This is a Journal entry by Barton

Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 1

Barton

This is a copy of my original page, which I referred to elsewhere and thought I could still retrieve.

Here it is for those of you who wonder where it is I'm coming from.

This is the statement that preceeds anything you see written by me on h2g2.

Barton

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Insignificant but Pertinent Data

Name: Barton Lynn Rolsky
Sects: Several
Height: 6'5" (shortly after rising)
Weight: 250-300 (It's always somewhere in there.)
Eyes: 2, brown
Married: Happily
Voice: Deep Baritone
Degrees: 96.8
Profession: Computer Professional/Wizard/Guru/Geek(20 years)
Calling: Theatre (36 years)
Avocation: Smart ass (50 years)
Age: 53
E-Mail:[email protected]
Web Site:www.eznetinc.net/users/brolsky

If you're really curious, ask for more.





Impertinent Data

Perhaps the single most significant point to consider when endeavoring to understand why I have any place in this universe is that *I* am a specialist in understanding. While I do not claim to be proficient at more than a few thousand things, I have discovered that I can understand almost anything.

Why, you might ask, should I care if you (which is to say, me) understand anything at all?

The only reason you would ask such a question is a clear indication that you don't understand what understanding is all about.


Don't panic!

I can explain. (That is one of the key aspects of understanding.) The whole issue of understanding is central to explaining. There are any number of people who are very good at explaining. However, many of these people don't understand what they are explaining and therefore confuse the people who are attempting to understand what is being explained. (For people who explain without understanding please see the entries for Newscaster, Politician and Teacher.)

To explain why I have such exceptional powers of explanation, you will need to understand the function of three concepts which shape our universe and which are most often confused and intermixed.

I categorize these concepts under the heading of

Truth, Reality, and Honesty
(Trumpet flourish)

Truth, Reality, and Honesty are all used to explain some aspect of the universe in an attempt to provide understanding and to shape the nature of our responses to events as we encounter them. Unfortunately, most of the universe doesn't seem to understand the distinctions between these concepts. This, of course, is not my failing. As I have already warned you, I understand.

Truth is that area of explanation which totally abandons any attempt to truly understand a topic. Instead, Truth provides an explanation by postulating a correct answer. The act of postulation (which may be performed in public and in mixed company) is a process whereby the person making an explanation asserts a fact or condition based upon an assumption which must be accepted without proof. That is to say, Truth does not exist without Faith.

There is no point in questioning any issue which involves Truth. You either have faith or you don't. As far as I can determine, everything is based on, at least, one Truth. We could discuss this further, but I'm afraid that, for now, I'm going to have to ask you take this on faith.

Reality refers to those Facts which are established by reference to Things which can be measured with various devices which have been calibrated in various ways to standards which are completely arbitrary. The reason for Reality grows out of the common observation that some things are bigger than other things and, its corollary, that some things are smaller than other things. Reality is the basis for Science.

Science is a Religion which believes that by putting things in labeled boxes it can find an explanation for Life, the Universe, and Everything. (Please don't laugh. Many scientists understand that they don't understand, unfortunately none of them are teachers.)

Please note: Labels are a fundamental tool for locating things. For instance, you would not be able to find your socks if someone had not advised you to look in one of the boxes that pull out of that big thing in your bed room. That is, your socks are in THE DRAWER. (We'll investigate that very important and poorly understood word, 'the,' in my article on articles called "A The and The A -- Definitely Indefinite") But, please don't forget that labels are only labels, they don't explain anything. Otherwise stated, the map is not the territory.

Honesty is that behavior whereby a person states what he experiences with the assumption (faith) that what he experiences has some Reality and Truth. Now, most people are willing to admit that what they have Honestly experienced may not have been Real or True by someone else's standards, but they Honestly believe it was Really True to them.

Honesty then asserts that the universe is both individual and universal. It further asserts that the universe may be consensual or even occasional. What it doesn't assert is that any personal reality necessarily has any connection with any other. However, it does suggest that what is spoken honestly may have bearing on other individuals by virtue of similar organs of perception AND by similar shared symbols of expression (i.e. language and temporary loss of control of bodily functions.)

