Source: Facebook

—“Do you believe in absolute Truth? Do you believe it is knowable?”—

Speaking the most parsimonious (absolute) truth is possible.

We can know a most parsimonious truth – particularly if we specify its limits.

We can rarely know when we know it.

The primary challenges we face are (a)not knowing the laws underlying the physical universe, and the operations that are possible prior to the elements (chemistry). (b) not knowing the mathematics of the intermediate patterns of variation caused by the set of possible operations – a mathematics we are just beginning to understand; (c) not knowing the laws of information – meaning, not knowing the information necessary to change state (for us to perceive a change in state) in a host of information fields (causal density).

I try to avoid ‘absolute truth’, because it’s non operational.

0)Tautology (identity)

1) Analytic Truth (logical and mathematical proof)

2) Ideal Truth ( imaginary, platonic, perfection )

3) Most Parsimonious Truth ( real, perfection, law )

4) Testimonial Truth (due diligence and warranty, theory.)

5) Hypothetical Truth (reasonable but lacking due diligence)

6) Honesty

Most of the time, when people use the word ‘absolute truth’, they mean (2) Ideal Truth. What it means is “I don’t know how such a thing is constructed, so I will use this vague term.”

That’s the value of operational language. We can know when we know what we’re talking about and when we’re pretending we know what we’re talking about. And when we use platonic terminology (the ideal) we are broadcasting that we do not in fact know what we are talking about.