Finding Truth Forum Finding Truth

What is Truth?

Personally, I have a lust for Knowledge.

I believe no one will really know until we die. I don't know, I mean of course we can have what we believe and perceive is truth here on earth but then who is right and who is wrong?
Facts change, people change, almost everything changes, with exception to a few of those science laws, like gravity. Truth is only what you believe, by faith i guess while alive no matter what it is. Here truth is whatever people want it to be. If they want to believe something they will, but then again whether its right or wrong is a whole other ball game.

Good points have been made so far...But those things like gravity, and newtons laws dont always hold truth in certain realities.. I dont want to lose anyone based on outlandish claims and off topic discussion................ but the relativity or perception of someone in an enraged spousal fight or the athlete in the closing seconds of a championship game differ immensely...Considering this example is a recycle of einsteins concept...Both scenerios are limited to gravity and the physical laws of our collateral universe. The mental states of both guys can be classified on the opposites sides of the spectrum. The athlete making calculated instinctive decisions with the essence of time slowed by the focus and experience of replaying these images over in his head as a child, over and over again. While the guy in an enraged spousal fight, will later be questioned in the back of the police car...What were you thinking?? when you gave your wife a black eye....He will respond, "it happened so fast officer, i dont know what i was doing.."...In the amount of time for the athlete to score the goal before the end of the game, is equal to the same amount of time the wife beater cocked his arm back to strike his wife in the eye. I hope you all understand my point....The reason why i believe there are no facts of life, is because we make our own realities and live our own truths, whether its based on ignorance or a mind as open as hopefully this discussion....


Its late and i felt like searching for truth, so i wrote down some thoughts that came to mind^^^....

So i re read what i just wrote and then re read Michaels post...I see that i summed up basically what you already said...

So to face the truth of what we claim..."truth is whatever people want it to be", what do you believe to be the next step...should a person sum up all his beliefs and try to project his truth into reality..or do you see another option for someone to take when starting a new path of productive thoughts...

I think when someone finds what they believe they should go out, explore, find what other's believe differently, or find a different view of what you believe. This way no uncertainty can ever enter your mind if major individual research is done. That will make it truth for that person. But knowing and believing are two different stories once again.

Nice response,

going back to your first post, if once we die and leave these flesh vessels we call bodies, where does are truth exist, what fate does our conscious take...what happens after we die...Do you believe that what we believe will happen,(no one knows for sure) will happen. Will the catholic priest go to heaven, and the pedophile rapist priest face a purgatory that he has created strictly based on his beliefs..or are you in the knowing of fate before we die, do you have a knowing belief,(do you believe some people our exception to the rule that no one knows forsure...) or just a belief.

i like how you said, who decides whos right and whos wrong. the guy who believes he kills in gods name, does he go to heaven??? just becuz what he was doing he believed to be right, or is the dude INsane and after the electric chair, he faces life after death with no effection based on what he did in his life...

i for one take a neutral role, i dont judge anyone based on any bias, in regards to positive or negative..i admit i analyse and form conclusions on certain peoples actions and lifestyle, but always with an open mind, and no life is better lived then any other...i have more opinions but im going to stop here...

time for sleep..

So much of modernity has been a search for factual truth. That is to me a search for the concrete in an abstract existence that can never be fully attained. Truth is relative of course. Right and wrong are also a matter of perspective. However, are some choices better than others. Is it better to turn the other cheek or to blow yourself up for God? Is dimensional reality, by that I mean this dimension the only truth available? Truth, as you have said often comes down to making choices. Within the human purview is not the full knowledge that would constitute truth, but the paradox that most of life is both/and and we have to find a path, a way to understanding. I believe some choices are better than others based on the fact that some things build up and some things tear down. Then again, sometimes we need to tear down. Truth is many faceted as the stars and cannot be nailed down to one reality. The greatest mistake we make on our spiritual journey is to assume that our story is the only story and much worse, the only correct story. In the end, to me, truth is in the questions rather than the answers. Thanks for letting me make no sense.

I hope this hasn't been said.
Truth, as I have understood it, is defined by one's ability to believe, and perceive. Each person's truth is defined by their life experiences, how they reacted, how they chose to deal, etc. Is truth Relative? Absolutely. Truth is bound by ability, acceptance, availability and optional falsities. What is Truth? The absence of a lie. What is Truth? The Presence of light. What is Truth? What do you think?

"One man's terrorist... (kill him!, exterminate! evil!)

..is another man's...

freedom fighter.

Truth? heh, truth is simply an idea to keep the gulable in line. Sure people can speak truth and truely mean what they say... but there's no guarntee is there? Truth is what you want it to be. Like so many other things in this world. I think the words "Truth" and "Trust" go together like "Peas" and "Carrots"

I'm reminded of Plato's dialogs of Socrates with all this talk of truth. Socrates spent his whole life in search of truth and ended up being killed because he was found guilty of corrupting the youth, when in reality, all he was doing was asking questions in pursuit of the truth. the two philosophies he lived his life by were "the unexamined life is not worth living" and "the only thing i know beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that i know nothing beyond a shadow of a doubt". i'd have to agree with him, never stop questioning trying to find the truth and never presume to know anything because truth can change in light of a new discovery.

for example,
take some crazy loony locked up in a psycho bin.
to her, there REALLY ARE monsters
that crawl out of the cracks and crevices
They really do scratch her
They really do rape her
They really do try to take her away.
She sees them, and feels them,
and they area reality to her.
She wonders why everyone else
has gone crazy, and can't see them.
"Has the world lost it's mind?!"
She says.
Now in reality, its probably
the male nurses that do all that s**t.
But she holds those demons to be
a truth beyond the shadow of a doubt.
and no matter how many
drugs you give her, or how much
therapy about her sexually abusive father,
and non-present mother.
She's still going to see those damned demons
when she goes sober and gets out.

