Experience: The Basis Of Our Faith
Part 2: Who's Telling the Truth?
 In Part 1, we examined the definition of ‘truth’ and demonstrated that ‘truth’ is a condition where what our brain perceives through the five senses, is in harmony with what is outside our brain, ‘out there’, beyond the confines of our skin. Receiving stimuli from waves ‘out there’ that are picked up by the receptors in our body...eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue, and then transmitted to our brain for processing, is the normal way of knowing things.
If our receptors are healthy then we ‘see’, ‘hear’, ‘taste’, etc, and abstract from what is doing ‘out there’. We then react in accordance with the needs demanded. We see a car charging towards us; we jump away. We hear a screeching sound; we cover our ears. We smell gas we search for its source.
This is sanity, because our reactions are related to something ‘out there’ that may or does threaten us or give us pleasure. But it is necessary to recognize that the process of ‘knowing’ must be generated from sources outside our bodies which then stimulate our senses, which then convey those signals to the brain for processing... and in that, and only in that order.
We also demonstrated that it is possible for people to ‘see’ things without having their senses stimulated by stimuli from outside their bodies. These people suffer from delusions and hallucinations. There is a malfunction in their brain. It conjures up images without having been first stimulated from the outside. This is a condition of INsanity.
This does not refer to memories, which have been stored in the brain, for these too, must have had their origins in something ‘out there’ before they could have become memories.
And we also emphasized that Rabbon Shimon ben Gamliel reiterated that Torah demands ‘truth’ as a foundation for perpetuating society and the world, and that the Torah method of education promotes the natural process of learning and generates sanity.
But we left the subject with a question.... How do we VERIFY the ‘truth’? How do we know that what one ‘sees’ conforms to what is ‘out there’? What is the ‘truth’ when we see different things?
The Analogy of the Ship
If you and I were shipwrecked alone on an island for a long period of time, and you saw a ship in the distant horizon, that suddenly exploded, and I did not see it... it would raise a question in our minds. Was there a ship out there, or was it a mirage? Are you seeing things that don’t exist, because you are hoping, praying for a ship to come? Or was there really a ship ‘out there’?
You say there was a ship! I say there was no ship! At that given moment, who's ‘seeing’ is true? We have no way of determining the ‘truth’. Your perception could be just as valid as mine. Even if you also ‘smelled’ the smoke, ‘heard’ the explosion, involving as many of your five senses as possible... and at the same time I did not experience anything like what you experience, you still can’t claim the ‘truth’. Why is your experience more valid than mine? or mine, more valid than yours?
Now, suppose there were 50 people on that island, and it was I alone who did not see that ship. You and the other 48 jumped and screamed for joy at being saved! Each confirms the other’s sighting a ship, and they look at me in bewilderment. Forty-eight people in the same situation agree there was a ship, and I am the only one who did not see it! Does it cast a question mark on my ‘seeing’?
Perhaps... but I am so convinced that I have the ‘truth’, and I am ready to stake my entire knowledge of optics and light. I argue that the bending rays of the sun may have created a mirage from their vantagepoint, so it looked as if there were a ship. I remember that Copernicus defied a world arrayed against him by asserting that the Earth was not the center of the universe... and history showed that he expressed ‘truth’, while the others could not see it!
Now suppose my shipwrecked mates try to calm me by saying “ok. There are other islands in this chain with other survivors. Let’s signal them and see whether they saw a ship from another position”. I reluctantly agree, and with semaphore signals, from a more easterly angle, the answer comes back that they, too, sighted a ship that had exploded.
I am not yet convinced, so my compatriots signal survivors on islands in a westerly direction. They, too, confirm the sighting and the explosion. There are about 2000 survivors who confirm that experience against my obstinacy. But I DID NOT see a ship! There was no ship; I’m convinced of that. My senses told me that!
So two days pass and some debris is seen floating in the water. They are remnants of a ship, scattered about, and finally, a book is found, logging the voyage of the SS History, with the latest entry describing its position on the high seas, and the captain’s sighting of 23 islands in our group.
What a find!
Did someone from another of the islands set this up? Did someone fabricate this debris and set it afloat? Did someone fantasize this log, playing a prank on all the survivors in the islands?
Hardly! Well, for the others there is no question as to its veracity. Every piece of evidence corroborates what they experienced. But for me the question stands.
How do I deal with the evidence?
- I could ignore it and hold fast to my obstinacy. If I’m polite about it and do not become a nuisance, my friends will learn to tolerate me. If I become obnoxious and disruptive, they would probably consign me to a doctor’s care, or worst.
- I could evaluate the evidence and attempt to determine its reliability.
I could ask myself a number of questions: How can 2000 people, living in scattered places and different vantage points, and having no contact with each other, except from one island to the next in the chain, claim to have experienced the same event? Where did the debris and log come from? And how to explain its recording of events that inhabitants of all the islands claim to have experienced? Who could know that there were 23 islands in the archipelago, when the survivors of each island can see only the one or two in the nearest link? Who wrote it?
I am forced to admit, if I am honest to myself, (and I utterly detest denying my senses), that there is too much corroboration to deny the event. There is a multitude of witness who experienced the event. Perhaps one or two dozen people may err, but to say that 2000 are deceiving themselves... well, that’s a bit rash.
But those 2000 participants also saw it independently from different angles, different lights, different perspectives... and they ALL claim that they saw it. They are separated in time and distance, so how could they conspire to fabricate such a story? Furthermore, even if two or three dozen fabricators had conspired and concocted such a story, there surely would have been an outcry from somebody, some small group, blasting the lie and condemning its perpetrators for such outrageous fabrications! Why was there no outcry?
I am forced to conclude (much to my dismay) that ‘truth’ resides with them. My not ‘seeing’ the ship is probably an aberration.
I have come to peace with myself as to where ‘truth’ lies.
How do they deal with the evidence?
Because of all the evidence, they are certain that there actually was a ship that exploded. On the basis of this knowledge they plan their lives on an expectation of a near redemption by other ships that probably have been notified. They don’t build permanent dwellings, expecting to leave soon. They direct the education of their children towards the life of modern civilization, which will be needed in the First World countries to which they are headed. They make ready to abandon the adjustments to the ‘simple’ life of the islands.
However, there is a gnawing reservation on the part of every inhabitant of every island about the event of the ship... its sighting and explosion.
Is there really certainty? One can only be certain if one was on the ship... was actually ‘there’ and experienced the event first hand. ‘Seeing’ the ship from a distance, even ‘smelling’ the wafting smoke, or ‘hearing’ the explosion... no matter how ‘real’ is not the event itself. It can’t be; it is at best something what our brains interpret from something on the ‘outside’.
The very best we can say is that the probability of it having happened is so great, because of the commonality of all the evidence which our senses detect, that it becomes a statistical certainty. And that is sufficient for us to shape, mold and direct our lives by its conclusions. The burden of proof to say otherwise is upon the denier!
This is how we ‘verify’ the truth
The commonality of reportings, spaced through distance and time, the universal consistency of these reports, the existence of artifacts from the event... all combine to establish the ‘truth’.
Return to Part 1 / Continue to Part 3
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