If you can accept that these three areas of explanation encompass most if not all items having or requiring understanding and, if you have read this far down the page, if you are willing to accept that I might be able to understand how all these things relate to issues such as "Napkins: Men, Women, and Table Manners" or "Cannibals: Vegetarian Diets and Table Manners" or even "Ghengis Kahn: His Architecture and Table Manors," then you might be willing to forgive even the tortured syntax of this sentence and consider the understanding I can provide.

If you can't . . . well . . . would you like to buy a flower?


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"Would you like to buy a flower?" was the plaintive plea of robed Hari Krishna practitioners in the late sixties as they accosted travelers in airports and train stations in an attempt to get a contribution and a chance to explain their personal interpretation of the belief structure they tried to follow in a country unfamiliar with the social background in which it originated.

I have adopted this phrase as my signal and warning to those who take time to read what I write here and elsewhere that I am both pathetic and assertive. That I present a different way of looking at things and that I am detaining you in your rush from here to there.

The fact that you stopped to read is, in itself, a sort of validation of my efforts. Thank you.


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Undoubtedly there will be more from me. I just don't know when to quit.


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Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 2

Barton

I am actively seeking other exemplars and role models for people who explain without understanding. For instance, I am tempted to include the category of religious leader. However, I have pesonally met at least two whom may actually have more understanding than explanation so that rules that category out as an exemplar but I am perfectly willing to accept particularly good bad examples. (Please, choose some leader from a faith that you have some major understanding of, otherwise, you would be demonstrating, yourself, a very good bad example of the hitherto unlisted category of 'bigots.'

Please note: as President and founder of BAB-USA (Bigots against Bigotry, USA Our motto, "We blindly hate all bigots!"), I am actively seeking members of every conceivable category who are utterly and blindly dedicated to the hatred of all bigots. Please feel free to apply below.

(No! We don't have a definition of bigotry and if you have to ask, you probably are too wishy-washy to join. But I won't say that you *must* be too wishy washy, because I don't want to start prejudging anyone.)

Barton


Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 3

Researcher U197087

http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,985375,00.htmlsmiley - wah


Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 4

Barton

Okay, I just got around to responding to this one Krispy because I was looking for something else to do to avoid doing something else.

I had read it previously and admired the article a lot. In particular, I found its irony to be so ironically understated as to be somewhat more than ironic. If that makes sense, then I failed utterly here.

(Yes, I'm still postponing responding to your feeler about sociopathy. I have some links, that aren't convincing either way but which certainly leave the door open for a Socratic discussion of how many teeth a horse has. If anyone needs that explained, please ask.)

I assume the reason you cited it was because it raises some of the issues that I raise about relativity versus absolutism.

It's nice to have someone who hasn't read what I wrote echo some of my sentiments even if in service of irony which as a device is often contrary to communicative needs, but then it's also one of those things that no one should be without a huge supply of. (Please don't cite me for ending a sentence with a preposition or splitting infinitives. I really don't care and I'll be forced to quote Winston Churchill at you.)

Irony is a way of signaling that something is not as was just stated. The irony of irony is that it cannot work in print without having first come to know the writer in such a way that one automatically knows that shi must be being ironic. Even then, one must often ask.

The signal that indicates that some speech is ironic is never a part of that speech. In fact, it is most often not speech, at all. Thus, we can say that we never said what we said because we never actually said it.

"Don't you take that tone with me, young man?"

"I'm sorry. What did I say?"

"It's not what you said, it's the way that you said it."

"Okay, how did I say it?"

"You said it like you didn't mean it."

"How could I possibly have done that?"

"Don't you take that tone with me, young man?"

Truth, Reality, and Honesty as I define them here are not the Truth, Reality, and Honesty we use in everyday life.

So, how does anyone know when I am using them this way or the other? Well, you have to listen for the way I use them, I guess. Or, you can pay attention to how carefully I define them.

Everyday speech is careless speech. It's careless because I can expect to correct misunderstandings almost immediately. I'm hardly ever using everyday speech when I write. You can tell this because my syllable count goes way up. Longer words generally have much more specific definitions. Of course, they are proportionately more likely to require a dictionary for full understanding. (I seem to have swallowed several as apetizers while reading the encyclopedia -- yes, it was an American encyclopedia not an encyclopaedia and thus doesn't really count. Besides once you've read them, it doesn't matter if they go out of print, the damage has already been done.)

