Truth and Significance

 A few months ago, I stumbled across the phrase "The Tyranny of Truth" on someone's blog, and an appeal (not directly by the author) not to be bound by it... I can't find where, although I think I remember the source, but it appears to be gone, so I'll let sleeping dogs lie. I am much taken by the idea, although I can't fully understand what is generally meant by it. I know what it means to me, and I know what AI makes of it, and I've read "The Tyranny of Truth" by J. A. FitzPatrick and find much to disagree with! Which leaves me in a bit of a pickle, although also sort of proves my very point... Or at least the point I think I am trying to make.

I (and I think most people in Western culture, at least) have been brought up to place huge value on 'truth'. One must seek out the truth, defend the truth, be bound by the truth. 

The problem with the truth is that it is an act of faith - it asserts that there is one belief that is 'true' and therefore all other beliefs that don't align to this 'true' belief must be wrong... And of course, it's perhaps no coincidence that 'wrong' has come to mean both 'incorrect' and 'wicked'.

Training as a scientist, huge value is placed on facts... But facts are NOT truth, and science does not fall into that trap of suggesting they are. Scientists don't believe that facts are 'true', they simply believe that they are independently measurable values. They don't believe that their models are 'true', they simply believe that they make correct predictions of facts. Is the electron a wave or a particle? Fuck knows... Sometimes it does stuff that is best modelled as a wave, sometimes it does stuff that is best modelled as a particle? Is it both? Yes. No. Is it either? No... Is it even a real thing? Dunno... The electron is a very successful model, but it doesn't mean it's 'true', and I don't think anyone who really understands science would argue that it is.

My daughter is obsessed about lying... Not obsessed with doing it, actually quite to opposite. She's obsessed with not lying herself, and with the reprehensible nature of anyone who does lie. But what constitutes lying? If you show me your new tee-shirt and it's awful, but I say 'lovely'... Am I lying? If you ask me what I am doing on Saturday, and I say I'm going to the park, but when Saturday comes, it's raining and I go to the cinema instead, did I lie? If someone tells me that Jane pooed her pants and I tell someone else that Jane is a pants pooer, but actually the first person made it up, am I now a lier?

When I was in Israel for work, someone once said it was very funny that I started every statement with 'I think...'. Of course you think that, he explained, you don't need to tell people you think it, you just need to tell them the thing, and they decide if it's true or not.

A friend of mine in sales once said "don't let the truth get in the way of a good story". I was appalled (in a silent British way), but actually, is that wrong? Of course, the answer is 'that depends'.

I think truth needs to go fuck itself. Truth is the weapon of despots and bigots and crackpots. I value facts, and I value authenticity. I value intent, and I value significance.

My daughter has placed a group of plastic dinosaurs outside her bedroom door. Sitting on the carpet and on the banister rail above, they guard her room and keep her safe at night. My daughter has seen Jurassic Park, she knows that dinosaurs are creatures of great power. Of course that's not true - they are inert lumps of plastic. But do they keep her safe? They probably do, it depends on what she is being keeping safe from.

When I make art, does truth matter? Do facts matter? Surely all that really matters is significance. The truth does not need to get in the way of a good story.