Chapter 9: Truth Search
Contents
I. Introduction: Truth in Uncertainty
II. Independent Investigation of Truth
Everyone does it. At night. Looking out the bus window. After a particularly bad breakup. We ask ourselves, "Who am I? Is there a purpose to my life, to any life? Why does suffering exist? How did we get here? Is there a God? Does He care about me? What is 'truth' and does it even exist?" In short, we pose the Big Questions of, in Douglas Adams words, "life, the universe, and Everything."
Most of us never find the ultimate answer to these questions. We tend to put them aside, get on with the daily grind, pick them up again at odd moments, then stick them in a drawer and forget about them until our next existential crisis. Occasionally, we discover a partial answer, or something that feels like an answer even though we can't find words to describe it. Most people find their own personal answers, whether in religion, science, social work, astronomy, or bird watching. But sometimes a deeper, more communal part of us cries out for an answer, not just for ourselves, but for the rest of humanity too. We want to find Truth - objective, measurable, eternal.
But then again, we dismiss the notion of a "deterministic" universe - the idea that every action is written into the very laws governing creation. We prefer to believe in free will, in individuality over groupthink, in personality over machine. We prefer, in other words, uncertainty.
So can we have our cake and eat it too? Can humans ever hope to find a definitive "Truth" without compromising our freedom, our diversity of thought? Personally, I think so. But I also think that our definition of Truth will have to change drastically before that day arrives.
In the quantum world, reality lies in a state of superposition in which all possible outcomes exist at once in potentia. To imagine this on a macroscopic scale, think of a baby. Even the parents of the child have absolutely no idea what course its life will take. A combination of nature (genes) and nurture (environment, upbringing) will help guide the course of its life - but the absolute path - that on Wednesday, April 27, 2020, she will be ploughing through a final exam at Columbia, or he'll be applying for a visa to Japan - is totally unknown. Or, in other words, every path is open to the baby, but only one, eventually, will be chosen.
Similarly, universal truth operates more as a conversation than as a law. Just as our observations interact with the material universe to form the reality we currently observe, our thoughts and questions interact with the internal world of truth, with it influencing us, and vice versa. It doesn't do to define the universe in absolutes - either subjective or objective, true or false, black or white. We know from daily experience that such views breed only polarization and distrust.
In a wonderful article for New Scientist magazine, documentary filmmaker David Malone writes "The profound discoveries of modern mathematics and science show that life and thinking flourish only in the liminal and fertile land that lies between too much certainly and too much doubt. The art of scientific inquiry is to tack back and forth between the two."
The same advice applies to our truth search. Too much certitude hampers our ability to be open-minded or to embrace the evolving dynamism of life. Too much skepticism, on the other hand, leads to intellectual isolation, as the skeptic systematically walls himself off from anything resembling untestable faith. Even scientists, those individuals bound to experimentation and provability, are moved by intuition and inspiration, just as religious adherents often question the existence of that very God to whom they pray.
Truth, then, should not be confused (as it so often is) with certainty. Certainty necessitates the end of wonder, curiosity, hope - the end of the very journey of living! The path to certainty is marked by radicalism, ideology, irrationality, and intellectual death. History has born witness to countless attempts at certainty - from Hitler's declaration of Jewish insidiousness and inferiority to Osama bin Laden's vengeful anti-Western rhetoric. In all cases, the proponents of certainty believed their certitude to equal truth. And in all cases, history proved them pathetically misguided.
In our own lives, it's easy to be certain of things. Certitude in a general sense can be morally sound - as long as that generality doesn't contaminate the unavoidable specificity of real life. Abortion, gay rights, the death penalty, terrorism - these are all issues about which many people claim to be certain. But this certainty denies the human messiness behind the big-name front. We can be certain about things in a perfect, platonic sense, but once the real world gets involved, certitude breeds oversimplification, which breeds ideology and division.
So what is Truth? Truth usually finds itself in the place where opposites meet, be those opposites doubt and certainty, East and West, liberalism and conservativism. Some people may find this definition of Truth indecisive or all-inclusive. It's anything but. Truth is not comfortable and often involves us embracing something we'd rather not touch. It is about Them as much as it is about Us. Uncertainty is not instability, hesitation, or quandary. It is merely leaving the door ajar to the possibility that the world contains something greater than we've yet understood.
