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> There is one objective truth, of course Not necessarily, I think it's very likely that the foundation of truth is ever changing in itself, nothing has to be

> There is one objective truth, of course Not necessarily, I think it's very likely that the foundation of truth is ever changing in itself, nothing has to be fixed in time and space. > but there are higher-order concentric rings of abstractions above those that aren't strictly true but serve as an accurate enough first-order approximation of the truth I think one thing that was a big "haha" moment for me was actually reconsidering what I'm even trying to accomplish when discussing "truth". I realized that in actuality, we are simply framing facts and observations into conceptual models that allows us to predict or infer further conclusions. This means we really only care about the practicalities. Like you said, quantum physics and general relativity are simply two conceptual models, in practice they each work well for certain things, but we've found they are incompatible right now, and what one is good at the other not so much. And that's fine, unless you wrongly obsess over "truth", which you will never find. But if you focus on your practicalities, then it's a question of finding the most effective conceptual model you can, and then applying it to your life. When it comes to history, it's the same. It doesn't really matter what actually happened and why. What matters is the conceptual model you use to look at the artifacts you've got, and what that allows you to do today in your life. It might be that one framing of history helps you keep together a free society and keep authoritarian agents at bay, if so, it's a pretty good model of history. If it doesn't allow you to do this, and actually does the opposite, and that's not your goal, than it's a bad model of history. Start thinking that way, and history becomes a means to protect yourself from future mistakes using past data. Now your model of history can be objectively measured in how good it is at doing that.

tsimionescu 5y ago
This 'means to an end truth' should never be confused for the actual truth. QM and GR are both as true as we can make them. Newtonian mechanics is even more useful of a model, since it's much easier to work with, but it just isn't true at some point. The lesson to learn from the current limits of physics isn't that you should construct whichever narrative best serves your propaganda and stop obsessing about the truth. The only lesson they should teach you in history is to not obsess too much about details that just can't be known (like the internal motivations or beliefs of historical figures) and instead to focus on what actually happened (like the impact their actions had).
- didibus 5y ago
  I'm not sure you understood my "haha" moment. "Means to an end" generally assumes that the means is justified by the end goal, which isn't what I'm talking about. I'm saying that seeking truth is misguided, searching and defending any truth is always a falsehood, because there are only models of the world and their practical applications. This applies to history as well, we have fragments of the past, we will never know the truth of what happened and why, you can insist that your assessment is the true one, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. What matters is that your assessment is useful to you or to me right now, and that is the only thing we can successfully argue about, otherwise everything else is just our opinion of our own belief in the interpretation of the past. Generally this is implicitly ackowledged in science, it rarely claims an absolute truth, simply a model that best fits all the data, and which affords us the best predictions and the best methods for accomplishing some desired outcome. The model that succeed the best at that will be the agreed on "truth" and how we go about understanding things until a better model shows up. In that sense, the scientific "truth" is a moving target by design, because the success criteria for truth is just: the current most practical understanding. What that means for history is that yes, the science of history is very much grounded in this practical reality. You are successfully studying history if the lessons you take from the past allow you to predict the future or increase the likelihood of your desired outcome for some decision you need to make today. Effectively I'm arguing against the narratives of truth that serves people's agendas, but I'm doing so by pointing out that my "haha" moment related to this was realizing that truth is irrelevant, believing in truth itself is a mistake. If you start to instead seek practical relevance and start to see all truth as "models of the world" and not the real truth, you'll now be able to actually judge truths for what they really are and that means how useful and helpful they are to you or me at predicting events or generating some desired outcome.
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    I still think my position is very different, and your position still sounds to me like it would ignore known facts if they don't fit a useful narrative. Let's take some concrete examples. Say that a Volkswagen engineer came to a hypothetical ethical manager and said that they had discovered some of their cars' emissions were much higher in real life conditions than in the lab tests they reported. If the manager cared about the truth, they would investigate to find out how this came to be. If they cared about utility, they would hide this information, as it may cause Volkswagen to lose an edge. Similarly for historical purposes - an ethical historian who is interested in helping the English public have a good image of itself would discard information about the horrors that the British Empire forced many people through, and only discuss the nice things they did. After all, truth doesn't exist, so why complicate the story?
specialist 5y ago
> ...allows us to predict or infer further conclusions. This means we really only care about the practicalities. Exactly. What's this called? Post-Popperian? Predictionist? Predictionatarian? The last 4 years have transmuted me from a Popperian to a predictionist. Due to the futility, I've stopped trying to inform, refute, persuade. Now I only care about the quality and utility of predictions a model can make. Young Earth Creationism? Cool. What can I do with that bit of wisdom? Nothing? Ok, well, thanks for sharing, I guess.
dlivingston 5y ago
“Cogito ergo sum.” There is, by nature of anything existing at all, definitionally some objective reality.
- didibus 5y ago
  Descartes take is refuted by almost all philosophers that followed him, because it's just not a convincing argument. > The problem with Descartes’ standard for knowledge is that almost no beliefs meet it. Descartes thought he could show how our ordinary knowledge claims are ultimately based on the Cogito, but most philosophers have not been convinced by his case -- https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/descartes-i-think-therefore-i-am/ https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/descartes-i-think-... Now I don't deny the existence of a reality, I'm not saying everything is an illusion and we're not even real. I'm saying that reality need not be a constant, which would mean that truth can be a moving target, as it can change in time and space. And then I'm saying that irregardless of if that reality (or ground truth let's call it) is constant or ever changing, when we humans explain that truth, we are always simply modeling our understanding of it for practical purposes. Our search for truth itself is driven by this practical drive, understanding of the ground truth is researched in order to better predict the future or act upon our environment to create the future we'd prefer. If you instead think of our explained truths as the absolute ground truth, you are entering the world of human dogma and beliefs, that is a world of personal opinion, with no way to argue or debate anything, its only practical benefits are seeking comfort and/or power. For me, this was a big "haha" moment. I realized that the opposite of dogma is pragma. Your claim to the truth are useless, and in many cases harmful dogmas. It's much better to focus on practicalities that one model has over another. Most people's "truths" have glaring flaws anyways, that doesn't always invalidate their practicalities though, and that matters much more in the end. > If you're pragmatic, you're practical. You're living in the real world, wearing comfortable shoes. If you're dogmatic, you follow the rules. You're living in the world you want, and acting a little stuck up about it -- https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/pragmatic-dogmatic/ https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/pragmati...

