Language is like a picture of a sculpture

 English might be an oil painting. German, a charcoal sketch. French, a watercolor. 

Each a slightly different representation of the same marble sculpture of a beautiful horse.

A Single Source of Truth, by contrast, is a scale replica of the statue itself.

Let’s examine the question of whether the statue is a horse, or whether it’s actually a mythical creature, the winged Pegasus.  

The first picture we look at, from the front might not show whether or not the statue has wings.

Another picture of the statue from the side might make it look like it has wings, and yet another picture from a slightly different perspective might make it clear that those wings actually belong to another animal behind the horse. 

Part of the problem with this model is that every time a new idea is introduced, more pictures get added to the pool of evidence. In other words, each opinion considered ends up being more and more subjective, as to which evidence is included, or not, when considering the question at hand.  

With a single source of truth, by contrast, the question of whether or not the horse has wings becomes a binary, easily verifiable fact. There is very, very little room for disagreement when we can all just look at the same horse.

In this case, the problem emerges because the statue is three-dimensional and the pictures are all two dimensional. Because of this, it requires many, many, many pictures, each only capturing part of the actual statue itself.  The problem is further amplified if we have to fall back to one-dimensional language to describe the statue.

If we can just create the statue itself then we don’t need many of them. We only need one. 

At the heart of the matter, ideas are multi-dimensional.  So trying to describe ideas with one dimensional language, two dimensional pictures, or even 3d sculptures is usually an exercise in futility.

But, with computers and literally just some simple tools, literally hailing from the 1960s and 70s, we can sketch up a digital twin of even complex, multi-dimensional ideas… effectively at the speed of speech.   

Not a description of the idea.  Not a picture of the sculpture.  But rather a scale replica of the thing itself - a digital twin of the abstract notions described; a model of the claims made, which unambiguously encodes the facts described.  

So, not a description of the idea, but a scale model, which digitally mirrors what was described originally. Like sheet music for the idea.

With this sculpture, this single source of truth in hand, the painter can paint the horse from any angle he chooses. The sketch artist can sketch him; the writer can describe him; and all of these different perspectives will tend to match each other because they’re all looking at the same scale model of the sculpture for motivation.

And if one of them adds wings to their horse, literally anyone should be able to just glance at the sculpture and say, definitely, that the painting does not accurately represent the horse. 

It should not be a debate. 

Without the sculpture in hand, by contrast, it’s always a debate, facilitated by adding more and more perspectives of the same thing. From some angles it will look like the horse has wings. From other angles, it won’t. And thus the debate rages on.

Let's change the conversation, by agreeing to shared context.  A shared model.  A shared set of facts.  

I.e. a Single Source of Truth