Why Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize

Two days ago from now, the Nobel Prize committee announced that the peace award this year would be given to Barrack Obama, the president of the united states and who is just 8 months into the presidency. The world is shocked.

Firstly, why do you care? If you are american, let us put aside the patriotically-motivated pride an American feels at the thought of yet an American winning the award. (Of course, he is not just any american, but let us further say this is irrelevant). The answer to the question would be that the Nobel prize has always been associated with a sort of admiration one feels for the “winner”. After all, he or she is human, just like you and me, but accomplished so much more. But, if you are anything more than a common man, and not completely ignorant how many great people surround us, you would quickly dismiss the Nobel as being the greatest award in the world. In the category of Physics, for instance, we know some of the most eminent physicists we study at school possibly won the Nobel Prize for Physics. But later on one learns that many of these physicists relied on earlier results by mathematicians, and of course they go unrecognized at least with respect to the Nobel prize (since there is none for math). More importantly, most of the online auctions and transactions work on cryptographic protocols, invented by computer scientists. Robots walk about in space because their software code is thoroughly checked by model checkers. Of course, computer scientists are recognized by Goedel and Turing awards, but how many of them are known beyond those who study computer science? Yet another example: the McArthur awards are given to people who have made extraordinary contributions in fields of geography, archeology, poetry, art, physics, mathematics and the list goes on.

So clearly, the Nobel alone should not be the matter of utmost reverence to all of us who are aware that there are other prizes that capture the great.

Now you are probably nodding your head and declaring “OK, fine. I agree with you. But why Obama? He has only made promises so far”. Actually, you reason further. You think, the Nobel committee is full of these smart old people, who have seen so much. Clearly, they want more than just promises. Why they are so enthralled by Obama? That is, because you associate the Nobel peace prize with Nelson Mandela, Mother Terresa, and Kofi Annan. But the Nobel peace prize has been so much more. It is a remark by the committee about what they feel can make the world a better place. For instance, Dalai Lama was awarded the prize, and yet you had the entire population of China firmly protesting this award. Menachem Begin was awarded the Nobel peace prize, and you know well much of the Middle east was heavily disturbed by this move. George Marshall was awarded the prize, and there are still those who criticize his policies today. Then, there is Barrack Obama.

It is not revelation that Obama has it right in his head. Sure, he talks a lot, talks well, but we know he means well. He began his presidency by declaring that he will attempt to close Guan. Bay. Yes, he didn’t get it done, but this is what he started. He didn’t have to, he could have taken it easy for the first few months. Instead, he looks at the G. Bay with disgust, as is right, and says “Let us close this shit.”. Of course he is opposed by in a million directions by a hundred morons, but he is trying – trying as much as his administration will allow him. He speaks promise, he speaks humanity. The Nobel committee could not have not waited another year, who knows how many might have run him down. This award is not premature. Its a statement, that we should just listen to Obama a little more, with a little more patience, and with enough luck something so humane will result. Here is to Obama. Well deserved.

Polymaths

A recent article on polymaths brings back to mind an old debate – that in this age and time it is incredibly hard to find some. The argument is this: the frontiers of knowledge are so far, science has become so vast, information so complex that it is not humanely possible to have a solid understanding of all that we have discovered.

But was it not always the case that polymaths accomplished what was (believed to be) humanely impossible? So what’s different now? To understand the difference, we have to look at how humanity has progressed.

Even as early as a hundred years back, education was matter of some reverence. This is not to say that education was hard to come by, but it just means that people recognized it as a matter of some difficulty. Regarding any entity, call it x, with difficulty reduces us, the people, to believe that x is indeed difficult irrespective of whether it is or not. In other words, even if 10 out of a 100 had the ability to understand mathematics or science or sociology, it is most probable that only 2 considered it worthwhile to investigate the knowledge thereof (the numbers are arbitrary). Come today, it is quite another story. Every “smart” person is expected to be able to achieve something, and to achieve something, to distinguish yourself, you create new information. Although likely that this is not new at all, the total content created has been on a steady rise for the last 50 years. As of today, there are thousands of books written, and hundreds of those are actually published.

All this does not mean much to a polymath. You see, since she is able to understand such a multitude of topics, it is that easy to ignore all of them (that which is mediocre). Despite the problem that one can not easily decide which of them is mediocre, the bigger problem is every effort that the smart ones are taking to distinguish themselves is progressing our understanding of what surrounds us. 200 years ago, if a philosophical or a mathematical problem was presented there were a small dedicated group (small in comparison to today) concentrated on this problem and may have by the way, ignored it to work on something else. But in today’s cut throat “academic” world, it is likely one’s person’s oversight is another’s genius. Questions and problems introduced by truly intelligent people, are being solved by “lesser” mortals.

