PP20 What is Truth?
G'day, my name is Bruce Robertson and this is Pirate Philosophy. The channel in which I describe The Pattern Paradigm an original philosophy that is rigorous, logical and accurate; and one that I claim makes better sense than any other philosophy. Welcome.
The topic of today's video is: 'What is truth?' And while I have doubts about the usefulness of the concept of 'truth' in philosophy, it is a popular concept and one that is used a lot in standard Western philosophy and so I think it would be useful to cover the topic, in order to clear up any misconceptions and clarify what it means.
I would like to start by noting here that primarily words are labels for concepts or ideas that have been formulated using a form of the pattern-identification algorithm. (This was discussed in a previous videos). Words can also be used as labels for entirely abstract symbols that are used in an abstract logical system, such as mathematics.
So, 'true' or 'truth' are used as labels for those ideas or concepts that have the appearance of certainty. That is what the word 'true' means; it is a label for those things that are considered to be certain or indubitable.
So, let us explore how this works in practice.
I shall begin by looking at abstract logical systems such as mathematics; and I call them abstract as they have no direct link to the world of patterns or sense data. An abstract system such as mathematics, but not exclusively mathematics, has axioms (or foundations), symbols and rules, (rules of inference for the manipulation of the symbols); and from these rules, theorems of the system may be deduced. And since the axioms and logic of mathematics are explicit, it can be justifiably claimed that the theorems of the system are indubitable or certain and hence can be labeled as 'true', albeit only within the system of mathematics.
So, for example, to take a fairly trivial subset of the general system of mathematics:
Name: Mathematics (Subset)
Axioms: '1+1=2', '1+1+1+1=4'
Rules: '1+1' may be substituted for '2'
Theorem: '2+2=4' (by the second axiom and the rules)
The theorem follows from the second axiom and the application of the rule. So, '2+2=4' is a theorem and can be considered to be certain as the axioms and logic are explicit and clear and hence, the theorem '2+2=4' can be said to be true within the abstract system of mathematics. Also, the axioms of the system can be considered to be true within the system of mathematics.
Or to take another example of an abstract logical system; and I have created this rather trivial one myself:
Name: Alpha
Axioms: 'ABC'
Rules: The string 'AB' may be substituted with the string 'BA'.
Theorem: 'BAC ' (by the axiom and the rule)
So then the theorem 'BAC' can be said to be 'true' within the system of Alpha. Also, the axiom 'ABC' can be labeled as 'true' within the system of Alpha.
These examples demonstrate the use of the word 'true' when applied to abstract logical systems. And this label of 'true' may be useful to distinguish theorems of the system from non-theorems of the system. So the string of symbols '2+2=4' is a theorem of the mathematics system and can be labeled as 'true'; whereas the string '2+2=5' is not a theorem of the system and can be labeled as 'false' within the system of mathematics.
This brings us on to the concept of truth as applied to a person's model of the world. Knowledge of the world can only be created from sense-data; as our senses are the only link between the exterior world and the mind.
But how is knowledge extracted from sense-data? It is not a magical process, but rather a logical process. I have discussed this in some detail in previous videos: PP9 'Patterns, Time and Space' and PP10 'Pyramids of patterns and sleep'. However, I will summarize the main points briefly here.
The logical process for the creation of knowledge from sense-data requires the identification of patterns from the sense-data. This is the only possible logical process.
The process can be modeled by means of a looping algorithm, which requires the input of a template or possible pattern, i.e. one can imagine a possibility of a pattern, and then this possibility is tested or compared with the data to see whether it fits and if so, how well it fits. Then another template is tested against the data and when all possible templates have been tested, i.e one gets to the limit of one's imagination, one selects the template, which is the best fit to the data, and if there is more than one which fits the data well, one selects the simplest and most efficient template as the best pattern to fit the data. I will put a detailed form of this algorithm at the end.
The actual processing time for the pattern-identification process can be quite long and so time constraints also become a factor in finding the best pattern.
Once a sufficient number of patterns have been found, these patterns themselves can be used as input to the pattern-identification process in a recursive way to generate higher level patterns. And this recursive process can be repeated until one has constructed a hierarchical pyramid of patterns. This pyramid of patterns constitutes one's model of the world.