Please note: I evidently did not devour spelling dictionaries. On days when I'm lazy, I expect you to cope. I offer the same service in return. Corrections accepted and ignored -- that's just the way I am. (How many ways can you spell 'relief'? Now try 'fish'.)

I have heard complaints from those who disagree with my definitions and with my assumptions. The first I can answer, the second I cannot. If I am forced to change my assumptions then I must begin all over, the whole discussion becomes meaningless. (Which is, of course, the comment of those who would alter my assumptions to their own.) Please feel free to develop your own arguments with your own assumptions. I will only go so far as to point out that we are as ships passing in the night on opposite sides of the planet.

If you reject my assumptions, I'll be happy to hear your substitutes and, if I cannot break them down to unitary forms from some combined form then I will follow where they lead me and allow you to decide if you truly meant to start from them. If so, then the end has been reached. There is seldom antagonsm intended.

The preceeding was a public service announcement.
Had this been a real emergency, you would have been instructed to tune to your emergency broacast station where you would have received further instructions.

This has been a test. It was only a test.

Barton




Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 5

Researcher U197087

I have no issue with ending sentences on a preposition, it's what I live for. smiley - bubbly


Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 6

psychocandy-moderation team leader

"Truth does not exist without Faith."

You know, I'm still itching to get into a discussion (yes, a discussion, not a debate) on this one with you, B, but I haven't the foggiest idea where to start. The mere word "faith" makes my brain shut down and the gears stop turning. There's plenty of things that have proven to be Truth, or Reality (at least relatively speaking... argh!), but I still don't know how to have Faith in anything. At least not that I'm aware of.

Throw me a bone here?


Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 7

Barton

Here's a mastodon clavicle.

It is impossible to speak without faith that the words you use will be understood because they have some basic meaning that is understood. This is more 'true' for nouns and adjectives than for verbs and adverbs. It is more true for active verbs than it is for passive ones.

Somewhere on hoo there is a discussion where I drove someone mildly crazy by asserting that even an apple and an apple might be as different as an apple and an orange.

He was asserting that there are fundamental truths in the real world that cannot be proven to be relative. What he settled on was one plus one equals two.

I asked him to show me a one in the real world. I tried to explain that in the real world there is no 'one'. 'One' is a counting symbol and as such it is an adjective. There must be one something. Then I tried to show him that one apple plus one apple is only two apples if there is not the assumption (or faith) that one natural apple was equivalent to another apple, even though it could be easily demonstrated that except on a symbolic level they were not equivalent in any way except according to an arbitrary category which he could not properly define.

In the same way, there is no 'red'. 'Red' is an adjective that describes a quality of some thing. That quality may clearly be misperceived by someone with red/green color blindness. So the assumption or faith that you have that I know what you mean by red might easily be proved wrong. Obviously, things get even worse when we try to use technical terminology without a proper understanding of their definitions. For instance, if we are in a fabric store and I ask three people to go and fetch me swatches that are red, scarlet, and crimson. There is little likelihood that they would bring back the same colors. Of course, there are specific definitions of what these colors are in terms of the colors of primary light reflected but even more than this, it is not possible to dye fabric as precisely as the definitions so, issues of choice and opinion must inevitably enter into the labeling even at the factory the dyes are mixed. Every choice is going to be an approximation. Still, in most cases, each of the three people would believe that they can tell the difference between these colors, at least, when they are held up side by side.

Faith is always expressed by the decision to accept an assumption as being fundamental and an elementary part of the universe.

"This room is empty." Can only be true based on the faith that you know what is excluded from consideration, such as air. That you are able to percieve all that matters, and that the room will not change in any important way while you look back at me to speak.

For instance, in "Stranger in a Strange Land" in order to demonstrate what a True Witness was, Jubal asked Anne what color the neighbor's house was. She replied that it was white, on this side. While Heinlein tried to make the point, even Anne made a fundamental assumption that the house had another side of which the side she saw was one. He did not make her classify the precise shade of white, which she might have done if she had been wearing her robes and acting in an official capacity. He allowed her to ignore the roof and any other trim. He allowed her to pretend that the windows, if any, were not part of the house or at least the house's color. He allowed her to treat white as a color, which it is not.

