is agreed on? I'm not sure that the decay of
> evidence ever improves the truth of the conclusions. It merely means that
> you lose the complexity (except occasionally when once hidden evidence
> surfaces).
No, I meant it as I said it. Future historians will realize
that there was no conspiracy to kill Kennedy because they
will understand our society well enough to know that some
leak in such a conspiracy would eventually have occurred.
Just as today we know more about the Lusitania's fateful
voyage than was known in 1970. As another example, we
can finally now read the Mayan script exactly; it's been
solved in the same way that the Egyptian hieroglyphics
were solved. It's been solved; now we know the truth
(pace all knowledge is conjectural).
> Truth probably only exists in an axiomitzed framework.
> It certainly can't be derived from a historical recon-
> struction. High probability, perhaps, and consensus,
> usually, but not truth. Truth is when the probability
> reaches 100%, and that doesn't happen in the physical
> universe.
You are using the word far, far away from its usual
meaning. Why embrace the abstract axiomized meaning,
unless to illustrate the dangers of studying mathematics?
Even in mathematics, absolute truth doesn't exist, except
in tautologies, and that's because it's always possible
that a flaw will be discovered in some long accepted
theorem. But we are *not* talking about *absolute* truth,
because that's unattainable.
I submit my Great Hawaiian Truth: "Some people have been
to Hawaii", and denounce in the most unrestricted fashion
anyone who doubts it: Anyone who doubts that truth is a
fool, or is sufficiently retarded that they don't know the
meanings of the terms.
It is necessary to reify The Truth and to regard it as
something to constantly strive towards, even as we realize
that we can at best approach it only asymptotically. We
must embrace "planets move in ellipses around the sun",
"the Earth revolves around the sun", and so on as true.
(It also happens, of course, that (1) all knowledge is
conjectural (2) "Eternal Truth #2: Every statement must
be further modified.")
> I wish that I could believe that this was merely nitpicky, but it doesn't seem
> to be. People seem to become fixated on "truth", and when they can't reach
> real certainty, they reach for fantastic things that might "really be true".
> Just consider the slogan of the X-Files (about all I know about them, sorry)
> "The truth is out there!". It isn't.
We disagree. I say that the X-Files slogan is the right
one. Mulder ought to keep looking, if that's his thing.
The rest of us should keep up our subscriptions to The
Skeptical Inquirer, and rail against UFOs and all other
forms of pseudo-science at every opportunity. Either
there are aliens or there aren't. I say there aren't.
> If you started talking about how to estimate the
> probabilities of various ways of making crop circles,
> people would quickly realize that aliens from flying
> saucers had a very low probability, but when you start
> talking about "how they really happened" the aliens
> pop right up.
Aliens don't "pop up" to sensible, skeptical people.
How crop circles really occur, as you know, can be
traced to the pranksters who've been making such
circles for many years, have got quite good at it,
and who enjoy discoursing on the subject in front
of TV cameras these days.
.... or!
It may turn out that the crop circles are hoaxes, all
right---but hoaxes perpetrated by aliens!! 8^D
Lee
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