This is not only the reason as to why polymaths are hard to come by. Realize that, the last 100 years have been special. The manhattan project collected some of the brightest mathematicians around the world, leading to an enormous amount of breakthroughs in physics. The Enigma, and those who cracked it, bought together some brilliant cryptographers (what they would be called today, that is). Computer science, although introduced just 50 years ago, has revolutionized the dissemination of information, and created subfields of science like in no other era.

Nonetheless, there are polymaths and you should read this article to learn more about this rare species.

Tagliatelle al Pomodoro Fresco

A minor deviation from the more sober posts. Here is a quick recipe for some great Tagliatelle Pomodoro.

Ingredients:

5 Fresh Tomatoes
300g Tagliatelle
4 cloves of Garlic
A spoon of Crema di Peproncino
Olive Oil
A spoon of butter
Some tomato Puree.

Preparing the pasta:

The procedure is standard. Place water to boil, and when it starts to boil, add the pasta (and salt). After the required time, say till it turns dente, get rid of all excess water. Add the spoon of butter and mix the contents (so that the pasta does not stick together when placed aside).

Preparing the sauce:

Bring water to boil, and add the 5 fresh tomatoes. When the tomatoes begin to split, get rid of the excess water and carefully peel out the skin. In the meantime, use a garlic squeezer to make a paste of all the cloves of garlic taken. Bring olive oil to boil, and add the mashed garlic. Simmer the garlic in the heat till it turns golden brown. Add salt, and follow that up with the peeled tomatoes. Mash the contents till it turns into a homogenous pulp. A little extra tomato puree could also be added here. Finally add the spoon of crema di peproncino, and allow the sauce to simmer for a bit. Leaves of Basilico can be added for flavor and decoration. We are done.

Spam

Off late, this blog has been subjected to some highly interesting spam. Amongst the spam-comments, is an offer to catch Oscar Wilde and Olivia Wilde in compromising positions. I did not think they belonged to the same category.

Yet another says, in reference to [1], that ” Control signals from this state machine feed the bet logic, credit logic, payout logic, and wheel logic”. A quick google search for that sentence leads me to [2]. I do not get it, what is the point of crawling for such sentences? To interest the author and make him feel that the comment was written by an academic? I guess I have to thank my lucky stars that all of them are quietly detained by Akismet.

Skin Colors

Skin Colors: inferiority / superiority. This has always been a difficult issue. But one must ask why? Clearly, not because the infrequency of instances.

Darwin, on his famous beagle expedition, declared that the differences in human skin color is the most pronounced difference among human beings across the planet. Is there a correlation between the place and the color? Darwin concluded that there was not.

Recently, in TED talks [1], this issue was revisited. As it turns out, there is a strong correlation. Equatorial regions suffer an incredible amount of a large fragment of the UV rays from the sun, and evolution has engineered a higher production of melanin to account for the vitamin D necessary for the human body. In comparisons, migrants to the northern hemisphere can not produce, due to lack of certain UV rays, the necessary amount of vitamin D with such large quantities of melanin. The answer? Cut down the amount so as to maximize the sustainability of melanin.

As the author points out, evolution is tattooed in our skins. But yet, it is a fact completely misunderstood by millions. Is this analysis so hard to infer (skipping the technical details)? The whole of the 20th century was plagued by society’s (or some subset of) inability to understand how and why skin colors are different. And with the recent rise of the BNP, perhaps there is no escape for the 21th century either.

It would appear, at first, that science has all the answers. But clearly, that is not enough. We need the larger part of society understanding the implications of such, and accepting what (and that) scientific theories suggest.

[1] http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/
nina_jablonski_breaks_the_illusion_of_skin_color.html

To Write

Paul Auster, in his New York Trilogy, talks about the growth of an author. The growth that begins with mumblings, or some form of it in writing, and then the maturity in the language, its power, articulated to strike your thoughts. It is not easy, to bring out the complexity of your imagination in a language. Perhaps, interestingly, what you write can turn out, over time, more severe than what you think. Take of it as two languages – one, your own, probably composed from a human language (for instance, see Umberto Eco on Language influencing and forming thoughts) and the other, the human language, perfect for your expressions but not at your disposal completely. The word ‘barricade’ can be a appropriate metaphor.