The output of the algorithm is the best pattern that one can find, which fits the data given the constraints of limited data, limited imagination and limited time for finding the best pattern.
And having found one's best pattern for a particular set of data, there is no certainty that a better pattern could not be found, If one had more data, a greater imagination and unlimited time to find the best pattern. Nevertheless, it may be pragmatic, to label the best pattern that one has found as 'true' or 'certain' and this is because one's pyramid of patterns needs stability. When using lower level patterns to create higher level ones, the lower level ones need to be assumed to be true or certain in order to create a stable pyramid of patterns and this stability is important when one uses one's pyramid of patterns as a basis for decision making, especially if decisions need to be made rapidly.
So for example, if a crude interpretation of some new sense-data indicates that a tiger is about to leap towards oneself, one doesn't want to waste time checking on one's interpretation of the light and shadows around the tiger nor of whether it is actually a tiger rather than, say, a leopard; nor whether it is actually oneself in front of the tiger rather than, say, a virtual reality interpretation of oneself. No, the pragmatic logic is to presume that one's perception is accurate and that it is a tiger and that it is oneself in front of the tiger and then to remove oneself very rapidly from the vicinity of the tiger. In other words, there is a pragmatic benefit in presuming that one's best patterns of the world are accurate and certain and true.
But it is from a subjective perspective that one's beliefs are labeled as 'true' and 'certain'. However from a more objective and philosophical perspective and because of the nature of the pattern-identification algorithm, no pattern that is created from sense-data, which includes all the patterns that refer to what we call the real world, can be definitively claimed to be certain or true; for one can never be sure that there is not some hitherto undiscovered pattern that is an improvement upon any of the patterns that anyone currently holds. That said, some patterns are undoubtedly a more accurate fit to the data than others and hence are less likely, at least within one's own lifetime, to be improved upon than others.
So for example, the patterns that one uses to interpret raw visual data and convert that data into a 3D picture of the world are well established from a lot of data and are confirmed by correlating them with patterns from other sense-data, such as sound, touch and smell. In contrast, the notion that the Sun goes around the Earth, which was a commonly held belief up to a few 100 years ago, was based upon a limited amount of sense-data. It was not until Galileo, with his telescope, found some additional data that did not fit with the notion that the Sun goes around the Earth that he proposed the now well accepted theory that it is in fact the Earth that orbits the Sun and also rotates on its axis. However up to that time, the idea notion or pattern that the Sun orbits the Earth was believed and held to be 'true'.
So now we have discussed the two main categories of truth: the one that applies to abstract logical systems and is explicit and overt and can be said to be objective as it is, in effect, independent of the human mind; and the other which is based on pattern identification and applies to one's model of the world and is pragmatic; yet it is hidden and subjective. It is subjective because the processes of the mind are hidden and personal; no other person can know the actual logic that was used to arrive at a particular best pattern by a particular person. And it should perhaps be noted here that while almost everyone might arrive at the same particular pattern, e.g. 'trees are made of wood', this would constitute no more than a consensus of subjective beliefs or 'truth' but this would not constitute an objective 'truth'.
Everyone has a model of the world and it is a subjective model; there is no direct logical link to an external world. The only link that one has is through sense-data. Nevertheless, if a person is considered to be giving an honest and accurate representation of what they believe, they can be said to be telling the truth; this is in contrast to the situation where it is considered that the person is not giving an honest and accurate representation of what they believe and hence can be said to be 'lying'.
Truth is equivalent to certainty; and people like certainty, for certainty is simple; whereas uncertainty is complex. And as mentioned, there are pragmatic benefits to certainty. But certainty is also a barrier to learning; for if one believes that something is certain then one is not going to reexamine that something at a later time to confirm whether it is still the best pattern to fit the available data.
Some say that philosophy is a 'search for truth'; but the requirements for finding truth or certainty are a limited amount of data and a limited imagination and a limited amount of time. I rather like the analogy of a starfish that lives its life in a rock pool; from the perspective of the starfish, its rock pool is the entire universe and nothing exists beyond it and that is certain and true and indubitable. (And yes, I know that starfish have no central nervous system and are unlikely to have the concept of truth but the analogy still stands.) So if you really want truth and certainty, think like a starfish!
