Truth Units — a new theory of truth for our “post-truth” world
Why do we need to “re-think” our concept of truth? Because the world is going crazy.
Our world is broken. We see climate disaster, economic inequality, political polarization.
And we see truth is broken too.
The problem is, our world has become too complicated, too convoluted for our original concept of truth.
What’s ‘broken’ is our original theory of truth. It’s so embedded in our culture, we don’t realize it’s there. It goes back to Aristotle, formulated by Thomas Aquinas as “a judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality.” Now we say “truth corresponds to reality” (or “describes” or “reflects” reality).
The correspondence theory worked when we thought reality was the same for everybody. Culturally and individually, we’ve come to realize it’s not. Today, people live in different “realities.” People talk about “my truth” and “your truth.”
A lot of the world is breaking because we cannot agree on what is true.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said “you’re entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.” Now, on so many issues, what is fact to one person is opinion to another. All the conflicts make our heads hurt.
We need a new theory of truth that transcends arguments over what is fact vs. opinion, objective vs. subjective, reality vs. perception, “the truth” vs. “my truth.”
This piece introduces “truth units”
Truth units, as a theory of truth, jettisons the above distinctions, because they are ultimately false. Instead, truth units are based on experience.
The root of what we call “truth” is our personal experience. It’s because of our experiences that we call something “true.” We make a mistake when we put what we call “true” on a pedestal — elevating it above experience — ours and others.
On a pedestal, truth becomes ethereal, abstract. The danger is people don’t understand your abstractions and you don’t understand theirs. Thinking in terms of truth units focuses you on seeing truth as experience — which is how our minds “generate” truth.
In other words, experience itself is truth for us as humans. Our ethereal, abstract ideas of truth is not how truth actually works in our minds.
It will take a few minutes to explain how truth units work, and why they function better than our existing concepts of truth. So please allow me to start with an analogy. Truth units are like Legos.® Below is a Lego zebra, a life-size statue at a LegoLand.®
Imagine Sam is the first non-African to visit Africa, and Sam experiences seeing a zebra for the first time. Sam returns home and tries to describe a zebra to friends, but can’t get the zebra’s appearance across. So Sam builds a life-size Lego statue, like you see in the above photo.
Now imagine you are one of Sam’s friends, and Sam brings you to see the Lego zebra. As you look at the photo now, think how close your experience of the zebra statue is to Sam’s experience of the actual zebra.
We first need to define “experience”
The classic British empiricists said all our ideas, knowledge and reasoning emerge from experience. Your mind is essentially a blank slate until you receive input through your five senses.
The mind picks up on patterns in sensory input, stimulating thought. By comparing those patterns with other patterns, thoughts build upon thoughts. Seeing water boil each time we heat it leads us to the next thought—that water will boil the next time we heat it.
In truth units theory, all thought is part of experience. If you see a rose and think “oh, a rose” then think of other roses you’ve seen, read about, or imagined — those thoughts are all equally part of your experience.
Experience is the result of evolution
Those who study evolutionary biology and the human mind (the one I’ve read most is Antonio Damasio) today see the human mind as an evolutionary phenomenon — our minds help homo sapiens survive. The human mind has the awareness, memory, imagination, and analytical and computing capability to assess threats and opportunities in order for us to live and to thrive.
These threats and opportunities present themselves to us almost constantly. When we respond, consciously or unconsciously, our minds are effectively answering two questions:
“What is happening?” and
“What should I do about it?”
The deep root of truth is a function of these two questions. Imagine you and I are hungry in the wilderness and we see fruit on a tree. I ask you “is it safe to eat?” You say “yes.” If I eat it safely, then your saying “yes” steered me correctly—then what you told me was true.
In truth units theory, any such question is phrased in true-or-false terms: “the fruit can be safely eaten — true or false?”
To answer either true or false is to form a hypothesis. The scientific method is to form hypotheses and test them by performing experiments. The results of the experiment are analyzed, and the hypothesis is accepted or rejected.
At last — exactly what a truth unit is
A truth unit is modeled on science’s experimental method, worded a little differently:
· Claim: “the fruit is safe to eat”
· Test: if I eat it and I’m ok, then it’s safe
· Evaluate: I eat the fruit
· Result: I’m ok
· Verdict: the fruit is safe
You can look at the above five elements as atoms that form a molecule. The molecule is a truth unit — a specific belief supported by a specific experience. Truth units accumulate into chains. What we call “the world” (our network of beliefs) can almost entirely be represented by chains of truth units.
Before going into more detail about truth units, let’s consider three essential points that the structure of truth units entails:
· The result and verdict are a function of the test
· The choice of test is up to you
· There is no inherently “right” test
I had a choice of how to determine if the fruit was safe to eat or not. I asked you, and went with what you said — a very simple test (although risky) that worked out fine. But I could have used other tests, like eat a small bite first and then decide. I could even take it to a lab. These tests could all have led to different results and verdicts — none of them the final truth. If I got sick after eating the fruit, that might not be the final truth either — since something other than the fruit might have made me sick.
