Answer to Postmodernism “Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?” Galatians 4:16 Postmodernism denies the existence of truth; therefore, it cannot be true! The fact that I comment on such things does not make me the enemy of this civilization. Quite on the contrary, free speech had its ground in the common search for truth. Truth, at least while this civilization believed in such a concept, it was seen as useful, despite its “fangs”, despite it behaving nastily. He who puts the light under the bushel, he is the enemy of this civilization, not he who unmasks its mistakes. What do you think is the impact of hackers on Microsoft’s Windows(R),tm? When a hacker makes public an exploit, Microsoft trembles and its programmers curse their own days. But, in the end, the result of such publishing is a far better product (via Windows Update). So, Microsoft has short term damage from it, and a middle term gain from it. We have a problem and we want to solve it. In order to approach it, we have at hand two explanations, one which has 9% truth (expl1) and one which has 5% truth (expl2). The explanations will lead to different solutions; we write: expli -> soli , where i=1 or 2. We will write then sol1>sol2, meaning that sol1 is more efficient than sol2. (This is, superior to it). We understand long-term efficiency, for a Pyrrhic victory is not quite a solution. The premise of our judgments is Acts 5:34-39, which takes over an Aristotle’s argument (ontical-ontological efficiency of truth). We admit that the solutions are chi-square distributions (time on x-axis and efficiency on y-axis). The length of such distributions (i.e., g95) will be the greater as the quantity of truth is greater. It results that from seeking immediate efficiency it follows long-term failure. We write: 0% truth = null efficiency. Doing nothing has null efficiency. This means immediate vanishing (passing in potential) – matter itself has a percentage truth in it, for breathing, particles moving around the nucleus, etc., they follow some laws which they understand as true. The purpose of nihilism is universal annihilation. Therefore, nihilism tends toward 0% truth. It is more truth in a glass of water than in a treatise of mathematics. We speak of added truths and added lies. In Marx, the added truth was the take over of some theses of Christ, rendering them explicitly (see Kautsky’s interpretation). Marx repeated Christ’s story, but upside down. From added truth it followed the political advantage of the communist movement (also, Marx largely appealed to envy), and from the added lie, it followed the bankruptcy of East-European countries. (By “added” I mean relative originality.) Marx’s added truth was the critique of inhuman conditions; his added lie was turning one’s back to God, (set forth as social ideology). In Hitler, added truth was the propagation of Nietzsche’s critique of small bourgeois mentality and the added lie was the presentation of Jews as scapegoats. Hitler winning the elections was due to added truth (comparative advantage in respect to concurrent parties -- also, the lie he added stimulated voters’ prejudices, which felt their egos flattered and they voted for him -- in Goebbels’ propaganda technology was a lot of added truth, but it was kept for the elite and not offered to the masses). Surely, the German masses would not have allowed themselves be manipulated, if they knew what the methods of manipulations were. It was thus in the interest of the ruling elite to hide this knowledge from being known publicly. We have for 0% truth null efficiency and for 100% truth we have infinite efficiency. t(0)=0 and t(1)=+infinite. The simplest function of such a form is: t(x)=t0*x/(1-x), wherein t0 is a temporal constant which we compute below. We notice: t(50%)=t0. Interpretation: to know 1/2 of what God knows means to be half-god. The Devil knows all what can be known (Ezekiel 28:3), that is why he can oppose himself to God with such success. The heroes of antique Greece we guess they were the offspring of God’s Sons (Genesis 6:2) with the daughters of men, the Sons of God being gods (1 Corinthians 8:5). The heroic epoch is the mythical epoch, also known as the golden age of humankind. If we compute the time since man’s creation (sixth day) and we take for it 1.8 millions years (according to M. Harris in Culture, People, Nature. An Introduction to General Anthropology, 7th ed., Longman, 1997, p.35, so approximately 2 million years) from the apparition of archaic Homo sapiens till the end of the golden age, then we have: t0=(approximately) 2*10^6 years If we compute the lifetime of Christianity of about two thousand