I’ve always seen truth as something independent of perception. On this, I’ll give two examples.
Driving along in a 2005 Chevy Malibu, the settings allowed the speedometer to display milage in MPH or KPH but not both. This was facilitated with the light on the speedometer displaying the appropriate setting. This could be changed through the central radio console. My friend was driving and I was riding shotgun, when he quickly exclaimed “I’m going 100 plus in a 55!” Immediately my perception was ‘that’s impossible. We’ve been going 55 for some time and I’ve noticed no noticable acceleration. Unless we got to 101 very slowly, which was a possibility, we’re still going 55 or somewhere thereabouts.’ I quickly checked the speedometer and told my friend of his error. He had changed the settings, only to get the feeling of driving 100+ MPH, but it did nothing to change reality.
Moral of the story: it’s one thing to change the speedometer settings. It’s another thing to accelerate.
The second example I’ll give is from science itself. Nothing in science is bent on proving anything true, but rather seeing if it is or isn’t false. This is simply because it’s so much easier! I’ll base my finding on the simplest thing possible: the atom, and the model by which we’ve seen the atom operate.
It went from a solid object (dalton) to a soft object (Thompson) to a mostly empty object with a very solid core (rutherford) to a nucleus made of protons and neutrons with electrons orbiting around it (Bohr) to something truly wierd where the electrons stay in regions around the nucleus (Scrodinger, et al). Which model was right? The last, as far as we can tell. Which model was important? All of them, because the discoveries of the previous helped shape the next one, which was the more correct one. If the track record is wrong, we may someday prove Heisenburg, Schrodinger, and heck, probably even Einstein wrong. We shouldn’t be afraid to do that: that’s what they’d want us to do if it was correct!
