What is truth?
This is perhaps the most important question that could be asked right now.
In times like these, truth is really the only thing we can count on.
Our prejudices, our biases, our hopes, our illusions don't mean a thing.
What is important is that we find out what the truth really is because the truth is the
only thing we can count on.
Very well, what is truth?
Obviously, that's a question that has baffled some of the best minds that have ever existed
from time immemorial.
And yet really it isn't too difficult to come close to an understanding here.
Truth would be a part of what we call the objective order.
It would relate to fact, to reality.
That which is, is.
Those things that exist, exist.
Our opinions of what things are don't alter the things themselves.
That which is, is, irrespective of our opinion.
Very well.
Then how do we know the truth?
How is it possible to come to grips with reality?
Well now this is a very interesting area of inquiry because in our efforts to come to
grips with reality, we discover, of course, that all truth, all fact is discoverable only
in context.
Nothing exists in itself alone.
Everything exists in relationships to other things which also exist.
Incidentally, this is where we've heard so much about relativity.
Many people, in fact, have come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a principle,
in fact, that there is no such thing as a fact, because they will tell you, well, everything
is relative.
In a sense, that's true, but often the way they take that expression, they make it appear
that nothing is really so, that everything is unknown or untrue and we are in a great
quagmire of misinformation or no information at all, and that isn't quite accurate.
What we actually have is a great many facts that do exist.
is.
Now, in order to learn about reality, we have to learn about reality from a point of view,
from a place where we are, and we learn about reality as it relates to certain specific
things.
For example, we're all familiar with what we call the law of gravity.
If I were to hold up a piece of chalk and then let go of it, we can predict that it
would drop toward the center of the earth. We call this the law of gravity. Is that an absolute law?
Well, yes, it is. But then it will be shown, and accurately, that there could be other factors that
could be brought into play that might cause that chalk to behave differently if I let go of it.
For instance, if another interplanetary body of tremendous magnetism came into our solar
System, it could so distort the law of gravity as we presently experience it, so that if
I let go of the chalk, it would fly off in some other direction.
Now that doesn't disprove the law of gravity.
That merely indicates that at the present time, in the present context of fact, if I
let go of chalk, it will drop toward the center of the earth where the center of the earth
now is.
Now you change the context and we don't quite know how that chalk would behave.
That doesn't disprove the law.
That merely specifies that the working of the law, the evidences that we get of the
working of the law, is dependent upon the context in which these facts appear.
So we can know truth, but we always know truth within a context in which other truths also
appear.
We don't know any one truth absolutely.
We know many truths as they relate to each other and as we relate to them.
How do we discover truth?
Well, what we try to do is we try to find the principles that tell us what a given thing
is and how it behaves.
And we seek these principles by trying to ascertain whatever evidence we can extract
from their behavior and from what happens to them.
Let me give you an example of what I mean here.
Let's take the substance wood.
Now what are the characteristics of wood?
Basically wood is relatively durable, that is to say, it's relatively hard.
You can't compress it in your hand and cause it to change its shape simply by applying
your muscles.
You could bring tools to bear.
It's malleable under certain conditions.
You can form it various ways, but it would tend to resist that merely by the application
of your own muscles.
you couldn't just mold it like you perhaps could straw or something that is much softer.
In addition to its being therefore relatively durable, we know that another characteristic
is that it's flammable, that is to say it would burn, again, under certain conditions
it will burn more readily than other conditions and also certain types of wood would burn
more readily than other types.
But it is a general characteristic of wood, of all types, that it is flammable.
In fact, we use it as a fuel.
Additionally, it is not atorable.
That is to say, it floats.
Wood is lighter than water and it will float on water ordinarily.
Now you can take a piece of wood and waterlog it until it would behave like a stone and
sink but normally wood floats.
So these are characteristics.
Now what do we mean by characteristics? We mean here principles. We now know that when
we are dealing with a piece of wood, there are certain characteristics that always appear.
This is how we know that it's wood. Now, what does that mean? That means that if we manufacture
something made of wood, that we can predict that the thing that we have made out of wood
will take on the characteristics of the substance we have used in the manufacturer.
For example, let's take a desk that is made of wood.
Well, we then can predict that the desk will be durable, at least as durable as the wood
that we used in it.
The desk will also be flammable because the wood is flammable, and the desk would also
float because wood floats and therefore the desk would float.
In other words, what we seek in trying to understand truth, we seek predictability.
