This document discusses the concept of truth from multiple perspectives: - Truth can be known with varying degrees of certainty, from conclusive to elusive, and is sometimes missed due to wrong observations or paradigms. - There are different aspects of truth, including objective historical truth about the past, empirical truth about the present, and statistical truth about predicting the future. - In a "post-truth" era, appeals to emotion and belief often outweigh objective facts in shaping public opinion. Logical reasoning and coherent explanations of truth are sometimes rejected in favor of subjective perspectives. - To determine truth reasonably, claims should be empirically adequate, logically consistent, and existentially relevant through personal experience or documentation.

1. Truth
Created by Professor Haller at Math Symposium at
Palm Beach State College

2. A Hypothesis is a Claim
A Claim seeks to Determine Truth with a Certain Level of Certainty,
Confidence, Significance, or Reliability
Truth can be knowable with certain degrees of certainty
Truth can at times defy being identifiable
Truth can be conclusive to elusive
Truth is missed due to wrong observations, misinterpretations,
misapplications, and wrong paradigms. How a question is framed is so
crucial!
Truth is exclusive not inclusive.
Definition: Truth
• That which is factual
• That which conforms with reality

3. Objective
Truth
Historical
The Past
Empirical
The Present
Statistical
The Future
Aspects of Truth
Interpretative and Applicative in Nature
Moral Truth
What are the rules to define meaning, purpose,
right, wrong, good, or evil? A naturalistic relativistic
worldview can only describe things . It is amoral.
Subjective
Truth
Personal experience

4. Section 8.1-4
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
I) Historical Truth: the Past
◦ Subject to credible eyewitnesses – the more the better
◦ Physical evidence of some type. Crime labs - Archaeology –
a manuscript
◦ When written internal evidence such as meeting grammar,
syntax, style, language of the time and place in question.
◦ Courts of law attempt to determine a historical event
◦ Historical accounts and narratives are dissected to confirm
the past.
◦ Descriptive statistics fall in this area.
Codex Sinaiticus 300AD: If a reproductive copy of the 1st
century we expect it to follow Greek grammar, syntax,
vocabulary, paper, and confirm historical/geographical
characteristics unique to that era. Also, notice to forge or
insert words is not possible. Sentences are run on sentences.
Descriptive Statistics Example
• How tall are people in a group?
• What is their weight?
• What is their age?

5. II) Empirical Truth: the Present
◦ Subject to the scientific method
◦ Repeatable, measurable, and verifiable
◦ Example water boils at 100 degrees C.
◦ Hypothesis Testing
◦ Determine if there is reason to reject the hypothesis or claim
◦ Set a boundary of how accurate does one wish to be
◦ Forensic Testing

6. III)Predictive Truth: the Future
• Inferential Statistics – Forecasting, modeling, simulation – prophetic in
nature

7. Section 8.1-7
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
Why statistics?
It permits seeing through
a hazy fog of uncertainty
with greater clarity
The Beloved Family Canary

8. Statistics is a blurred photograph of
the real unseen world

9. Statistics gives clarity, certainty, confidence,
reliability, and significance
Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

10. IV) Personal Experience:
• We touch boiling water we (ex)claim- it is hot!
• It every language are words like hunch, insight,
intuition, illumination, enlightenment, revelation,
epiphany, an intense catharsis.
• See Eureka effect – see
the unseen per Archimedes
And Sir Isaac Newton
• See Epiphany
an emotional catharsis
• These tend to be highly subjective in nature. Our senses can deceive us.
Others will be skeptical especially if it is an experience uncommon such as
having a supernatural origin. Fall into 3 categories.
– Unintentional self delusion – a hallucination
– Intentional deception – a lie
– Reliable and confirmed by the other truths
Falling apple
gravity quantified

11. V) Moral Truth:
• The lens through which to
interpret truth that is
discovered
• Truth that stand through the
centuries as self evident.
• If my reporting of data is not
truthful, I will get a false report
• Honesty
• Loyalty
• Devotion
• Patriotism
• Family
• Kindness
• Generosity
• Self-sacrifice
• Respect of
• Life
• Possessions
• Person
• A moral truth indicates there must be a moral law giver
• Without an agreed moral framework, a purely
naturalistic world view states you and I are the result of
accident of time + chance. We simply dance to the tune of the
DNA given us. We exist without purpose or intentional
design. All things are relative.

