The overwrought cliche, "Truth is in the eye of the beholder," seems like the closest we can ever come to a Truth. Everyone's truth is different; I personally know people who hold ideas that are ridiculous by any stretch of a sane person's imagination, and yet despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, these people remain as steadfastly convinced of these ideas as they are of their own names. To them, these ideas are the absolute truth. And if followers of the school of canonical sociology are following, as Luker put it, a logic of verification as opposed to discovery, then they approach their question with a possible answer already in mind, and they are simply setting out to hopefully confirm that answer. Does that bring them any closer to discovering truth? Does the 'salsa-dancing' method? Maybe Truth is as Luker said, an unattainable but nevertheless noble goal to strive for, sort of like world peace.
What happens when we discover Truth? I think we'll all melt. Maybe the discovery of Truth isn't a good thing. I don't necessarily agree with that statement; however the possibility for achieving some scientific feat doesn't mean we should go down that path. Plus, you'll be out of a job. In any case I don't think we as a collective have control over discovery. I'm pretty happy we don't. I think the value in science and technological innovation outweighs the alternative (an earlier death).
ReplyDeleteI think of truth as a framework that can be used to organize ideas and inquiries. In every experiment or exploration there needs to be a set of assumptions, and for pragmatic purposes, these are considered to be the "truth."
ReplyDeleteWhether there is big T Truth out there is an abstract question rather than a practical one, and I don't know if we should focus too much on it when doing our research. It seems to me that context and environment are always the most important considerations.
"The only constant is change" -- Heraclitus