CHAPTER TWO -- C.2

Arthur M. Jackson

Copyright 2001, 2002, 2003

TRUTH

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A. Human beings will never be able to discover TRUTH, (defined below) but they can move nearer and nearer to it by inquiring into the nature of things. This process allows the achievement of Knowledge and Wisdom.

1. TRUTH (total knowledge) is a concept based on the presupposition that individuals can directly experience, or understand reality, God, or some other absolute reference system outside themselves, rather than only interpret such things drawing from observations or feelings.

From a supernatural perspective TRUTH -- God or something similar -- provides the "foundation" upon which a given folk religion rests. One element of this is studied by Karen Armstrong in, A HISTORY OF GOD. [24] There she traces how ideas about God have advanced as societies have accumulated a better understanding of themselves and the world around them. The most advanced religious thinkers recognize God as being totally unknowable. It seems to me that to rest the meaning of one’s life on something that is unknowable and thereby reject everything science and reason tell us about how to live a meaningful life is a frivolous choice.

Western science has provided us the key to unlock the puzzle of human knowledge. However, though science has provided the key, so far there has only been confusion about what the puzzle is that it unlocks.

In the world of classical physics Truth; i.e., the Laws of Science, would explain and predict every future event. It would be a condition similar to the one described by Lincoln Kinnear Barnett as "...a final flawless concurrence of theory and natural process, so complete that every observed phenomenon is accounted for and nothing is left out of the picture." [25] Some scientists and philosophers thought this Truth answered all questions including those about human behavior, needs, and goals.

They thought these laws would permit every event or phenomenon to be explained completely. Everything would be explainable in relation to everything else. All the forces acting in the universe would be understood within the same system of laws whether supernovas or the feeling of rapture a person feels when gazing at a thing of beauty. They believed that there would be nothing that could not be predicted and explained exactly.

This system of laws would allow one to predict where an atom, a person, or a galaxy would be at any given time in the future. However, today though many scientists still believe that science provides certain knowledge, it is recognized that prediction has severe limitations. Chaos theory [26] demonstrates that this kind of prediction is not possible in the universe as we know it. If TRUTH in this sense actually existed, it would have to exist outside of humanity, individually and collectively.

[p. 2]

As a result modern science takes truth to be "provisional and approximate." [27]

Nevertheless, there remains among many scientists a single-minded focus to know what the universe is like in spite of clear demonstrations by philosophers that Truth can never be achieved. How is it possible for science to maintain this effort in spite of Hume (1711-1776) and Kant's (1724-1804) clear demonstrations over 200 years ago that certain knowledge cannot be obtained by humans either through science or religion?

Seminal ideas on this topic can be found in Thomas Kuhn's essay on the history of science[28] examining the way science actually has emerged over the past 400 years or so. His thoughts on how to interpret this information are very insightful.

Science's interpretation of science lies at the core of their approach. Because science was traditionally interpreted to have as its goal the search for TRUTH (certain knowledge) it instilled that perspective into scientists. This vision has energized and directed them individually and collectively ever since.

An underlying assumption of this approach is the widely quoted words of Henry Poincare provided below:

"Scientists do not study nature because it is useful; they study it because they delight in it, and they delight in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful, it would not be worth knowing, and if nature were not worth knowing, life would not be worth living."[29]

Since leading scientists such as Poincare have presented a model of science that makes it appear to function outside the realm of community concern, this has distorted the history as well as the motives of science.

It has also provided the orientation for interpreting their history (primarily done in science text books, says Kuhn). Kuhn makes it clear how the foregoing has been accomplished. Scientists and those writing about science often confuse the relationship between truth and scientific achievements by ignoring their "failures" and writing them out of their history. They have succeeded in this approach because the scientific process really does provide data that leads to useful and satisfying knowledge; plus the individual scientist is not only intellectually challenged and fulfilled, they -- like the warriors who sacrifice their life in battle assured that they will wake up in Valhalla -- never survive to raise questions about the broader aspects of what they have been taught. So the system has a vested interest in maintaining the conviction in a linear progress toward certain knowledge, and a process to ensure that this training process is maintained.