years (since propagation till becoming a sixth hand power in the West, but maybe it did not reach insignificance) then we have: t(xBible)=2000 years 2*10^6*xBible/(1-xBible)=2*10^3 xBible=(approximately) 10^-3=0.1% truth It follows that the exoteric truth of the Bible reveals 0.1% of what God knows (as knowledge quality). Or, the tradition says that the Bible contains an enormous quantity of knowledge. This tradition was the most efficient political construct of the actual West, so it follows that therein something is true, that is: Bible tells the truth. (Circularity is here hermeneutical.) It follows the conclusion: the Bible is encrypted. Therefore, for anyone who wishes knowledge, esoterism is a must. (Hebrews 11:1 affirms this: Christianity is an occult teaching – “hidden things” are occult!) Tudor Georgescu http://intellect-club.nl.eu.org P.S.: We did not define here what is truth, but we offered an intuitive model of it. It follows, to compute t(x) function of x, it is just pure subjectivity. It follows, we will compute x function of t(x), i.e.: x=t^-1(t(x))=t(x)/(t0+t(x)) (See Dan A. Lazarescu’s affirmation: “History is a vast retrospective social laboratory”.) Micro-macro transition: Collective efficiency is: t(x); Individual efficiency is function of: - social truth (as available in the collective mental), i.e. x; - the correctitude of its communication (participation in the collective mental) – we write: yi=zi * x, wherein yi is the individual truth and zi is the individual participation degree (what is then the collective participation degree? — is it some kind of Pareto’s alpha?); - its degree of getting applied (arduousness): yi -> mi, wherein mi is the expected result, of the person having the information yi, yi -> ri, wherein ri is the real result, There are two ways of computing mi and ri, i.e. absolute and relative — absolute means very long term results and relative means the value of the result as seen by his/her contemporaries. In both of them, mi and ri can have negative values. Then arduosity is: ai=ri/mi. Arduousness may have negative values, function of the individual being against or for society’s ideals. Society’s ideals they can be better or worse. Truth does not guarantee doing the good, but only efficiency of one’s doing. It is also important that the social truth be renewed, so it is needed a flow of added truth, otherwise added thinking errors will damage society. When societies feel their chi-square histogram is about to diminish, terrible things happen (e.g. Inquisition, Islamic state and the actual world tragic-comedy meant to support the Washington consensus.) I realize this is more of a knowledge quality theory, as different from Shannon’s theory of quantity of information. So, now we can say with the Zohar: “Woe to the human being who says that Torah presents mere stories and ordinary words! All the words of Torah are sublime words, sublime secrets....The stories of Torah are only the garment of Torah. Whoever thinks that the garment is the real Torah and not something else -- may his spirit deflate! He will have no portion in the world that is coming.” (Zohar 3:152a, apud the Yahoo! message of Donmeh West of Sunday 04-18-2004 00:15). ===== Faust. "Only a few steps farther, up to yonder stone! Here let us rest a little from our straying. Here often, wrapped in thought, I sat alone And tortured me with fasting and with praying. In hope full rich, firm in the faith possessed, With tears, sighs, wringing hands, I meant To force the Lord in Heaven to relent And end for us the fearful pest. The crowd's applause now sounds like scorn to me. Oh, could you but within me read How little, son and father, we Were worthy such a fame and meed! My father was a simple, worthy man, Who over Nature and her every sacred zone, Quite honestly, in his odd plan Mused with a wayward zeal that was his own, Who, with adepts their presence lending, Shut him in that black kitchen where he used, According to receipts unending, To get the contraries together fused. There was a lover bold, a lion red, Who to the lily in a tepid bath was wed. Both, tortured then with flames, a fiery tide, From one bride-chamber to another pass. Thereon appeared, with motley colours pied, The youthful queen within the glass. Here was the medicine; the patients died, And no one questioned: who got well? Thus we with hellish nostrums, here Within these mountains, in this dell, Raged far more fiercely than the pest. I gave the poison unto thousands, ere They pined away; and I must live to hear The shameless murderers praised and blessed." Goethe, Faust, Outside the gate of the town, translated by George Madison Priest