How do we know what is true?

The short answer is, we can’t. The long answer: we only see what we wish to see, so it depends a lot on the extent of the wish. The more we wish, the less we know. Unless all we wish to know is only what we wish. That doesn’t seem to happen naturally though. We are biologically primed to assume that what we see ‘out there’ is truly how it is, and that wishes can come true. In other words, we seldom feel content with just wishing (i.e., feeling the desire); we also desire that our wishes come true.

So, how does this jive with the inconvenient truth of global warming? The strength of science lies in a commitment to eliminate as much subjective wishing as possible, and just see and understand things as they are. Even so, we still end up interpreting what we see within science in a way that conforms to what we wish. Therefore the sage desires not to desire… and does not value goods which are hard to come by. Now of course, if we did that there would probably be no global warming.