When I say that the map is not the territory, I am saying that this map of Illinois is not precisely the same as any portion of Illinois. Rather it is intended to be a systematic and reductive description of some aspects of the State of Illinois in a format that bears some relationship spatially with where those features might be located in reality.

The point is, that no matter how much one studies that map, the only knowledge you have about the actual state is based on your assumptions of what a map is and does.

If you say, I now know where Peoria is. Are you saying that you can absolutely place Peoria in space no matter where you are or are you saying that since I know I am here as represented on this map I can find my way to Peoria using the features described here. Now, suppose I tell you that the map was printed upside down and reversed from where things actually are does that change the accuracy of the map? So, long as you understand the rules for applying the symbols to the real world, it does not. Now suppose I tell you that this map is only a rough sketch and that nothing is in exact relationship to anything else, but that everything is in proportional relationship.

You would certainly go looking for another map if you needed exact data as to relationships. But it really wouldn't matter if all you cared was how many cities and towns you would pass on the way to Peoria from where you are following a specified route.

Why mention this? Well, why use Faith when what I mean is assumption? While every Faith is an assumption, every assumption is not a Faith. I may say, let's assume that this table is blue. I don't need to believe that the table is blue to make that assumption. I may have noticed that the table is really orange. Those who reject my assumption might insist that no assuming will change the fact that the table is orange. They will not trade their faith that the table is truly orange even for a momentary assumption for whatever purpose. Suppose now, that I ask them to stare at the table for thirty seconds, intently. Suppose that I ask them to hold up a piece of white paper and ask them what they see. They will see a blue table. Does that make any difference? To me, it says that color is relative to the circumstance and there are other experiments I could do to support that position. To someone of absolute Faith in the nature of color and orange tables, however, there is only an interesting optical illusion which can be explained by various physiological events and the nature of how the human brain sees color. None of that changes the fact that the table is orange. Suppose that while they are making this argument I arrange so that when they look down, the tables are blue. I will be accused of being a charlatan or a trickster because they have Faith that what was orange must be orange unless something else acts to change it.

When Richenda was in the hospital and had the reaction to the drug. The nurse called the pharmacist and reported that there was no evidence that she could be having that reaction. The nurse had Faith in the pharmacist. She had none in Richenda. We only managed to shake that faith by showing her the sheet which she had handed us that described precisely the symptoms that Richenda had reported. The nurse's reply, "That's not from our data base. We just printed it out." The nurse's faith reposed in the professionals she worked with and not with anything from a patient.

All of us have our Faiths. All of us are tested sorely, when our Faiths prove to be merely assumptions.

Faith then is a double assumption. We assume that it is True and we assume that it MUST be True. If it were not True then our universe would be a profoundly different place.

Suppose that your Faith that the sun will appear to rise in the East and set in the West were to be shown to be false, that the sun's setting and rising could, in fact happen in any direction. Your universe would have to be something other than what you believe it to be. That belief is based on various Faiths and Theories based on those Faiths that must be different if not permanent within your understanding of that concept.

Consider the scene in "Inherit the Wind" (a dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial) where the 'atheist' lawyer gets the 'fundamentalist' lawyer to accept a fossil into evidence. The first maintains that the fossil was dated several million years previously and the second maintains that he is mistaken because the oldest anything can be has been computed based on the ages of the people mentioned in the Old Testament. The Fundamentalist is not bothered by scientific evidence because his God is all powerful and can make anything to appear any way to any test. The Athiest then turns the table by forcing the other to admit that the word 'day' in the bible *might* have been of indeterminate length. Of course, once the issue of relative values were admitted, Bishop Usher's calculation is as meaningless as any scientists measurement, relative to each other. Yet, while both were flustered in turn, no point of Faith was overturned.

In most cases, Faith is an absolute. It can no more not 'be', to the Faith holder, than it can be altered in anyway. It is pointless to argue with someone with True Faith, because, anything you can conceivably say that might shake hir faith is, by definition, either hir own misunderstanding, or a deliberate trick and lie.

