Truth: Absolute or Relative?
This post was begun as a return rely to a comment I made on John's last post. Since it is so valid to what we discuss here at DC, I felt it would make a discussion for a new thread.
Rev. Phil stated: “I do have one question though, cannot you position your point to any ideology? Science or politics or humanities all make various claims that they have the "truth" for whatever they may be addressing and yet have widely differing and even contra-dictionary views internally?”
Thanks for your question, Rev. Phil.
OK, lets take science. The one of the main reasons I left Christianity for a career in electronics is over the issue of truth. In science, truth is relative on many levels based on our knowledge at the time.
Lets say there is a power supply whose output dropped form 12 VDC to 7 VDC. As a fellow electronic tech, you claim you know it’s in the filtering circuit (lets say the capacitor) while I claim it’s in the regulator circuit (lets say one of the bias resisters on the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor or MOSFET). We both strongly believe our knowledge as to the power supply’s malfunction is 100% right; that is our truth. In other words, we both have an opinion based of our understanding of electronics which equates truth with knowledge. However, unlike religion / theology, with just a voltmeter (DVM) or and oscilloscope, we can prove truth in a matter of minutes; thus KNOWING who was wrong and who was right.
The same can be said about relative truth in science. For over 60 years vacuum tubes were the absolute truth. That’s how we understood electronics; it was the only way we understood truth and it worked great in our radios, TV’s and early computers. Then, Bipolar Transistors were the “truth” of the day as developed by Bell Labs. Now it’s the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor that is our truth and they are used in large scale integration as in the computer you are reading this post on.
The same now out dated absolute “truth” is replacing our analog TV technology which is being relatively up dated in February 2009 with Digital High-Definition TV HDDTV); a totally new kind of electronic truth that is also totally incompatible with the old analog TV truth.
As an example, the other day I went to a musical instrument store with my brother who wanted to get an electric guitar. I noticed the guitar room had a number of vacuum tube amps costing over 3 times as much as a MOSFET amp ($3500.00). I commented to the salesman as to why would anyone would want old technology and pay $3500.00 for a tube amp that is fragile (tubes can break and the control elements can warp or shake loose), needs high voltages (tube plates running at 600 VDC and upwards) and tubes are subject to audio phonics (the speaker can shake the vacuum tube elements causing output distortion).
His reply: “No Sir! No Sir! These amps are designed to avoid all of that. Plus you will not get as high a quality of sound from any solid state amp.”
I asked him if I took an audio analyzer (a test equipment that sweeps a pure known range of frequencies into the amp under test’s input and then compares these audio frequencies to the amps output for the total percentage of distortion induced by the amps circuit) and the MOSFET amp’s signal was equal to the vacuum tube amp or better, would that prove my point, sir?
Salesman: “No Sir! All that fancy test equipment can not replace the trained musical ear which knows true fidelity when he hears it.”
Again, I tried to reason with him and asked him if vacuum tube amps were indeed better, why does not NASA used them to tract their space probes.
Salesman: “NASA needs to cut cost plus the U.S. government gets supports the newest fade in electronics and not from the best proven technology."
Then the salesman demanded: “And just what makes you knowledgeable in this area anyway? You don’t play a guitar do you?” I had hit a wall!
With a background in religion, I felt I was arguing theology. Plus, without the means to prove our facts at the time, it was simply what I said vs. what the salesman (in ignorance) said. We were debating the absolute truth (vacuum tubes now, vacuum tubes forever) vs. relative truth of advancing facts / logic.
You want to know something funny; within 50 feet I walked into the keyboard room and asked another salesman there why none of the keyboards used vacuum tube amps?
Keyboard Salesman: “Hu? I don’t know what your are talking about!”
When I told him what the guitar amp salesman said about vacuum tube amps, the keyboard salesman said that THE REASON MUST BE that vacuum tube amps work better ONLY with guitars.
I started to again explain the logic behind modern technological advances as I had just done with the guitar salesman, but I said to myself: “What the Hell! I’m now in the world of religion and theology.”
The above situation is religion in a nut shell. The problem is that Bible believers are the vacuum tube faithful whose truth is an absolute which can never be surpassed since it was the “truth" that was “Once delivered to the saints”.
As such, the Bible is a vacuum tube manual (but with the Old Testament equal to a Spark Gap Generator) where the true Bible believer is just like those guitar pickers who are willing to pay over 3 times as much for out dated technology (truth) and are also willing to argue their pseudo facts as to why it is so much better than anything secular humanity has today. And when the non- believer objects their flawed logic, we are told just as the guitar salesman told me about not being able to have any valid logic on vacuum tube amps since I did not pick a guitar, or as we so often hear her at DC: “Why should anyone listen to anything you say? You are not a Christian believer!”
As the old independent, fundamental, Bible believing, Bible preaching evangelist once told me about the 1611 King James Version of the Bible: “Brother, if it was good enough for Peter and Paul, it's good enough for me!”
