Truth

Humans have lives just long enough to know that what we usually refer to as truth is ephemeral. Yet truth is something we cling on to, something we cherish so much as not to get lost in our journey forward.

The Relativity of Truth

Experience has led me to conclude that truth is most of the time relative, but not completely, so as not to fall into the pitfall of absolute relativism.

Absolute relativism is inherently contradictory: if “nothing can be absolute”, then the truth value of the assertion can not be absolute either. On the other hand, if it is not the case that “nothing can be absolute”, we still face the question about whether the statement is false (i.e., absolute truth exists) or an indeterminate third value (i.e., absolute truth may exist or not).

For the purpose of my writing, it is not productive to ask whether absolute objective truth exists. For now, I will put the question aside and focus on a more “pointed” version of relativity. While much flexibility exists for the “truthfulness” of any statement, there are trends and inclinations in it.

Value Judgement and the First Principles

Many theories in science are axiomatic systems. In a axiomatic system, all the propositions can be deduced from a limited set of axioms, or first principles. A first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption in the system. For instance, astronomy in Classical Greece predominantly adopts the Geocentric model, in which the first principle is that “Earth is the center of the universe”.

First principles are rather understood as intuitions and assumptions than as strictly proven statements. Apparently one cannot prove the truthfulness of any first principle using propositions from any system that builds on it: that is circular reasoning. Therefore, to determine the “truth value” of a first principle, one has to evaluate using another system that does not build upon it. For instance, starting from the twentieth century, physicists increasingly believe in Einstein’s relativity system, in which there is no absolute center of the universe, but systems of celestial bodies that interact with each other. Viewing from this contemporary system, it is safe to conclude that the “Earth is the center of the universe” proposition is false.

Standing from a historical viewpoint do help us determine the truthfulness of many propositions, but we are still not given a tool to verify first principles in contemporary systems simply because there is no more recent reference. Worse still, we are presented a terrifying possibility, in which the relativity system is the biggest prejudice man ever holds. There will be future theories that can explain things better or even completely overturn the previous system.

This might sound a bit dystopian, and might stir up worries. Like solving a maths problem, if one gets the first step wrong, isn’t the efforts involved in the later steps for nothing? What is the point of human effort being based on a premise that is not even known whether it is true or false?

To address the worries, we need to reconsider the meaning of “true” and “false”. It can be found that every discussion of truth value must be based on a certain external first principle; without the principle we cannot judge the truthfulness of propositions but take them for granted. To judge whether a proposition is right and wrong is to check whether the proposition can be deduced from a first principle that we are taking for granted. If it can be deduced, then that proposition is right, and vice versa.

Therefore, right and wrong are relative (to first principles). In other words, there are no right and wrong without acknowledging any first principles. With thousands of years of hard work, human knowledge has only become more, instead of more “correct”. So far, no single theory proposed is perfect; there are always exceptions. However, it is precisely the exceptions that drive us to progress.

Therefore, it is not productive to ask if a first principle is true or not. Maybe relativity is right in the long term; maybe it is not, but it does not matter. The true import of a theoretic system lies in the effects that it brings. From the geocentric model to relativism, from the law of contradiction to boolean logic, humans have reached the information age and are progressing unprecedently faster, and that’s all it matters.