Truth Times Five

Perusing through some "science blogs" I came across a hierarchy of truth, or at least the usage of the term truth. According to the respondent, truth has different meanings for different categories of users. The list looks like this:

"...an explanation of 5 different domains of usage of "truth" that each have their own paradigms, standards of proof, protocols, and history:
(1) Axiomatic Proof (from Euclid through Godel and beyond);
(2) Empirical Proof (Scientific Method);
(3) PoliticoLegal (O.J. Simpson was "Not Guilty" by Criminal Law; elected politician claims mandate from constituency);
(4) Aesthetic Truth (Symphony, painting, poem is beautiful or ugly to you regardless of critics and other audiences);
(5) Revealed Truth (religious/spiritual/paranormal experience subjectively true to you, incommuncable [sic] to others).

While his point is that the concept of truth is actually misused by groups having different focuses, the list tends to stratify into levels of what is really true, ie. levels of truth. This is a materialist fallacy and leads to relativism, even in the definition of "norms for science" (blog for another day).

The blog in question is a materialist based blog, and so it is understandable that paranormal and revealed truths are considered the same. It is also understandable that there is no concept of truth being not material, and that the list is not a coherent grouping but is mixed.

For example, there is only one material proof on the list - empirical proof. This has been shown repeatedly to be contingent and not truth in any sense. So it should be identified as a false usage of the term, truth.

The other "truth" items are not material, despite some having material input components. Mathematical, "politcolegal", aesthetic and revealed proofs or "truths" all have none of the physical characteristics that make an entity parametrically definable using material measures. They are arrived at subjectively, have no physical qualities, and are non-material.

So the point is that the material world (still) contains no truth. Truth is a feature of reality that is the non-material reality space. This is admitted in item 5, but applies to the other items except item 2 as well.

The author is correct in his evaluation of the incorrect usage of truth, even though the division is not accurate. The author concludes:

"Leaders in each of the 5 domains can be dangerous if they enter another domain with hammer in hand, seking [sic] the familar [sic] nails. It is generally a mistake, albeit often made by media, to assume that a Nobel laureate, film celebrity, sports hero, spiritual leader, or regent is magically qualified to solve probelsm [sic] in another domain. "What is truth"? is not just a line from a Pilate/Christ trial, but a legitimate metaphysical question whenever the term is used without restriction to its domain."

The discussion continued into the realm of educating logic as a solution to this issue. But logic is only a partial solution or maybe just a doorway to a solution. The philosophy of the extension of reality beyond materialism should be a precursor to both logic and empiricism, as well as mathematics and communication using language.

I do agree with the conclusion above, to a certain extent. A triple PhD in genetics doesn't necessarily have a good grip on anything else. But conversely, a triple PhD in genetics might well spend enough contemplation to arrive at unbiased subjective truths - the PhD's are not an indicator one way or another. It is possible to consider a triple PhD to be just as non-contemplative as a dump truck driver, and this is the recommended approach: test everything, including inputs from a triple PhD... and the dump tuck driver: no discrimation on the basis of "authority".

It turns out that truth is not a material component, it is a subjective space discernment, one that can be tested, retested and compared to others discernments. It is not the case that something that is discerned internally is "subjectively true, but incommunicable to others", as is stated in truth item 5, above.

It is the case, however, that such subjective truth cannot be adequately communicated to the

materially bound

, where Philosophical Materialism dogma is considered "truth" and all else is denied as contradictory. Dogmatic denial leads only to cloistered manufactured reality, it cannot lead to any sort of TRUTH; that requires objectivity, not artificial restriction.

Philosophical Materialism is an artificial intellectual restriction to a self-refuting thought space. It is false.