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Keats

Keats. Beauty is truth, truth beauty, --that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. --Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, concluding line complete. Truth and Reality. “THE WAR BETWEEN TRUTH and REALITY”. Neil Greenberg University of Tennessee Knoxville, TN USA.

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Keats

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  1. Keats Beauty is truth, truth beauty, --that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. --Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn, concluding line complete .

  2. Truth and Reality

  3. “THE WAR BETWEEN TRUTH and REALITY” Neil GreenbergUniversity of TennesseeKnoxville, TN USA SENIORS for CREATIVE LIVING12 March 2009 Truth and Reality Truth and Reality

  4. Truth and Reality

  5. The Mystic in the Crib We are born into a world of mystery The infant’s world is one of continual mystery, relentless curiosity, exploration, and transformative discovery Ambiguous feelings are “clarified” by social referencing. Truth and Reality

  6. DEVELOPMENT Infants are “scientists in the crib,” always developing and testing, accepting or rejecting, hypotheses about the nature of our environments and how best to control them. It is a necessary stage of our cognitive development that makes learning possible . . and it is the beating heart of the scientific method. (if we can hold onto the “freshness” of perceptions) Truth and Reality

  7. Search and Solvemystery enlarges us “know thy self” Oracle of Delphi, 800 BCE-395 CE • the search for truth exercises and enlarges our competence(the scientist in the crib) and • approximating the truth may provide a biological advantage (better maps, but see Borges) Truth and Reality

  8. TRUTH TRUTH has many meanings in everyday use, but in general it means “in agreement with fact or reality.” REALITY, in everyday usage, means the state of things “as they actually exist” (as opposed to “believed to exist”). In its widest sense, reality includes everything that is, whether or not it is observable or comprehensible. Truth and Reality

  9. TRUTH is a BELIEF Belief is the psychological state in which an individual is more-or-less confident in the validity of a proposition. (confidence can translate into biological fitness) Validity can be more-or-less internal (limited generalizability; eg, individual) or external(broad generalizablity; eg, population) Truth and Reality

  10. TRUTH is our BELIEF As imperfect organisms, there is no way we can know all there is to be known ... OUR TRUTH is at best an APPROXIMATIION of REALITY. BUT we can have more-or-less CONFIDENCE in the validity of OUR TRUTH NO ONE can know what YOU know, but you may be more-or-less successful in communicating your understanding of truth. Truth and Reality

  11. WORDS Since words are at best metaphors that stand-in for the things they represent, we are doomed from the outset. We can only approximate what we are speaking of –our truth-- which is itself an approximation of reality

  12. How do we put experience into words?

  13. WORDS As far they refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

  14. With all that said about the unsayable. . . I will try . . . with words . . . to • characterize TRUTH (not so hard) and • REALITY (probably impossible)

  15. We derive our beliefs… “…through argument and experience. Argument brings conclusions and compels us to concede them, but does not cause certainty nor remove the doubts in order that the mind may remain at rest in truth, unless this is provided by experience.” Roger Bacon (1268)

  16. To ACT with CONFIDENCEis biologically significant Much of our behavior is structured by the possession and pursuit of confidence in the validity of our beliefs – their “truth.” The neuroethology of consciousness and its dysfunctions have helped us identify the manner in which correspondence and coherence function and converge to create a sense of more-or-less doubt or confidence in the veracity of a belief.

  17. HOW IS BELIEF ESTABLISHED? • Empiricism and Reality-Testing • data-based, induction-driven • PERCEPTS CORRESPOND to reality • Rationalism and Story-Telling • theory-based, deduction-driven • PERCEPTS COHERE with each other Truth and Reality

  18. COHERENCE is COMFORTING “A world that can be explained even with bad reasons is a familiar world. But on the other hand, in a universe divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. . . .” A “predictable” world is much less stressful Albert Camus

  19. correspondence and coherenceevidence and theory past and future These two domains – one rooted in the past, the other in imagination– collaborate in creating a “sense of confidence in a belief,” not least, one’s self. Increasing the degree of confidence in the validity of a belief enhances biological fitness … ecologically, there is an “optimal” cost/benefit ratio for a given level of confidence Organisms often continue to try to increase confidence depending on perceived urgency and resources and can become addicted (search and discovery is pleasurable) Truth and Reality

  20. Our brains are formed by the EPIGENETIC interaction of organism and environment:all percepts are modified by those that came before.