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find anything that agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
Siddartha Gautama (The Buddha)
Excerpts: The Promulgation of Universal Peace
Abdu'l-Baha
Furthermore, know ye that God has created in man the power of reason, whereby man is enabled to investigate reality. God has not intended man to imitate blindly his fathers and ancestors. He has endowed him with mind, or the faculty of reasoning, by the exercise of which he is to investigate and discover the truth, and that which he finds real and true he must accept. He must not be an imitator or blind follower of any soul. He must not rely implicitly upon the opinion of any man without investigation; nay, each soul must seek intelligently and independently, arriving at a real conclusion and bound only by that reality. The greatest cause of bereavement and disheartening in the world of humanity is ignorance based upon blind imitation. It is due to this that wars and battles prevail; from this cause hatred and animosity arise continually among mankind. (p. 291)
God has given man the eye of investigation by which he may see and recognize truth. He has endowed man with ears that he may hear the message of reality and conferred upon him the gift of reason by which he may discover things for himself. This is his endowment and equipment for the investigation of reality. Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another's ears nor comprehend with another's brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God. Therefore, depend upon your own reason and judgment and adhere to the outcome of your own investigation; otherwise, you will be utterly submerged in the sea of ignorance and deprived of all the bounties of God. Turn to God, supplicate humbly at His threshold, seeking assistance and confirmation, that God may rend asunder the veils that obscure your vision. Then will your eyes be filled with illumination, face to face you will behold the reality of God and your heart become completely purified from the dross of ignorance, reflecting the glories and bounties of the Kingdom. (p. 293)
We must not be content with simply following a certain course because we find our fathers pursued that course. It is the duty of everyone to investigate reality, and investigation of reality by another will not do for us. If all in the world were rich and one man poor, of what use are these riches to that man? If all the world be virtuous and a man steeped in vice, what good results are forthcoming from him? If all the world be resplendent and a man blind, where are his benefits? If all the world be in plenty and a man hungry, what sustenance does he derive? Therefore, every man must be an investigator for himself. Ideas and beliefs left by his fathers and ancestors as a heritage will not suffice, for adherence to these are but imitations, and imitations have ever been a cause of disappointment and misguidance. Be investigators of reality that you may attain the verity of truth and life. (p. 294)
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Excerpt: The Search for Truth
David Chandler
Some people might wonder what motivates a physics teacher to get up and talk about religion and world issues. I am not a professional political scientist or sociologist or theologian. But I am a concerned citizen and a thinking person. To be a scientist does not mean you have to be a one-dimensional person out of touch with life beyond the lab. Physics used to be called natural philosophy. It is a branch of philosophy in that it is part of the quest for truth. The same thing that motivates me to ponder the true nature of the physical world leads me to explore other realms as well.
On another level, I am concerned with political and religious issues because science is not conducted in an ivory tower. I have to come to grips with the fact that one of the largest employers of scientists and engineers is the defense industry. There are social consequences to what we do. I feel it is my responsibility as a physics teacher to help you become not only technically proficient, but also a thinking, caring person who will not automatically sell your talents to the highest bidder.
Enough introduction. What I want to talk about today is the search for truth. First, I encourage you to think. Most people don't think. They listen to people they think they can trust and then they believe what they are told. That's why propaganda works so efficiently. When I encourage you to think I am being a subversive. Socrates encouraged his followers to think, and he was accused of corrupting the youth. The reason is pretty clear. When you think for yourself you may come out with answers that deviate from the accepted truths of society around you. It means a lot of people are going to be upset with you.
When it comes to thinking, there is a word you need to understand, and that is "Orthodoxy." This world is full of orthodoxies, both in religion and in other fields. Orthodoxy literally means "right thinking." Orthodoxy places a high premium on holding to the truth, and in that sense it is good. But there is a paradox here. Orthodoxy can intimidate or punish those who actually have the highest commitment to truth: the critical thinkers who risk falling into heresy by pushing the search for truth into new regions or critically analyzing, and possibly rejecting, the accepted truths of the past. True orthodoxy, if it really values truth, must prefer heretical ideas over unexamined ideas. One must not be afraid of heresy and error or one would never leave home base. Orthodoxy represents the accumulated wisdom of generations, and thus it is foolish to dismiss it lightly. But truth is not static. Our knowledge is partial and uncertain. Truth does not come handed to us on a platter.
Some people imagine they have an infallible book with the ultimate truth written in it. Even if this were so, the problem is, as soon as you read the book you pass that ultimate truth through the filter of a fallible mind. A fallible mind can't even recognize the ultimate truth when it is presented on a silver platter. For Christians, this is part of the meaning and symbolism of the crucifixion of Christ. God became man and we killed him. Those who were most certain in their knowledge of "The Truth" were the ones who lead the cheering section. I am not making scapegoats here. We crucify God even today in a thousand ways. Salvation cannot consist in having correct ideas or no one would be saved.
We show up on this planet and look around and wonder who the heck we are and what the world is all about. Coming to the truth involves a search. Everyone out there you turn to for answers is a searcher as well. This is not to discourage you. Take it from me, a fellow searcher: I believe there are glimpses of the truth to be had out there.