Related to the matter of achieving TRUTH is the opposite side of the question. That is, whether or not there is any fact that is inherently unknowable or event that is unpredictable. This is something we can never know because there is always the possibility that any theory that says such is the case will be shown to be wrong by a completely new concept or advance of knowledge. It is therefore maintained here that one must be careful when assuming that some individual fact is unknowable, event unpredictable, or feat unachievable.

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Although many believe that Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle has pointed out a curtain beyond which humanity cannot look, this is not necessarily the case. The Uncertainty Principle, Second Law of Thermodynamics, Conservation of Mass-Energy, Einstein's speed of light do not necessarily represent the final word about how the Universe works. They represent humanity's best thinking and experience as of this time. But the future may present very different explanations. A hypothesis, theory, principle, Law, or point of view is useful if it leads us toward a Sustainable Belief that our Life Has Meaning. We must on principle reject the idea that hypotheses, theories, or laws are totally accurate statements about reality, or define absolute barriers or limits. Any barrier must contain a component of ignorance based on our unproven assumptions about the Universe, plus all the things we have not yet experienced. As David Hume's writings -- about human access to the ultimate nature of physical reality -- make clear, prediction is inherently risky. The foregoing applies to predictions about barriers to knowledge as well as about the future. In the spirit of John Dewey we should look at each prediction pragmatically as a tool to help thinking, not to prevent it.

It seems to me that Niels Bohr supports this position when he says, "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how Nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about Nature." [30] However, in my opinion Bohr violates his own principle in the process of attempting to apply it. It is my contention that the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics of which he was a primary author (but with the essential assistance of Werner Heisenberg), ends up demonstrating that physicists like everyone else can't avoid making assumptions about the nature of reality. In his effort to avoid ascribing attributes to quantum particles when they have not been observed, he ends up giving unobserved particles mystic attributes; i.e., their wave or particle character depend on the observer, that they have no location until they are observed, etc. It is clear that what we can say about Nature to a large degree depends on our understanding at a given point in history. But regardless of this we must make assumptions that go beyond our knowledge. And, although there may be absolute barriers, we must forever remain in doubt as to just where those points lie.

TRUTH, for Science of Ethics is considered to be forever beyond our grasp except in a tentative and general way. Also, it is not a primary goal in an Enlightened Community, and is not necessary for the creation of one.

2. KNOWLEDGE means information, data, understanding, ability to increase the odds of being right in our predictions. It permits the manipulation and use of the forces, attributes, and patterns of nature.

In spite of the fact that we can never be sure that a given event is inherently unpredictable, we can say that it is "currently unpredictable." An event is currently unpredictable, when: 1). Necessary predictive data cannot be gathered. 2). The ability to handle the necessary number of computations to predict the event exceeds the contemporary computation processes and equipment, or it takes longer to predict the outcome than for the real-time change to take place. 3). No way presently exists to reduce the problem to mathematical, predictive form.

To demonstrate what is meant consider the following example. What will be the exact path of a particular hurricane? We know the general direction that all hurricanes move, but we do not have adequate tools to gather data and analyze it so as to predict the exact path of a specific hurricane. Chaos theory tells us hurricane paths are determined, but impossible to predict except within certain time and geographical limits. Chaos theory says we can never know all the forces with sufficient accuracy to avoid the "butterfly effect" (a sensitive dependence on initial conditions). Also, errors must creep into our predictions unless all forces are considered because all things are interrelated in ways we don't understand fully. All things are not now known let alone being reducible to mathematical formulas and models. The ideas in this book will have been long superseded before the day arrives when most long range predictions do not fail because they are overwhelmed by our lack of information and the subtlety of the effects of myriads of factors.