12. Coherency:
• All the various truths converge to make sense not non sense. Rules apply as
to semantics known as hermeneutics. How do we make interpretations and
conclusions with a syllogism.
• A public speaker once was asked why must every world view attempts to
give a coherent explanation of truth or reality? He responded do you want a
coherent or incoherent reply?
In Logic called: The Law of
Coherency or Rational
Inference
Truth is Exclusive: If today is
Monday it is exclusively
Monday. If I am a member
of the Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday inclusive club I am
sincere but wrong

13. • Truth can be Distorted by Semantics
– Words
• False syllogisms
• Hermeneutics – the science of
interpretation – what is the noun,
what is the verb, is what stated literal
or figurative?

14. Types of Logical Fallacies
Fallacies of Relevance
• Ad Hominem (Personal Attack)
• Bandwagon Fallacy
• Fallacist’s Fallacy
• Fallacy of Composition
• Fallacy of Division
• Gambler’s Fallacy
• Genetic Fallacy
Fallacies of Ambiguity
• Accent Fallacies
• Equivocation Fallacy
• Straw Man Fallacy
Irrelevant Appeals
• Appeal to Antiquity / Tradition
• Appeal to Authority
• Appeal to Consequences
• Appeal to Force
• Appeal to Novelty
• Appeal to Pity
• Appeal to Popularity
• Appeal to Poverty
• Appeal to Wealth
Red Herring
Weak Analogy
Moralistic Fallacy
Naturalistic Fallacy

15. Post Truth: Truth is no longer reliably known (due
to conflicting sources and the sheer amount of
nonsense in the world). Debates are often about
which "facts" are actually true instead of what they
mean or how connect them coherently.
Post truth is where public opinion is shaped
more-so by subjective opinion and emotion
rather than objective facts. It appeals to
emotion and personal belief.
Post Truth Era -2016
Truth Declared not Discovered or
Validated with Facts

16. Objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion
than appeals to emotion and personal belief.
Cherry-pick data and come to whatever conclusion you
desire’
We live in a post-truth age…we make up our own subjective
reality
Post-truth’ 2016 word of the year
by Oxford Dictionaries
It's official: Truth is dead. Facts are passe.
“Given that usage of the term hasn’t shown any signs of slowing down, I
wouldn’t be surprised if post-truth becomes one of the defining words of
our time,” said Grathwohl, the Oxford Dictionaries president.

17. 1. The concept that a person's perception and how
they 'feel' about things supersedes fact
2. The complete disregard for any body of evidence
or advice from the scientific community when
contesting facts
3. Negation of events or information widely
accepted to be true. "Truthiness is 'What I say is
right, and nothing anyone else says could possibly
be true.' " -Stephen Colbert
“Who's Britannica to tell me the Panama Canal was finished in 1914?!" he continued
in the segment. “If I want to say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust
books. They're all fact, no heart.”
“Post-truth” is not to be confused with “Truthiness,” believing
something that feels true, even if it is not supported by fact.
The truthiness about “honey buns” they are a delight to eat but a destroyer of any diet.

18. Section 8.1-18
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
Post Truth
Seen in
I) History of Ideas:
Nietzsche’s perspectivism or
relativism.
It depends from where you come
from your demographic age, ethnicity,
- truth is ultimately really fiction.
Subjectivity rules. Everything is
relative.
Knowledge is power and ultimately
the will and the power to dominate is
truth.
"A new and magical understanding of
the world is on the rise, one based on
will rather than truth. There is no truth,
in either the scientific or the moral
sense."
- Adolf Hitler

19. Section 8.1-19
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
II) Social Sciences
Everything is socially constructed. The majority
opinion states what is true.
Word, words, there are nothing but words formed
and shaped by culture and time.
Why must there be a sole interpretation and
application to everything? Why do you dogmatically
insist things must be coherent?
Let us have White math, Hispanic math, Asian math,
and Black math taught as separate subjective
realities.
I wish to claim I am an Eskimo – who is to deny me
my declaration. Where is the discover by birth
certificates or other factual proofs?
Post Truth Seen
in