There are many schools of thought that define, nay even dictate, the form a write should take. There is the Derrida sort, opaque in a sense, troubling in another. All the same, I find that style of writing obscene since the claim, and the boast, seems to be in the blurring of clarity. If this is you, then instead find home in minimalism. Ernst Hemmingway is a classical evangelist for the minimalist school of writing. Short sentences form sturdy stuff. Perhaps, this is why minimalism is appreciated in science. By limiting the length of a sentence, you force the emphasis on the words used, and not two or three strings of thought all muddled and intertwined DNA-style.

A Short History about Everything Ukrainian

Unfortunately, that was not the name of the book I last read. That would have been more informative, if it was. Instead, it is titled “A short history of tractors in Ukrainian” – a lengthy satire on an old man’s lust for a younger women, all lumped together as a Ukrainian family drama.

The story begins with a sociologist struggling with her relationship to her sister, in the midst of a widower dad ranting on about getting married, at the age of 84 to a 36 year old. His claim is that she is in love (of course). Besides, from a asylum-seeker point of view, he would be helping out a young woman in desperation. A young woman desperate to put her only soon through school, given that he is an alleged genius at art and science, of an Oxford-Cambridge caliber.

Although the abstract sounds gripping, I found the slim story line mildly annoying. The overall point, I think, was to tell us that this 36-year woman has her share of men, and in the process of embroiling the innocent father, disturbing historical snippets pop up. Disturbing in the world war II sense.

Joseph Stalin, finding the resistance of Ukrainian peasants intolerable (back in his time), suggested, typical of himself, a man-made famine to rattle the resistance to the core. The result – more than 2 million dead. The family has its origins in these monstrous affairs. The eventual escape, labor camps and finally an entry to the United Kingdom makes forgetting the past urgent. Maybe, even sane. Considering this, although I do believe there is an important story to be bought to light (given that, as I read at the back of the book, the author herself is an escapee from Kiel), I do find the mash of satire, parody, soviet history all a bit unsatisfying. Through the book, the reader is left searching for something – something concrete. The father is nice to laugh at in the beginning, but for the same reasons that I do not excessively follow Berlusconi’s private dealings, I find there is a dearth in pity and humor a quarter way through the book.

Maybe this is just me. Maybe I do not appreciate slapstick comedy mixed with anything world war II.

The logic of Communication

The life of a homo sapien typically involves a bit of this and that, and the need (want) of (to) travel. Yes, it was concluded a long time ago that the life of a nomad is not for this social species (leaving out that selected gypsy few), but that of communication and interaction and that of knowing. Imagine then, on a sunday, you find yourself in Paris and you are unable to interpret the map successfully enough to find the Louvre. You approach a Frenchman, and ask politely,

“Qui est l’Louvre?”

and the Frenchman says,

“Je ne sais pas. I am not French.”

So what is happening here? Assuming you lot are an honest lot, by asking the question, you conveyed that you did not know where the Louvre was, and you believed he knew. By answering, he got across that he was not a Frenchman, an assumption you made because you were in France and you figured by his appearance that he was no tourist (this one is not strictly necessary), and that he acknowledges that you do not know where the Louvre was, and neither does he. But wait, the reply “Je ne sais pas” is standard. Does this mean that he politely returned a French query in French and gave all the information in English, the stuff that he really knows. In other words, can it be the case that he actually does know where the Louvre is, in spite of him a tourist, but could not interpret the French garble put forth? If it was that he does not know where the Louvre is, and it is made clear that he understands French (but then why does he give this extra bit of information that he is not French?), then now it common knowledge between the both of you that neither of you really know where the Louvre is. An appropriate step to take now, is to approach a new individual and proceed with the preliminaries, as you did originally.

Not surprisingly, this exchange takes a very clear logical form, and the logic of communication studies (or tries to understand) exactly this. More importantly, by asking the question, you are trying to obtain something of cognitive value (otherwise why would you ask the question in the first place?).

So, let us return to the example above: I will represent by K the formal counterpart of “to know”. For instance, to say, K(Location(Louvre,”down the road”)) is to say “you know the location of the louvre” where Location is a first-order predicate and Louvre is a constant representing “the Louvre” is your domain.

It is clear from the start that ~K(Location(Louvre,”d..”)), or that you do not (the symbol ~ represents negations). You then approach the Frenchman (whose knowledge formal counterpart uses F), and you are not sure (but believe) that he knows the location of the Louvre:

~F(Location(Louvre,”d..”))

