Thursday, February 16, 2006

Truth

The current notion of tolerance originated or at least was advanced into a broadly held idea by the enlightenment thinkers, the philosophes. Voltaire, for one, reasoned that given that our knowledge is limited we can never claim an absolute truth but need to rather have a degree of “tolerance” where we admit we know nothing. It was from this that the phases we are likely familiar with originated; arguments such as, “How can you be so narrow minded” or “How can your religion be the right one?” These arguments are making the presupposition that this knowledge can never be understood.

However, Voltaire, made the argument that one could know the boundaries of the unknown or as a modern man put it, "we are certain about what we cannot know in subatomic physics, and can even measure precisely the "tolerance" within which our knowledge is bounded." Henceforth, following this reasoning, our sensual knowledge can only go so far after which we must concede our uncertainty of the deeper matter. Thus, it follows, that we can never have “absolute” knowledge, but that the knowledge that we do have should account for uncertainty with a degree of tolerance. Now this idea which originated among the philosophes should not be accepted as reasonable.

For if I am certain that my boundaries for this 'zone of uncertainty' are correct, then I am claiming that the "thinking" within my head is able to know a correct notion about something. For my mind to be able to have this knowledge of 'something' it must be real, be true, even if this 'something' contains aspects that I can not understand.

When I grant that my observations about the boundaries which set up 'a zone of uncertainty' are correct then it follows that my thinking that made correlated these observations is true. For what is not true, cannot be correct, what is correct is true. The vagueness that liberalism sets around the idea of truth fades when dealing with things material.

If truth exists and can be understood by the mind I cannot rule out the possibility of a truth which holds all other truths absolutely together. If our minds simply took in information and organized the material the truth would not have to originate anywhere. However the ability to reason through observations, to proceed to understanding these observations; leaves open the question of source. Strait forward life could have evolved from nothing theoretically (not with our world, which evidently displays design). However the only way a scientist could ever claim life did not come from the divine would be though reason. Do you see the fallacy here? If a man claims to be correct by observation he is claiming that there is such a thing as being correct and that he can obtain the knowledge of the correct. Where did this ability to be correct come from then? It could not have evolved because this reason steps out side of the created and criticizes observations. Something evolved could never step outside of the evolved, be able to weigh what it stepped outside of, and come up with a correct notion.

Reason therefore had to have a source. As I said before the idea of some thing being correct or true is one in the same. Reason and its ability to decipher the truth then came from somewhere. How could this source of reason not be ultimate, or the absolute truth?