So, granting that you have any number of assumptions, do you have any actual Faiths. Ask yourself what there is that you cannot imagine being False, that is, not True. That is most like a Faith, unless it can be proven by reference to something else. In that case, check out the something else and so on till you come to something that you know simply is and must be. That is one of your Faiths.

Nothing can be True without Faith though any number of things can be mostly true, most of the time, if things don't change.

Barton


Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 8

psychocandy-moderation team leader

Arguments (and I mean arguments in general, I'm not insinuating that any of these assertions are yours, B) such as "this sort of apple is always red" and "the table is blue" are fairly good examples of what I'm talking about. You see, while I like to think I'm a fairly intelligent person (not exceptionally so, but reasonably enough to get by), statements like "the table is blue" or "gravity keeps us from floating off into space" I only accept as Truth (and I, by nature, cannot accept the possibility of Absolute Truth, but maybe I'll get to that later) because someone who is better trained than I in these matters has TOLD me so. What if we've been deceived? Sure, earth keeps spinning on its axis as it's done for aons, but what if SOMETHING HAPPENS?

In respect to statements such as "this table is blue"... well, the table may well appear to be orange to me, but if you told me it was in fact blue, we both know what would happen. I would not insist that the table was orange, stamping my foot and telling you that the table must be orange because that's what I've been led to believe. I'd likely question my perceptions, and my own ideas of what orange and blue are. I'd probably think to myself "well, I must've been confusing orange and blue all of these years, I must have misunderstood somewhere along the line". you must know better than I, I must be wrong, and I'll never again be able to trust my own perceptions. Now this is a bit of an extreme example, but you get where I'm coming from, I hope?

The act of faith requires a person to accept blindly that things are what they are because they have always been that way, that's the way they appear to be, or because someone they feel they have some reason to trust on the matter has asserted that it is so. Herein lies my problem.

I have placed faith in too many things over the years only to find out that I was wrong. When it comes to laws of science, I accept them to be true because I don't have the knowledge to form any opinion of my own. If presented with solid evidence, the best you'll get from me is "well, it certainly LOOKS that way..." I'm so good at being noncommittal and conceding that things are true just because I have yet to see evidence to the contrary. And there's always "yes, but what if..." Most of the Rules have been written by human beings, so I don't place too much stock in them, to be honest. Even the rules of nature are expressed and understood in human, and therefore fallible, concepts. Don't place faith in human beings, human beings will inevitably fail you.

Of course, when a lot of people use the word "faith", they're using it in a spiritual/theological sense. Here's another area where I take issue with having faith. Most major religious belief systems are based in some sort of karmic concept that actions are rewarded or punished on some cosmic level. What goes around comes around, that sort of thing. I cannot accept an idea such as this, because it goes contrary toward everything I've seen over the course of my lifetime. But I won't get into a theological discussion here, unless you want to. The closest philosophy to what I've seen and perceived to be true is Chaos Theory. You've heard of Lorenz's Butterfly Theory? Well, if a hurricane can be triggered by butterfly's wings, then are any of the Rules really true?

I took a slightly different angle on Anne's reply to Jubal's question in "Stranger" as to what color the house was. While the assumption that the house did in fact have another side was probably true, as houses usually do have four sides, the fact that one of those sides was white did not mean that the other sides were. Most people would assume that the other sides were painted the same color as the one which was visible, but I tend not to make those kinds of assumptions. They can lead to disappointment.

According to my dictionary, Faith is defined as unquestioning belief without benefit of evidence; as complete trust, confidence or reliance. That's something I'm really not very good at, if I'm capable of it at all. The best I can come up with is Hope.







Truth, Reality, Honesty

Post 9

Barton

And let's not forget charity, by which we are willing to allow that our hopes and someone else's faith may not actually be as mutually exclusive as they seem.

Life is not only a process of taking but also of giving. Money has little to do with it other than as a symbol of the attempt to place a value on all three, faith, hope, and charity.

The problem with value is that it tends to become equivalent to sacrifice which leads to an entirely different discussion.

Barton


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