K(F(Location(Louvre,”d..”) OR ~F(Location(Louvre,”d..”)))

that is, the person you approach actually does not know the location of the Louvre, and you are not sure if he does know. From his response, you would think why is it important he tells you he is not French, it must be that he has no clue what you are asking him. So, in this case, you are still not sure if he knows if the Louvre is down the road. Or,

["I am not French"] K(F(Location(Louvre,”d..”) OR ~F(Location(Louvre,”d..”)))

i.e., after the action ["I am.."], you believe that you have no new information about his epistemic state except that he probably does not understand French. This motivates you to take a new approach, namely to ask the same question in English!

A clear formalization of the interaction seems to suggest actions that satisfy your cognitive need for a certain piece of information. This makes this analysis interesting and perhaps, speaks about the inherent reasons on not only what questions to ask next but why we ask those questions.

References:

J. van Benthem: One is a lonely number (on the Logic of Communication) [pdf]

Howard the Duck

One of the reasons I visit Slate so often is the substantial set of reviews they publish. Perhaps, most of the titles would easily slip by the busy mind, but I think that is exactly what makes them special, human, hobbyist. Today they talk about Howard the Duck. Yeah, that duck movie. Or so I thought when I saw it first, when I was little. It was only much later when I found them Howard the Duck strips, that I began to see that there was so much more to Howard the Duck than the movie. One can argue that there always is, and this way, one would always sympathize with Alan Moore. But in the case of Howard the Duck, the difference is rather glaring.

Howard, is from-another-planet duck, who is, in spite of his corporeal shortcomings, very human. Of course, this is not a metaphor, in the sense that those around him see him as a duck, but then wait, it actually is. Because once you get past his ducky appearance, you understand he has likes and dislikes, do and dont’s, and hates hypocrites as much as any sane person can. It is not the fact that he is a talking duck that makes him funny, its his observant eye, his seething rage for the way the world is, that makes him also remarkable. But perhaps, the most human quality of his is that he is a depressive little duck. Howard even ran for president, and lost.

Slate tells us that Howard the Duck is out in DVD, for the very first time. I haven’t seen any of the movie since the first time I saw it, so I remember little except that Howard was a duck. Slate tells us that this is the main fodder for the movie, a sad fact I think, given Howard’s rich personality.

Possible Worlds

A couple of weeks ago, it was the world Philosophy day. A philosopher, interviewed by the BBC (for the BBC), addressed, rather light-heartedly, the issues that he is confronted with when meeting new people. Most people assume, by default I imagine, that a philosopher spends endless time reflecting on life, god and a bunch of other useless stuff. Strangely though, this assumption could not be more wrong. To exemplify, I will consider one fascinating topic rigorously studied in analytical philosophy, that of the possible worlds.

The Possible worlds model assumes an infinite gathering of worlds, all connected much like a tree, and each world denotes a set of things that are true for the world. We could imagine a world that is exactly like the world we are in now (call this the actual world), but the foremost language spoken in the United States of America (only America henceforth) is German in the 20th century. Of course, we are tempted to think this is definitely not true, but this is certainly impossible to be sure about? How are we so sure we are real and the world as we perceive is actual? We suppose it is so, we believe it so. But to be sure, we need a meta-view that we certainly do not have. Without digressing, let us say, for the sake of our conceptualization, it is the case that we know the world as we imagine and understand is the actual world, and a world exactly like ours but that has the America speaking German is a possible world. Another possible world is one where the America is speaking French. Indeed, this is only one fact we are focussing on, that of the language spoken in America, but there are an infinite number of facts that one might be interested in, depending on the level of granularity, and in turn we have an infinite set of possible worlds.

But what use is this conceptualization? The possible worlds model is used to study and analyze modal propositions. But wait, what is a proposition? We shall simply say it is a statement or an assertion such as “it is raining today” or “I am playing”. Modal propositions then address questions of the sort “is it always the claim that is raining” or “will I eventually get to play”. We say, if the proposition holds true in every possible world, then this proposition is necessarily true. For instance, “the current president of America is Barrack Hossein Obama” is true for the actual world, and is a true proposition. But we can easily imagine a possible world where Hillary won. And hence, it is not necessarily true. The proposition “the sun will rise tomorrow” is also not necessarily true since even though we are sure that the sun will indeed rise tomorrow, we could imagine where this is not the case. It is sufficient to say, it holds for most worlds we think of. However, the basics of number theory as understood and the equality “1+1=2″ is certainly true in every possible world where number theory works as we understand. Alternatively we are tempted to write “number theory as understood in Book X implies 1+1=2″. Now, if the antecedent of this implication does hold, then the consequent has to hold. On the other hand, if there is a world where number theory works differently, then it does not matter that 1+1=2. So, indeed this is true in every possible world or necessarily true.

