The Truth Seekers Guide: Chapter 1

The Presupposed Roots of the concept of Truth

In order to properly understand the concept of truth, appreciate its massive importance, and to be in a position to discern it with intellectual confidence, consistently, and with certainty, we must start right at the beginning. We must ask ourselves what ideas, circumstances, or facts, would have created the need for the concept of truth in the first place. Why do we need the concept of truth? What must have been the circumstances for our ancestors, such that they came up with the idea of truth? What need does the idea fill? What is its purpose?

Broadly speaking, the idea of ‘truth’, along with its opposite, ‘false’, suggests a choice between two mutually exclusive categories of ideas. It suggests that one is right, the other wrong, one desirable to pursue, the other not. But why?The first thing to note is that sustaining human life requires action. We need values in order to live: clean water, shelter, clothes, computers. None of these are found in nature, we must act to produce them. Whatever actions we are performing must be successful to support human life. The penalty for failure is always suffering to some degree, from minor inconvenience at one end of the spectrum, to death at the other! We therefore need to identify a course of action that will succeed.

Imagine trying to light a fire in wet and windy conditions. You must account for the wind and rain; you must have dry materials, a form of kindling, and a reliable means of ignition. Your next meal, or even surviving the night could depend on your success or failure. Sustaining human life requires action, and that action must be successful. This is the root of our need for truth, but there is more to it than this. Another very important factor to consider is the particular kind of beings we are, or more specifically, the nature of our particular kind of consciousness, and what it requires to fulfill its role as our means of guidance.

We don’t have automatic knowledge of how to act. Unlike other animals, we have no innate knowledge of what to eat or how to build homes. But we do have the potential means to acquire it. We are not born with the right answers, but we have the means to find out. We have a form of consciousness different from all other life forms, one that goes beyond merely perceiving the environment. We have the capacity for conceptual awareness which hugely expands our potential knowledge beyond the range of the moment. It is also, arguably, the basis of our ability to introspect, or to be conscious of our own mental processes.

Our conceptual awareness derives from our possession of a faculty of reason and our capacity to recognise logic. It enables us to conceptualise, or form concepts. In the most basic sense, a concept is an idea in mind that represents a number of individual units with similar characteristics. For example, the concept table, stands for all objects with a flat surface, raised on legs, that you can put things on. Our concepts enable us to greatly expand our thinking because the concept of table stands for all the tables that exist now, all those that existed in the past, and all those that will ever exist in the future. Every word is a concept; every thing, action, attribute, relationship, etc.

Precisely how we form concepts is beyond the remit of this book, but the point is that we have a form of consciousness that uses both perceptual and conceptual awareness. This fact is very important, because our two distinctly different forms of awareness lead to our ability to gain knowledge in two distinctly different categories. The self-evident, and the conceptual.

The self-evident, and the conceptual

Perceptual awareness gives us the self evident, it’s our direct contact with reality through the senses. Whereas conceptual awareness is the abstract, it enables knowledge arrived at by a process of reasoning using conceptual ideas. Human consciousness integrates both forms of awareness in the process of cognition. The perceptual level is the base and the reference point. The conceptual level consists of ideas (concepts) that represent integrations of both perceptions and/or other concepts. it is the conceptual level where we can realise our full human potential and acquire a potentially limitless amount of knowledge. And this is where the concept of truth comes in; to distinguish between conceptual ideas that correlate with reality and those that don’t, so that we can either file those ideas as knowledge, and consider them safe to act on, or reject them as false.

Perceptual awareness – contact with reality, raw data, the self-evident, experiential knowledge

Conceptual awareness – conceptual knowledge, abstract, derived, not directly perceivable

It deserves emphasis that it is our perceptual awareness of what is immediately before us, the self-evident, that is the base of all of our conceptual knowledge. At this perceptual level the concept of truth is not relevant, because correlation with reality is obvious—it’s self-evident. Assuming a normal brain state there is no doubt about the self-evident. There is no uncertainty about the immediately perceivable. When you bang your head against a wall you don’t struggle to understand the cause and effect relationship between the action of banging your head, and the pain that results. If you are lighting a fire, you don’t demand proof of your success or failure, its self-evident. This is important to bear in mind when anyone tries to tell you that reality is unknowable, or that certainty to beyond a reasonable doubt is impossible. You know through your own direct experience that reality is knowable, and predictable, and obviously so, at the perceptual level.

Again, assuming a normal brain state, we are not very likely to act contrary to reality, while referencing the self-evident in our daily experience. However, we are very much more likely to attempt to act contrary to reality, while referencing conceptual ideas precisely because their truth or falsity is not immediately apparent. Particularly where the effects are only perceivable over the long term. Conceptual ideas might be wrong, incorrect, false. In other words, they may not correlate with reality, and we might find out too late—after the cause has had its disastrous effect!

