Truth Wouldn’t Exist Without Humans

Introduction

If you have ever wondered about the nature of truth, or what kinds of things can be true– should you decide to look into it, you’ll inevitably see the idea that there exist eternal truths which have always been true, such that, absent any minds, these truths would have still been true and continue to be true. 

To briefly survey a list of examples, consider: 

• 1 + 1 = 2
• It is not the case that I am moving and not moving
• Something exists or does not exist
• Water is H20
• For all X, it is the case that X = X
• Stevie Wonder is the greatest musician ever (or so people say)

So on and so forth, I doubt that any of these truths are eternally true– in fact, it’s likely that the beliefs you hold about truth right now would entail there are no eternal truths because truth would not exist without humans. 

What is True? 

We can use a generally pre-theoretic notion of truth here as the argument going to be made here can be generalized for most theories and ideas of truth. My argument here hinges on just one idea: Truth requires there to be “truth-bearers.”

Of course, the natural question is now “what are truth-bearers?” Simply put, a truth-bearer is anything capable of being true or false– they can bear the property of truth (hence the name– see more here ) Truth-bearers can be many things, e.g. beliefs (you can hold true or false beliefs), thoughts, etc. In any case, the most common truth-bearers are sentences/propositions.

Indeed, the common sentiment is that things like beliefs and such are true or false in virtue of the propositions they express. For example, you believe, for some reason, that the moon is made of cheese. This belief is false because the proposition, “The moon is made of cheese” is false.

To this end we call propositions the primary truth bearers. 

Since propositions (or other truth-bearers contingent on humans) are the only things that carry the property of truth we can then obtain the following syllogism 

1. Truth is only a property of truth-bearers (such that nothing that isn’t a proposition, sentence, belief, etc.  can be said to be true)
2. Propositions are wholly mind-dependent (their existence depends upon minds) 
3. If propositions are wholly mind-dependent and truth is a property of propositions then truth, in part, depends upon the existence of minds 
4. Minds are not eternal (human minds have not always existed) 
5. Since minds are not eternal it therefore follows that propositions are not eternal. If there are no eternal propositions, then there is no eternal truth— since there would be nothing to be true (From 3 and 4)  

Therefore, there are no eternal truths– or in other words, truth would not exist without humans

Take note, this does not mean truth is wholly mind-dependent. On many theories of truth, say, correspondence for example, truth is a relation between propositions (mind-dependent) and states of affairs in reality (mind independent), nonetheless truth would still not be eternal because both must be eternal in order for truth to be eternal.

Also, it’s worth stating that this argument does not imply, entail, or even suggest that the claim “there are no eternal truths” is an eternal truth

The claim, like all others, is not eternal as it was only true when the proper truth-bearers (e.g. propositions) were conceived. Unless one believes that propositions always existed and had their meanings fixed independent of humans. More on that later. We have to turn our attention elsewhere first

Why do so Many People Think Truth Would Exist Without Humans?

This mistake seems to happen due to people conflating truth-bearers (say, propositions) with truth-makers. A truth-maker is simply what makes a proposition true.

For example, it is true that dinosaurs roamed the Earth— this was long before any humans existed. However, the fact that the dinosaurs did indeed roam the Earth is only a truth-maker for the proposition “The dinosaurs roamed the Earth” insofar as it is what makes that sentence true.

Before the sentence existed, there was nothing to be true! If that is not making sense, consider the statement: “A tree is in my backyard.”

Assuming a correspondence theory of truth. The tree actually being in my backyard makes the statement true, but the tree isn’t true or false; it’s just a tree. Truth, in this sense, isn’t a property of objects or the “actual state of things.” That state is necessary but not sufficient for truth to exist.

As established before, truth requires a truth-bearer—like a proposition—to evaluate against that state. Without the proposition, there’s no truth to speak of.

Views that Detract from This

Of course, there are numerous views that depart from this generally conceived notion of truth, for instance, if you are a Parmenidean about truth, then you believe truth is equivalent to being (what is) and as such propositions would be unnecessary. Or perhaps you believe that minds have always existed, e.g. God’s mind, the universe as a mind, etc.

Or better yet, you may well believe that propositions/sentences themselves are eternal and not mind-dependent. In the interest of brevity, I am willing to make the more modest claim that if you believe in any theory of truth which requires a truth-bearer (like correspondence, pragmatic theories, deflationary theories, etc.) and you also don’t believe that sentences/propositions (or the like) existed independently of humans then you should not believe that truth could exist without humans

I am willing to bet that most people who read this have the following sentiment about truth:

“Something is true when it accurately matches up with how things actually are”

Now, I do have my own gripes about this but that is for a different day. Importantly, if you find the above sentiment— which is a correspondence theory of truth— attractive, then you should believe that truth is not eternal and would not exist without humans for the reasons listed above.

If not, then you could believe in eternal truths. Just know, however, that comes with many of its own issues (e.g. issues with an identity theory of truth, with Platonism, etc.). Maybe you are willing to accept this or maybe you are not, ultimately, your favored theory of truth will largely influence whether there could be truths that existed without humans as it were.