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Truth: Capital “T” and Small “t”
Theologians and philosophers deal in the world of perfection, the ideal – capital “T” Truth. My degree is in Mechanical Engineering; I deal in the world of close enough – small “t” truths.
Tens of thousands of years ago, a great scientist observed that the sun rose in the east every morning and set in the west every night and concluded that the sun rotates around the Earth. And that was close enough to allow us to do some good stuff like navigating around our world.
Tens of thousands of years later, another great scientist, after making more refined observations, concluded that the Earth travels around the sun in a circular orbit while spinning on an axis. That was close enough to allow us to do even more nice things like navigating at night.
Many hundreds of years later, Kepler observed that the planets’ orbits are elliptical, and Newton gave us the mathematics to chart their movements. That was close enough to get us to the moon.
A few hundred years after that, Einstein made some adjustments to Newton’s approximation, which allowed us to do things that I don’t understand and don’t really care about because I’m an engineer living in the world of close enough.
Our succession – or progression – of small “t” truths should convince us that there is a capital “T” Truth out there somewhere because each new approximation is more useful than the last. We may get to that Truth someday or we may not. Either way, we can get close enough.
Published in General
Saint Augustine
This should clear it up:
GPS.
In your engineer’s “world of close enough” the GPS on your phone would not be anywhere near close enough to be useful. Even though you don’t understand Special Relativity or General Relativity, you probably do care about its results.
Another of those seemingly useless and esoteric “adjustments to Newton’s approximation” was the work of several men besides Einstein: Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Dirac, and a few more. Without those improvements on your “close enough” you wouldn’t have been able to write your post on Ricochet because there would be no microprocessors and no internet.
That world of close enough is a nineteenth century world, not that there’s anything wrong with that. Just realize that even if you don’t care about black holes, solar neutrinos, or Schrödinger’s cat, there are plenty of engineers who had to use relativity and quantum mechanics to do their jobs — even if they didn’t really understand those highfalutin theories. It turns out that the same tools that are used to understand black holes were used to make GPS. The same goes for solar neutrinos and your computer.
Maybe Truth and truth are more closely related than you think: close enough.
I use the word to apply to basic justice. My understanding is that justice is an integral aspect of the the human mind, and that even children know quickly and and intuitively what’s fair and not fair; that is, just and unjust, and equal and iniquitous.
Just because we can’t understand what is exactly and perfectly right doesn’t mean there isn’t right or wrong. Right and wrong are as obvious as weather as hard to predict with precision.
Or, you might say, Truth is a Person. One whose nature is Being itself. Reality. “I Am.” The Ground of all existence. Lies are a lack thereof, which why the Left tells so many of them. The Left doesn’t deal in reality, but narrative. Which is not to say conservatives have all the truth — just that we’re more interested in it.
And I’m always curious how many Ricochetti are engineers. My speculation is that engineers are over-represented among conservatives because they have to make things work. I’d gamble, as a profession, engineers dominate.
The orbit stuff is a huge misunderstanding. You can pick any point in the universe and call it the center. You can write equations to use that frame of reference to accurately predict what everything else will do. There is no reason why the earth, the sun, or some random nebula cannot be the center. There is surely no “truth” in any point picked. There can be, of course, usefulness and expediency.
Jewish Law effectively puts each person at the center of their world (Shabbos begins when the sun sets for that person). The center is relative to the observer. Why is that not as valid as any other point?
This makes no sense to me at all.
Try an analogy: some women are beautiful. Could we say that our progression of beauty should convince us that there is one perfectly beautiful woman in the world? This, of course, is silly.
Why is Truth any different than Beauty?
I have plenty of kids, and my experience says this is complete BS. Each and every one has a different idea off what is just and unjust. The answer always revolves around the person.
Or, if you prefer, take marriage: is it wrong that men and women have different priorities and perceptions? Should there be only one universally accepted perspective and system of priorities, and anyone who deviates from it is wrong?
Or these things, like beauty, are generally directions on a compass. A compass does not point to an absolute and pure North – it gives you a sense of direction. So do concepts like beauty and truth and goodness.
As I have pointed out before, the Torah does not have G-d as “I Am.” The words are clear as day: “I will be as I will be.”
The future tense makes it much, much more interesting. But also incompatible with the idea of a static and unchanging G-d.
The hypothesis that the Earth rotates around the Sun is an approximation. A better approximation is that the Earth and the Sun orbit around each other or, more precisely, they orbit around the center of mass of the Earth-Sun system. Note that the center of mass of the Earth-Sun system exists without regard to what is or isn’t the center of the Universe.
