Tsiolkovsky

“Conditional Truth”

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“Conditional Truth”, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, 1932

 

There is no real (absolute) truth, because it is based upon total comprehension of space. But there is no such total comprehension, and there will never be. Science that gives knowledge continuously moves forward, it rejects or asserts the old and finds out the new. Every century changes science – does not reject, just changes its content more or less, deleting one and adding other. There will be no end to this process, as there is no end to centuries and to development of brain.

 So, it means that truth can only be conditional, temporal and variable.

 Religious faiths name their dogmas truth. But can any faith be truth? Faiths number in thousands. They conflict with one another, are often disproved by science and that is why cannot be taken even for conditional truth. Political beliefs also disagree more or less. Therefore, we will say the same about them. Philosophical musings created world-views. Their disagreement also compels us to view them as personal opinions. Some philosophers accepted nothing but exact scientific knowledge for their conclusions. But, similarly, their conclusions do not deserve the name of conditional truth, because did not agree inter se. Finally, there is not a single person that would not understand truth in his own way. So many men, so many truths. How can it be truth!

 However, we should initially agree about what we want to denote by conditional truth.

 Philosophers, sages and scientists, certainly, assist distribution of knowledge about the Universe and thereby refine people’s idea of conditional truth.

 Conditional truth can be global, national, town, district, community, village, family and personal.

 Personal conditional truth is what a man acquires in various ways and considers to be the best, the most correct and the most fair. Generally, it is the lowest sort of conditional truth. It changes with age and experience of a man. Village truth is the one which a village is ready to accept and submit to.

 How can it be? A village, with a considerable majority vote (0.6, 0.7, 0.8, etc.), elects a person from this social environment whom it considers to be the highest in all respects. The village authorizes him to produce a code of truth, as far as he is able to do it. The approved code will be conditional village truth. Certainly, it changes with the change of the person elected. This truth yet stands some higher than personal views of ordinary villagers. I mean averages.

 Electees from a few villages, who live together and know one another, authorize a special person from their environment, whom they consider the most intelligent, to search for truth. Thus a community truth is worked out.

 Now it is clear how to create conditional truths: town, national and global.

 All these truths will be conditional ones, because they disagree with one another, they are variable and imperfect. It is obvious that the highest truth will be global one, which is obtained by a man elected from all people, i.e. by all nationalities.

 Maybe, some of personal truths (in general, those of the lowest sort) in fact will appear higher than the highest of the selected ones. But nobody can declare and prove it. And that is why for people truth would be what has been selected by their representative.

 A man accepts only what he understands. Anything extra, enforced upon him, in his own eyes is confusion and violence, even if he is a thousand times wrong.

 In point of fact, we have no authority to impose our personal truth on him, even truth of a city or country. He requires truth of the entire world, even of the whole Universe, if only it were possible.

 The imposed truth will violate the world, provoke disagreement and dissatisfaction.

 So, conditional higher truth is the truth generated by a village, then by a community, district, town, region, nation and, finally, by the electee from all nations.

 How can I pass off my persuasions as truth and employ violence for this reason, if this truth has not been ratified by the whole world.

 In such a way leaders, emperors, conquerors, and others behaved – and were mistaken. We should not follow them; we should humbly step back and let all the humankind elect and determine the truth.

 It is only necessary that every society, having chosen the best person, had him periodically before their eyes and carried out incessant evaluation of him: if he changes to the worst – away with him at once.

 For this person to be in the public eye all the time, there should be several electees from a group: one manage the community, and other go to elections to the top of society. Every electee spends a half of his time in his society, and a half in the higher one.

 It is also needed that the high society should not be able to exclude him without consent of the lower. Certainly, the number of members of every community must be relatively small. So, the members can know each other, evaluate one another’s merit and make a right choice. From this point of view, the smaller the number of members, the better. But however, there should not be less than 100-1,000 of them. For this, average human memory and observancy will suffice.

 There is no such thing as reasonable elections anywhere in the entire world. But if there were, our planetary truth would hardly be the highest. In practice, individual truth still takes control of the humankind. Hence the source of violence against humankind. This truth, on occasion, can be much higher than the common planetary one, and that is why can seemingly be justified. Here it looks like a supreme person rescues the rest of the humankind by force. In the same way a shepherd drives a herd and protects it from predators. Notionally it is conceivable, and something of the kind happens in history.

 

book2You have read the article by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky.

You can download it for free in PDF format from the “The Collection of Works” section of the website. Unfortunately, most of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky’s works have not been translated into English. You can familiarize yourself with the works in Russian from the “Научное наследие” (“Scientific heritage”) section of the website.

Enjoy the reading!

 

 

Tsiolkovsky`s Cosmic Philosophy

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Tsiolkovsky stated that he developed the theory of rocketry only as a supplement to philosophical research on the subject.

He wrote more than 400 works, most of which are little known to the general reader.

Tsiolkovsky wrote a book called “The Will of the Universe”. The Unknown Intelligence in 1928 in which he propounded a philosophy of panpsychism. He believed humans would eventually colonize the Milky Way galaxy.

This was the very beginning of Tsiolkovsky’s research into space flight problems and was the basis for it. His main work of this subject was “Ethics or the Natural Foundations of Morality” (1902-1918). In 1932 Tsiolkovsky wrote “The Cosmic Philosophy” – the summary of his philosophical ideas. His main idea was to achieve happiness not only for humanity, but also for all the living beings in the Cosmos, for all the Universe. According to Tsiolkovsky’s Cosmic Philosophy, “happiness” is the absence of all kind of suffering in all the Universe, for all times, as well as the absence of all of the processes for destroying goodness. How shall we start this evolution to the “Universal Happiness”? The main task is to study the main laws which rule the Universe. To do so, we must study the Universe, and therefore we must learn how to live in outer space. To begin that long period of our evolution, we will have to design large manned space rockets. So, the first space flight will be the beginning of the new era of space exploration, the beginning of Space Culture in human history. It will be the beginning of our history itself.

Tsiolkovsky was very much as interested in the philosophy of space as he was with the engineering needed to make space flight possible. This was the very beginning of Tsiolkovsky’s research into space flight problems and was the basis for it. His main work of this subject was “Ethics or the Natural Foundations of Morality” (1902-1918). In 1932 Tsiolkovsky wrote “The Cosmic Philosophy” – the summary of his philosophical ideas. His main idea was to achieve happiness not only for humanity, but also for all the living beings in the Cosmos, for all the Universe. He believed that human occupation of space was inevitable and would drive human evolution.

According to Tsiolkovsky’s Cosmic Philosophy, “happiness” is the absence of all kind of suffering in all the Universe, for all times, as well as the absence of all of the processes for destroying goodness. How shall we start this evolution to the “Universal Happiness”? The main task is to study the laws which rule the Universe. To do so, we must study the Universe, and therefore we must learn how to live in outer space. To begin that long period of our evolution, we will have to design large manned space rockets. So, the first space flight will be the beginning of the new era of space exploration, the beginning of Space Culture in human history. It will be the beginning of our history itself. He truly believed that it was the destiny of humankind to occupy the solar system and then to expand into the depth of the cosmos, living off the energy of the stars to create a cosmic civilization that would master nature, abolish natural catastrophes, and achieve happiness for all.