From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Sep 02 2002 - 17:10:01 MDT
Charles writes
> On Sunday 01 September 2002 12:05, Dan Fabulich wrote:
> > Charles Hixson wrote:
> > > This doesn't actually work. Our approach is simpler, but doesn't
> > > disagree with his approach where they both make predictions. And it's
> > > in the testable predictions* that the truth** of the approach lays.
> > > The mental models used to make the physical predictions are just that,
> > ....
> >
> > Do you think we'd be more rational/objective about our scientific
> > theories if we stopped using "truth" words about them?
Well, I don't think so: we should indeed keep using the
word "truth" when we are talking *ABOUT* our theories, of
course keeping in mind that absolute certainty is impossible.
> > If so, then you [Charles] have captured an interesting perspective;
> > a language which teaches us something about ourselves. Do you
> > think we should have that language instead of our current language?
> > What do you think we'd have to gain? What do you think we'd lose
> > in terms of scientific passion if scientists never pursued The
> > Truth but only pursued utility?
As you are perhaps hinting, I also think that we would
lose a lot. In fact, Godel claims to have succeeded
*because* he believed that "the truth was out there",
and that mathematics is not just a human invention.
I would suppose that any number of scientists were
---however they expressed it---really after the truth
about something when they got their big breakthrough.
Charles writes
> Perhaps. But that may also just be a short-cut for when we don't want to
> think carefully about things. Truth, by indicating a absolute certainty,
> stops thought, and with limited abilities to process, that can be important.
> I just don't believe that it's ever literally true. (Is that a paradox?)
"Truth" should *never* indicate an absolute certainty. Even in
those cases where it does, e.g., "yea, listen up, heah is de
Lord's Sacred Truth...", one evaluates just who is claiming what.
Naturally your paradox isn't a paradox. We have to use *some*
word like true, I'm afraid. You may find a circumlocution that
appears not to use it, "it is the case that" being one favorite,
but it came into our language (and perhaps everyone's?) for a
reason.
> If you look at published scientific papers, you will see that they are quite
> chary with the use of words like "true". They talk about theories, and
> experimental results, but avoid claiming truth. And that's because they know
> that they may feel certain, but this doesn't imply truth.
In scientific papers (or cooking instructions, recipes, and
advertising) the term is redundant. Saying X is true is no
more effective that saying X. (I have been often reprimanded
for doing that.) So there is no need, unless emphasis is
desired, for ever saying the word "truth". Example: Suppose
that Clyde Tombaugh had ended a paper with the outburst, "and
so at last we realize that it's true after all a ninth planet
exists!". No real harm done, but probably not good science
writing.
> They know what they've observed, and what they thought
> about it. (Also how they felt about it, but that also
> doesn't show up in scientific papers very often.)
Exactly.
But what's the downside of the reification of Truth? Pretty
paltry, if you ask me. Yes, among the barely literate it
results in extra verbiage (and occasionally for me too).
Also, it makes it mandatory that we spread the meme "all
knowledge is conjectural" or "absolute truth is unattainable".
But we probably should spread those memes anyway.
But the downside of throwing away "the Truth" is considerable!
It foments double-think in some academics (thankfully none
on this list) who talk one way about scientific things and
another---very astutely---about, say, the credentials of a
bitterly resented colleague.
(Here is an example of the first way of speaking by Bruno
Latour, notorious arch-post-modernist, while discussing the
to him ridiculous contention of French scientists in 1976
that Ramses II died of tuberculosis, "How could Ramses II
die in 1213 B.C. from a bacillus discovered by Robert Koch
in 1882?". Post-modernism really can mess up some people's
thinking. For other hilarious examples, see "Fashionable
Nonsense" by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont.)
The other obvious downside is that abandoning "the Truth"
encourages solipsism, and probably other evil 20th century
"isms", like positivism.
Lastly, as perhaps Dan was suggesting, we'd be less eager
to get at something "socially constructed" than we would
to get at a universal truth, somehow amazingly applicable
even billions of lightyears away.
Lee
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