  21. We see the world not as it is, But as we are . . . (Talmud) Truth and Reality

  22. We see the world not as it is, But as we are . . . Truth and Reality

  23. We see the world not as it is, But as we are . . . Jacob’s Ladder connects earth and heaven, the real and the ideal Truth and Reality

  24. New experiences are filtered through past experiences. If a novel experience is too different, it evokes stress. Jacob’s Ladder connects earth and heaven, the real and the ideal Truth and Reality

  25. PHYSIOLOGY STRESS RESPONSES are evoked by REAL or PERCEIVED challenges to an organism’s ability to meet its needs SUBCLINCAL STRESSis evoked by modest challenges to homeostasis, including COGNITIVE DISSONANCE, an apparent mismatch between internal perceptions and external reality; challenges to the narrative that confers biologically valuable confidence.

  26. Stress modulates neural function STRESS is a coordinated suite of responses to real or perceived challenges to an organism’s ability to meet its needs As Camus observed, a predictable world is less stressful Novelty evokes more or less stress depending on the perceived urgency of its challenge: information is ASSIMILATED or ACCOMMODATED by an organism’s world model.

  27. CORRESPONDENCE THE POWER OF REALITY- TESTING We confirm and establish confidence in CORRESPONDENCE (the validity of experiences) at every level, from spinal reflexes through thoughtful cognition. Experiences we are confident are real but which challenge theory is the key method of enlarging our worlds. Establishing validity is a key element of learning. Truth and Reality

  28. COHERENCE THE POWER OF THEORY We confirm and establish confidence in COHERENCE by assessing the validity of component percepts and their complexity. Expectations exist at many levels, from habituation and sensitization of sensory receptors through the most elaborate flights of philosophy. Truth and Reality

  29. POWER of EXPECTATIONS PLACEBO: the power of coherence: • Acupuncture IS effective in many cases, but application at arbitrary sites is comparable (Melchart et al. 2005) • Antidepressant medications can be 80% replicated with placebo (Kirsch et al. 2002) • Parkinson’s patients experience an endogenous dopamine “rush” when nigrostriatal system activated by placebo (expectation of reward – Fuente-Fernandez 2001)

  30. FALSE CONFIDENCE "What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.” --Bertrand Russell ...

  31. BUT IS MYTH SO BAD? “These things never were,” said Sallust, speaking of the Greek myths, “but always are!” “Is there anything truer than truth?” Asked Kazantzakis, “Yes, Legend.” Is there a “higher truth?” Truth and Reality

  32. Can we handle the truth?

  33. Are beliefs more important than truth?TRUTH and STRESS SELF-DECEPTION serves a vital function(Daniel Goleman’s use of Ibsen’s term: “Vital Lies” 1985) “You can’t handle the truth!” (Jack Nicholson in In “A Few Good Men,” 1992) DENIAL ---The more-or-less “…willing suspension of disbelief…” (Wordsworth) – is that the function of art?… to provide a safe zone for exploring the otherwise troubling, stress-evoking truth? Or of myth? (“theory used to be an “enchanted circle”)

  34. DISORDERS of BELIEF? Acceptance of experience that doesn’t correspond to external reality:kinds of hallucinations; Bonnet’s Syndrome(filling in scotoma); dismorphic body; pareidolia. (False positive (confident match with memories); Type I Error; gullible, trusting) Denial of experience that corresponds to external reality: agnosias: eg, visual(left occip), associative, anasognosia(denial of dysfunction / right cerebral cortices), prosopagnosia(faces) (False negative (failure to match with memories); Type II Error; skeptical, wary)

  35. LEFT HEMISPHERE Coherence: creates a consistent belief system – works to “save appearances” (Ramachandran 1998) Probabilistic reasoning (Osherson et al 1998) Abstract object recognition (Marsolek 1999) Activated by familiar percepts (Goldberg 2001) RIGHT HEMISPHERE Correspondence: “skeptical,” tests reality and if damaged, confabulation runs rampant (Ramachandran 1998) Deductive reasoning (Osherson et al 1998) Specific object recognition (Marsolek 1999) Activated by unfamiliar percepts (Goldberg 2001)

  36. "Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but every end is a beginning, and under every deep a lower deep opens" --Ralph Waldo Emerson

  37. BRAIN EVOLUTIONexcavating the paleopsychology of our species: "The Brain of Man has not abandoned it's ancient animal foundations, it has built upon them . . . . But it has also reconstructed them as the shifting earth beneath dictates . . . . We have done the best possible in the landscape in which we have found ourselves with the raw materials we have inherited." (Prolegomena to a Study of Mind, 1973, ch. 42)

  38. Kant: "The senses cannot think, the understanding cannot see.”

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