I must confess though . . . I am really tired of the word "truth" these days. I like "What Is" now as truth has suffered too much identity theft to be viable any more and poor old truth is basically on life support.
My first job in the profession that I am still professing, I worked for a company, like a church we know, that got just enough right to keep going, but, a lot that was pretty bad as well that worked like a thorn in the side. Because of this, when I left and started my own company, I knew exactly what *not* to do which was just as important as knowing what to do.
You can learn a lot from lies. They are valuable.
I kept my eyes and ears open and found better ways. I say eyes and ears because we often listen to our conceitedly "incredibly wise selves" while ignoring our primary senses which are the primary sources of information that will let you thrive and in some cases keep you alive.
The brain is only as accurate as a computer. What goes in is what comes out.
No. Like reality and facts, truth is that which remains when the lies fall away.
Truth is not in the eye of the beholder. As someone important once said, "you will know the truth and the truth will set you free," a sentence that is important for two reasons. First, the word "truth" is singular and not plural. The speaker did not admit the possibility of multiple truths.
Second, the implied object from which people must be set free was falsehood. No one is entitled to her own truth, only to her own delusion, and the great teacher offered to liberate her therefrom. But he well knew that many if not most people will prefer their comfortable delusions to the incandescent light of truth.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/01/2021 03:34AM by Lot's Wife.
The "Everybody" in the title refers, naturally, to egos, each of which has its own situatedness, position (and so perspective), and unique psychological filters. Thus egos cannot know "the truth," only their personal distortions.
There is enough consensual reality among egos for (most of them at least) to agree on many physical 'truths' about the apparently external world, and they mistakenly label these as 'objective reality.' These are not objective, nor are they some sort of unified truth. The hallucinations held interpersonally by large groups 0f egos do not constitute that transegoic "Truth."
Richard Foxe Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > . . . consensual reality . . . mistakenly label[ed as] > 'objective reality.' These are not objective, nor are they > some sort of unified truth.
That is my point.
--------------------- > The hallucinations > held interpersonally by large groups 0f egos do > not constitute that transegoic "Truth."
Exactly. Whether individual or collective, "hallucinations" or "delusions" "do not constitute. . . truth."
-------------------- What is interesting is a movement coming to prominence whose advocates tout themselves as dedicated to facts and hostile to cultural relativism but then, battered senseless by the onslaught of factual reality, are forced stumbling backwards into a relativistic position. At some point all the talk of 'my truth" begins to sound like an episode of Oprah.
Objective truth ultimately triumphs. You can jump high into the air for a couple of seconds but soon gravity wins and you break your ankle. That injury summarizes much of the human experience. Between now and the point at which truth prevails, people can in the name of their idiosyncratic "realities" do immense harm to one another and themselves.
It is in the gap between objective truth and relativistic truth that the demons of destruction reside.
OTOH, conspiracy theorists believe that vast groups of people are successfully engaged in a coordinated lie. Health care workers are lying about the dangers of covid. They are lying about the safety of the vaccines. Climatologists are lying about the climate, and so on ad infinitum.
Lies and coverups are difficult to pull off. The larger the group involved, the more difficult it is. For example, there is zero probability that NASA faked the moon landing, and nobody inside NASA figured out the fraud and blew the whistle, or nobody outside NASA figured out the deception either. Zero. Probability. The moon landing happened.
I use the moon landing as a joke example, but there are still people who actually believe it was faked, Joe Rogan among them.