wiki.secretGeekTypes of Truth and Proof
Sitting here now, in the charred ruins of our so called civilisation, it occurs to me that a few words may be in order.
I speak these words — whisper them — into the infinite chasm, the endless void, the darkening abyss - I croak these words and expect them only to be heard by - and lost upon - the singing crickets, the scampering cockroaches, the resilient bacterium and curious virii that are now the only life forms remaining.
Truth sounds like a "universal" concept, like there is only one definition of truth, and if we can all agree on the facts then we will all come to the same conclusions. Some truths may be relative, No absolute, but all truths are compatible with all other truths. There is one emerging consistent set of facts in this universe. You can count on it.
In this essay I will argue that there are several different types of “truth”, that they are generally incompatible with each other, and show how confusion between the different types of truth can make for a lot of disagreement.
Types of truth and proof I intend to cover:
You may think of course there is absolute truth and relative truth and think you’ve got it covered. No — that’s not where we’re going; it’s not even where we’re starting.
Social Truth
We’ll start with “social truth”. If Dave says his wife had a baby, you take that to be true. It’s socially true, and most of the time there is no contradiction. This form of truth has been around as long as humans and our ancestors were communicating.
Mathematical Truth
A more recent invention is “mathematical truth”. This is powerful stuff. If 2 + 2 = 4 and we know how the plus and minus operators work then it is “true” that 4 - 2 = 2. It’s true today, yesterday, 1000 years ago, 1000000 years from now, it’s true on land in the water on the moon on a distant planet. It’s universally true.
Scientific Truth
Legal Truth
I speak these words — whisper them — into the infinite chasm, the endless void, the darkening abyss - I croak these words and expect them only to be heard by - and lost upon - the singing crickets, the scampering cockroaches, the resilient (tiny bug things) that are now the only life forms remaining.
Truth sounds like a "universal" concept, like there is only one definition of truth, and if we can all agree on the facts then we will all come to the same conclusions.
In this essay I will argue that there are several different types of “truth”, that they are generally incompatible with each other, and show how confusion between the different types of truth can make for a lot of disagreement.
Types of truth and proof I intend to cover:
- Mathematics/Logical truth
- Scientific truth
- Engineering truth
- Legal Proof
- Political truth
- Sporting truth
- Truth in Poker
- War
- “Social” truth
- Artistic Truth
“You have your facts, we have our own facts.”
“Oh sure, you can prove anything with facts.”
MINSWAN - “Matz is nice so we are nice” (it’s still a power-defined truth… and just as fragile! See DHH)
“The golden rule.”
The concepts of truth and proof in mathematics and logic are absolute and universal.
A “mathematical proof” can not later be overturned. If 2 x 2 is proven to equal 2 + 2, then we’ve ruled out the possibility that new evidence or more accurate measurements could ever arise that would disprove this fact.
A scientific “proof” is very weak compared to a mathematical proof — but is extremely valuable in the so called “real world”. If we say something is “proven” in science, we mean it’s the simplest consistent explanation, and it has survived rigorous testing. But, science always reserves the right to refine/withdraw this truth as more evidence, better measurements, or a simpler explanation arises.
In law, truth generally, allegedly, amounts to considering what a reasonable person would believe, within a very small tolerance of doubt.
In criminal law a person is “presumed innocent” and the “burden of proof” is imposed on the prosecution. (International law is completely separate from domestic/national laws and will be covered later)
“The presumption of innocence is contained in article 14(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).”
Sez:
Those three different forms of proof and truth - mathematical, scientific, and legal - are clearly incompatible. Yet, between them, they’re the basis of much of our entire existence. And we will use words like truth without qualifying which realm we are referring to.
Manifold. Ant. Globe. Donut. Local truth. Everywhere consistent. Thus it is the universal truth? No - universal truth is more complex than the local truth — and is laughably wrong when tested against “everyone’s” local truth.
Next we have “political truth” - which is perhaps more influential on our daily lives than most of the truth types above, yet baffling to try and say anything about. Some would allege that political truth, in a democracy, is decided by “voters”. If a sufficient number of voters say it is true, then, politically, it is true. But voters only contribute very sporadically. Voting is always limited to a subset of the people who would be affected by the results of the election.
The parameters of what choices are given to voters are themselves decided by… what? By major political parties? By a kind of emergent consensus, full of compromise, stripped of detail, pushed by hidden forces, open, yet closed… unknowable.
Before moving onto other types of truth - ppl it’s worth considering “international law” - as this differs considerably from national or domestic law.
Conventions, treaties, standards, institutions.
In politics and war, truth is a battlefield with shifting borders.
Sun Tzu declared that "All warfare is based on deception
And so on.
References
- xkcd mathematics
- The half life of facts
- Thinking in bets - Annie duke
- A field guide to Lies and statistics - Daniel Levitin
- John Stuart mill
- The art of war
- 48 laws of power
- I’m abide view outside view.
- See also Anti-language
- Context collapse
- Leniency/forgiveness as a Christian concept - adult crime adult time - boys will be boys
- Who gets to be smart
- Tragedy is when … Comedy is when … ; 3 men in a boat situation involving the shirt that was wet.
- Hastorf and Cantril’s 1954 paper “They Saw a Game”
- Dan Kahan in 2012 published a paper “They Saw a Protest”
- ~~~~
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Xkcd mathematics
There are some consistency’s between one truth system and another.
An integer in mathematics, for example, works similarly to the computer science representation of a 32 bit integer. But in mathematics there is no limit to how large an integer can be. The compatability of the systems only works within a specific range.
Simple question — “Is the integer 1 the same as the real number 1?”
There are limitations to consistency and compatibility even within each system.
In mathematics
- Gödel’s incompleteness theorem
- Paradoxes
- Undefined results (eg 5/0)
- The halting problem, limits of computability.
(The halting problem is an interesting historical case of overlap between these different systems of truth.
It’s more well known amongst computer scientists than mathematicians… we think of it as a computing problem… but it is a pure mathematical problem — even if many people credit the thought experiment with precipitating the invention of computers.
In science -
Limitations include not just
- the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
- Can we, in a practical sense, perform the experiment needed?
- Can we gather enough data to have sufficient statistical power?
- Ethics !
- Cannot time travel to check evidence
One of the trickiest modern examples of the weird interplay of “different types of truth” is The Grand Lab Leak Theory of covid. There’s a few different versions of the theory (deliberate/accidental versus natural/man-made, etc.)
But what makes the arguments interminable is that it *looks* like a scientific question, but… well, it ain’t. It’s just an unknowable.
And on such topics, the less you know, the surer your opinion!
https://archive.md/DaBme
So much for truth, what about lies?
There are many types of untruth!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie#White_lie
A butler lie, “sorry, Q is not available.”
A white lie
Foma
Therapeutic lie (dementia)
Puffery
Perjury
Paternalistic deception
Minimizing
Denial
Omission
Weasel word
I can’t. Recal
Vranyo- Russian
“Hannah Arendt spoke about extraordinary cases in which an entire society is being lied to consistently”
Body language to detect lies — less reliable than you think
Polygraphs — questionable
* Sun Tzu declared that "All warfare is based on deception."
Memory hole - George Orwell
Chilling effect