Crossposted from Entropy
I got into an argument online this week. Don't gasp, it happens quite often. However this argument was different, this argument actually made me think. The money quote from my antagonist:
Truth is an absolute. Hiding behind 'opinion' in order to avoid being told something you think is false is a cop out."
I, of course, retorted with some metaphysical mumbo jumbo based on Heisenberg's uncertainty principal. I believe that the uncertainty principle shows that there are no absolutes at the sub-atomic scale. I also realize that it doesn't scale so well.
It made me think, what is truth? You can say that truth is that which you have verified as valid personally. Our lives are so very limited though in what we directly observe. Magicians and psychologists have shown us that what we directly observe cannot always be trusted. If one cannot trust their own eyes to show them the truth, then does it still have meaning in an absolute sense?
Heisenberg says that we are incapable of making an absolute observation of a system without disturbing that system. In a more specific sense he said that one couldn't measure both the absolute position and velocity of a particle. Indeed, the more precisely you measure a particle's velocity the less you know about its position and vice-versa. More generally, the more precisely you 'know' something at one moment, the more likely that what you 'know' to be true will change.
You can't turn to Nature at it's most basic level to deliver absolute truth, you can't depend on your own senses to deliver absolute truth, what are you left with that can deliver this absolute truth?
As we expand away from our own senses to bring us information our ability to prove an absolute truth is further degraded. I've talked about the idea of 'trusted sources' before, and the concept has direct application here. As you receive information from sources that are not your own senses (perhaps you do include you senses in these calculations as well, I do) you place upon those sources of information a level of trust, that they are telling you the truth. You may impart more trust in NASA than the Flat Earth Society, but your ability to prove either theory with your own senses is limited.
Most people place more trust in NASA to tell them the truth than the Flat Earth Society. Experience has conditioned them to accept NASA as a 'trusted source'. They abdicate their own senses and accept the word of NASA on faith. Now, of course this is a simplistic example, but it demonstrates on a basic level what I'm talking about when it comes to trusted sources as they pertain to truth. Is truth build up from experience, observation and levels of trust in our sources of information?
One doesn't have to look beyond the front page of the news paper to see that trusted sources may not deserve our faith. From the scandals that wracked the New York Times, to the faulty intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq we see that the level of trust that we place in our sources may be unfounded. In the face of contradictory information from multiple sources of that may be less trusted do you change your beliefs in your trusted sources, or do you maintain your faith in your chosen source?
I think that is the heart of my argument against absolute truth. If all we are able to base our opinions of what is the truth upon are trusted 3rd parties and our own limited direct experience I don't believe that one can say with any acceptable degree of certainty that there are any 'absolute truths'. Just as a physicist can say, "There's a 99.999*10^16 possibility that a particle will be here," that is not an absolute. Is it good enough? Usually. Is it an absolute? Of course not. Absolute truth is something best reserved for Newtonian Physics and Religion.
In the end truth is tied to faith. Do you have faith in what your senses show you, do you have faith in what your trusted sources tell you? Depending on the degree of faith that you place on all of the sources of information that you have access to your 'truth' can, and most probably is, different from mine.
We all weigh our sources of information differently. In such a system there can be no absolute truth. You can put conditionals on truth. You can temper the variables associated with the information inputs. You can restrict people in the information that they use to form their opinions of the truth. Each step to restrict though takes you further away from any real sense of the absolute.
I leave you with a quote. Yes, the source is cheesy, but given the subject matter I find it appropriate.
"1500 years ago, everybody 'knew' that the Earth was the center of the universe. 500 years ago, everybody 'knew' that the Earth was flat. And 15 minutes ago, you 'knew' that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll 'know' tomorrow."