Month: April 2015

Each individual human being has that which is true in the heart of themselves. When gathered together in groups—human beings will form a consensus opinion regarding what is truth for the group—people seek harmony. When what is true in the heart of the individual is not in concord with what is true for the group then the individual must either reconcile through conformity, or seek a new consensus through argument, or leave the group …

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Groups of human beings arrive at what constitutes truth for the group by consensual agreement.

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Individual members of the group may have doubts about that which constitutes truth for their group.

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Various groups of human beings may agree on standards for truth which contradict, or conflict with, that which is the truth for other groups.

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“Nature has planted in our minds an insatiable longing to see the truth.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

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Are mathematical truths invented or discovered?

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 “Mathematics is not either invented or discovered; the dichotomy is false.”
― George P. Lakoff

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“One reason why mathematics enjoys special esteem, above all other sciences, is that its propositions are absolutely certain and indisputable, … How can it be that mathematics, being after all a product of human thought which is independent of experience, is so admirably appropriate to the objects of reality?”
― Albert Einstein

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“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
― Isaac Newton

 

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Detail from Gustav Klimt’s 1899 oil painting “Nuda Veritas”

Here Veritas is depicted naked holding a mirror whose reflective surface reveals the observer …

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“Art is the lie that enables us to realize the truth.”
― Pablo Picasso

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The number forty two as the answer to a most ambitious question.

“In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (42 is) ‘The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything’, calculated by an enormous supercomputer over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named ‘Earth’.”
― Wikipedia Article: 42 (number)

“By doubting we are led to question, by questioning we arrive at the truth.”
― Peter Abelard

How can we be entirely honest and yet not speak that which is truth?

I would say because we are bound by our human limitations … bound, constrained, limited. As we are able to expand our boundaries by overcoming our limitations we may honestly change our opinions* and move closer to that which is true.

*Opinions―actions, judgements, conclusions … world view …

When we are honest we speak the truth as we understand the truth to be.

Our understanding is limited. We are not; omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. Our understanding is limited to what we individually do know. A humble heart is most conducive to an honest answer …