tsimionescu 5y ago

This 'means to an end truth' should never be confused for the actual truth. QM and GR are both as true as we can make them. Newtonian mechanics is even more useful of a model, since it's much easier to work with, but it just isn't true at some point. The lesson to learn from the current limits of physics isn't that you should construct whichever narrative best serves your propaganda and stop obsessing about the truth. The only lesson they should teach you in history is to not obsess too much about details that just can't be known (like the internal motivations or beliefs of historical figures) and instead to focus on what actually happened (like the impact their actions had).

didibus 5y ago
I'm not sure you understood my "haha" moment. "Means to an end" generally assumes that the means is justified by the end goal, which isn't what I'm talking about. I'm saying that seeking truth is misguided, searching and defending any truth is always a falsehood, because there are only models of the world and their practical applications. This applies to history as well, we have fragments of the past, we will never know the truth of what happened and why, you can insist that your assessment is the true one, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. What matters is that your assessment is useful to you or to me right now, and that is the only thing we can successfully argue about, otherwise everything else is just our opinion of our own belief in the interpretation of the past. Generally this is implicitly ackowledged in science, it rarely claims an absolute truth, simply a model that best fits all the data, and which affords us the best predictions and the best methods for accomplishing some desired outcome. The model that succeed the best at that will be the agreed on "truth" and how we go about understanding things until a better model shows up. In that sense, the scientific "truth" is a moving target by design, because the success criteria for truth is just: the current most practical understanding. What that means for history is that yes, the science of history is very much grounded in this practical reality. You are successfully studying history if the lessons you take from the past allow you to predict the future or increase the likelihood of your desired outcome for some decision you need to make today. Effectively I'm arguing against the narratives of truth that serves people's agendas, but I'm doing so by pointing out that my "haha" moment related to this was realizing that truth is irrelevant, believing in truth itself is a mistake. If you start to instead seek practical relevance and start to see all truth as "models of the world" and not the real truth, you'll now be able to actually judge truths for what they really are and that means how useful and helpful they are to you or me at predicting events or generating some desired outcome.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  I still think my position is very different, and your position still sounds to me like it would ignore known facts if they don't fit a useful narrative. Let's take some concrete examples. Say that a Volkswagen engineer came to a hypothetical ethical manager and said that they had discovered some of their cars' emissions were much higher in real life conditions than in the lab tests they reported. If the manager cared about the truth, they would investigate to find out how this came to be. If they cared about utility, they would hide this information, as it may cause Volkswagen to lose an edge. Similarly for historical purposes - an ethical historian who is interested in helping the English public have a good image of itself would discard information about the horrors that the British Empire forced many people through, and only discuss the nice things they did. After all, truth doesn't exist, so why complicate the story?

specialist 5y ago

> ...allows us to predict or infer further conclusions. This means we really only care about the practicalities. Exactly. What's this called? Post-Popperian? Predictionist? Predictionatarian? The last 4 years have transmuted me from a Popperian to a predictionist. Due to the futility, I've stopped trying to inform, refute, persuade. Now I only care about the quality and utility of predictions a model can make. Young Earth Creationism? Cool. What can I do with that bit of wisdom? Nothing? Ok, well, thanks for sharing, I guess.

dlivingston 5y ago

“Cogito ergo sum.” There is, by nature of anything existing at all, definitionally some objective reality.

didibus 5y ago
Descartes take is refuted by almost all philosophers that followed him, because it's just not a convincing argument. > The problem with Descartes’ standard for knowledge is that almost no beliefs meet it. Descartes thought he could show how our ordinary knowledge claims are ultimately based on the Cogito, but most philosophers have not been convinced by his case -- https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/descartes-i-think-therefore-i-am/ https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2018/11/26/descartes-i-think-... Now I don't deny the existence of a reality, I'm not saying everything is an illusion and we're not even real. I'm saying that reality need not be a constant, which would mean that truth can be a moving target, as it can change in time and space. And then I'm saying that irregardless of if that reality (or ground truth let's call it) is constant or ever changing, when we humans explain that truth, we are always simply modeling our understanding of it for practical purposes. Our search for truth itself is driven by this practical drive, understanding of the ground truth is researched in order to better predict the future or act upon our environment to create the future we'd prefer. If you instead think of our explained truths as the absolute ground truth, you are entering the world of human dogma and beliefs, that is a world of personal opinion, with no way to argue or debate anything, its only practical benefits are seeking comfort and/or power. For me, this was a big "haha" moment. I realized that the opposite of dogma is pragma. Your claim to the truth are useless, and in many cases harmful dogmas. It's much better to focus on practicalities that one model has over another. Most people's "truths" have glaring flaws anyways, that doesn't always invalidate their practicalities though, and that matters much more in the end. > If you're pragmatic, you're practical. You're living in the real world, wearing comfortable shoes. If you're dogmatic, you follow the rules. You're living in the world you want, and acting a little stuck up about it -- https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/pragmatic-dogmatic/ https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/pragmati...