Let’s NOT go down the rabbit hole of how to DEFINE TRUTH, what IS TRUTH, etc,

Let’s try to practically unpack the problem of truth

 

Practically would entail utility, practical usefulness

We could thus define truth as THAT WHICH WORKS

 

This is good for start

Enough to get us amazing tech

Enough to build a business

 

It’s even deeper than meets the eye

The world is probabilistic, NOT absolute

The probabilities are tested, and derived, by trial and error

By PRACTICALITY itself

Success of prediction is proven by the successes of implementation

And vice versa — successful implementation inform future successful predictions

 

This is not enough however

Just like fucking tinkering with some rocks is not enough to get advanced tech

Behind the chaotic reality of the “real” world, unpredictable and messy and intangible — there are IDEAS

IDEAS which we define precisely

And thus we can manipulate them precisely

And make them interact one with another, precisely

And thus create more ideas

Is that truth?

 

The world of ideas is perfectly defined, perfectly coherent, perfectly logical

It’s not untrue — in that it’s not logically wrong. By definition

It’s not necessarily true either — unless we make some fucking use of it

It’s perfectly logically feasible that SANTA CLAUS exists. There’s no physical reason to preclude him from existing

Alas no one had actually seen the man. Neither the boogieman

It’s simply NOT a useful idea, not beyond waiting for gifts on christmas, as a kid

In real world a more useful idea is to be an entrepreneur

 

We get a REALLY powerful approximation of TRUTH when we combine both:

–OBSERVATION and EXPERIMENTS in the REAL WORLD

-and good logical MODELS, good IDEAS, good THEORIES, which account for those observations

This is basically science

You’ll do very well if you approach EVERYTHING this way

TON of experiments, and GOOD IDEAS

That will do

 

The problem doesn’t end here however

 

…It ends here for most people, I grant you that

Most people have poor DATA

They cherry-pick the data

They conveniently ignore conflicting data

And then even if they do have correct data — they make bad ideas out of them

Incongruent, dumb, poorly thought-out systems

That’s most folk

You can blame their uneducation and unintelligence

As well as biases, which is essentially craziness (stupidity is a form of craziness, and vice versa)

 

But it doesn’t end there

Usually it’s the ideological, the philosophical and theoretical and NERDY type — that will abandon the practical, and ultimately become corrupted by their sweet utopias,

They are more susceptible to become those ivory tower lunatics, starving themselves to death our of fear of some alien food conspiracy

The PRACTICAL, if supplemented by INTELLIGENCE, EDUCATION, GOOD MODELS and GOOD THEORIES — typically drastically accelerate their success, and sharpen clarity of their perceptions

There’s no conflict of interest — because REAL world verifies

Typically

 

See there’s one more advantage of ideas

It’s when we move back again to a realm less tangible,

Less experimentally palpable

Is INDEED when we start concerning ourselves with philosophy

And indeed most philosophy is not worth the paper on which it’s written (or hard drive space)

But there are relevant real world problems which we’ll nevertheless bound to explore MOSTLY in theory

What are those problems?

-Organisation of society

-Of course MORALITY

-What is really going on in our heads

-Indeed how this society works as a whole

-And how the fuck does economy even work, and what to do with it

-etc

 

And again, this is not an apology for useless sociologists and philosophers and priests and “thinkers” and what-not

Mostly useless indeed,

Mostly waste of time indeed,

EXCEPT till we arrive at one of those points where no amount of “TINKERING” in the REAL world gets us any further,

We’re making no progress there

 

The best we can hope for is a GOOD IDEA

And that GOOD IDEA kind of neither fits the “REAL WORLD” — as it will be difficult to conclusively prove it

e.g. once you organise society one way — there’s still question if SOME OTHER WAY wouldn’t be better. etc.

NOR does it fit the world of “IDEAS” — as it’s not part of a well-defined and rigid system. There’s ton of ambiguity in it

e.g. is capitalism selfish acquisition of capital, or is socialism selfish confiscation of capital. go down the fucking rabbit hole

 

This is the final level of PRACTICAL truth-pursuing, here described

Again: most likely what you and I need is just EDUCATE OURSELVES, THINK BETTER AND DEEPER, and HEAL ourselves from BIASES

But the final level matters, if truth matters

And it’s indeed the level of infinite confusion

Because indeed here you can neither “prove in real world” that you’re right (not even in probabilistic terms) — NOR can conclusively prove LOGICALLY that you’re right

This is where even the greatest minds collapse

 

Indeed this is the realm of bullshitters

Of course the purpose of bullshitting is to bullshit others. And others are typically average folk, therefore uneducated idiots.

Therefore bullshit can be untangled on lower levels: with facts and logic indeed

However, just a small element of moral and philosophical ambiguity, compared with overabundance of information, of data, is enough to bullshit extremely proficiently

EVEN on more intelligent levels

That’s why the greatest minds will collapse here

Because it’s the level where they CAN’T BE INVALIDATED

Therefore it’s just a matter of incentive now

 

Which takes us to the final point,

TRUTH is often but a matter of INCENTIVE

NOT a matter of it’s absolute probability or consistency

Sometimes the “TRUE” is merely that which sounds true

BECAUSE it has a GOOD FUCKING REASON to make it sound true

 

This is the realm of sociopaths

This is the realm of priests

This is the real of politicians

This is the realm of mass delusions

Of course the above can exist without adhering to any facts or logical consistencies

But they truly thrive when it’s impossible to prove them wrong

 

What is the conclusion?

The general conclusion of most “TRUTH-problems” is to just abandon all the desire to acquire truth, if it can’t be had,

and JUST DO WELL IN LIFE, indeed

And just DO YOUR BEST, indeed

Indeed TRUTH valued for it’s practicality is very healthy

And then building necessary systems to support that truth

And indeed sharpening one’s mind on some actual good IDEAS. That is healthy,

But mooring them to the practicality of real life,

And with that — you can gleefully FORGET about STUPID fucking debates, FALSE fucking CRUSADES,

forget the politics,

forget the fucking conspiracies, obviously,

forget everything that’s not USEFUL

That is not a horrible mindset to have

That is a sage to me: someone who never marred himself with delusion

Why not just avoid subjects PRONE to DELUDE YOU, and for no good fucking reason

It’s wise, and life is short

 

But

if you DO find yourself in the murky BUSINESS of obsessing over TENUOUS, DIFFICULT TRUTHS,

(or god forbid in a realm of relative truths, which is basically a realm of lies, or a fantasy realm)

Then at least realise that,

You’re no great fucking thinker,

Your opinion is not so important

And if neither LOGIC nor FACTS can convince you here — then the only factor will actually be what INCENTIVES YOU

Whether it’s your religious religion or political religion or personal religion and personal foibles

The further we get away from LOGICALLY CLEAR or EVIDENTIALLY CONCLUSIVE — the more we venture into the REALM OF INCENTIVES

…and honestly, since most men are idiots and philistines — even conclusive and simple subjects will but be a matter of confused, muddled, motley individual and societal and political incentives

 

Therefore,

verily,

there’s your truth

there’s some “truth” that the world agrees on (including you),

and then the rest is perhaps an approximation of truth,

but actually it’s just a reflection of the incentives system, distorting the reality in whatever direction

distorting for it cannot be rectified anyway, because NOT EVERYTHING CAN YET BE KNOWN

 

Therefore take good care of your truth

Learn what you can from the actual truth we agreed on, yet

Shut the fuck up if you don’t have a clue

Ignore the noise, which is 99% of what the world is telling you

And if you engage — remember you’re engaging an incentive, not an actual truth-pursuing argument

And don’t let it corrupt you