20. III) Media
◦ If we see visually and hear audibly or in print it
carries the weight of being true.
◦ John Kennedy’s Dallas speech never took place.
It was a composite of various speeches pasted
together.
◦ The media can Photoshop any picture. It can
blend two unrelated audiovisual things into
one. It does not matter if it is accurate or true.
Post Truth Seen in

21. III) Media
◦ If we see visually and hear
audibly or in print it
carries the weight of being
true.
◦ John Kennedy’s Dallas
speech never took place.
It was a composite of
various speeches pasted
together.
Post Truth Seen in
Hear JFK's voice deliver the Dallas speech
he never gave in 1963
Updated: 1:39 PM CDT March 16, 2018
DALLAS – A Scottish technology company
has used computers to recreate the speech
President John F. Kennedy was set to deliver
at the Dallas Trade Mart the day he was
assassinated.
CereProc, which specializes in text-to-speech
technology, collected 116,777 sound units
from 831 of JFK’s speeches and radio
addresses, according to British
newspaper The Times, which commissioned
the project.

22. Section 8.1-22
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
◦ The media can Photoshop any picture. It can
blend two unrelated audiovisual things into
one. It does not matter if it is accurate or
true.
Post Truth Seen in
III) Media
◦ If we see visually and hear audibly or in
print it carries the weight of being true.

23. Section 8.1-23
Copyright © 2014, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc.
◦ We lose the ability to trust
◦ We are easily deceived and adopt post truth thinking our
self. Justice is lost. Legally win at all costs. Distort
everything.
◦ Freedom needs the absence of domination by others,
such as the political, religious, commercial, or cultural
elite, who give us group control and think
◦ Freedom means the presence of the ability to be –
unrestricted to ascend and achieve one’s purpose in life
because of one’s efforts and natural abilities with
minimal obstruction
Fall of Berlin Wall – one of the slogans “we
are not like them” speaking of the Soviet
Union and its distortions of lies and political
suppression. We wish to be free
You shall know the truth (veritas) and the
truth will make you free
IV) Danger -Consequences to the loss of the truth

24. TESTS FOR TRUTH
 Have a Grasp of Logic: Reduce speculation and spurious conjecture
 In a Post Truth World note as all measurements get jettisoned.
 Law of Identity – new definitions deconstruct. We lose meaning
 Law of Non-Contradiction gets rejected. A truth and its opposite have validity. We get
uncertainty not certainty.
 Law of Exclude Middle gets rejected as narrow minded and bigoted for cultural, religious,
or philosophical reasons. We lose clarity.
 Law of Coherency gets rejected. Everyone can have an opinion, but opinions are not
necessarily certain and factual. We get confusion.
 Empirical Adequacy: Does data exist in the real world through experimentation or
historical documentation?
 Logical Consistency: What I am observing does it make sense or nonsense? Anyone
can have a theory. To discard the spurious theories from the possible explanations,
make sense. The laws of identity, non contraction, and the excluded middle become
our compass.
 Existential Relevancy: Some truths come into our lives. We experience first hand
the consequences. We hear of tornadoes but do not appreciate their threat unless
personally experienced. Until then we must rely on the reports given us by others.
Personal experience confirms matters.
How Then CanWe Determine with Reasonable
Confidence the Truth in Anything ?

25. AN EXAMPLE
 Empirical Adequacy: Does data exist in the real world through experimentation or
historical documentation? Do I have birth certificate or proof parents raised me as an
Eskimo with photos?
 Logical Consistency: Do I look, speak, and dress like one would expect of an Eskimo?
 Existential Relevancy: Might be relevant if in an Artic surrounding. Personal experience
seeing my skills helps confirms matters.
 In a Post Truth World note as all measurements get jettisoned.
 Law of Identity – new definitions get deconstructed – anyone can declare they are an
Eskimo!
 Law of Non-Contradiction gets rejected. A truth and its opposite have validity. I am an
Eskimo and not an Eskimo at the same time?
 Law of Exclude Middle gets rejected as narrow minded and bigoted for cultural, religious, or
philosophical reasons. How dare you say you are an Eskimo and member of an exclusive
class of people?
 Law of Coherency gets rejected. Everyone can have an opinion, but opinions are not
necessarily certain and factual.
If I state I am an Eskimo, How do I establish truth?

26. Truth
Created by Professor Haller at Math Symposium at
Palm Beach State College