The possible worlds model has found application is mathematics, philosophical logic, computer science, ethics among others.

An interesting ending note is to think of the set of thinks who argue for the notion of modal realism. David Lewis, an eccentric and distinguished American Philosopher, argued that each of these possible worlds, as conceptualized, in fact exist. They are as real as the world we experience in. (I keep saying “we” under the assumption that the world I conceptualize and feel exists in time and space and the people I meet and see co-exists in this same world – a non-lucid status.) As much as the possible worlds model awes me, I am, I think, as many others are, far away from truly appreciating the modal realists stance.   

The Terror, Dan Simmons

I am almost always surprised by Dan Simmons. He is eloquent, brilliant and is able to make concrete some complex connections between literature, as is studied academically, and science fiction. Probably, his most potent foray yet is that in Hyperion, a beautiful construction of emergent human beings struggling with a seemingly malevolent god called the Shrike. It suffices to say that the book, a part of the Cantos series, makes obscure and clever references to the likes of Ezra Pound and John Keats. Perhaps, what is more interesting to me, personally, is his concluding pieces in the companion work, The Fall of the Hyperion, that of the conversation with an influential and omniscient A.I.

Recently, I have perusing another, The Terror. I think it is not uncommon to fear a death that is slow, that in hunger, a prolonged affair in the arctics, etc. So, I will already grant that this book makes the adventurous and the existential queasy. But makes the book more monstrous is Dan Simmons’ brilliant portrayal of an age-old (possibly stale) ice monster as a disturbing entity of unreasonable dominion. Stephen King writes “I am in awe of Dan Simmons”. He is not the only one.

Unaccustomed Earth

Many struggle to comprehend the Immigrant Experience, not because they are so hard to come by but more so out of society’s tendency to explain away, or even abate its potency. Indeed, statements of the form ‘that was hard’ makes for terrible small talk, and why should one who suffers his own suffering in abundance care for another? It is not uncommon though, for the experience to be rendered completely sane by taking comfort in the company of one’s own country men. Still, those who strive to integrate themselves, who go on to accept that those short years in a foreign country is not just a vacation but a second home face the haft of cultural conflicts.

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri is somehow all of this. Lahiri’s earlier book, Interpreter of Maladies, covers, or interprets, the discord among the first generation of Indian Immigrants in the US. While none allowed themselves to become distinctly american the struggles still are prominent and relationships across continents not entirely fluid. Unaccustomed Earth is about the second generation that does not limit itself to the children of settled immigrants but also to immigrants coming in after a sufficient populace of Indians have left an impression in the American society. The impression, not surprisingly, is that of a hard working and intelligent lot – accomplished in academics and business alike. The second generation reel under that reputation.

Perhaps what separates Lahiri from a few others is her simple and elegant writing style that makes the book a clean story-telling experience. Events from the present, past and future merge with an entirely minimalist touch. Boys and girls are well behaved until their sophomore years before accepting, completely, that they are children both of India and America. The cultural norm of getting hitched before turning 25, to stay single until the time is right, realizing degrees and designations sooner than necessary are abandoned for a more realistic and westernized juvenescence. Acceptance of the fact that there may be little ties between you and India but you will always be known as an Indian – an identity forcefully bestowed solely out of one’s appearance is yet another component of the immigrant experience.

Quite simply, it captures the complexity of psychological and sociological influences that one has to address and whose requirements, unfortunately, usually are quite orthogonal to each other.

The New York trilogy

Paul Auster is a brilliant writer of thrillers smeared with blatant Absurdism. Absurdism is a philosophical thought that seems all the much relevant today that essentially motivates itself on that searching a meaning in lives is truly pointless, that there is no ultimate goal, this presence and eventualities are random with absurd outcomes. This notion is so strong in Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy that, at one moment, the Narrator explicitly adds “Lives make no sense”, after an extremely complex rational thought. Indeed, why do we carry on the way we do? The only way we go on is by blinding ourselves that there will be an outcome, that something good will come out of it all, which of course is immeasurably naive.