We seek to learn the characteristics of things and how things relate to other things so that
we can predict the consequences that will ensue if we employ these various things.
And that's how we stay alive in this world.
We figure out what the characteristics are, that is to say, the principles are respecting
various substances, various natural resources, whatever they are, and having ascertained
their natures, their real natures, what they are actually composed of, not as a matter
of opinion, but as a matter of fact, then we know how to deal with these things.
Of course, one of the biggest problems is to try to learn how to do this with each other.
We've been trying to predict human action for years and we haven't done too well with it.
It may be that we can predict certain things here, but it's very difficult to predict things
about people.
More on that later.
But let's go back to this question of predictability.
We stay alive in this world only because of predictability.
That's all we have.
We have to be able to know that if we do certain precise things that a specified and desirable
result will obtain.
If we didn't know that, there wouldn't be any point in doing these things that would
hopefully lead toward the result that we want.
For instance, if we decide that we want to raise wheat, we know that we have to prepare
Consider a field and then sow that field with wheat seed. Does that mean that we will get
a wheat crop? No, we might not get a crop at all. Other factors might intrude so that
we didn't get a harvest. But I'll tell you one thing we can predict. If we get a harvest,
it will be of wheat. We won't harvest a crop of pumpkins or watermelons or moth organs.
They don't come that way.
If we want a wheat crop, we might not get a crop at all, but if we get a crop, it will
be one of wheat, providing we have sown wheat in the first place.
In other words, there is an area of predictability and that's how we live.
Now most of us aren't aware of this.
We think of predictability as having something to do perhaps with witchcraft or with necromancy
or something of this sort.
Predictability is a scientific approach to life.
That's what it's about.
The scientist has to understand the nature of things as they are well enough so that
he can accurately predict what those things will do under specified circumstances.
That's what science is all about.
And that's what we try to do in order to understand how to put the pieces together,
To come up with the kind of things that we want, we have to understand their natures.
In other words, we have to know the truth about them.
That's what we're trying to find out.
Now there are only two ways in which we can learn this.
One is we try to locate predictability, and when we discover that if we put A and B together,
We always get C, then we know that C is predictable on the basis of A and B coming together in
a certain prescribed way under controlled conditions.
This is what we try to do.
But there's another factor here, too.
It isn't sufficient that I am able to do this.
In other words, I might come before you and say, look, I have discovered that by putting
A and B together, and then adding a pinch of W, I get X, and you say to me, well, that's
wonderful.
Let me do it.
And I say, oh, I'm sorry.
It doesn't work for you.
It only works for me.
Now, when I say that, you know I'm not talking about truth.
I'm talking about magic.
If I'm the only one that can do it, well, there's something here that doesn't quite
meet the eye.
If it really is truth, anyone can do it.
The truth is not a respecter of persons.
It exists by itself.
It is independent of human judgment.
It just works.
It is.
It is a part of reality.
And this is the nature of all principles.
Men do not devise principles.
They don't invent them.
They discover them.
And these principles work for everybody, irrespective of race, creed, color, belief, opinion, or
value system.
It doesn't make any difference.
That's the nature of principle, and that's the nature of fact.
So when we come into this world, that's what we try to do.
We try to figure out what the nature of the world is, and we do it by trying to discover
The principles, that is to say, the characteristics that relate to various things and to various
actions that we take with things, and then once we think we've found a principle, well
then we bring other people in and we say, hey, we did it this way, now you do it and
see if it comes out for you the same as it did for us.
And if it does, then we know we've got something.
Now if it keeps changing, then we have non-predictability, and then we don't have a principle, and then
we don't know quite what to do.
For instance, imagine what kind of a world this would be if you couldn't predict.
Suppose you walked into a room, and there was a little light switch there, and when
you flicked it, you naturally assumed that the lights would come on.
But on Wednesday when you flick it, bananas dropped from the ceiling.
And then on Thursday, when you flick it, the symphony music comes out of it.
And then on Friday, when you flick it, the lights come on.
How often would you flick it?
Well, you wouldn't know what you'd get.
And so it would make you uneasy.
We would call that an unstable situation, you know, you don't know what you're getting.
And so you wouldn't tend to rely on that.
Now, the same would apply to your automobile.
Say that you have an automobile and you have various levers and devices on it to make it
go, stop, turn, etc.
Supposing now there's a foot pedal down there that we call the brake.
Supposing that on Monday when you press it, the car stops.
