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And all those years I tried to make my teaching language each time clearer and more adequate to
topics I discussed with my 21 years old students.
They were not more than 30 in
heroic beginning of
University : almost boys. But in my last years, they were
Already more than 100 -- almost girls. Times do change.
I am sure you'll forgive me to have revealed something about my own person before you take
challenge to follow me in my more "philosophical" reflections.
If you are NOT so interested in such a "heavy" topics, please * J U M P * straight to
END of next section:
============================================== BUT.if you ARE, Fellow Heavy Thinkers, here we go! ==============================================
4. The Editor's view about Truth! ============================================= What for a "truth" is
patient here above asking for? What would SHE call The Truth in this case?
A plausible description of
development of her bad health condition. An explanation she can believe and put up with.
But a "truth" her doctor also really can believe. And actually does believe. In fact she asks for a "truth" they both believe in and want to work with.
Is The Truth then nothing else than a suitable, from both partners agreed tale? A story we now believe because we trust each other TODAY ? Maybe we won't believe "that truth" tomorrow any more. But another truth: Our tomorrow's truth.
Truth - our truth - is like a living being: it has to be born, To live a certain amount of time, to die and fully disappear.
Just as our Feelings do. Their existence is limited to
duration of our actual relationship to a person or an object.
Do I assume then that there is no other Truth than such one?
Yes, I do. Truth is for me "social stuff". A kind of secret between a "You" and a "Me". And a secret "we" BOTH believe in. For
present moment.
And this "You" has not to be a person of flesh and blood. It can be God,
Bible, or even
Science,
Fate. As long as I confirm "Your" existence for me by talking to "You", by BELIEVING in "You".
Truth is thus a question of belief, of trust. When
trust is over,
belief vanished? "Farewell Truth!"
Scientific Truth becomes "a remnant of a primitive stage of Mankind". Do you remember
"childish" conception of
old Ptolemy:
Earth as
centre of
Universe?
Even Religion is often degraded nowadays to
status of a nice fairy tale "we" once believed when "we" were just kids.
And consider how difficult it is for us to remember vividly that we have really been in love with a person we now fear or despise so much.
But we really have been, you know! And it was true love. THEN.
Let me try to give an exacter definition of
word truth, as we commonly use and understand it:
Truth is what both (or more) partners agree to be true at
very moment of their trustful conversation. They both (or all) believe that truth. But They are
only ones to can bear witness to it. Nobody else can.
Truth has nothing to do, consequently, with a Permanent Universal Reality that would exist on its own, either we believe it or not.
Truth has thus nothing to do with Objectivity. With Facts.
And only facts seem to obey to
laws of
contemporary Science. They can (mostly) be checked by an independent observer. One can measure them, mathematically analyse, repeat and predict them.
Do you need to believe something or someone to be sure about a fact? NO ! You just have to check it by yourself.
Facts can't be true or false. They just ARE there, outside of us, 'waiting' till
Science begins to explain them. In other words, till we perceive them and give them a name, a significance.
And that name IS NOT
fact itself , but
OPINION one has about this fact (e.g. "the Earth is flat") depending a lot of
explanation
Science builds around that opinion.
Many scientific theories and axioms have taken, nowadays,
place of
former religious Authority. You have to agree with them if you want to build a career at
University or if you want to be published in a "serious" magazine.
Just as
Churches did in
old days,
'Academics' teach
people what they SHOULD now believe about
universe, if they want to avoid a conflict with
'spiritual' Authority.
Those scientific dogmas (or paradigms, as they were recently renamed), are presented to
people as
Truth. And they ARE really
Truth . for those who BELIEVE in them.
As long, of course, as
present believers won't loose their 'faith' in them. And choose a new scientific Truth to believe in (also doomed -- of course -- to disappear sooner or later.).
This has always been and will probably ever be
behaviour of
upper intellectual class.
Why do I insist so heavily upon this point?
Because
Holistic approach of
reality (and of course of
Medicine) proceeds from an other paradigm (another belief about what is real) than
paradigm of
majority of
contemporary scientists.
But I'm sure it has been enough for today. We'll surely talk again about that big problem. In one of next issues.

Charles Lebaigue MD is a retired Belgian professor(Medical Psychology)who successfully practised several holistic therapies