Rev. Phil stated: “I do have one question though, cannot you position your point to any ideology? Science or politics or humanities all make various claims that they have the "truth" for whatever they may be addressing and yet have widely differing and even contra-dictionary views internally?”
Thanks for your question, Rev. Phil.
OK, lets take science. The one of the main reasons I left Christianity for a career in electronics is over the issue of truth. In science, truth is relative on many levels based on our knowledge at the time.
Lets say there is a power supply whose output dropped form 12 VDC to 7 VDC. As a fellow electronic tech, you claim you know it’s in the filtering circuit (lets say the capacitor) while I claim it’s in the regulator circuit (lets say one of the bias resisters on the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor or MOSFET). We both strongly believe our knowledge as to the power supply’s malfunction is 100% right; that is our truth. In other words, we both have an opinion based of our understanding of electronics which equates truth with knowledge. However, unlike religion / theology, with just a voltmeter (DVM) or and oscilloscope, we can prove truth in a matter of minutes; thus KNOWING who was wrong and who was right.
The same can be said about relative truth in science. For over 60 years vacuum tubes were the absolute truth. That’s how we understood electronics; it was the only way we understood truth and it worked great in our radios, TV’s and early computers. Then, Bipolar Transistors were the “truth” of the day as developed by Bell Labs. Now it’s the Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor that is our truth and they are used in large scale integration as in the computer you are reading this post on.
The same now out dated absolute “truth” is replacing our analog TV technology which is being relatively up dated in February 2009 with Digital High-Definition TV HDDTV); a totally new kind of electronic truth that is also totally incompatible with the old analog TV truth.
As an example, the other day I went to a musical instrument store with my brother who wanted to get an electric guitar. I noticed the guitar room had a number of vacuum tube amps costing over 3 times as much as a MOSFET amp ($3500.00). I commented to the salesman as to why would anyone would want old technology and pay $3500.00 for a tube amp that is fragile (tubes can break and the control elements can warp or shake loose), needs high voltages (tube plates running at 600 VDC and upwards) and tubes are subject to audio phonics (the speaker can shake the vacuum tube elements causing output distortion).
His reply: “No Sir! No Sir! These amps are designed to avoid all of that. Plus you will not get as high a quality of sound from any solid state amp.”
I asked him if I took an audio analyzer (a test equipment that sweeps a pure known range of frequencies into the amp under test’s input and then compares these audio frequencies to the amps output for the total percentage of distortion induced by the amps circuit) and the MOSFET amp’s signal was equal to the vacuum tube amp or better, would that prove my point, sir?
Salesman: “No Sir! All that fancy test equipment can not replace the trained musical ear which knows true fidelity when he hears it.”
Again, I tried to reason with him and asked him if vacuum tube amps were indeed better, why does not NASA used them to tract their space probes.
Salesman: “NASA needs to cut cost plus the U.S. government gets supports the newest fade in electronics and not from the best proven technology."
Then the salesman demanded: “And just what makes you knowledgeable in this area anyway? You don’t play a guitar do you?” I had hit a wall!
With a background in religion, I felt I was arguing theology. Plus, without the means to prove our facts at the time, it was simply what I said vs. what the salesman (in ignorance) said. We were debating the absolute truth (vacuum tubes now, vacuum tubes forever) vs. relative truth of advancing facts / logic.
You want to know something funny; within 50 feet I walked into the keyboard room and asked another salesman there why none of the keyboards used vacuum tube amps?
Keyboard Salesman: “Hu? I don’t know what your are talking about!”
When I told him what the guitar amp salesman said about vacuum tube amps, the keyboard salesman said that THE REASON MUST BE that vacuum tube amps work better ONLY with guitars.
I started to again explain the logic behind modern technological advances as I had just done with the guitar salesman, but I said to myself: “What the Hell! I’m now in the world of religion and theology.”
The above situation is religion in a nut shell. The problem is that Bible believers are the vacuum tube faithful whose truth is an absolute which can never be surpassed since it was the “truth" that was “Once delivered to the saints”.
As such, the Bible is a vacuum tube manual (but with the Old Testament equal to a Spark Gap Generator) where the true Bible believer is just like those guitar pickers who are willing to pay over 3 times as much for out dated technology (truth) and are also willing to argue their pseudo facts as to why it is so much better than anything secular humanity has today. And when the non- believer objects their flawed logic, we are told just as the guitar salesman told me about not being able to have any valid logic on vacuum tube amps since I did not pick a guitar, or as we so often hear her at DC: “Why should anyone listen to anything you say? You are not a Christian believer!”
As the old independent, fundamental, Bible believing, Bible preaching evangelist once told me about the 1611 King James Version of the Bible: “Brother, if it was good enough for Peter and Paul, it's good enough for me!”