For example, supposing, based on your estimate of safety, you take action to walk across a creaky old bridge that subsequently collapses. This would amount to acting on the false idea that the bridge would support you. Or, based on the assumption that you don’t need to carefully choose all the components of your lifestyle to ensure health and longevity, you live a life that results in you subsequently developing cancer; in both cases you will have acted on false conceptual ideas. And consequently, both actions will lead to suffering.

“what we normally take to be reality is often just fiction in our own minds”
Siddhartha Gautama – the Buddha

What the Buddha is referring to here is NOT the self-evident, but those more complex abstract conceptual ideas. The furniture and layout of your home is real, and is not a fiction in your mind. Whereas, your beliefs about economics, or the need for government, or reliance on health care systems, are just conceptual ideas in your mind. It is these that need to be validated before they can be considered knowledge. These are the kinds of ideas to which the Buddha is referring, when he speaks of the fiction in our minds.

Conceptual ideas require validation

As the complexity of conceptual ideas increases, it is not at all obvious if they are true or false. And yet we need to know if an alleged pandemic is a real threat and why; we need to know if vaccination is a solution or a problem; we need to know if we can trust the advice of a medical doctor. These are all complex conceptual ideas, the truth of which is very far from obvious. But the good news is, that the truth of all these can be discerned, with certainty, to beyond a reasonable doubt. The process necessarily involves identifying how the component ideas relate to each other, and if they relate to each other, and most importantly, how they connect to reality, and if they connect to reality.

In todays context, of alleged pandemics and potentially mandatory vaccination programs, it’s easy to grasp that its a survival imperative to know whether or not the conceptual ideas we are being told to act on, are true. But, in fact its always a potential issue of life or death, in any age. On the positive side, the reward for acting on conceptual ideas that are true is the successful creation of your values, the achievement of your goals, and the realisation of your dreams. The reward of discerning truth is successful action in every respect. The successful business plan is the one in which all the relevant factors of reality are correctly taken into account. The successful healthy life is the one lived in a way that correctly takes into account all the relevant facts of reality with respect to the requirements of the human body. The successful sociopolitical system that fosters human flourishment, is the one that takes into account all the relevant facts of reality of the nature of men, their form of consciousness, and their necessary mode of living.

If we want to know what going on in the world, if we want to be sure of the things we claim to know, then we must appropriately subject all (conceptual) ideas to a process of validation. This means we must revisit all of the high consequence ideas we have been exposed to; from parents and teachers, cultural traditions, those picked up in “news” stories, etc, as well as the ideas we originate ourselves, and subject them to a process of validation. By ‘high consequence idea’, I mean a fundamental idea that has a very significant impact on our thinking, or any logically consequential ideas, depending on whether it is true or false.

Ultimately, all ideas need to be subject to a method of validation that results in the thinker knowing whether or not they are true. Until that process is complete, they cannot be rationally considered knowledge, and therefore, they should not be acted upon.

Although we share the perceptual level of consciousness with other life forms, we are distinctly different in three key ways. I’ve already mentioned two of them; first that we have no automatic knowledge, that we don’t automatically know anything, we must figure it out. And second, that our human form of consciousness has a faculty of reason and therefore a capacity for conceptual awareness. The third key feature of our form of consciousness is that the conceptual ability must be operated by choice. Unlike perceiving things in front of you, thinking conceptually doesn’t happen automatically. An abstract process of reasoning and problem solving must be initiated and sustained by choice and effort of will.

This factor of volition is very significant in determining both the amount and the complexity of knowledge that a mind can potentially achieve. For a start it means that you have to want to know. And secondly, it means you have choice over how you use your consciousness. This factor, is far more important than the degree of your intelligence. If you don’t know how to operate the machinery, you can’t expect to use it successfully.

But more fundamentally, it is our capacity for choice that makes the whole idea of discerning truth possible. Without choice, ideas could not be tested, so that one may be chosen in preference over another for specific reasons. We shall examine the issue of free will later, in chapter 12.

These three characteristics of our particular human form of consciousness all contribute to our need for the concept of truth and a method of validation so that we can be certain, beyond a reasonable doubt.

The presupposed roots of truth

If we draw all the strings together of what we have discussed so far, we can see that the concept of truth was not arrived at by our ancestors in a vacuum. It would originally have been conceived of due to the implicit recognition of the ideas we have been discussing. The idea of truth presupposes these ideas. They are logically antecedent to it by necessity, they would have had to come first, and give rise to the concept of truth. It’s important to emphasise that this doesn’t mean these ideas were necessarily explicitly identified. Much of our thinking uses assumptions by necessity. Assumed ideas serve as premises without being expressed.

The implicit ideas presupposed in the concept of truth are…

1. Man has a need to act successfully to stay alive and thrive.
2. Therefore man needs knowledge of how to act.
3. But man has no automatic knowledge.
4. Man has a conceptual consciousness that deals with conceptual ideas.
5. Some ideas lead to success, other ideas do not.
6. How can man distinguish between the the two?

Hence the need for the concept of truth, and a method of validation.

Because the concept of truth presupposes these ideas they must necessarily be accepted as the foundations of the concept and therefore the source of its meaning.

