Consider the following facts.
1) Any learning process starts from ignorance. For instance, when a human begins learning to play violin, he only produces bad sounds. From the first bad sounds he can go toward virtuosity.
2) When a new word is read, frequently one assigns a bad meaning to it. After reading the same word in different contexts, the proper meaning can be deduced.
3) For our ancestors Earth was plain. Now is almost a sphere.
4) Each truth is the limit of a sequence of corrected errors.
5) Even preserving the same books, dogmatic thought changes as time runs.
"Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself."--Vilfredo Pareto
"Benjamin Franklin once said, “Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late”. Reflecting on my life, the lessons I have learned and the insight I have gained throughout the years, I can certainly see the truth in Mr. Franklin's adage.
My Seed of Truth is an attempt to do something about this dilemma I see in life. I believe by having people all around the world share a truth (something important to know in life), I can create an opportunity for many people to learn from one another. Maybe I am naive, but I believe the world can literally teach the world how to live.
I want to create a book of collective understanding that's universal and fundamental on what's important to know in life and make this book available to the world for FREE! I believe the more we know about the human experience, the easier it can be to create a better life for ourselves and others!" -David Rivera, My Seed of Truth
"Give me the fruitful error any time, full of seeds, bursting with its own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself."--Vilfredo Pareto
"Benjamin Franklin once said, “Life's tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late”. Reflecting on my life, the lessons I have learned and the insight I have gained throughout the years, I can certainly see the truth in Mr. Franklin's adage.
My Seed of Truth is an attempt to do something about this dilemma I see in life. I believe by having people all around the world share a truth (something important to know in life), I can create an opportunity for many people to learn from one another. Maybe I am naive, but I believe the world can literally teach the world how to live.
I want to create a book of collective understanding that's universal and fundamental on what's important to know in life and make this book available to the world for FREE! I believe the more we know about the human experience, the easier it can be to create a better life for ourselves and others!" -David Rivera, My Seed of Truth
Yes, error is inevitable while searching for truth. When you go through many trials and errors, you reach the truth. We learn through our errors and learning is truth. So however we look at it, error is the seed of truth.
Error can be vaguely called the seed of learning, now, if that learning is 'true' or not is a completely different matter. That depends on an individual's definition of truth.
Dear,
Himanshu,
When the learning is not true, the progress consists in correcting it, that is to say, to obtain the truth from a corrected error.
Consider that even natural selection is based upon copy errors of DNA. Time eliminates what is not adequate and the complexity and perfection is obtained.
I agree with Juan, all evolution is based on the errors in DNA, selection of the fittest and thus if we consider our existence as truth, truth or existence is based on errors!
I find it ironic that some might think error is the seed of truth while on a research site. Nevertheless, Erasmus might agree in his book The Praise of Folly. However, error might be half of the story. Researches apply critical reasoning to search for truth all for time, no? Some often think outside the box to try and gain further explanatory power to the perceived phenomena. Aren't there other ways of searching for truth rather than hitting one's head against the wall? Maybe error is double-sided story.
May we can't have error without an opposing idea: Thesis, antithesis, synthesis, over and over again.
@Juan-Esteban Palomar Tarancon: You are elder to me sir, and I respect you and your comments by all means. For the purpose of discussion however, I am compelled to write in a straight forward manner. Hence, I request that any apparent rudeness on my side should be forgiven, I have to intentions to do so otherwise.
There are two things I have to say on your remark sir. Firstly, when it comes to discussing such philosophical, ethical or metaphysical questions one should be very careful and clear of the exact implications of the words he/she uses. In this case, the word 'truth' is being taken as an absolute word, whereas a majority of the scientific community agrees that truth is relative. I therefore find it necessary that we first agree to one relative definition of truth. I mean, I find the phrase "when learning is not true" very vague and rather absurd.
Secondly, perfection is never obtained through natural selection. It is the process by which most adaptive organisms survive and become numerous, they do not however become perfect or best. In fact, nothing in our universe can ever attain absolute perfection, and even if there is some degree of perfection which is considered a valid it does not necessarily have to be a result errors. Not all learning is resultant of errors, is it?
Dear Himanshu,
By no means I have considered truth as an absolute entity. Both truth and fitness are relative concepts. What fits in some environment does not fit under different circumstances. The term fitness implies some environment and need not be explained explicitly. I suppose that when a human talks about fitness, we must understood to be adequate for living in our Earth, by no means in other Galaxy.
A truth is true until it is proved to be wrong. This is the sense of this thread.
Of course, I am a little old and this is why I have done all sorts of errors already. This is the main of my deserts. Errors are ballast and our mind can only rise throwing away errors. The more errors you have found, the more ballast you have thrown and your mind is less contaminated.
Intelligence works by selection in a similar way as evolution of life.
The predator of intelligence consists of a forgetful process sometimes together with a logical rejecting test. When we are solving problems, our mind give rise to several ideas, almost every one erroneous, and by these predator process every idea is killed except those that passes the test or can survive (remembered) through time by their fitness. Even when we cannot find the proper idea, at least we know what is wrong, which is a progress.
For instance, consider any thread in RG. Starting from a question, contributors add solutions that are neglected untill we find a proper answer from which the thread stops.
