This week’s work at the National Academy has helped me reconsider a book I picked up in Charlottesville, Virginia several years ago. The title was intriguing, “What Do You Believe is True Even Though You Cannot Prove it?” This was a collection of essays written in response to the 2005 Edge Question and included Howard Gardner’s commitment to the idea “that human talents are based on distinct patterns of brain connectivity,” and Ian McEwan’s belief that part of his consciousness will survive his death. Ray Kurzweil advances his notion of the singularity insisting “we will find ways to circumvent the speed of light as a limit on the communication of information.” It’s an opportunity to consider the possibilities you know as reality and to convince others to see that reality with you.
Think about your response. What do you believe that you cannot prove? How do you know it is true?
The first week of the National Academy has proposed a few possibilities–Cicero’s view from the spheres of heaven and Earth, Aristotle’s empiricism describing what he believes he sees and Madison’s “more thorough and critical survey… examining it on all its sides; comparing it in all its parts, and calculating its probable effects.” There is a truth present in your mind’s eye that cannot be experienced–touched, seen or heard. Yet you know this, whatever this is, as sure as you know what you can experience and share with others.
What is that you know and how do you know it? How do you share this knowledge with others and convince them it is true?
