Maturity and Reverence for Truth

When young, kids can be very imaginative, and there is a lot of benefit and creativity which can come from first having a good imagination.

A child may imagine he can fly, and his attitude can be lifted as he imagines soaring through the air. If the child matures into someone who develops a proper admiration for the truth of things, he might invent an ACTUAL airplane -- an actual thing that truly can fly.

But you can't build an airplane from pure imagination and no reverence for the truth. You can't just "wish" things into existence.

"I believe I can fly" (song words)

If the universe was ruled by your consciousness, you could wish things into existence, but it is a fact of the matter that the universe is not ruled by your consciousness. Otherwise, you could jump off a cliff and not die.

People have beliefs and desires and the interplay of those 2 things leads to personal motives (which then cause us to act in the world).

Because every human has beliefs and desires, every human has motives -- so every human takes some kind of actions in the world (rather than just lying there, dormant, for an entire human life).

Theories about Truth (consequences)

In the worst cases, humans make it to adulthood without ever gaining an appropriate reverence for truth. For instance, followers of certain philosophers may become convinced that truth is individually subjective, or that truth is collectively subjective (coherence theory of truth).

When people like that gain political power, they have the capacity to put others through hell.

A governor may proclaim that the state health authorities have "determined" something to be true "by consensus" -- as if consensus is something which might ever affect the truth of a matter.

Only under the wrong epistemological position of "social metaphysics" (society determines its own truth; truth comes from Gallup polls measuring "majority belief"), could those kinds of leaders be of any help.

What to expect from the World

Because one of the motives humans have is lust for power, and because power requires lies, some of the humans on Earth have a motive to lie -- or to create philosophies declaring that there are some elites who know best, or that majority public opinion is one way or the other (and it must be followed).

It is an attempt to impose your will on something, which requires that you evade the actual truth of the matter (the truth showing that your personal will is not a very important thing in the universe, especially when compared to biophysical laws such as gravity or the invariances of epidemiology).

In Sweden*, a group of 22 researchers argued that medical science should be placed lower than political power (that truth should be placed lower than the advantage or leverage that political power affords) in a piece titled:

“The public health agency has failed. Politicians must intervene.”

These 22 researchers attempted to impose their will on reality, rather than to have a more complete respect for truth, for how it is found, for how it is communicated, and for why it is truth that is pivotal to outcomes -- and that power does not "get you there" (truth is better than power when it comes to real benefit).

Their call for a political upheaval was a call to have their own will implemented. They may "argue" that they've come to a "consensus" about what is true, but that is not evidence of truth.

How to Respond to the World (to its lies)

Truth does not come from "groups of people believing things" or even from "groups of experts agreeing." Having a wrong idea about where truth comes from, such experts mistakenly claim they are guided by truth -- or, in the worst instances, they are merely lying about being motivated by truth.

In Orwell's 1984, the Ministry of Truth wasn't about finding truth, it was about imposing one's will -- whether that is just a single person's will, or the will of a special interest group of elites.

This is because power disguises itself as truth, so as to rely on deception. A fable says that Truth and Deception were skinny-dipping in a pond and Deception got out first and put on Truth's clothes.

When Truth got out of the pond, Truth, unwilling to dress up in the garments of Deception, went naked instead.

Reference*

‘It’s been so, so surreal.’ Critics of Sweden’s lax pandemic policies face fierce backlash. By Gretchen Vogel. Science. Oct. 6, 2020. Available: https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/10/it-s-been-so-so-surreal-critics-sweden-s-lax-pandemic-policies-face-fierce-backlash

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