Intelligence and evolution have the same working way. This is why evolution of life can be regarded as an intelligent process. At least, if we consider that truth and fitness are the limits of error sequences.
Dear Amit
You have said,
" a bad meaning may not necessarily be imposed on a new word "
This is not the case, because you have assigned a meaning to the term "truth" that does not coincide with the meaning I have used it my first message.Your message is an instance of error assigning a meaning to a word. Thank you. I try to explain why.
Recall that words denote equivalence classes and they are context dependent, even author dependent. For example, if you are reading a text by Sigmud Freud, you cannot interpret the word "sexual" as if you were reading a novel. For Freud even "paying taxes" or thumb sucking are sexual actions.
I can see your error from your words:
"To simply say "truth", one usually implies a truth about creation of the Universe/ presence of a personal, all benevolent and all encompassing God."
If you read the word "truth" in a text of mine, you never can interpret this word in these terms. What you call "truth" for me is a belief. You believe something provided that you cannot know whether or not it is true; otherwise you do not believe, because you know. This is the difference between knowing and believing.
If you are my reader you must forget the meaning you give to each word and try to determine the meaning arising from context and author. Otherwise you cannot understand me and some errors can occur.
Best regards,
J.E.
Dear Amit,
See your own words:
Have you found the word "frequently" in this sentence? Frequently means many times, but not always, not every time. However you are arguing against my sentence stating that there are exceptions. This is another example in which a bad meaning is assigned to a sentence.
Now, let us analyze your other sentence.
My contribution to this " error/truth" discusion are the following two confrontational AutoCad drawn configurations:
http://www.stefanides.gr/pdf/2012_Oct/PHOTO_11.pdf http://www.stefanides.gr/pdf/2012_Oct/PHOTO_12.pdf
For me both are true but what makes the differnce?. For me the assumptions of what is required and what mainly FITS TO US/
Regards from Athens,
Panagiotis Stefanides
-----------------------------------------
http://www.stefanides.gr/pdf/2012_Oct/PHOTO_13_GEOMETRY_DESIGN.pdf
http://www.stefanides.gr/pdf/2012_Oct/PHOTO_09_PCST_GEOMETRY.pdf
http://www.stefanides.gr/pdf/2012_Oct/PHOTO_10_PCST_Maximum_Symmetry_Point.pdf
The most flattering comment made to me by a student (which appeared for all eternity in his senior yearbook dedication quote):" To Mr. Edwards, for allowing us to fail." He explained to my face that he meant that I had encouraged and guided him to find his own truths, because, he said, I once told him he would never be satisfied when someone else tried to force their own truths upon him.
Dear juan
Hi, you question and explanation is good.I agree with you.
As has been said, truth is not absolute, and I doubt that there is any such concept as truth in science.
In physics (and other fields of study) we have two closely interrelated fields of study based on experiment and theory, respectively. Sometimes both cannot be divided, but usually researchers try to falsify each others results. Falsification means that we have encountered an error, be it in theory or experiment. Finding errors in previously accepted knowledge leads us to new (hopefully more correct) insights. So, at least, errors may lead to a higher level of knowledge.
On the other hand, think of students who never make mistakes. We would never see any development or improvement, because they always are on top of the process. So, for learning I encourage my students to make mistakes by exploring topics on their own way.
1) Any learning process... starts from a need (or desire or motivation) to change or gain more knowlege, because "ignorance" means already a condition of consciousness of our learning potential.
2) When a new word is read... we try to assign a meaning in a field of possiblities, bad or good, the essential thing is the creative organization of new experiences.
3) For our ancestors... the concept of Earth as Planet was already a shared knowledge, many time before topological or geographical issues.
4) Each truth... it's the beginning of a new sequence of creative errors or correct experiences.
5) The preservation and organization of ...the knowledge is the hope for humanity's future.
Errors may or may not lead to truth but definitely teach us as a best teacher to proceed toward right direction.
A scientist strives to understand the work of Nature. But with our insufficient talents as scientists, we do not hit upon the truth all at once. We must content ourselves with tracking it down, enveloped in considerable darkness, which leads us to make new mistakes and errors. By diligent examination, we may at length little by little peel off the thickest layers, but we seldom get the core quite free, so that finally we have to be satisfied with a little incomplete knowledge.
— Torbern Olof Bergman
Here is a quote from Aristotle that may be of interest to readers of this thread:
"As regards being in the sense of truth and not being in the sense of falsity, in one case there is truth if the subject and the attribute are combined, and falsity if they are not combined; in the other case, if the object is existent, it exists in a particular way, and if it does not exist in this way, it does not exist at all; and truth means thinking these objects, and falsity does not exist, nor error, but only ignorance...
It is evident also that about unchangeable things, there can be no error in respect of time, if we assume them to be unchangeable. E.g. if we suppose that the triangle does not change, we shall not suppose that at one time its angles are equal to two right angles while at another time they are not (for that would imply change). "
Aristotle, Metaphysics, Book IX, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, the revised Oxford translation, edited by J. Barnes, Princeton Univ. Press, vol. 2, p. 1661, 1051b34-37, 1052a1-11.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Philosophy