The Illusion of Truth and the Belief it Matters
nuno borges
Organizational Systems Designer / Coherence miner with Blockchain / Anthro-complexity student / Blogger / Periodic speaker
Agile, Lean practitioners and change agents of other persuasions, i fear that we have all been misled.
Despite the vile rumours spread by the fringe operatives of a false branch of epistemology known as objectivism, 'Truth' does not exist.
When an act occurs, we make sense of it retrospectively. We do not think in the present. A momentary lapse between action and thought places all cognition in the past. Those who desperately cling to the present are only able to achieve living in the more recent past.
As we form words to see what we think, they are filtered by how we feel, what surrounds us, and what we 'believe' happened. We have no choice but to reconstruct the past through these filters in order to make sense of the world. We are unknowingly but actively editing every aspect of what happened, and trying to link it with something that happened before. We live in frames within frames.
We don't have the time or cognitive CPU to consider the 'real truth'. If we did, we would be long extinct, because a species with full perception of sensory data cannot survive. In fact, we should be thankful for our frailties, because without them we wouldn't be here pondering them.
How should this influence your interactions with teams?
Do not attempt to pursue the truth with either an inquisition of workshops and Agile retrospectives, or with the Lean Industrial Complex writhing on the altar of accuracy. You are chasing illusions of images of past events, desperately clinging to the present through memory.
Treat truth as sheep, scattered throughout the valley, but with some effort, they can be herded together to form a consensus, an agreement, a shared perspective. Fleeting but possessing the distincly human power of movement - of action.
The instrument we use to achieve this is the 'story' - we are Homo Narans after all. Stories need not be accurate, only plausible. If they lift the spirit and they promote acting in concert towards a noble goal….
Then truth be damned.
I'd rather not hold a team hostage in search of something that was never there.
Tend the fire. Hand out the hot cocoa. Spin a yarn together and take pride in the tools that nature granted us. To do anything else is to reject our evolutionary lineage.
Again: Provoking my deep-thinking! You've raised some points that I've struggled with in my thinking for some time. For example, objectivism: If there really is no objective truth, then how do we reconcile the decisions we make each day? How do we advance our thinking? If A is not A, and by extension 1 is not 1, but a representation, then it seems to me that epistemology is at once on very shaky footing. Yet, I do agree: In human systems, many different perspectives of "the truth" can exist depending on the observer. However, while we may have different perspectives, that is all they are: Perspectives. The "truth" doesn't care if we observe correctly: It exists irrespective of our desires. Does that mean we give up? No. That's why we have philosophy. True: Stories can help motivate action, but if the stories are conjectures (truth be damned) what good is served? More deep thinking is required...
Director - Americas @ EPiC Agile | Leadership Agility
6 年Interesting topic. The story crafted from a group's consensus is more a representation of the mutual values and beliefs held by the group than by the aggregated perception of what their story describes is 'real'.
Guiding high value business outcomes through new ways of thinking and working | Agile Coach & DA Instructor | Kanban Coach & AKT | Trusted Change Advisor
6 年Your pictures help weave your tale of truth - the sheep seem genuinely surprised ;)
Executive Coach | Trainer | Author
6 年Interesting thoughts, thanks for sharing. Truth is definitely subjective- generally I consider the word “truth” as a short form of “personal truth.” I think the concept of truth is often mixed with “fact.” If you equate something being true with something being a fact, that is when things start to fail in interesting and often amazing ways.