Does Seeking Truth Lead to Understanding?

The second idea I wanted to jot down while I remember it is this: Does truth-seeking always lead to the truth? I've been thinking through a counter-example recently, in which seeking an accurate assessment of the world in the short-term hinders long-term understanding, and I think it raises interesting questions.

I've been taking up dancing. First, I started with east coast swing about three months ago. Now, I hadn't really danced at all before this, so I was blissfully ignorant of how bad I was when I started. Because I didn't realize this, I was better able to be confident, to keep going through mistakes, and to actually learn and understand the dance better. By contrast, once I started understanding what I was doing, and also when I started taking up blues dancing, I have found it harder to progress because of a more accurate assessment of where I am.

So it seems that, by understanding where I am currently better, I have trouble progressing in the understanding of this particular art form. Seeking the truth prevents me from reaching the truth, as it were. As a friend pointed out to me, William James seems to have a similar example: If I have to jump over a precipice, and I believe that I can make it, this belief changes the world. My confidence that I can make the jump helps me actually make the jump, while a lack of belief may keep me from doing so.

I think that the situation that I raise is different from James' in an important way, though. Once you jump over the precipice, you are done. In dancing, by contrast, I have danced many dances and have had the opportunity to see my ability. It is not merely a matter of having confidence, but of inaccurately assessing my current state which helps me to improve, of at least ignoring bad dances if not telling myself they were good. Now, too much inaccuracy also hurts; we can all think of truly inept people who cannot assess themselves at all in their given fields. But too much accuracy also keeps one from moving forward.

Perhaps one could say that I am equivocating on "truth". An accurate assessment of where I am right now is what is true, whereas it is merely a matter of practical concerns and my desires as to whether or not I reach my goals. So truth may not be practical, and not merely for Machiavellian reasons. This would still be an interesting question, though: is a short-term disregard for truth a prerequisite for attaining certain worthwhile ends? Is it a worthwhile means to such ends?

But there is also the problem that there is a certain sort of understanding involved, which I can only get if I put aside the concern for truth to an extent. Seeking understanding now gets in the way of it later. If we truly want to understand, there are some things it may be better to not understand. Although, how can we know what these are, until we're on the other side of matters?

And with that, I'm off to become a hermit for a couple months. Feel free to leave comments, I'll probably check occasionally, but I'll only be responding at best once a week.