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Of course the very act of using mathematics to understand or predict a physical force or event already misrepresents the physical reality. Mathematics is a way of representing relationships within the realm of Platonic Ideals. There are points and lines without dimensions and myriads of other wondrous things. Reality is something quite different. Everything is messy and contingent. Although small segments of reality may sometimes resemble a given mathematical relationship, the conditions under which the correspondence will be maintained is always open to question. And even though mathematics has been almost a miraculous tool for studying reality it is in the final analysis a tool and must never be seen as more than that. In the absence of total knowledge some assumptions are always necessary and this makes most predictions problematical. Unless we are careful to correct these assumptions (such as the fact that mathematical points and lines lack dimension, while real points and lines have dimension, etc.) we will miss essential aspects of reality.

The more data we have and the more powerful our tools for processing it, the more accurate our predictions can be at least within some narrow range of space and time. Nevertheless, we cannot foretell what people of the future will be able to predict. It seems to me that they will be able to make predictions and use forces beyond our wildest imaginations. However, it is clear that totality is inherently unknowable to humanity due to the large number of individual factors. Also, these factors -- most of which are not even known at any given time -- even when known, interact in unpredictable ways, and others are not known with sufficient accuracy to permit long-term predictions. As a result totality must forever remain unknown and unpredictable.

With the advance of science humanity has become able to understand and predict more and more of the forces of the Universe. But even more importantly we can now recognize an ethical dimension to all problems that involve human life. An Enlightened Community takes the individual to be the highest value. As a result individuals are not seen as things to be thrown away when they are not functioning well, or worked on and fixed as though they were a watch. Rather it is critical that they be as deeply involved in the process of taking care of their problem as circumstances permit. Ideally they might become experts on their condition and guide the study and research to help it proceed at the highest rate possible. Or, if their talents lie elsewhere, for example in fund raising, they might ensure that there would be researchers available to give this matter maximum attention. In this shared effort individuals contribute their problem not merely to help themselves, but as a means to help others and thereby fulfill their role as helping to perpetuate the species in such a way that all persons can achieve a Sustainable Belief that their Life Has Meaning. The more severe their problem the more they have to contribute to human progress.

This might be called the Christopher Reeve model, and his efforts to support work to find a cure for paralysis resulting from spinal cord injury serves as an example we all might follow to varying degrees.

3. WISDOM is that aspect of Knowledge which when applied to one's life increases the probability that they will achieve their goals and that those goals will lead them toward a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.

Knowledge and Wisdom draw their definition from human beings as the ultimate reference system. Knowledge and Wisdom mean what human beings understand. They are not about forever, but are very "here and now." They are the source of everything essential to develop a Science of Ethics and to utilize its findings; i.e., provide guidance to individuals in making satisfying life choices, setting up and maintaining organizations, etc. -- helping all individuals to become Enlightened Persons.

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PART THREE: Importance of Meaning of Human Life.

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The most basic need of every human being is to achieve and maintain a feeling that their life has meaning.

[p. 5]

This is true because in a Science of Ethics being alive (within the defined parameters) when one is physically able to end their own life is defined as having a feeling that their life has meaning. (Being dead is a little more complicated!) Only live people can do stuff, experience joy, have children, support a society and the species. Although dead people may cast a long shadow it's only because they once lived or their promoter lives/lived.

But what is actually being discussed when we talk about a feeling that one's life has meaning? A useful way to explore this is by examining some ideas Plato raises in PHILEBUS when he asks the following seminal question, "I want to know whether anyone of us would consent to live, having wisdom and mind and knowledge and memory of all things, but having no sense of pleasure or pain, either more or less, and wholly unaffected by these and the like feelings?" [31] This is a fantastic question. Up until thinking about it I had accepted that a feeling state was the essential part of a feeling that one's life has meaning. But Plato's question reminded me that in a healthy person it is the beliefs beneath our feelings (that guide our responses to stimuli and produce our feelings) that are more basic.