In common parlance, it is typically taken that words refer directly to the things they are purported to represent; so when people talk about a 'brick' or a 'tree', they presume that they are referring to a real actual brick or a real actual tree, the 'noumena', if you like. And this is fine for everyday conversation; but our only connection to some hypothesized real world is through sense-data. The idea of a real world existing beyond our senses is no more than a high level pattern in the pyramid of patterns that is ultimately created from sense-data.
And certainly there are pragmatic benefits from presuming that this pattern is 'true' but the logical connection between a word such as 'brick' or 'tree' and the hypothesized actual existence of a brick or tree is a very long and complex one. It requires sense-data and a pattern identification process as well as a pyramid of patterns and labels for those patterns; and along the way each pattern must be presumed to be the best possible and certain. Every reference to the real world, or more specifically, to a model of the world, requires logical processes of pattern- identification that can only be carried out within a mind.
So the idea, which is popular in Standard Western philosophy, that disembodied statements, i.e. statements that exist independent of a communicator, can refer to the real world independently of the mind is simply naive. And the claim from many proponents of Standard Western philosophy that such statements can be 'true' or 'false' is very naive. (This was discussed in some detail in the video PP18 'Are disembodied statements meaningless'.)
The only disembodied statements that can be said to be rigorously true, do not refer to any real world or model of the world, but instead reside solely within logical abstract systems such as mathematics; for example, '2+2=4' or even '2x+2x = 4x'. And while these can be said to be 'true' within the system of mathematics, they cannot be extrapolated to the real world in the form of such things as '2 sheep+ 2 sheep =4 sheep' without incorporating a subjective mapping process, which maps symbols of the system of mathematics on to words or concepts within a person's model of the world, such as sheep. And this mapping process is not logically rigorous but is a matter of trial and error in order to determine which part of mathematics, if any, is useful in making sense of and understanding the world.
So for example, it requires trial and error to determine which of the mathematical processes of arithmetic, calculus or complex numbers is useful for understanding sheep in a field, the motion of heavenly bodies or electrodynamics. And hence this requirement for trial and error dissolves the certainty that exists within the abstract system of mathematics. Patterns are complex things and they cannot be incorporated into a simple system such as that of mathematics; hence pure mathematics is always abstract.
So to summarize, 'truth' is a label for certainty. The axioms and theorems of an abstract system can be said to be 'true' within their particular system and they can also be said to be objective as they are essentially independent of the mind. And with regard to one's model of the world, a pattern that has been created from sense-data that is highly accurate, highly simple and has been created from a multitude of data with much processing time and imagination can be claimed to be the best available pattern to fit the relevant data and so, can be given the label 'true'. Nevertheless, it is subjective pattern as it requires a mind to do the processing; and it can never be proven that such a pattern is the best possible pattern to fit the data. The label of 'truth' that we typically apply to knowledge of the world is purely a pragmatic one.
And what about the pattern that is 'The Pattern Paradigm', the philosophy that I have been describing in these videos? Well, it is a well-established pattern, based upon a lot of data, a lot of imagination and a lot of processing time. I've been working on this for many, many years and I believe this philosophy myself, so for me it is 'true'. However, I accept from a philosophical perspective, that there may be a better pattern that fits the philosophical data more accurately and is simpler; I certainly cannot prove that there is not. And hence from a philosophical perspective, I do not claim that it is 'true'; I only claim that it is a better pattern in the domain of philosophy than any other currently available. (I will be discussing this further in the next video.)
Well that is all I have for you today. I hope you have enjoyed the video and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them in the section below and if you would like to continue this journey with me, please subscribe to my channel, give this video a thumbs up and ring the bell.
Thank you
Pattern identifying algorithm:
1 Assemble the data, give it a label
2 Select a template (This can be random or a section of the data or one previously . identified.)
3 Apply and expand the template to the data
4 Measure the differences between the applied pattern and the original data
5 Sum the differences
6 Store the template and the sum of the differences
7 Are there other templates to test? If ‘yes’ go to step 2, otherwise continue.
8 Of all the templates tested, select the one with the least sum of differences.
9 Store this template in association with the label for the original data.
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