Huckleberry Finn: “I never seen anybody but lied, one time or another, without it was Aunt Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary.”
Huck begins the narration of his story with an account of Tom Sawyer, noting that when Mark Twain told the story, “There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.” Twain’s tale would have been more than a “stretch” since fiction, though based on some truths, isn’t by definition fact. But give any author of fiction some credit when he or she makes make-believe believable. Stretching the truth is a way of life for many, if not for all, of us, particularly since stretching the truth can be effective.
Not that we are intentional liars. But we use modifiers when we speak. Trying to capture reality for another never quite achieves perfect objectivity unless we rely on math; or, at least, that’s probably what most of us believe. We can trust those who support what they say with numbers, right? So, when someone like Morris Kline questions even that ostensible objectivity, we have to ask ourselves whether or not any truth embodies Truth.
In Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, Kline writes, “The current predicament of mathematics is that there is not one but many mathematics and that for numerous reasons each fails to satisfy the members of the opposing schools. It is now apparent that the concept of a universally accepted, infallible body of reasoning…is a grand illusion.” As many have noted, so Kline also notes Gödel’s attack on proof. Kline writes, “…even the axiomatic-deductive method so highly regarded in the past as the approach to exact knowledge was seen to be flawed.”* Axioms are underlying assumptions, the ground on which we build our edifices of knowledge and “truth.” Among modern axioms is one that says a mathematical model can convey reality truthfully.
Out of questions about truth a few paradoxes arise. “I always lie,” someone says. Is that a truth? “Achilles can never reach the finish line or catch a tortoise with a head start because to reach either, he must first cross half the distance between them, then half that distance, and then half that distance, and so on, ad infinitum.
Now you interject, “But these are just mind games. They have nothing to do with everyday reality and its expression. And they certainly don’t call into question the ultimate nature of truth or even the truths about our current reality.”
Maybe, but then maybe such paradoxes hint at an underlying problem about our conveying, if not our full understanding of, reality. So, Kline then addresses the “effectiveness of mathematics.” He suggests that “effectiveness can be used as the criterion of correctness.”** To adopt such as position is a form of utilitarianism. If something is useful, it’s effective; if effective, then useful. Yes, it’s a bit circular, but that circularity seems to be the way we approach conveying “our” individual realities or any group’s realities to others.
Parents often use the “what is effective” approach. Politicians and propagandists, also. And those under their influence have little to rely on for some ultimate, unshakeable, perfectly logical objectivity. That leaves us all with one principle that overrides exact truth: Trust.
When “scientists” tell us, for example, that the world is warming even though we might have experienced a particularly cold spell in a specific region, we have little to go on personally except trust. In our complex individual lives, we don’t have time to review all the data that the scientists fed into their computer models. That’s where we have to trust, but trusting is difficult, especially when every so often we find that some information has been corrupted either on purpose or through error, causing trust to crumble and uncertainty to increase.
You live in a very complex world, one far more complex than your ancestors' world because your relatively highly educated brain has dabbled in matters previously unknown, matters that continue to accrue from research of all kinds. Almost daily, you receive reports on environmental, psychological, and biological research. That’s a lot to handle even though you are exceptionally bright. At some point you have to trust and hope the person conveying information is like Aunt Polly, the widow, and Mary. You want to know that people don’t “stretch” the truth.
Thus, when someone like Nils-Axel Mörner, a sea level expert who once served as chairman of the International Commission on Sea Level Change questions the dire predictions about sea level change, should we trust what he says? Should we trust the “scientists” sponsored by the United Nations? Why the fuss? Well, as you probably know, the International Panel on Climate Change has models--mathematical models—that predict a 17-inch rise in sea level in a relatively short time, that is, within this century. Dr. Mörner, however, hasn’t relied on models like the IPCC, but rather on worldwide in situ measurements—35 years of measurements.
For example, Mörner and colleagues visited the Maldives six times to measure sea level, finding that no sea level change had occurred over a fifty-year period. When he wanted to show an educational film to the inhabitants to explain why they didn’t have to worry about inundation, the government officials refused to let him show the film. Mörner also discovered that the IPCC’s mathematically predicted annual worldwide 2.3 mm sea level rise was unprovable and unsupported by its own satellite-based sensors. However, the Commission used a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong Harbor they extrapolated to a worldwide reading because, as the IPCC scientists said, they “needed to show a trend.”***
Holy Poseidon! What are we to believe? Whom are we to trust? Are we simply the recipients of effective communication?
Truth. Trust. Effectiveness. Correctness. Where are Aunt Polly, the widow, and Mary when you need them?
*Kline, Morris. New York, Fall River Press, 1980., pp. 4,5.