There are a great many component ideas implicit in the 6 broad and complex ideas above. The most important one is that reality, the place where we live and act, be regarded as independent of consciousness. If this were not the case, and reality were dependent on thought, or in some way on the observer, then predictions of any kind would be impossible, and successful action of any kind would be impossible, and there would be no need to evaluate the merits of any particular idea! Perhaps most importantly, the idea of recognising reality as independent of consciousness is the only possible basis for all human thought and action, as we shall see throughout this section. It cannot be overstated how important it is to hold this idea as the rock solid foundation of all your thinking.

And this is where the problem begins for the truth movement, and by extension, any prospects of human freedom being achieved any time soon. Mainstream philosophy has long since rejected the idea that reality is an objective absolute. As a consequence of this, it is very popular these days for people to reject the idea of reality being solid, real, and independent of any consciousness. It is very popular to believe that each individual creates their own reality with their thoughts and beliefs, or that the group creates reality collectively.

We shall explore the enormous capacity of our consciousness to create our experience of life in chapter 7 but, for now, its important to note that all of the conceptual ideas we are exposed to in our lives must be validated. Old ones we grew up with, new ones we hear people talk about, all of them. Because any of them could be false. We all need a method of validation for all of our conceptual ideas. This method must be based on sound principles, and anchored to solid philosophical bedrock.

Truth and Freedom

Lets now take things one logical step further. These facts of our nature, these specific attributes of the kind of entity we are, with our conceptual and volitional consciousness, and without automatic knowledge, coupled with the factual requirements of our continued existence, determine another extremely important fundamental human need, the need for political freedom.

Again, due to the kind of beings we are, with the specific kind of consciousness that we possess (as discussed), we have a need to be able to both test and use our conceptual ideas in action, without arbitrary restriction. First, so that we can determine which ideas do correlate with reality and therefore will work, and then, to use those ideas to create the values we need, in order to support our continued existence and to achieve our happiness. This is the human mode of living, as determined by the facts of reality.

Our need for freedom is not a matter of life or death. Throughout history some men have existed in appalling conditions of slavery at the hands of others. But to live a life beyond mere existence, one with purpose, meaning, pleasure; a fully human life in which you are unhindered in the pursuit of your dreams,and the achievement of your happiness, freedom is a necessary condition.

The discernment of truth and the achievement of freedom are related because they both require us to be reality focused, to think logically, and to value facts, reason and evidence. It’s true that we need to be free because of the nature of our consciousness and therefore the facts of our particular mode of living. Its truth is not because the universe declared it so, and its not because any deity declared it so. It is true because the facts of objective reality and the facts of our particular kind of consciousness require it.

Truth and freedom are both part of the same process of enabling human flourishment. Truth without freedom can only get us half of the way there. Once the correct action has been identified, the individual must be free to act accordingly. This is why truth cannot be meaningfully discussed without mention of freedom. They are both necessary components of the life-supporting process that enables human flourishment.

The fact that the discernment of truth and the achievement of political freedom both require us to be reality focused has important implications. It means that the whole campaign for freedom must be rooted in objective facts. The concept of rights must be based on objective facts. We cannot claim that rights come from God, because there is no evidence for a deity. There are no facts that support the existence of any supreme being. And we cannot accept any so-called “rights” that are granted by governments, because these are not rights, but benefit privileges which can be retracted as readily as granted. No, we must argue for rights based on the factual requirements of mans nature. I will have much more to say about the relationship between truth and freedom in Chapter 8.

Lastly, it is worth noting that the need for a means to validate conceptual ideas (truth) and the need to be able to act on them (political freedom) are existential needs, as opposed to psychological needs. This means they are more fundamental, because they are required to support the proper human life process. Of course, we have other needs, for love and connection, to feel significant, for growth and contribution, etc. These needs are all real, but they are logically downstream of the needs of our particular mode of living. These psychological needs are all potentially satisfied through and by the discernment of truth, and therefore the acquisition of knowledge, as well as the ability to act on that knowledge unhindered.

Summary

The meaning of the concept of truth is derived from the ideas it presupposes and that give rise to it. For the concept to have meaning, and to retain its meaning, we must not implicitly argue against these presupposed ideas by believing ideas that contradict any of them. What many people fail to grasp is that holding ideas that contradict these presupposed ideas (at the fundamental level) is to implicitly undermine the concept of truth, even while consciously claiming to value truth. This is the tragic contradiction that many truth seekers are unaware of, and that undermines any potential success of the truth/freedom movement. In other words, we have to get our thinking straight from the outset if we want to consider ourselves part of the solution, and not part of the problem.

The most important fundamental idea presupposed by the concept of truth is that reality is what it is, independent of any consciousness, independent of anyone’s wishes, desires, thoughts, hopes, fantasies, whims, etc. In other words, reality is an objective absolute, and the truth seeker must regard it as such to avoid self-contradiction, and to become a fully conscious intellectual contributor towards the achievement of our political freedom.

Go to Chapter 2 – The War of Ideas