Quotes About Truth

There are a few quotes I like, for example: "Beware of the half truth.  You may have gotten hold of the wrong half." is one of them.  However I like the quote due to my initial reaction of amusement; not so much because of experience with situations that it may apply to.  The quote is probably a statement about lies of omission. 

Before I delve more into the discussion of the quotes I’d like to define the word truth for the rest of the dialogue.  So for the purposes of the discussion Truth will be the form and properties of objects, with respect to objects, and in terms of situations the actual sequence of events.  In terms of concepts, I’d like to define it as the most rigorous definition for example the color white, the most rigorous definition of white, is the absence of all pigment, or the reflection of all visible wavelengths (this accounts for the fact that some people are colour blind, and how everyone perceives colours somewhat differently).  With more abstract things, like beauty, I’d like to leave it as what is accepted by society (so what is beautiful say for an American may not be beautiful for the French).  The latter part this is not well defined because two people describing the same sequence of events could be very different eg. giving a bell as a present is okay in some cultures, however there is a culture where giving a bell is a metaphor for expecting the receiver of the gift to die.  So to keep it simple I would like to leave it at the actual sequence of events with as little interpretation as possible.

There is one quote I really like though, the quote from Robert Frost.  The first part: “Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true?  Cling to it long enough and … it will turn true again, for so it goes.” seems somewhat nonsensical.  In terms of objects (as defined earlier) say if something is white, it will always be white.  However there is a certain amount of depth to this observation, because if one considers say eggs and how the medical community used to consider eggs to be good for health.  Later on with the studies done on cholesterol it was considered unhealthy.  However studies done more recently actually have shown a high correlation with eggs and memory retention at later ages.  So now the medical community considers eggs to be good for your health again. 

            The next part of his quote “Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor” I think shows even more depth from the poet.  As previously mentioned with eggs, this quote also applies though on a more historical level.  The concept of beauty, for example during the middle ages and later renaissance in Europe (not all of Europe I suppose but for a fair amount of Europe) described women with porcelain coloured skin, soft small hands, and a certain amount of plumpness.  As time goes by, if we look at say the US beauty was still the round face, and the white skin (look at Marilyn Monroe) and a certain amount of plumpness, though that amount of plumpness slowly starts to change.  Now however, beauty is the skinny, tanned women.  The older views dropped out of favor.  Much like what had happened in the world of chemistry and physics during the early 1900s, where the concept that atoms could not be split was first shown to be untrue, and consequently dropped out of favor.  The last example may seem somewhat esoteric but something much more relevant and of much debate is the fact psychologists and sociologists in the last 10 years have been forced to realize, and adapt theories, because of the fact that it is no longer true that one requires physical meetings with people to have a social network.  With the advent of the internet and faster computing, there are even now computer programs sophisticated enough that the electronic magazine ELLEgirl in 2002 launched an instant messaging program that worked with AOL Instant Messenger, and Microsoft Messenger that would contact teenage girls and interact with them.  It was sophisticated enough that it was close to talking to a real person and it gave lots of ELLEgirl magazine information.  The program actually described itself as a 16 year old girl with a list of hobbies, interests, favorite bands, books and even films and tv shows.  It was successful to the point that many teenage girls actually responded to the bot as a person (eg. the program would actually find articles on things that people say they liked and provide url links to articles in future conversations).  I digress, the main point was that not only is it not true anymore that one needs to even physically meet people for social interaction because of internet forums, chatrooms, and voice chat programs, but even more so (for some people) it’s no longer true that you may even form friendships with actual people.