**p. 6.
***Booker, Christopher. Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told.’ The Telegraph, 28 Mar 2009, online at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html
Huck begins the narration of his story with an account of Tom Sawyer, noting that when Mark Twain told the story, “There was things which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth.” Twain’s tale would have been more than a “stretch” since fiction, though based on some truths, isn’t by definition fact. But give any author of fiction some credit when he or she makes make-believe believable. Stretching the truth is a way of life for many, if not for all, of us, particularly since stretching the truth can be effective.
Not that we are intentional liars. But we use modifiers when we speak. Trying to capture reality for another never quite achieves perfect objectivity unless we rely on math; or, at least, that’s probably what most of us believe. We can trust those who support what they say with numbers, right? So, when someone like Morris Kline questions even that ostensible objectivity, we have to ask ourselves whether or not any truth embodies Truth.
In Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty, Kline writes, “The current predicament of mathematics is that there is not one but many mathematics and that for numerous reasons each fails to satisfy the members of the opposing schools. It is now apparent that the concept of a universally accepted, infallible body of reasoning…is a grand illusion.” As many have noted, so Kline also notes Gödel’s attack on proof. Kline writes, “…even the axiomatic-deductive method so highly regarded in the past as the approach to exact knowledge was seen to be flawed.”* Axioms are underlying assumptions, the ground on which we build our edifices of knowledge and “truth.” Among modern axioms is one that says a mathematical model can convey reality truthfully.
Out of questions about truth a few paradoxes arise. “I always lie,” someone says. Is that a truth? “Achilles can never reach the finish line or catch a tortoise with a head start because to reach either, he must first cross half the distance between them, then half that distance, and then half that distance, and so on, ad infinitum.
Now you interject, “But these are just mind games. They have nothing to do with everyday reality and its expression. And they certainly don’t call into question the ultimate nature of truth or even the truths about our current reality.”
Maybe, but then maybe such paradoxes hint at an underlying problem about our conveying, if not our full understanding of, reality. So, Kline then addresses the “effectiveness of mathematics.” He suggests that “effectiveness can be used as the criterion of correctness.”** To adopt such as position is a form of utilitarianism. If something is useful, it’s effective; if effective, then useful. Yes, it’s a bit circular, but that circularity seems to be the way we approach conveying “our” individual realities or any group’s realities to others.
Parents often use the “what is effective” approach. Politicians and propagandists, also. And those under their influence have little to rely on for some ultimate, unshakeable, perfectly logical objectivity. That leaves us all with one principle that overrides exact truth: Trust.
When “scientists” tell us, for example, that the world is warming even though we might have experienced a particularly cold spell in a specific region, we have little to go on personally except trust. In our complex individual lives, we don’t have time to review all the data that the scientists fed into their computer models. That’s where we have to trust, but trusting is difficult, especially when every so often we find that some information has been corrupted either on purpose or through error, causing trust to crumble and uncertainty to increase.
You live in a very complex world, one far more complex than your ancestors' world because your relatively highly educated brain has dabbled in matters previously unknown, matters that continue to accrue from research of all kinds. Almost daily, you receive reports on environmental, psychological, and biological research. That’s a lot to handle even though you are exceptionally bright. At some point you have to trust and hope the person conveying information is like Aunt Polly, the widow, and Mary. You want to know that people don’t “stretch” the truth.
Thus, when someone like Nils-Axel Mörner, a sea level expert who once served as chairman of the International Commission on Sea Level Change questions the dire predictions about sea level change, should we trust what he says? Should we trust the “scientists” sponsored by the United Nations? Why the fuss? Well, as you probably know, the International Panel on Climate Change has models--mathematical models—that predict a 17-inch rise in sea level in a relatively short time, that is, within this century. Dr. Mörner, however, hasn’t relied on models like the IPCC, but rather on worldwide in situ measurements—35 years of measurements.
For example, Mörner and colleagues visited the Maldives six times to measure sea level, finding that no sea level change had occurred over a fifty-year period. When he wanted to show an educational film to the inhabitants to explain why they didn’t have to worry about inundation, the government officials refused to let him show the film. Mörner also discovered that the IPCC’s mathematically predicted annual worldwide 2.3 mm sea level rise was unprovable and unsupported by its own satellite-based sensors. However, the Commission used a single tide-gauge in Hong Kong Harbor they extrapolated to a worldwide reading because, as the IPCC scientists said, they “needed to show a trend.”***
Holy Poseidon! What are we to believe? Whom are we to trust? Are we simply the recipients of effective communication?
Truth. Trust. Effectiveness. Correctness. Where are Aunt Polly, the widow, and Mary when you need them?
*Kline, Morris. New York, Fall River Press, 1980., pp. 4,5.
**p. 6.
***Booker, Christopher. Rise of sea levels is ‘the greatest lie ever told.’ The Telegraph, 28 Mar 2009, online at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5067351/Rise-of-sea-levels-is-the-greatest-lie-ever-told.html
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