How to use Truth to Uncover Life’s Meaning (Part 1 - On Falseness)
Part 1 — On the Falseness of Truth
Part 1 — On the Falseness of Truth
Truth is like the North Star that can guide you to your meaning.
Imagine that you are sitting on a boat on the open sea at night in the middle of a storm— the better you understand where you are, and how the boat and the waves behave, it helps you navigate through the storm more easily.
The truth is only useful in this manner if we don’t try prematurely settle for a truth that we can live with, rather than what it is in actuality. For this reason, we have to take the time to understand more about truth, before we can utilize it to get where we want.
The limitation of our tools
Nothing can be known for certain in this world.
Our senses are the primary means of observing the world, but they cannot be trusted because they are not reliable and do not give accurate information about the world.
Here are some examples as to why and how the truth is obfuscated by our senses:
1. Incomplete Information :
There is a whole spectrum of information that is outside our own ability to perceive them.
This is noticeably true for both our visual and auditory senses. The visible spectrum is a relatively small portion of the light spectrum. There are other animal species that are capable of perceiving a greater proportion of the visual and auditory spectrum like cats, dogs, and bees.
We also do not have a full understanding of all the important variables that influence life and how they relate with one another. Our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the world with the known information, but the amount of information we do not know is greater, and the information we do not know that we do not know, is far greater still.
So far it seems that no matter which path we decide to take on to study in-depth, we come across an insurmountable abyss in every direction. The more we learn, the more we understand how little we know. However, this is often only obvious when you have managed to make your way to the boundaries of a field.
Its important to not under-estimate the value of our errors i.e. in other words, situations where we end up getting a different outcome than we expected, because some of the greatest historical insights that went on the shape our futures were born from such scenarios.
This is a difficult task for the brain to undertake because it requires not only the mastery of all the previous knowledge and rigorous testing, but also the readiness and openness to throw away everything we have learned, in-exchange for a better and more accurate model of the field.
2. Altered Information :
Our brain alters the information that it has gained through our senses.
In our visual field, there are blood vessels and other blobs that block our vision. However, our brain is able to fill in the missing gaps and give us a consistent and full visual picture of the world. It essentially autocompletes and fills in the missing information.
You can also observe a similar phenomenon with reading, as in the example below:
it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae
it doesn’t matter in what order the letters in a word are, the only important thing is that the first and last letter be at the right place
~(Source for more in-depth analysis by Matt Davis, University of Cambridge)
Our brain is able to autocomplete a large part of information in our surroundings, but it only usually does this if it is simple and not super detailed. It also frequently does this with our peripheral vision.
3. Inaccurate Information :
Our senses do not gather accurate information.
There is a difference between perceived color and the actual color of an object. The perceived colors of an object are the colors of the light spectrum that were not absorbed but were reflected, and are therefore not an inherent property of the object. In other words, the actual color of the object can be argued to be any other color except for the one that we see.
4. Biased information :
The brain prioritizes information in terms of what is relevant for survival.
‘There are no facts, only interpretations.’
- Friedrich Nietzsche
We see what we want to see, and hear what we want to hear. In other words, the information we gather about our world is stored in a manner that is relevant and useful for our survival. It needs to be put in terms that we understand, so that we can store it properly in our minds.
The knowledge that we forget is usually information that is barely used i.e. has minimal relevance to our interests, and the information that we retain, is often what has been repeated several times and we have interpreted as having high relevance to our interests. For example, when you are learning to play a musical instrument like a piano, you have to play with it numerous times before you can play naturally because the repetition improves your retention. Same thing can be seen while studying any other form of new information. It is easier to learn things when we put in terms that we understand and can relate with. Another example is how the chorus of a song is the part that is repeated, and therefore, is also the part that most of the audience knows to sing along with, because it’s better retained.
However, it is also evolutionarily more advantageous to pay attention to a novel stimulus, rather than to things that have already been accepted as safe and non-threatening. The more we are used to a stimulus and therefore, have understood it thoroughly and deemed it to be safe, the less we pay attention to it. For example, the taste of chocolate, especially after a lengthy abstinence from it, is significantly more noticeable with the first bite than after we have already consumed a handful of the same chocolate. The same is true for a glass of wine.
In short, things that are rare and irrelevant to our interests are forgotten, and things that are unique but repeated and relevant to our interests, gets our attention.
So for the above mentioned reasons, even though the tools we create can get us closer to the absolute truth, we have no way to confirm the reality of existence outside of ourselves.
CONTINUE READING — PART 2 here.
For further exploring:
Nietzsche’s Perspectivism.
René Descartes famously discussed these ideas in A Discourse on Method :
I supposed that all the objects (presentations) that had ever entered into my mind when awake, had in them no more truth than the illusions of my dreams. But immediately upon this I observed that, whilst I thus wished to think that all was false, it was absolutely necessary that I, who thus thought, should be somewhat; and as I observed that this truth, I think, therefore I am (COGITO ERGO SUM).
Richard Feynman’s Video on Knowing vs Understanding.
Optical illusions are also good fun examples through which we can see past some of these flaws in our perception. For example, the Troxler effect is an example that shows how if there is an unchanging stimulus in our peripheral vision, then the brain fills in the information automatically.