The Median Reality: Somewhere Between the Absolute Yes or No Lies the Truth(s)

‘The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely momentum is known in this instant and vice versa.’  - Heisenberg.

‘If a system was complete- if you could use it to prove every true statement, then it could never be free of contradictions.’ – von Neumann.

‘Fair is foul, foul is fair’ – Macbeth.

‘The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.’ – Milton. 

‘People generally see what they look for and hear what they listen for.’ – Harper Lee.

‘It is better to live your destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of someone else’s life.’ – Bhagavad Gita.

The excerpts of these great thoughts, what is it that runs through all of them?

I think uncertainty, an element of doubt, creates room for differences in perspective. Not only does nature tell us this, but numeracy guides us through the same idea; politics of power dictate it, our inner voice shouts at us to consider it, our biases colour it, and finally, accepting the imperfection of our knowability allows us to live a contended life. 

The Heisenberg principle is akin to exactly not being able to know the present. We can only accurately see the present when it is in the past. We act on the best guess view of the future as it unfolds. The instant we cognise it as the present, albeit on a minuscule basis, it is in the past. [how would we know we are in the present unless it has passed?]. We come from the past and live and act with a view of the future. The lived reality of past and future, with the present being the unattainable, identical to concurrent accuracy of momentum and position, is the praxis of Heisenberg's principle in our lives.

From a particular perspective, infinity is a large and distant number, an incomprehensible one, but it is conventionally used to denote an unmeasurably large quantity. Consider this: if one must divide something by zero, the response is 'tending towards infinity.' How does this interpretation work? Take, for instance, a measuring tape and use it to measure the length of a table; you could say it is 1.2 meters or 120 centimetres or 1,200 millimetres, but as you go further and further down the minutia of the scale, the length would become approximately 1.2 meters, or 120 centimetres or 1,200 millimetres, not precisely that. The more one moves towards accuracy, the more approximate the previous measurements appear. There is a contradiction: the more one looks for exactness, the more approximate it becomes, akin to the complete truth paradoxical to consistency or lack of contradiction.

The idea that there is absolute right or wrong is as misconstrued as 'thou shall not kill a human being'. Taking a life is not a trivial matter; that is clear, but the idea that killing is an absolute wrong is not necessarily an unquestionable edict. Soldiers in war kill their opponents, and that is justified, sometimes even on humanitarian grounds, but killing for revenge is not and can not be morally accepted in the modern era. [it was, in the past - an eye for an eye...]. Context changes from foul to fair, fair to foul.

I guess most of us have heard the story of a young prince, keen to accompany his knights, who fell riding and broke his leg. Considering this the worst outcome, he lamented and considered this a curse on him, but this adverse incident saved his life as all the knights that went into battle were either culled or taken prisoners and sold into slavery. A change in perspective or lengthening of the time horizon under which to evaluate an event can potentially prove something to be very different than what it was thought to be – we make hell heaven and heaven hell.

One of the strengths of the scientific method is its endeavour to reduce the element of bias. However, we often find safety in the collective and familiarity, and questioning our preconceived notions and ideas can be contemptuous and complicated. Yet, it is crucial to challenge these notions, as it is only by doing so that we can truly understand the world around us. Hence, in most instances, we are prepared to listen to what we believe to be accurate and see what confirms our idea of what we consider suitable. This emphasis on questioning preconceived notions can intellectually challenge us and push us to think beyond our comfort zones. 

The idea that there is only one kind of truth is a gross simplification, making it a political description of a phenomenon rather than something that can provide a sense of accuracy in meaning. In its multifaceted nature, truth can be divided into scientific, personal, emotional, and political. Scientific truth falls in the realm of verifiability through testing and experiment, whereas personal truths are things one knows about oneself that may not be verifiable or shareable. Emotional truths are those which satiate the valence of the need of one within the context of feeling and a state of being, and finally, political truths are statements made to achieve a particular goal, expedite an agenda, or avoid self-harm. This complexity of truth is intellectually stimulating and invites us to explore its various dimensions.

No specific absoluteness or certainty prevails in reality; it flows within the context of relativity and probability. The fuzziness of knowing that we can guess something to be correct or accurate but not entirely sure is where the real universe and the natural world exist. It is hard to see and negotiate one's way through this cloud. There is no such thing as perfection, as far as humans are concerned; there is, however, an aim to achieve perfection. If one measures the outcome as successful, only when perfection is achieved can one live unsatisfied and unhappy. What is human is acknowledging one's shortcomings and imperfections and genuinely trying to live a life based on one best effort.