Types of Truth

[Bravus]

This is not a post about politics. If it goes political it will need to be moved by Admin, which would be a shame.

As people here will know, I care passionately about the truth. But I wonder about that 'the'. Should I have said 'truths'? 

There seem to be different classes of truths, and the things that can be said about them seem to be different.

It's true that my motorbike is a Kawasaki. I can verify that by walking down and looking at it. Most of those here, though, have to take my word for it. I can post a photo, but that might just be some random bike I found. I can post video of me riding it, but I might have hired (or stolen) it. Most don't know a lot about motorbikes: I could have stuck Kawasaki stickers on a Honda or Ducati.

So it's a kind of truth that is verifiable, but only for those close enough to come and check for themselves. It's also a kind of truth that isn't particularly consequential: if I was fibbing it wouldn't make much difference to your life... except that you might trust me less if you found out.

A water molecule contains one oxygen atom and two hydrogen atoms is also true, but much harder to verify directly. It requires some inference. If I electrolyse the water, for example, and get twice as much hydrogen gas as oxygen gas, that's a good hint, but style requires a lot of other assumptions.

There might be other things that we hold as true but that are much harder to verify. Something like 'all people are created equal', for example. Is this a truth? Is there evidence for it? Or is it a human goal that we aspire to make true?

Similarly for the axioms of mathematics: is '1 + 1 = 2' truth? How do we know and prove that? Isn't it just a set of rules that humans impose on the world?

Truth is not the same thing as opinion. If we're both standing beside my motorbike, and your opinion is that it is a Ducati, your opinion is not a truth. For many kinds of truth, there is a true answer and one-or-many false answer(s). For other kinds of classes of truth, there might be a range of valid opinions and arguments. 'We should take another look at nuclear energy now that we better understand the costs of fossil fuels' is such a statement: I'm not sure we'd say our opinions on it are 'truth', but certainly, based on the way we 'weight' a number of different factors, there are a range of valid responses.

The Bible has a lot to say about truth, including that the truth will make you free. (Not, as one newspaper typoed it, 'the truth shall make you fret', although sometimes it will do that too.)

'Whatsoever things are true... think on these things.'

I don't want us to get caught in the position of asking Pilate's question 'what is truth?' Like him, when we do that it is likely to be because the truth is difficult or unpleasant. But I hope we can avoid being too simplistic too: to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

[Gregory Matthews]

How do we know that  you will do that?  Perhaps you would use the ticket to vacation far away from David and his motorbike?