Most of the time when people disagree, they aren’t disagreeing about the facts, they are disagreeing about which test to use to determine the facts. If they looked at the tests each other used to get to their positions, they would say “since those are your tests, no wonder you arrived at your position.”
The world is made of truth units
Chains of truth units reflect our beliefs. Seeing the sun rise every day (multiple experiences, multiple truth units) creates the belief (another truth unit) that the sun will rise tomorrow. Every time someone tells us the sun will rise tomorrow (more truth units) turns our belief into a conviction (another truth unit).
Imagine I tell you the sun won’t rise tomorrow. You say “that’s not true!” I challenge you and you reply “it’s just a fact.” If you dig beneath the idea of a “fact,” the word “fact” disappears, and what’s before you is a chain of truth units.
If you look up at your surroundings now, you believe they are real. That belief is a truth unit — your claim is that your surroundings are real, and your test is what you see. (If it’s too dark to see, the test is what you saw when it was light.)
In truth units theory, your memories, the present moment, and your expectations for the future can all be expressed as truth units. Practically every moment, consciously or unconsciously, you’re asking and answering questions of “what is happening? and what should I do about it?”
Neo-Verificationism
Truth units are already partly embedded in our thinking. The antecedent of truth units theory emerged as Verificationism among the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle in 1924–1936. One of their leaders, Moritz Schlick, wrote:
“To state the circumstances under which a proposition is true is the same as stating its meaning.”
The Vienna Circle’s foremost philosopher, Rudolf Carnap, wrote:
“The meaning of a sentence is in a certain sense identical with the way we determine its truth or falsehood.”
Imagine you ask me what time it is. I say “it’s 5:15.” You ask me how I know 5:15 is the right time. I reply “because I just now looked at the time on my cell phone.” That sentence reflects a truth unit:
· Claim: It’s 5:15.
· Test: Look at the time on my cell phone.
· Evaluation: I look at my cell phone.
· Result: The time reads “5:15.”
· Verdict: The time is 5:15.
The verification behind my saying “it’s 5:15” was implicit in my answer. If I was just guessing, I would have said “it’s around 5:15.”
Using truth units with individuals
When someone says “I know this for a fact” and you reply “that’s just your opinion” both your words are meaningless from a truth units perspective. And from an everyday perspective, both your words likely won’t advance the discussion.
Most likely, both of you came to your beliefs by different paths. Those different paths can be represented relatively quickly in truth units. The focus moves from beliefs to experiences. Both of you might end up saying “if I had the same experience, I would believe that too.”
Many common experiences are easy for people to relate to and understand after sharing a short chain of truth units. More unique experiences mean longer truth unit chains, which could ultimately lead to the ground zero of human experience itself.
When a person’s “truth” feels wrong to you, consider thinking about a line of inquiry along the lines of:
“What is your test?”
For instance, if someone says “it’s in the Bible” you could probe for their test by asking “did you read it there, or did you hear it?” next asking “do you remember the chapter and verse?” or “who did you hear it from?”
Using truth units in organizational teams
Above I mentioned how it creates problems when we think there is one right test. And it creates problems when we think the results we get from the “right” test are decisive.
What’s the right test for hiring someone? A resume? An in-person interview? References? A company picks their tests, does the evaluations, and makes a decision. A test after hiring is a 90-day probation. (Someone might criticize the decision a year later, but the test of performance after a year was not available a year ago.)
A typical application of truth units in a team meeting discussing “what should we do about issue X?” is an agenda like:
· What is the proposed test of success?
· Is there an entrenched “right test”? Why?
· What are other possible tests?
· What results would we expect from each test?
· Which of these results offer the clearest evidence?
· What verdicts reflect the most desirable experiences?
Exploring truth unit scenarios can steer us away from preconceptions and focus on tests and experiences, expanding the ground for consensus.
Marbles and glasses of water
Wittgenstein said “tautology and contradiction are the limiting cases of the combination of signs.” Similarly, truth units have boundaries, which steers them away from the abyss of relativism.
Let’s say you have put 65 marbles in a fishbowl and then ask me to guess the number of marbles. I guess 77. You tell me it’s 65, and I don’t believe you. So we spill the marbles, carefully count them one by one, and agree on the total. We are getting as close to “objective truth” as we can get — we have had the same experience.
Inversely, let’s say two glasses of water are on the table between us. I say “one of these is an illusion” and you ask me to explain. If I can’t point out a difference between the two, physically or conceptually, how could you believe me? Without any difference between your experiences of each glass, you are as close as you can get to saying “objectively speaking, you’re wrong.”
A last analogy
Truth units support communication and consensus as money supports the exchange of value. In a market, you attach value to what you buy and sell. It’s hard to put that value into words. To express that value, you put a dollar figure on it. Then others know how much you value it, conditioning their counter-offer.
In conclusion
Truth units don’t answer every question of truth. But they answer more questions than other concepts of truth. And the principles of truth units are pretty simple — and truth units are consistent with established philosophy, psychology and physical sciences.
Truth units has the above advantages, because truth units are not about what truth really is, truth units are about what truth really is for us.
Thank you for reading. Please comment! Your questions and critiques are appreciated.
Learn more about truth units:
