Truth

The quest for truth: is it a noble, virtuous undertaking, or an exercise in futility? Is it something of concern to every thinking individual, or a colossal waste of time adopted by those unwilling to pursue more honest ends? Is truth a simple, obvious fact, or a complicated and obscure concept? Since the beginnings of written language there are records of mankind’s pursuit of truth, but no concise definition of truth has yet been rendered. The obscurity of the concept of truth lies in the complexity of the questions surrounding the concept. Absolute truth will always elude us; as we discover more truths, we will simply devise more complex situations in which to test them.

The truth seems obvious enough in simple situations: If a tennis ball held in midair is released, it will drop to the ground. The sun rises and moves through the sky each day; it will do so again tomorrow. Two people, close to each other, can feel a sense of well–being, and know without reservation that it feels good to be together.

Look a little deeper, understand that there are complexities in any situation, and truth becomes a little harder to define. What actually will happen when we release the tennis ball depends on where we stand, or on what we mean by “release.” Even in the obvious case, quantum mechanics tells us that the ball doesn’t fall in the smooth path we perceive: closer inspection would show it moving in submicroscopic fits and starts, sometimes travelling upward, sometimes sideways, sometimes not moving at all. Worse, the same models tell us that there is a vanishingly small, yet distinctly finite, chance that the ball will not drop at all. We all know, of course, that the sun doesn’t really rise or move, at least not in the way we tend to think, and we know as well that the pattern of day and night won’t continue indefinitely. And while lovers might unquestionably enjoy being together, how do they enjoy it? Enough to miss Sunday’s football game? How long will the bliss of togetherness last? Will it not be affected by moods and by the passage of time, or even by the very realization that it is not absolute? Truth is becoming more elusive already.

Continue this grubbing beneath the surface of our simple reality and the truth becomes muddled, indeed. Do the ball, the sun, and the sky really exist outside of our perceptions? What is “love”? In the end, we must resort again to simple truths just to keep from drowning in a sea of existential doubt and despair: “I think, ergo I am.”

Can we ever discover a Truth, a concept or formula that will reduce any question or situation to a simple, understandable proposition? Strangely, an absolute answer to that question might come from the worlds of mathematics and computer science. British computer pioneer Alan Turing proved that no machine can completely model its own behavior. German mathemetician Kurt Gödel similarly proved that no logical system can ever be complete: loosely stated, Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem asserts that no system, device, or intelligence can exist which is capable of answering any question it can raise. Taken together, these two rigorously proven theorems strongly imply that our ability to create new problems will always outstrip our capacity for finding new truths for handling those problems. The quest for truth will never end.

Given that absolute truth is an absolute impossibility, should seekers after the truth abandon their quest? Of course not. Truth seekers should be heartened by the knowledge that demand for the byproducts of their searches is insatiable.

-- RonRisley - 18 Apr 1989