As Albert Ellis points out in Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) under our feelings and behaviors are the thoughts or beliefs that guide our responses to stimuli and cause them,[32] and this is the component of the equation to which we have the most access to impacting. Therefore, it is clear that the primary component -- belief -- of a feeling that one's life has meaning is responsible for, but in some sense independent of the feeling component. This realization helps to clarify the role of happiness and satisfaction.

It must be theoretically possible for healthy persons to achieve a feeling that their life has meaning even in the absence of feelings. The beliefs that produce the feelings in a feeling that one's life has meaning could produce that state even in the absence of feelings. Therefore, Plato's question can be answered in the affirmative and we now have a better-grounded understanding with which to explore a feeling that one's life has meaning. It, perhaps, should be mentioned that folk religions (e.g., Buddhism) sometime strive to help their members achieve just the state that repelled Plato -- no sense of pleasure or pain.

Recent research on brain function studying persons who have their feeling module damaged may help us to think more realistically about this issue. (Reference such research.)

Another way to get to the same conclusion about feelings is to examine Victor Frankl's experience which David Morris relates, [33] "Frankl believes he survived at least in part because, at a critical moment, when he felt absolutely overwhelmed by exhaustion, pain, and despair, he found a meaning [belief] that allowed him to go on. He suddenly imagined himself behind a lectern speaking to a large audience on the psychology of the concentration camps. [34] Amid the wreckage of European civilization, this almost crazed vision of civilized, scientific inquiry recommencing its normal work in the aftermath of unprecedented disaster gave him a reason not to give in to his despair. It also provided an individual instance of the general principle he saw at work in the death camps and in the world beyond. For Frankl, the crucial key to survival -- even in the face of an intolerable abyss of suffering -- lies in our power to discover or to attribute a meaning to our existence."

To me the above is an example of the concept that beliefs precede feelings. Frankl had a vision that produced a belief. If he could survive the concentration camp experience and work to help ensure that such things could never happen again, his life would be worthwhile (the state of feeling that one's life has meaning) and the suffering would not be totally pointless.

But normally one is not aware of the beliefs that support their feeling that life has meaning. These beliefs are like automatic assumptions coming out of one's experiences. It would take a very focused, probing effort to get to those beliefs that support the feeling that one's life has meaning. The following quote helps move us a little toward some additional understanding of the "feeling that one's life has meaning" concept.

[p. 6]

"[Victor] Frankl found himself living in a political version of the irrational universe that postwar existential philosophy came to describe as absurd: stripped of his identity, reduced to a number, denied his basic human dignity and rights, confined in a senseless routine, brutalized and tyrannized. Kafka invented nothing more terrifying than what Frankl faced every day. Yet this personal encounter with pain was for Frankl not a confirmation of existential nothingness. It was a turning point. The challenge he faced was to find a personal meaning in an apparently meaningless and inhuman existence. 'Woe to them who saw no more sense in their life,' he writes of his comrades in the camps, 'no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. They were soon lost.'" [35] I think it is important to note that what Frankl calls "personal meaning" is in reality only the specific process by which he achieved a universal state (feeling that one's life has meaning).

A. "Meaning of human life" describes a feeling state based on the interplay of one's beliefs, their "tribal" propensities, and their "wisdom" potential that results in their choosing to live rather than not. There are numerous relevant beliefs to consider. Some have positive value and some negative value. On the negative side are those that are anti-social such as: desire for revenge, to inflict pain and suffering on others, to perform a violent act where many may be killed in order to gain some recognition, etc. Others come out of non-sustainable beliefs because they conflict with current knowledge, are based only on authority and custom, depend on accident of birth or other limiting circumstances.

"Meaning of human life" is necessary but not sufficient to make ethical choices.

