Okay, big picture, here is what I think . . . for now.
There is no objective reality that exists independently of our thoughts about it. What is real and/or true is not a quality of propositions themselves, it is a quality of our subjective opinions about them. That is, we assign qualities like truth, beauty, justice, etc.
Even if there were a truly “objective” physical reality, it is both unknown and unknowable as it almost certainly requires more than our paltry 5 sensory abilities which evolved over millions of years to maximize survival of our genetic information, not to understand ourselves and the universe. In attempting to do so, we are applying them to a purpose for which they were not designed (evolved).
I therefore agree with J.B.S. Haldane who observed, “my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.” Our limited sensory abilities necessarily create an absolute limit to our potential knowledge. How, for example, would you explain the color red to someone who had never experienced sight?
There is no THE truth; only my truth, your truth and their truth. It is borderline miraculous that we were able to form and sustain societies because shared truths (i.e., our truth) become increasingly difficult as you broaden the immediate family/tribal circle. In that respect, society may be our species’ greatest and most surprising achievement after language because it requires a significant degree of shared truth in order to successfully sustain. The development of societies in turn allowed for the specialization of labor from which virtually all subsequent advances in arts and sciences eventually emerged.
We are not born with ‘innate ideas’ but rather, as Locke suggested (and Aristotle before him), a tabula rasa (blank slate). Our thoughts about reality result exclusively from sensory inputs and the memory and subsequent manipulation of sensory inputs. Our mental processing, including reasoning and imagination, use these inputs as the “building blocks” for all ideation.
While there appears to be significant inter-subjective consistency in what we experience through our sensory apparatus, there is at least some variance in how we perceive the world around us and how each of us interprets these sensory inputs to produce our sense of reality. Your inner experience of red or green or sweet or sour is probably not identical to mine, and may be dramatically different, yet we have been trained and have agreed to refer to them in the same words of our particular language.
Personal truth is a conclusion that is based on our net assessment of the amount and quality of evidence in support or opposition at the time the evidence was considered. Truth, whether personal or shared, is therefore time dependent, in that something may have been considered true “then” but not true “now.” That being the case, things that were once agreed to be true WERE true at that time. If, at some later point in time, we conclude them to be partly or entirely false, it is not appropriate to say they were always false any more than it would be appropriate to say that what was once considered beautiful or just was not actually so at that time.
Thus, when we believed it was true that the earth was flat, it WAS true that the earth was flat. I’m not suggesting that a photo from space would not have revealed the earth to be more globe shaped than pancake shaped if it had been taken at the time. Rather, I’m saying that it was true as a social construct that the earth was flat, and remained so until opinions changed as a result of new information.
Truth is ultimately not about concurrence with “facts.” To suggest so is tantamount to saying that truth is determined by concurrence with things that are true. That is not a definition, it is a tautology. Facts are simply widely shared opinions. Like truth itself, a fact is a social construct that results from agreement among people, just as is beauty, justice, etc.
With the exception of personal emotional truths which neither require nor even allow for external validation (e.g., “I love my family”), there is nothing that may be considered to be certainly true or untrue. That having been said, as Bertrand Russell observed, “When one admits nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.” Thus, all opinions are not equal, some are better than others.
Just as our emotions and desires are not voluntary (“a man can do what he wants, but he cannot want what he wants” – Schopenhauer), neither are our beliefs or doubts. We do not choose to believe or doubt something. Rather, propositions and the evidence in support or opposition either meet our personal criteria for truth or they do not.
These criteria may change over time, but a person cannot be blamed for believing or not believing something as these convictions are as involuntary as the beating of our hearts. Feigning belief in something for which the supporting evidence does not meet our personal standards for truth is not a genuine belief, it is merely an exercise in deception – including self-deception – that is usually rooted in fear. Pascal’s famous cynical wager is an excellent example.
Groups benefit from their members agreeing on a common set of shared truths, including moral and ethical truths. Indeed, a basic set of shared truths is essential for any group or society to function cohesively and harmoniously. These shared truths and related values and attitudes virtually define a group.
For shared truths to be possible within a group, a common set of rules is needed for how truth is determined. For this to occur, a common approach (process) to reasoning and rationality must be adopted and consistently used. One of the biggest problems we have in the U.S. today is that a large proportion of our population simply does not exhibit consistent rationality in their reasoning and are therefore incapable of assimilating to a shared rational truth.
What distinguishes the method of science from other ways of fixing belief is criticism. The objective of criticism is refutation, NOT confirmation. What is not refuted may therefore be provisionally retained as true.
The ultimate goal of science is explanation (theory), the first step of which is prediction. Does the belief suggest or imply an expectation (hypothesis) that can be refuted by observation? If so, then it is a legitimate scientific question. If not, then it is not amenable to the methods of science.
To refute a proposition, we must first agree upon credible evidence or agreed upon “facts” by which the proposition may be judged to be in concurrence or not.
Example: If we accept that (a) Wednesday always falls between Tuesday and Thursday, and (b) yesterday was Tuesday and tomorrow is Thursday, then (c) we may provisionally accept (fail to refute) the proposition that today is Wednesday.
If there is no conceivable evidence that, if observed, would refute a proposition, then the proposition is imaginary.
Strictly speaking, we can never prove that anything causes or is caused by anything else. The best we can do is demonstrate the concurrence of one thing with another. However, even if event A is invariably followed by event B, it does not necessarily mean that A caused (i.e., brought about) B.
Every day that has ever occurred was preceded by a night and vice versa, but neither is the cause of the other. For thousands of years, the only swans that Europeans had ever seen were white. It was therefore considered self-evident that all swans were white until black swans were discovered in Australia. Thus, absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence, and that makes all inferences – and inductive reasoning in general – an unreliable path to truth.
Our experience of time is restricted to the past, in the form of memories, or to the future, in the form of expectations. There is no “now” in our experience of time. That is, we do not experience a truly simultaneous awareness of events as they occur. There is always a delay, however brief, between sensory input of events and our awareness and inner experience of those sensory inputs. Thus, all experience is actually a memory of the immediate past.
Our memory – and the resulting vividness of experienced events – begins to erode immediately after we become aware of the sensory inputs that produced them. This erosion in the quality of the experience is what we have (mis)interpreted to be the difference between past and present.
“Those are my principles. If you don’t like them, I have others.”
– Groucho Marx
Note: For more on this topic see:
Rupp MT. “Of Philosophers and Pharmacists.” Am J Health-Syst Pharm, 2016;73:1278-80.
Rupp MT. “The case for philosophy in pharmacy education.” Am J Health-Syst Pharm, 2017;74:1192-5.
Rupp MT. “Encouraging Students to Challenge Assumptions.” Am J Pharm Educ, 2019;83:727-728.