Muder Chiba

WHICH COLOUR DO YOU WANT THE TRUTH?

The Business of Actionable Insights

Muder Chiba

The Insights Business focuses on the acquisition of information or data and the parsing of insight from it. It attempts to describe the reality of the markets and the ‘consumer’ to aid decision-makers.

The core business of Business Insights is Truth. Describing and circumscribing the Truth, therefore, becomes essential to the business of providing and acquiring Insights.

This ,the second deck on this, explores the ‘definitions’ of Truth ‘parsimoniously’ using Occam’s razor to simplify

Muder Chiba

WHAT IS TRUTH?

• Is it absolute?

• Is it variable?

• Is it dependent?

• Is it flexible?

• Is it synonymous with honesty?

• Is there anything called the objective truth?

• Immutable truth?

Muder Chiba

The Truth is an ‘infinite’ concept and spans geography ,disciplines and time; and textures!

Need to make parsimonious choices

Occam’s razor

Muder Chiba

A quick look at the major ‘Schools’ of TruthCutting through the complexity of theories and sub-theories to …

Muder Chiba

Correspondence Theory of Truth

The Theory A statement or belief is true if it corresponds to the facts.

Truth is thus a property of a statement. The facts exist independently of our knowledge of them. Accurate

observations can report actual states of affairs and cannot result in reasonable disagreement. Einstein and other

"scientific realists" (proponents of the view that theories are true if they describe reality) endorse this idea and

claim that our task is to find out the truth about nature, even if that means changing the basic presuppositions of

our theories.

ProblemsHow can we know whether our perceptions are correct? What justification/reasons do we have for a belief? This changes the notion of truth away from a property of a

statement to the reasons we provide for beliefs. But then, how can we know whether our beliefs about the facts are

justified? We cannot know the world apart from our knowledge.

What about truths that correspond to no particular "facts" like philosophic principles, scientific theories like evolution,

love, justice?And how do we tell whether generalizations are adequate?

Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Muder Chiba

Coherence Theory of Truth

The TheorySince the only way to know something is by appealing to beliefs, that which is true is that which is consistent with our overall network of beliefs. A claim is true if it meets

the requirements of science (simplicity, comprehensiveness, predictive). This position is supported by philosophers of science Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn,

who support this view because, they argue, there is no one truth because there is nothing "really out there."

ProblemsBeginning assumptions cannot be proved, so what if the

whole network is wrong?Why can't equally coherent and seemingly acceptable

systems be reconciled?

Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Muder Chiba

Pragmatic Theory of Truth

The TheoryA statement is true IFF (if and only if) it would satisfy our

expectations were we to act upon it. That is, the consequences of being able to integrate knowledge,

predict events, achieve goals determine whether a belief is true. Truth is thus a function of human endeavor, not some

existence apart from us. This theory of truth supports a view of science called instrumentalism, which argues that theories are instruments that are useful for calculating and

predicting. According the physicist Niels Bohr, this is especially applicable in quantum theory.

ProblemsIf what is effective can change, so can the truth. But truth

should be constant.Just because something works (for us) doesn't make it

true. For example, if we tell a small child that if she goes into the street the boogeyman will get her (in order to prevent her from being hurt), the success of our lie in

protecting her does not make what we said true. Besides, the reason something works is that it is true, not the other

way around.

Wikipedia and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Muder Chiba

The Truth , what it is , what it is not and how to arrive at it…lessons from the Best

Muder Chiba

EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH: GANDHI

• I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills

• Truth is what the voice within tells you

• Truth alone will endure; all the rest will be swept away before the tide of time

Muder Chiba

THE TRUTH IN ART: PICASSO

“We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”

Pablo Picasso

Muder Chiba

THE TRUTH IN SCIENCE :FEYNMAN

• “A very great deal more truth can become known than can be proven “ “The chance is high that the truth lies in the fashionable direction.

But, on the off-chance that it is in another direction-a direction obvious from an unfashionable view of field theory-who will find it? Only someone who has sacrificed himself by teaching himself quantum electrodynamics from a peculiar and unfashionable point of view; one that he may have to invent for himself.”

Nobel Lecture 1965• "We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong.” The Character of Physical Law

• “Now ,another example of the truth, so as to speak, that works in the sciences that would work in other fields to some extent is that if something is true, really so, if you continue observations and improve the effectiveness of the observations , the effects stand out more obviously. Not less obviously. That is , if there is something really there , and you cant see good because the glass is foggy, and you polish the glass and look clearer , then it’s more obvious that it’s there, not less .”

The Meaning of it All

Muder Chiba

THE TRUTH IN PHILOSOPHY :DURANT• “…led James on to a new definition of truth. Truth had been

conceived of as an objective relation as once good and beauty had been; now what if Truth , like these , were also relative to human judgment and human needs? Natural laws had been taken as ‘objective truths ,eternal and unchangeable; Spinoza made them the very substance of his philosophy; and yet what were these truths but formulations of experience , convenient and successful in practice ; not copies of an object but correct calculations of specific consequences? Truth is the ‘cash value’ of an idea”

• “Truth is a process and ‘happens to an idea’, verity is verification. Instead of asking where an idea is derived ,or what are its premises ,pragmatism examines its results and ;it ‘shifts the emphasis and looks forward’. It is ‘the attitude of looking away from first things ,principles ,categories ,supposed necessities , and of looking forward to last things ,fruits , consequences, facts’.

Scholasticism asked , What is the thing- and lost itself in ‘quiddities’ ; Darwinism asked, What’s the origin- and lost itself in nebulas; Pragmatism asks, What are its consequences ?- and turns the face of thought to action and the future.

The Story of Philosophy ,Will Durant

Muder Chiba

Bringing it all together…

Muder Chiba

THE ‘TRUTH’

The idea of Truth (with a capital T) implies One Truth and seems to be fraught with serious inconsistencies.

Even in the physical (hard!) and the natural sciences , that which has been held as immutable truth has frequently been contradicted later.

It is equally unsettling to deal with decisions with the thought that all information and knowledge is just a construct and not the Truth ! Imagine living life ‘knowing’ you’re in the Matrix!

We should focus on truths (with a small t). ‘truths’ that are real for us in the context and useful to ‘turn the face of thought towards action and the future’!

Muder Chiba

Actionable Business Insights

Business Truth

Actionable Business truths!

DEFINING THE INSIGHTS BUSINESS

Muder Chiba

Black and White Shades of Probability

Muder Chiba

MarketComplexity

Decisions

Information

Complexity

Probabilistic decision-making perspectives

muder.chiba@gmail.com +919820620084

THE BUSINESS OF ACTIONABLE TRUTHS