However, even though an individual may not be able to make ethical choices as defined by Science of Ethics, they may still function at a very high level of productivity and effectiveness. They may be filled with enthusiasm, zest, ecstasy, or at least hope about the future. They may feel they are doing useful and important things and that their life counts. They may wake up feeling good about the opportunity to live another day. Persons fitting the foregoing description have a feeling that their life has meaning. A feeling that one's life has meaning is in opposition to states of hopelessness, depression, despair, abuse of drugs, or a desire to commit suicide and end it all due to the foregoing states. Among the specific "...symptoms of depression [are]: lack of enthusiasm, poor appetite, feeling bored or uninterested, loss of interest in sex, trouble falling or staying asleep, crying easily, feeling downhearted or blue, feeling low in energy or slowed down, feeling hopeless about the future, thinking of suicide, and feeling lonely." [36]

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At a more medium level individuals feel that they are a part of their society and participate in elections, have a job and/or other activities that contribute to the well being of society, and family which they love and which loves them. They feel good about themselves, what they are doing, and their community. However, they may feel no connection to humanity and may even feel it is flawed and the universe would be better off without it. They would say they are living a happy life. They hold beliefs clearly not supportable by existing knowledge, but these beliefs are necessary to support their good feelings; e.g., that God loves them and hears their prayers.

At a lower level persons may see themselves as part of a family, but there is no deep connection and sharing. They may be in a relationship but there are barriers to total trust and acceptance. They may have a job, but it very likely involves taking advantage of the public, or doing things that have little social value, or may actually be socially destructive. Off the job they spend their time watching TV, drinking beer at the beach, or in other habitual activities that sustain them, but do not develop their humanity. They have no life goal other than having as much fun as possible and doing as little work as they can get away with. There is little happiness in their life. They see their goals as inherently in conflict with the goals of society and other people in general. They may have a pet that is their closest friend. Or, possibly, their best friend is Jesus.

At a still lower level individuals may abuse drugs, or alcohol, participate in criminal behavior, take advantage of others to obtain money. Their life is characterized by pain, misery, and other negative feelings. Happiness is a rare or non-existent state. Most of their relationships are exploitative or superficial.

And without a feeling that their life has meaning the person is ready to engage in self-destructive behavior that eventually causes someone else to kill them, or else they take their own life -- either directly or through indifference and neglect -- abuse of drugs, frequent fist fights, ignoring medical problems, life-threatening behavior such as Russian Roulette, etc. However, normally before this state is reached they go through a period of despair and/or unbearable pain. Deep depression is their constant companion. Any happiness is too rare to be remembered. They have very bad health that may kill them at an early age.

B. The correctness of the worldview (beliefs) that supports a feeling that one's life has meaning depends on the degree to which it would be sustainable in an Enlightened Community.

The foregoing is the exact opposite from beliefs that allow one to support a society or group that has beliefs harmful to others and/or themselves.

To change beliefs when they are found to disagree with one's best interpretation of available knowledge and experience one must maintain the ability to recognize one's ignorance and maintain openness to change with new data and insights. This requires that one's beliefs are not primarily dependent on authority and/or custom but depend on the best available knowledge about the universe.

C. It is only possible to determine whether or not the beliefs that support an individual's feeling that their life has meaning are sustainable by empirically studying the effects of those beliefs on oneself and on others.

D. Knowledge is not an end in itself, but has value only in so far as it helps individuals find Wisdom; i.e., set goals and make life choices that increase the likelihood of achieving a sustainable feeling that their life has meaning.

One of the most important questions for a Science of Ethics is, What is knowledge and wisdom for? Many thinkers of the past have believed and some still believe that knowledge purely for its own sake is good and to focus on using it for some practical purpose demeans its value. Also, scientists have tended to believe that knowledge is not for anything! Discovering and understanding it is all the pay-off necessary.

Science of Ethics takes a different view. The purpose of knowledge is to improve the quality of human life. The end toward which all knowledge should be directed is to help an ever increasing number of people achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning. Unused data, theory, or observation has not attained its potential worth. It may have brought satisfaction to the person who discovered it, and others who know about it. But it gains increasing value as it helps more and more individuals achieve a sustainable belief that their life has meaning.

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