The truth of the matter-- Part III

Part I

I am not saying that there is no reality. Far from it. As a matter of fact, any of these supposed conundrums that philosophy types throw up from time to time disappear when you look at things from this, a more pragmatic, point of view. "If a tree falls in a forest with no one around, does it make a sound?" Stump ya'? It shouldn't. How do you define "sound"? If you define it as the creation of differential air pressure without any effect on the eardrum, then there is sound. But if you define it as the workings of that air pressure on the eardrum, then there is no sound because there would be no eardrum to sense it. The problem is the attempt to find a position from which there is an absolute perspective and that is something we cannot do and cannot know. (That is also the problem with the argument that the sun does not rise.)

My point is to take the assumption and reason through it to determine if what underlies it is valid. If it is, put it aside for another day--it still remains an assumption--to examine it in the light of better evidence. This will make you a good critical thinker and an asset to a company (or to any other organization you might be a part of) that might be prone to lurch from one fad to the next as the next comes out. A critical thinker like this can steady the ship.

The truth of the matter-- Part II

Part I

The problem is that each of these programs (or points of view) replaced a program that itself was the once-and-for-all truth of the matter. This should give us pause. Each of the programs that are now in use replaced some other program that was considered to be the truth before but now is not. So why do we believe that the new program is now the truth? There are cultural reasons for why, some of it having to do with recency--what is newer is better, an unconscious analogy to evolution and to its child, progress. But there is no more reason to accept uncritically the new than there was to accept the old the same way. In science the new might address more data and that is a good thing, but to accept what is promoted now as the once-and-for-all-, everywhere-and-everyplace-in-the-universe-, kind-of-truth isn't sufficiently skeptical to be of any long-term use. And for those who do accept it uncritically and apply it to every circumstance and to every scenario, there is little critical thinking going on to do this. Someone else supplies the thinking; you just apply it. No heavy lifting.

That your eyes may be blue is a truth but it is a truth itself that is provisional. To say that your eyes are blue under any and all circumstances, everywhere and anywhere in the universe, you of course could not do. That makes it an assumption if there is an attempt to extend it to other circumstances. But in the context in which you assert it, it is the truth of the matter.

I once went the rounds with a student, about whether the sun comes up. He said that it is in fact stationary, that the earth revolves around it, so it doesn't "come up" at all. My point was that it does but only from a specific point of view, not from all possible points of view. In fact, from a galactic point of view, the sun is not stationary but moves along with the other solar systems in the fringe along with us at a certain speed and direction. And from a universe perspective, the sun doesn't move in that same direction and with that same speed. In other words, it is perfectly true to say that the sun does something from a particular point of view and that is the reason why saying it rises is perfectly legitimate, from our point of view.

Part III

The truth of the matter-- Part I

There are some things that could be considered indisputable but there are quite a lot of others that we rely on that are entirely disputable. We accept them as facts because they have always been accepted as facts. My point, and it is a point of others make who make scads and scads of money for saying it, is that we take entirely too many things as fact that are not. This is true a lot in business. Someone--a trendsetter usually-- says that using teams in business is the way to profitability, so everyone moves to using teams in their business. It becomes the new truth and everyone acts as if it is the once-and-for all truth. But there are a lot of studies out that say a reliance on teams is misplaced and can consume assets of a company that might better be spent elsewhere. But no one listens because the truth has already been established.

Or someone says that Six Sigma is the way to increase the profitability of a company and that GE had a turnaround in profitability because of it. So now everyone moves to Six Sigma as the new once-and-for-all truth and apply it to their business. But again, there are some problems with that that have been raised which suggests a wholesale adoption of Six Sigma might not be the best thing for a company. Six Sigma however is the new truth so any criticism will not be heard.

And there are many other programs and positions taken in business, government, the military and other organizations that are the same. They represent the once-and-for-all truth. And this is even true for science, a discipline that is supposed to give us the once-and-for-all truth.

Part II