I don’t recall anyone positing that the universe is rotating. The theories I’ve heard is that it is an expansion.
There may be a point that is most useful. For us, the Sun is, for most purposes, the most useful “center of the Universe.” Suppose, however, that we are someday able to master interstellar travel, we could still use the Sun as our point of reference but, given that the Universe is expanding, that might be awkward. What we’d like is a reproducible reference point – analogous to the boiling point of pure water at sea level. My understanding is that the Universe is expanding from the “location” of the Big Bang. Wouldn’t that location – i.e., the point from which all matter in the Universe is moving away – be the most useful reference point?
We need an astrophysicist to weigh in here.
It seems to me that you’re implying that each person has his or her own independent, self-centered (in the literal sense, not in the sense of selfishness) system of justice and that no one’s system is better than anyone else’s. Such a concept of justice would not be useful. Rather it would mandate a war of all against all in which the most powerful gets to decide what is just. Because this idea of justice is not useful (in fact is less than useless in that it’s harmful), it cannot be a small “T” truth and certainly not an approximation of capital “T” Truth.
It’s useful for men and women to have different priorities and perceptions. From economics, we know that the division of labor increases productivity and that different people have different absolute and comparative advantages (see note below).
Also, in child rearing, mothers tend to love their children unconditionally, while fathers are more likely to have an I-love-you-kid-but-get-your-act-together-dammit attitude. Children seem to need both kinds of love.
Note: You have an absolute advantage in doing tasks that you can do with fewer resources than I. I have a comparative advantage in doing tasks that I can do with a lower opportunity cost. For example, let’s say that we go camping and you are the master of all things camping. You can do everything faster and more efficiently than I can, so you have an absolute advantage in all tasks. However, it doesn’t make sense for me to sit around while you do everything. We’ll both be better off if you do those things that only you can do and I do the things that I can do well enough.
Great question, and one that is definitely above my pay grade. My only thought is that beauty and truth are different concepts and should not be conflated. Beauty is very subjective. At least some small “T” truths can be described mathematically and demonstrated to be valid or at least to be very useful. I’d like to hear some thoughts from @saintaugustine
I’m no Auggie, but I’ll say only God is all perfections, including beauty (Beauty). Beautiful women in the world are shadows of the reality of God.
I have eight kids and every one of them understands the concept justice and fairness innately, even the speechless toddler. This is reaffirmed every time there is only one donut left in the box.
I didn’t say that children are right, or that they all agree, but that they know fairness exists early and intuitively. Children are barbarians, and will use fairness for their own ends. But they know what it exists.
In the same way, marriage is a universal. Each culture treats it differently in the specifics, and each marriage is as different as the people that make it, but the concept of marriage itself is universal.
Quite. Which means there does not need to be some Truth about where the center of the Universe is. We have different approximations that allow us to figure different things out.
I completely agree. I am perfectly fine with arguing from utility. The best tool usually depends on the task which needs to be achieved. In other words, depending on the questions we are asking, the best reference point might be the earth or the sun or a dog’s nose.
Yes! Of course we do!
I did NOT say this! This is why I rely on the Torah – it is a touchstone reference. Anyone who uses a different system of justice will come to different conclusions about what is fair and right and just.
Wow. That is a wild conclusion from my perspective.
I am much more comfortable saying that each person has a divine soul. But I would never suggest that more beautiful people are closer approximative shadows of the reality of G-d! This can become a very dangerous position, no?
Really? The one who worked harder or who is otherwise more deserving or who is hungrier, or who has more mass to feed, or who likes that particular kind the most NEVER makes an argument to that effect?
But there does have to be the capital “T” Truth that we, the Earth, the Sun and the Universe exist. And if all those exist, there must be a reason or cause for their existence, and that reason must be true. So, there can be truths that are relative, but there are also Truths that are absolute.
Before you stated the answer always revolves around the person. But if the answer also exists outside the person (e.g., in the Torah), in what way does it revolve around the person?
No, you brought the “closer approximation” to God into the discussion. We are all made in the image and likeness of God, but some of us are (objectively) more beautiful than others, some of us a smarter than others, some are wiser than others, . . . All good — truth, beauty, goodness — is from God who Is Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, among many other perfections. If God is not these perfections and, yet, we can imagine them, then who/what we’re talking about is not God. Definitionally. Logically.
Doesn’t The American Way fit in there somewhere?