Another key word is conservatism. What do people mean when they talk about conservatism? I am really a pretty conservative guy. I am married to the woman I live with, I work for a living, I don't have purple hair or wear an earring in my ear. Many of my ideas are pretty conservative too. I grew up in a Republican, family that attended a very conservative Protestant church. I never went through a massive teenage rebellion where I threw out all that my parents believed and started from scratch. A lot of my ideas are different now, but I got from there to here along an evolutionary path of small, incremental changes in my thinking as I was exposed to new ideas and new experiences.
Conservatism is most often associated with political ideas. I find it ironic that political conservatives seem to be the most prone to wave flags and indulge in the symbolism and rhetoric of the American Revolution, while putting down revolutions wherever they crop up in the world. It seems to me that true conservatism in America should mean retaining the spirit that inspired the revolution, not empire building around the world. I don't see true conservatism in America today; I see greed.
The basic idea behind conservatism is that it is good to stay connected to your roots. One area that is very conservative in its very nature is science. Isaac Newton would never have arrived at his law of gravitation if he had not built upon what Kepler and Copernicus and Galileo had achieved before him. He said that if he saw farther than other men it was because he stood on the shoulders of giants. In other words his ideas were rooted in the accumulated knowledge of his day. Science that has no roots is pseudo science.
There is another word that also deals with the concept of roots, and that is radicalism. "Radical" literally means to go to the root. Science also offers examples of radical changes in thought. Copernicus shifted the center of the universe from the earth to the sun. That's a pretty radical shift in thinking. Instead of two separate realms, the earth down here and the heavens up there, the earth became a heavenly body and the heavenly bodies became other worlds. Interestingly enough, the more scholars study the process by which Copernicus came up with this radical idea, the more they are impressed with the conservatism that lay behind it. The real reason Copernicus rejected the planetary theories of his day was that with all the complications added to improve the accuracy of computations, the theory was getting too far from the roots established by Aristotle. By cutting through all the frills, searching for the real fundamentals of planetary science, in the manner of a true conservative, he adjusted one of the foundation ideas and came to be seen as a radical thinker. The ideas he proposed spawned what has become known as the Copernican Revolution.
True conservatism and true radicalism have a lot in common. Neither is the province of shallow thinking. To find ones roots, whether to preserve them or to criticize them, requires one to cut through all the underbrush of conventional ideas that hide them. Often, as in the case of Copernicus, the true conservative and the true radical are one in the same person.
Article: Bill Moyers on Faith & Reason
Bill Moyers
With the buzz around the book and then the film version of The Da Vinci Code reaching a fever pitch and The Passion of the Christ ranked among the 10 highest-grossing movies ever, what is it about religion that's got America hooked? It's an old debate between absolutes, the contrasting viewpoints of belief and disbelief that stirs the passions. From the popular to the public square - 79% of self-identified evangelical Christians cast ballots for President Bush in 2004 - the tug of war between reason between faith is the undercurrent of our society in what some see as a fundamentalist era. On one end of the spectrum people say, "Only religion counts." On the other end, "Only reason counts." How do we keep the public space between reason and faith, where most of us spend our lives, from becoming a no-man's land of constant warfare?
Neither wholly a believer nor wholly a skeptic, I've always been a fellow who falls in the middle of this one. I value democracy as a co-operative where compromise keeps the peace by enabling each of us to believe what we will, according to our own conscience while settling our political and economic differences by common sense. There's a moving verse in the Hebrew Bible: "Come now, and let us reason together." But there is also a moving verse in the Christian New Testament: "I believe. Help Thou my Unbelief." Most of us ride the seesaw of faith and reason. Yes, it's an ancient conflict, a long-running argument, but with all the fear, violence, and intolerance that grip our times, we have to come to terms with the fact that it must be reason and faith, not reason versus faith. Otherwise, we would tear our society apart as Europe so often did - and may do yet again.
In a world of information overload, occupied by cell phones, iPods, the Internet, and a thousand channels where do we turn for direction? Recently some of the world's most provocative writers were gathered in New York by the PEN American Center to take on the issues of faith and reason. Their stories can help us see into the truth of experience that is obscured by the different meanings each faith assigns to the same language. Through craft and conscience, writers wrestle to negotiate between black and white. Their tales of suffering and redemption, war and peace, violence and love reflect the lived experience of human beings baffled by the language of theology and the abstractions of reason. Novelists, essayists, and poets help us clear a path through that briar patch of intractable viewpoints where desperate people searching for hope often get lost.
By holding language up like a kaleidoscope and turning it against the light, they tell and re-tell our individual stories and our collective human story and very often enable us to see the world through the lens of other people's reality. What could be more salient to the discussion of faith and reason in a time of polarized passions than to ask our creative minds from the world of literature for guidance through the absolutes and ambiguities of our age? In negotiating our way into the gray world between faith and reason, we need all the help we can get.