In my humble opinion, I would review the book as follows:

Sinister. Auster captures the utter desperation and existentialist struggles of three men, their lives interconnected in ways they may never know. Through a kaleidoscope of New York city life, he unrolls his insane and convoluted events that begins the end of those men; that embarks a fateful journey. Each moment is driven by an irrational intension, which probably could be reasoned out of, but which the narrators refuse to do so for an extremely lucid reason – that becomes clear to one after reading Auster’s work. Yes, the work is definitely sinister – both to those unbeknowst men and us.

Do get a copy of this fantastic book.

The nature of truth

I hate to go back on things I have let go, but there was an element whose discussion had lapsed my attention previously. In the Florentine Heretic, I mentioned David Lindberg’s supposition that the Church was not as cruel as commonly percieved back in the 1700s with Galileo Galili.

In the end of that show, there was a question asked, it was firmly believed that the geocentric model was a reflection of the actual reality on how the solar system exists. It was assumed that it was a fact, it was assumed to be true. To be more blunt though, it was considered to be the truth (I remove “it was assumed”). Of course, this model collapsed. We now had the Copernican model. So, then, the question was asked: what is the nature of truth?
Truth is that which is consistent with fact and reality. So, if you had asked an educated man, back in the 16th century, if is true that the sun revolves around the earth, he would have said yes. He didn’t lie. The statement is consistent with facts (although not consistent with reality and this is what observations stations in space can acknowledge today), at least back in the 16th century, so is the truth? Now we know, or at least we believe we know, that the earth revolves around the sun. Thus, does truth have a temporal nature?
Yes and no: truth is two dimensional with a subjective axis and an objective axis. While our belief of the nature of truth is that it is objective , our actual knowledge of what is true is subjective. I argue that truth, in an extremely philosophical sense, is always subjective and I use examples from physics (which then can be generalized to science) and events (which then can be generalized to knowledge and encyclopedias) to discuss the claim.
Physics: The laws of science, such as the laws of physics, are at best robust prediction models. Centuries of observation and decades of calculations result in models that can accurately predict behaviors in nature to an alarming precision. But among these models, there may be inconsistencies and even incompatibles. The classic example is the case of quantum physics and the general theory of relativity, one working at a subatomic scale and the other at a planetary framework; both are able to predict forces and existence, while at the same time they are essentially incompatible. Which then is the true model of nature? Well, we do not know and I believe we will never know if a superbly summarized formulae that can predict every incident in its domain is a true formula since we can never predict the consequences of events of the future. We always have to be careful. Further, Models can even get better and this is yet another argument to believe that every mathematical formalisms that we now have is truly subjective. For instance, the newtonian model could predict interplanetary behavior to a good accuracy, but that of the general relativity theory is much better. The use of Non-Euclidean geometric spaces in this theory, in itself a recent mathematical discovery, at the time when the theory was introduced, should convince us all the more. In such laws of science thus there is no objective truth.
Events: Consider the statement: The president of the United states of america until the 04.11.08 was George Bush, and this is certainly objective and not subjective. Now, is it? What if the entire world model constructed and believed to be our universe is but a gigantic hoax? What if there has never been an united states of america, the concept of the country was created by a set of T.V. producers much like that in the Truman show movie? What if flying planes were never invented, world wars never happened and history was written by a drunk old man and our conception of all that surrounds is a meaningless glass snow-ball created for the whim of the giant Gulliver? How can we check the validity of events from a position that we obviously do not have? Philosophically, the truth of events is also subjective.
However, if we allow our physics models, which are always in a state of constant scrutiny and critique, to be titled as the best prediction models of nature and given that we now have the tools to actually observe the earth revolving around the sun and every physical law allows us to consistently satisfy the Copernican model, we can push the subjective truth to objective truth, at the obvious slip of absolutism. Further, if we limit the notion of checking the validity of truth in so far as our model of the universe goes, the conception of our existence, the collective surrounding of this society of minds, then we can allow the aforementioned president claim to be a valid truth statement!

Chuangste

A nice quote from the book “Reasoning about knowledge”, which in turn was taken from the “Book of Chuangtse”, 300 B.C.

Chuangtse and Hueitse had strolled on to the bridge over the Hao, when the former observed, “See how the small fish are darting about! That is the happiness of the fish.”

“You not being a fish yourself,” said Huei, “how can you know the happiness of the fish?”

“And you not being I,” retorted Chuangtse, “how can you know that I do not know?”