Of all animals, only man is concerned with something he calls "truth." In most discussions about truth, "that which we perceive with our senses" is generally conceded to be a substantial part of "reality" or truth (although in many judgements the "perceptions of the senses" are somehow discounted). But whether the "senses'" are taken as the final authority or altogether discredited, they are almost always mentioned in any discussion of truth. . . . We are defining a "sense" more broadly than it is usually defined in physiology, where the existence of a sense presupposes the existence of special receptors for it. We mean by a sense simply a way of reacting to some special class of events, external or internal. The symbolic sense is, accordingly, a certain way of reacting to symbols. . . . As far as we know, animals other than humans (that is, those which do not posses a symbolic sense) do not engage in critical investigations of what their senses tell them. Concern with the truth necessarily involves language and therefore the symbolic sense. (1, pp. 26-31)

Suppose, when people talked about things, they knew how to tell a "true" assertion from a "false" one, and suppose they agreed that it is always better to make true assertions than false ones. Then there would never be any controversy about what is "true." Unfortunately it is not simple to achieve this state of affairs. There are many reasons for this: 1) People often wish to "win arguments" more than they desire to come to agreement about what is true, 2) People often think they are talking about things in the outside world when they are talking about themselves, 3) People often have their private notions of how to tell "true" from "false" or else they simply subscribe to some current notion of what is true, 4) It is not universally agreed that "true" statements are to be always preferred to false ones, 5) People sometimes treat assertions about things as if they were matters of opinion, 6) Few people know how to test whether or not a statement they make contradicts other statements they have made. For that matter, few people feel the need of making such tests, 7) Instead of choosing a few consistent principles of right and wrong to believe in, people often believe in a great many such principles, most of which are peculiar to the environment in which they live, and 8) Things people believe in contradict not only things other people believe in but often contradict one another. (1, pp. 16-20)

The preference of truth-telling over lying, which is so much a part of scientific tradition that no machinery is needed (as it is in almost all other human affairs) to enforce honesty; a preference of statements capable of verification over statements that must be taken on the authority of the speaker; a preference of logical order over the chaotic assemblage of facts. All these preferences may be organized into a value-system capable of being subscribed to by all men -- a value-system of which the most general directive is the preference of human agreement (and therefore co-operation) over disagreement. (1, p. ix)

If human organizations as well as human beings are "organisms," what are their rights, if any? Do so-called "primitive cultures" that sicken and die in contact with "civilization" have the right to autonomous existence, a right to identity of which they are deprived? Powerful nation states pursue their "national interests", that is, organismic needs of these systems as perceived by their leaders, In the course of satisfying these needs, powerful states often injure and even destroy other social organisms or prevent the "birth" or growth or new ones (as in containment of revolutions). Ought this be a matter of moral concern? If so, to whom? (E, p. 24)

I feel that a completely answered question is rather an occasion for regret, like a death. And just as death is somehow compensated by the birth of ever-fresh progeny, so answered questions should be replaced by a host of new ones: We will measure the value of an orientation not by the number of answered questions it contains but by the abundance, variety, and meaningfulness of the unanswered questions it gives rise to. (1, pp. xxvi-xxvii)

A value orientation has to do with preferences in the selection of questions to be posed and consequently of facts to be assessed. To claim a value-free orientation is to maintain that "all facts are created equal." If this were so, then a science would either have to take into account all facts (which is manifestly impossible) or to make a random selection (which is senseless). (D, p. 182)

All scientists are concerned with the truth. Indeed, one might say that the purpose of science is to seek the truth. . . . Consistency and freedom of inquiry are also values implicit in science. Indeed, behavior governed by these principles defines scientist. But are these enough? How can concern for truth tell us what is good or bad? The categories True and False have nothing to do with those of Good and Bad. (1, pp. xii-xiii)

Confronted with a variety of competing ideologies and value-systems, the scientist in order to be consistent with himself, cannot remain neutral. Different men want to go in different directions, and some of these directions are incompatible with the direction inherent in science itself. Therefore, the scientist must subscribe to certain values (and discard others) not because he is a "good citizen" or a product of a particular culture or a member of a particular church, but because he is a scientist. (1, p. ix)

Scientists, no less than others, instead of observing their own behavior and its implications, tend to believe what they say about themselves. Because they have been, up to now, deeply preoccupied with throwing off the prejudices of local and limited value-systems in order to clarify their vision, they have hesitated to impose their own value-system on others; they have talked (and many still talk) as if their scientific patterns of evaluation had no validity or application beyond the fields of their scientific activity. (1, pp. viii-ix)

To be precisely specified, a system need not even be deterministic. The variables of interest may be the probabilities of states; by means of stochastic models, we can calculate the distributions of these probabilities at future times, given some initial distribution. This sort of theory is no less precise than a deterministic one. In short, a system is precisely defined if the states in which it can be are precisely specified (not necessarily actually determined) and the laws of progression of these states (which may be probabilities) are precisely postulated (not necessarily actually verified). (C, p. 456)

The truth value of an assertion is measured by how much you are able to predict on the basis of it. (1, p. 161)

The point is that in mathematics certain "assertions" may be labeled "true" and other assertions "false," but still others may be made which are neither true nor false as they stand. Furthermore, there are various systems of mathematics. An assertion may be true in one system and false in another. (1, p. 145)

The basic, invariant ends of man are not subject to ethical discussion, because we have no choice but to pursue them, They can, however, be determined by a scientific investigation (just as physiological needs are so determined). The proper subject matter of ethics is the choice of means to pursue the ends. Such choice is determined by one's action-orientation. At the center of operational ethics, therefore, is the scientific (objective) study of such orientations. This study, however, itself influences the action-orientation in that it frees man from compulsions which are at the root of out-dated orientations (the ethics of retribution, the ethics of compulsive activism, etc.). The important result of applying science to ethics, then, is not that science enables us to decide which ethics we should choose but that the practice of science already leads us toward the operational ethical system. (2, p. 126)

The task of general systems theory is to find the most general conceptual framework in which a scientific theory or technological problem can be placed without losing the essential features of the theory or the problem. The proponents of general systems theory see in it the focal point of resynthesis of knowledge. (C, p, 457)

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