But on Tuesday when you press it, the car turns right.
On Wednesday when you press it, the car backs up.
And then on Thursday when you press it, the engine is killed and on Friday, the motor
blows up, all from activating the same mechanism.
Well how long would you drive that car?
After you discovered that you couldn't predict what it was going to do and every time you
applied a particular action, you got a different result.
That car would frighten you and rightly so, you couldn't depend on it.
This is exactly what we run into with the things of this world.
We try to find out what they will do so we can rely on them, so we know, we know unerringly
that if we do certain things in certain ways, we get a predictable result.
We have to.
How would you like to, for example, buy an automobile that had been put together by men
who went to work when they felt like it and did whatever they wanted to do in connection
with building the automobile.
How would you feel about such a vehicle?
I imagine it would make you nervous.
It would make me nervous.
I don't mind telling you.
If I'm going to buy an automobile, I want it to have been very carefully engineered
so that when the engineers say to me, this is the way this works, that when I do it that
This is what we try to do.
Our ability to survive in this world is predicated upon predictability, upon our ability to detect
the characteristics, the principles of those things that exist, and the more we know about
The more we accurately understand them, the better we can put them together to get the kind of things that we want.
Life is dependent upon orderly process, and orderly process is dependent upon our ability to predict consequence.
Now, here's about the way it works.
When a human being is born, he's a little helpless infant born, as I think I've already
expressed it, tabula rasa, this is the expression that John Locke used indicating that man is
born a blank slate, he doesn't know anything.
And the infant begins by using his perceptive abilities with these sense organs that he
has, he reaches out into the world and he comes in contact with reality this way.
He identifies and classifies the various phenomena that he's in contact with, then he selects
these things that are meaningful to him.
And here is one interesting thing that we ought to keep in mind about our own species.
We have a fascinating thing here that we do.
We reach out with our minds through our sense organs, and we identify and classify the various
Phenomena that we're in touch with, and then we associate every one of those things to us.
That is, we associate things to each other.
The infant perhaps in his crib will have several toys, and he will begin associating those
toys together.
He will realize finally that they are part of the same genre, they belong to the same
Order of Things, the little devices for him to play with, and so he'll tend to classify
them together, but that's not what I mean.
When he makes an association, he associates everything that he is aware with, with himself,
because he infers a significance in that thing as so far as it relates to him.
If he cannot detect a significance, then he will stop selecting it.
If it has no meaning to him, he puts it aside and presently dismisses it and has nothing
further to do with it.
Everything that he is aware of and continues to be aware of is somehow associated to him
personally.
You and I are egocentric.
We operate within ourselves with a gigantic I. In fact, we can't even think a thought
without beginning by thinking I. We are individuals. This is one of the prime characteristics of
man. And as an individual, everything that exists in my world is something that is associated
to me in some way. I am aware of it. It has meaning. I infer significance to it. If I
can't find any such significance, I dismiss it. It is no longer of importance. So I live
in a world that is comprised of those things that I have selected because I am able to
infer a meaning to me. The meaning could be pleasant. It could be unpleasant. But I am
I am aware of it because it impinges upon my life, upon my sense of satisfaction, or
upon something that has to do with me personally.
My world is a very personal place.
It all rotates about me.
Everything that I know about is in orbit about me.
I am the center of my world, and that's the way we all work.
We are egocentric.
We operate that way.
So now after we have made this association and I'm still going back now to the infant.
The infant has begun by perceiving, identifying, classifying and selecting various things.
Now he associates these things with himself and once he forms this association, then he
begins to make a decision.
He begins to form an opinion.
In other words, he adds up the total of all of these various things that he's now aware of,
and it is as though he said to himself, well, I'll be darned.
That means that the world I'm in adds up to this, this, this, and this, and that's what
it's about.
Even as a tiny infant, that's what he's beginning to do, because he is trying to find security
Predictability, he's trying to understand the nature of the world that he's in.
If you've ever watched a tiny infant, you perhaps have sometime seen such an infant,
take his thumb or maybe a toe and pop it into his mouth.
And usually when you see that happen, you'll see a calm, beatific smile spread over the
The Infant's Face and you say, what in the world does he find that's so satisfying in
the taste of his thumb or the taste of his toe?
It can't possibly taste that good.
It isn't the taste that satisfies the child here.
It's the sense of predictability.
You see, to begin with, the child doesn't even know the legs and the arms are his.
They're just there in the crib with him like so many other toys.
