Absolute vs Relative Truths

Hello everyone. Welcome to the next edition of this newsletter. There was enough happening in the past 30 days - with the General Elections results springing a few surprises, IPL and a few upsets in the T20 world cup.

Today's topic is a take on something that is a recurring theme in our day-to-day lives.

Laws of Nature

As students of physics, we would have come across laws that seem to perfectly define nature. Like earth’s gravity pulls any object at an acceleration of 9.8m/s^2 (g). This seems like a perfect law, holds good in all circumstances and no one debates it. Thus can be called an absolute truth.

But 9.8 is an approximation that works fine for most of our basic day-to-day needs but might need more complex calculations while say, launching a spaceship. And 9.8 does not hold good in Moon or any other planet. Thus, the absolute truth becomes only a relative / subjective truth. It is conditional to a certain set of assumptions.

Comparatively, the speed of light ( c ) is an amazing constant. It is the same on all planets, galaxies and irrespective of the speed or position of the object. It becomes an absolute absolute truth. ??

But there are very few such absolute truths.

Axioms vs Theorems

Axioms are like laws/rules that are self-evident and don’t need any proofs. Like if a=b and b=c then a=c. Theorems are those that need proof. Like (a+b)^2 = a^2 + b^2 + 2ab.

In day-to-day life, we tend to use a lot of such axioms and theorems as a given. Theorems are great to use as they have been proved. The real tricky ones are what we might considered as axioms. That is those we think are always right but never been proven.

Even millennia ago, people knew sun rises in the east and summer comes around June in the northern hemisphere. People had accepted as axioms even when they didn’t know that it was the effect of earth orbiting around the Sun. It was proven much later.

Empirical vs Theoretical

The laws of physics and nature as we observed can be split into theoretical evidence and empirical evidence. The volume of a cube with a side of length x would be x*x*x that is x^3.

While the acceleration due to gravity (9.8m/s^2) was derived by observations that are scientifically captured and repeatable. Hence it is empirical and can change in case we find better scientific experiments to derive the same.

Pi is an irrational number that used to approximated to 10/3 for ease of calculation and later to 22/7. Now, more powerful calculators and apps has made it all irrelevant. One can calculate to any level of precision as needed, especially with the use of infinite series. What started as empirical, now has a theoretical backing.

Scientific temper

While the world of mathematics can live in a theoretical world, the world of science & technology demands a more empirical world as it must help solve real world problems. The empirical world is a more imperfect world but a necessary one. Hence, the need to know not just “science” but also build a scientific temper. To observe things in a systematic repeatable manner and not rely just on belief.

Engineering vs Biology vs Social Sciences

Within the empirical world, areas of engineering like civil and mechanical have decades of observations and evidence behind them that they could be construed as also perfect sciences but backed only by observations. Technological shifts like better materials do tend break these norms, but the fundamentals tend to remain the same.

The same may not be true in the world of biology and chemistry. It is an even more evidence-based science whose underlying workings are not fully understood, or too nuanced. Why should H1Bac sugar levels be below 5.7, why blood pressure should be 120-80, why heart rate must be around 72, etc are mainly statistical observations of healthy human beings. The why is still not fully known though decades of research has given us better answers than in the past.

For example, in the 1940s, smoking was recommended by doctors for cold and cough. Decades of research after that highlighted its sinister effects.

Social sciences are the weirdest of the lot. Here, we tend to measure people, not natural processes. Unlike nature that does not bother about our observations, people do. Hence, there cannot be any perfect theory and even the empirical evidence that can have a lot of biases. Like the famous Hawthorne Effect which tried to see if the office lighting had any impact on productivity. It initially hypothesised that it should have an effect, but it didn’t. Because the people who were experimented upon were conscious of the observations. It was a biased exercise. There could be various such studies that could prove X and another study that proves the exact opposite and both might be partially true. ??

The Takeaways

There are few exact truths, while a lot are relative and subjective. Especially in the world of social sciences and even, to some extent, the world of medicine.

Some movies like Lagaan or Forrest Gump might be universally likeable while movies like Animal or RRR could be very subjective to our individual interests.

When the truth is exact, there is nothing to worry or debate about. But since a majority isn’t, need to analyse it with pinches of salt. Especially, if there is enough motivation for the biases to creep in. Like the allegation that the Sugar industry tried to portray fats as unhealthy or that the human landing on the Moon was actually a hoax. Both sides can try to prove their points very scientifically but difficult to prove or disprove it, as we ourselves didnt see any of it happen. ??

Though it is very difficult for us as individuals to go about checking all of these on our own, it good to be circumspect, be objective, not let any biases creep in and then consume the same.

Fear not the theorems that can be proven, but the axioms that are taken for granted.

Thank you. See you soon!