I want to write a post a day. Unfortunately, It looks like I've fallen back in the rut of writing my post after midnight.
This post started out as a short piece about a fun idea. Unfortunately, the post contains two taboo words that are forbidden in progressive circles ... the "g" word and the "t" word.
But before diving into the controversy, I will give credit to the opening picture from WikiCommons which claims it is a sculpture of the Goddess Veritas in the Basilica de San Pedro made in memory of Pope Alejandro IV.
Ideas exist in the human mind. The mind is hosted in the human brain; So, I will drop this post on Proof of Brain.
Aristotle was interested in the world of ideas and took to classifying different statements. Some statements appear wrong headed while others appear to hold some validity.
While the ideas inside of our brain are clearly confined in our minds, it appears that some of our ideas might have some validity outside of our minds.
Brace yourself. I am about to use the first taboo word.
It appears that their might be a truth value to statements.
Stephen Colbert derides this concept as "truthiness" and ridicules anyone who says the "t" word.
For example, I think there appears to be some sort of truth to the statement "1 + 1 = 2." If I had one #POB and bought a second #POB, then I would have two #POB.
Of course, if I added a pile of dirt to a pile of dirt I would just have a pile of dirt. So, Colbert would scoff "truthiness" as the claim that there might be a hint of truth to statements.
But lets stiffen our upper lips and ignore the ridicule and explore the notion that there is some validity to truth.
As we look around, we will find a world full of interesting statements to explore.
For example, COVID19 has been in the news. This disease came from somewhere.
The official narrative is that the disease came a meat market.
An alternate theory is that the disease came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
It is possible that the disease followed a different track.
The path that COVID19 took is knowable. It may even be known. But the people at large don't know it.
Err, lets look at a famous court case.
Someone killed Nicole Simpson. OJ acted strangely after the murder and became the prime suspect. The trial was difficult to call. The jury eventually ruled that OJ was not guilty.
I referenced a controversial case. Juries issues rulings which are in the form of statements. We hold the rulings of juries to be true. But the real truth is not known.
Juries create official rulings. These rulings are independent of the truth. I suspect that numerous guilty people have been acquitted and innocent people convicted.
The human mind is limited and there is an unlimited number of things that are knowable that we simply do not know.
Who killed the princes in the tower?* What happened to Jimmy Hoffa, and so on ...
The world is full of things which are knowable but are not known.
(*Prince Edward and Prince Richard were last seen in the Tower of London in 1483. What happened to them is unknown)
Introducing the God of Truth
In this last section I will introduce a fun idea called "The God of Truth."
I will now use the taboo "g" word.
There are numerous knowable things that simply aren't known.
I want to re-iterate: Ideas exist in the mind.
Since ideas exist in minds. The container for these knowable but unknown things would be some sort of mind.
I see nothing wrong with calling this container of true ideas The God of Truth.
In fact, I actually find it useful because it allows me to talk about the truth value of statements without having to make the claim that the ideas that exist in my mind are true.
I have never held that the ideas in my mind are true and that the ideas in other minds must be false.
The best that people can do is make statements with varying degrees of truth value with the understanding the full and complete truth is beyond the human mind.
The progressive I know go bonkers when people utter the "t" word and they become openly belligerent if they hear the "g" word.
The closing photo is from Creative Commons . It shows a statue called "Veritas et Justicia" that is outside a court in Tampa Florida. The statue is a goddess of truth and justice.
Truth and justice are ideas. These concepts exist inside of our minds. The classical liberal tradition holds that there is some sort of form to these ideas.
The ideologies called "progressivism" and "conservatism" reject the quaint notion that there is a higher truth. Both ideologies hold to truths which are relative to political aspirations. Anyway, i find the general concept of the God of Truth to be useful in discussing the ideas of the ancients.
I guess I could end with a puzzle. What would happen if the God of Truth were to show up in Washington DC tomorrow?