MY TRUTH:
I am real and fake in a lot of senses
I am plugged into a computer
or
I am in a coma and don't remember life
or
I am actually a retard and everyone is to nice to tell me
or
I am the split second thought in someone's mind
and so on...
I matter more than some people
I will make more of a difference than a lot of people
I will succeed
I am a better writer than a lot of people (Lol)
- not to be arrogant but I can't help believing it and i'm not gonna lie to myself
I can do anything I want, including Jessica Alba ;) yeah baby

what is truth?
truth is the lies which we believe.

only our hearts and mind can decide, one can forever doubt what he/she sees but in the end truth is a way of us deciding what is wrong and what is right. But why should there be a wrong and a right, if only as humans we could accept. but we can't and we know there are things out there that we cannot control and those who wish to maniplute us or atleast see the way they see. we all come from different angles and truth is some equal ground in the middle that will always be fought over.

Truth is the carrot at the end of the stick.........always a bit out of reach. We tire of grasping so we create our own.

"Here truth is whatever people want it to be."

The question is should truth only be whatever people want it to be? Assuming that all beliefs, regardless of their basis, are equal is not only false, but it also offers a carte blanche for everyone to abandon any search for greater knowledge, greater truth. This impedes progress and hurts us all.

"the relativity or perception of someone in an enraged spousal fight or the athlete in the closing seconds of a championship game differ immensely"

This relativity is only a relativity of mental effort and discipline; nothing more. We (the royal human "we") know that when experiencing intense emotions, our focus is narrowed, reducing if not eliminating our higher brain functions. We also know that by increasing our awareness of them, and what triggers can evoke those emotions, we can anticipate and increasingly control them. An athlete who is "in the zone", a state of mind where time seems to slow down, is actively observing more details than we normally do, which accounts for the feeling of slower time. This like the difference between watching the sun cross the sky sitting on our porch, and watching the sun cross the sky on a time lapse video. Both seem fluid, but one records moments in larger intervals. Getting "in the zone" can occur with a lot of time and practice. While you are consciously learning, your unconscious is picking up far more information in the meantime. The more you can translate from the unconscious to the conscious, the better you perform. Being "in the zone" is a state where your conscious and unconscious minds are in a rare dialogue of which you are aware, and it allows to maximize your situation from moment to moment.

"This way no uncertainty can ever enter your mind if major individual research is done."

At best, we can only be certain of the information available to us. Ptolemy did the best with what he had, and Newton, thanks in part to the advances made since Ptolemy's time, was able to improve upon it. "We are wise only with the wisdom of our time, and ignorant with it's ignorance." Though we can make ourselves certain that we have reached the correct conclusions based on the current data, we must always be willing to accept new data that can confirm, modify or reverse our conclusions.

"Each person's truth is defined by their life experiences"

Which is why we have the responsibility to enrich our life's experiences as much as possible. Expose ourselves to as much as we can.

"One man's terrorist... (kill him!, exterminate! evil!) ...is another man's... freedom fighter."

The difference will often be judged by history, but it can also be judged by the individual's intention, motivation, and the consequences of the individual's actions. We like to say that history favours the winners, but not indefinitely. We have recently begun to re-evaluate history and it's figures, and approaching them through a new lens, turning some heroes into villains and some villains into heroes. More often than not, though, we accept that many of these people did what they had to (motivation) as best as they knew how to with the knowledge that they had (intention), even if sometimes the end result wasn't favourable (consequence). We are better equipped to view our current historical figures through this lens, if we are willing to subdue our fears long enough to try.

"the unexamined life is not worth living"

Unfortunately, it is only those who have begun to examine who can fully appreciate this statement. But, even though not everyone is aware of it, does not make it untrue. It is true that the moon is Earth's satellite whether or not everyone knows it.

"We tire of grasping so we create our own."

Only in the meantime. Again, we have to do the best with what we have. Part of doing our best is to constantly pursue new knowledge and new truth. We have been doing it for as long as we have existed, and with each new datum, each day's truth will be better than the last. This is the limitation of relativity. It does not matter that our truths are relative; what matters is that the truths obtained using the most information are better and truer than any other, even if they are not in and of themselves the ultimate truths.

An artist who copies a Masters work is not a true artist

A musician who reads and plays a Masters music from a score is not a true musician

No matter how good they are.....These are mere technicians.......

and yet without the discipline necessary to follow in the Master's foot steps the artist or the musician would never achieve the skill necessary to release their own creativity.

An artist understands truth when he breaks free from the discipline of his art and begins to create from inspiration. His brush a mere extension of his hand and mind.

A musician understands truth when he no longer needs to read the music and his instrument becomes a mere extension of his hands and mind.

Truth comes to men at the moment they lay aside the discipline of their craft and move beyond into the freedom of creativity. This freedom is their birth right, but can can only be obtained through discipline.

Religion is also a discipline, and albeit a necessary one, it also is but a mere stepping stone. Truth comes to men as they lay aside the discipline of their religion and step beyond into the depths of their own spirit.......and the ultimate realization of truth is that on this whole earth, there is but one.

TRUTH
A Poem by Eagle Cruagh



TRUTH

Sorry sir, I didn`t mean to laugh
You see it`s truth, Sir
Truth is just a gaff

It sticks the delinquent in his soul
And it tricks the honest believer
Truth is what we want but what
Do we offer for this goal ?

Perhaps there is no truth at all
Except in you the believer`s soul
And when you ask for truth from
Another he has only his truth to call

From deep within where secrets lie
And only he knows the truth
And if he questioned his own soul
He would find it changed you know

I would speak yet more of truth
But only you and I perhaps just you
Can tell if truth is ours to show.
� 2007 Eagle Cruagh