But he finds that he can control these.
Absolutely, they work with precision.
When he uses certain muscles, he gets a specific result.
So he begins practicing with this and finally he gets his thumb in his mouth and he tries
it again and it works and it works again.
He keeps doing it and pretty soon he has a big smile on his face because now the world
makes sense.
He's got it figured out.
He can predict and he feels comfortable.
He feels safe, secure.
That's why he smiles.
In other words, now he forms an opinion.
The opinion is, ah, I now know how this part of the world works.
That's an opinion.
Now here's another area where he might form an opinion.
There's a woman that keeps coming in and doing things to him or for him.
And usually he discovers that whenever he vocalizes, she comes in.
Marvelous!
This is a cause-effect relationship, and he's looking for these because he's got to know
how the world works.
So he vocalizes, and in she comes.
It is a very simple thing, then, for him to conclude and formulate an opinion here that
his voice controls her.
So any time he wants something, he vocalizes, and she comes obediently.
Marvelous.
The world is now, he's got a fence around it and he's got a corner on it.
He knows how to run things.
And then what happens?
He vocalizes one day and she doesn't come in.
His whole sense of predictability is smashed.
His world is coming apart.
He probably now screams in order to bring her in.
But if she's not within earshot, she doesn't come.
This is a fantastic emotional trauma for the child face, because he has been building his
world on predictability, and now all of a sudden what he was sure he had figured out
doesn't work that way at all.
What he didn't know, you see, was that he thought he had a principle, but all he had
was a probability.
If it was a principle, then she would have to come when he called.
But actually, his voice doesn't control her.
He learns this to his sorrow.
His voice influences her, but it doesn't control, and that's the difference between a principle
and a probability.
As a matter of fact, as he continues to grow, what begins as a probability becomes increasingly
improbable, and if he keeps on exercising his voice, it becomes predictable that she
She will positively go the other way when she hears it and so what becomes what he thinks
at first as a principle that his voice controls her in a favorable way, it will end up perhaps
that his voice will impel her in an unfavorable way and he's lost the whole thing.
But these are the processes of learning and this is how we begin by using our minds in
in an effort to arrive at truth so we know what to do in the world we live in.
Now, after we have formulated an opinion, then we begin testing that opinion, just as
I've described here with the infant, until we finally find something that really works
all the time, or at least we think it does, within the context where we understand it.
It seems to be predictable.
Now we have another interesting thing that happens with our minds when we reach that
point. The minute we are certain, or relatively certain, that a particular phenomena results
from a particular set of circumstances, and that that is predictable, then we begin to
develop an attitude. And an attitude differs from an opinion primarily because of this.
An opinion is something that you think is so.
But an attitude has the element of emotional conviction.
You are now certain that it is so because it has proved out.
In other words, we move from a general assumption of predictability to an emotional conviction
of predictability, and we call that a belief.
We move from a supposition to conviction, and that means simply that now you know you
are right.
You thought you were right before, but now you know you are right.
Now from that attitude, or the beginning of belief, we now have confidence to plan, to
anticipate what we want to accomplish in the future, and knowing certain things to be true,
And here we have the emotional assurance that they are true.
We now have enough confidence so that we can say, well now this being the case and this
other being the case, I now know that I can project into the future here and put things
together in such a way that I will get what I want.
And so we move from belief to cognitive action.
That's the idea.
The whole process of using the mind is a process of trying to discover the truth so that knowing
truth we can take cognitive action in order to fulfill and get the things that we want
as a result of the truth that we know and the actions that we take.
Man is an actor.
He is not passive.
We do not survive in this world by simply planting our feet in the soil, raising our
For you and I to survive, we have to take intelligent, rational action.
We have to learn a great many things, and learning them then, we apply this knowledge
in order to make these things come into focus with us.
That's what this is all about.
Now it follows that when we live at a time such as we do right now, where many of the
things that we have believed were so, we have thought that the world was organized in a
certain way, that our country, for example, was organized in a certain way, we thought
we had predictability all the way around, and now things are coming apart.
These aren't working quite the way we thought they were or we thought they would.
Where we thought we were sure, we find ourselves increasingly uncertain.
We thought, for example, that the government would solve the question of poverty.
But the more we get into it, the more we discover that there's still more poverty and the government
hasn't solved the problem.
But these are subjects we want to take up subsequently. We think there's enough here that we can talk about, so we'll see you again and thanks very much.