The search for truth should be no different than the search for other things, like quarks, the Higgs boson, etc. it’s just that we have to use different tools and techniques. Just as you wouldn’t use a hammer and a magnifying glass to discover quantum particles, you probably are not going to be very successful looking for truth with prejudicial restrictions and limited expectations. If the truth truly is “out there”, then should we think we have enough “firepower” to discover it without inventing new technologies to enhance our understanding? Just like in the early 1960’s when President Kennedy declared we were going to put a man on the moon, though we didn’t have the ability to do so! It took nearly ten years, tragic failure, untold attempts, and critical thinking and re-thinking of nearly everything we thought we knew to get there. Then Apollo 13 reminded us how frail our robust intelligence and engineering really were. What we learned from failures has helped us to keep seeking. Failures like Challenger have sorely tried our resolve. Imagine July 1969 and “one small step” if we had cancelled the space program after the tragedy of 1968… More recently, imagine how the US would be focusing on Texas and not CERN in Switzerland today, if we had only had the vision and courage to finish the SSC…

The search for truth is a similar endeavor. There are so many hurdles and obstacles in our way it almost seems pointless to continue… until we remember “one giant leap for mankind” and the thrill and excitement of finding the Higgs. Perhaps we are afraid of what we’ll find… or won’t. Perhaps we have conveniently “redefined” truth so as to make its discovery of relatively meager value. It doesn’t matter, though, really, because we all have this inborn inquiring mind… We’re all offspring of the National Inquirer and we have inquiring minds! For some reason we cannot necessarily explain, we all do want to know… And it is this hope, this fear, this wonder that drives us on to seek and discover ultimate meaning for ourselves, others, even our world. It’s maddening to think that we can’t shut it off… Though we can certainly turn up the noise around us to disguise it or to muffle it. And we can launch dogmas and parade our intellectual hubris in order to inhibit others and try to persuade them that truth is of no real value. We can try to argue that it doesn’t matter what you think, just so long as you don’t hurt anybody, etc. But when competing ideologies are willing to go to war for what they think or believe, that’s when reality hits home. That’s when we want to know who is on the side of truth, who is right and who is wrong. Somehow, we need that assurance for us to figure out where we stand. We all want to be on the side of truth and we all want our side to be the truth side. But how do we know? Or, how can we know? Is it even possible? That’s what we want to find out!