Note: Huddle!

I write this as more of a note than a letter, so forgive me, but I must cover one more thing regarding truth. It is my response to a concept that I hear far too frequently, that “truth is relative, dependent upon the person interpreting and their perception of it”. This is a misunderstanding that in my opinion, stems out of the goodness of people’s hearts, wanting to avoid confrontation and maintain the peace. It is a misconception so common that it has acquired its own catch phrase - “Perception is Reality”. However, I would hope the reader would understand that such is not true. Perception of truth does not equal truth. If you recall, the dictionary definition of truth that we discussed in Letter 1 made that very point. Allow me to further make that point with an example.

 

For every given person, the question can be asked, “Are they dead or alive”. The truth to this question is generally easy to pin down. However, if the person is dead, the question, “How did they die?” is much more difficult, even impossible to accurately ascertain, but this does not mean that the truth on the matter somehow ceases to exist and becomes relative dependent upon the person interpreting the data regarding the cause of death. If such were the case, what point would a murder trial (or any other trial as far as that goes) have as everyone’s conclusion, no matter how different they may be, would hold equal weight.

 

It is not questions such as these that have led to this misconception of truth. As a rule of thumb, if we as humans feel that we have concrete, tangible means of gathering data on a question, we tend to believe that the truth on the matter is singular and we only need find it. However, when it comes to questions that hold their truths in places that our senses cannot detect and/or which lie hidden beneath layers of complexity that are deep enough to discourage the truth seeker from seeking… well, this is the poison soil where truth being relative finds its roots. The question of all questions, “Is there a God who created all things?” lies firmly in the realms of this territory and it therefore is deemed by many to have an answer that is relative. Answers to the other of life’s great questions that stem from this question, “What is God like?”- “Is there a purpose to life?” lie so far away from being tangibly ascertained that I find nearly everyone is wanton to concede relativity. However, doing so amounts to no more than a cop-out.

 

The truth does exist on all matters and whether it be a topic of Science, Religion or the controversial grounds where they cross, allowing the difficulty of the search to get you to settle for the best you can personally come up with at any given point in time does you no good service.

 

Never stop searching for the truth…

 

Joshua

Reviews

[PieceMaker]

I like muchly.

[alley]

Your writting bring's me to heart!

[Jessica E. Hamilton]

What exactly prompted this monologue?

[Livana Lowell]

Dear The Joshua Letters,

"This is I believe, a misunderstanding that stems out of the goodness of people’s hearts, wanting to avoid confrontation and maintain the peace."

This quote makes no sense to me. To say this, is to say that perception of truth has no relevance in truth. Perception of truth and truth are not equal, but counterparts in which if you choose to continue with this book, need to identify more thoroughly. This idea you said is an opinion. "stems out of the goodness of people's hearts..." The concept of perception didn't stem from the goodness of my heart, but the thinking of my brain.

RainQueen and R.J. Askew express my point of view of the matter, so there's no need for me to explain a lot.

Also, I've noticed this as well...You said you were writing these letters to inform, but you tell a piece of information and say you won't define it. That's a flip off to the readers. In addition, that hologram theory was flippantly tossed up. Black holes allows no light yet light is coherent with holograms??

Moreover, "allowing the difficulty of the search to get you to settle for the best you can personally come up with at any given point in life does you no good service." is a little contradicting to what you've written in the previous chapter. "In essence, although it is not a 100% accurate analogy, the best I can come up with is that we are hologram-like beings in a holodeck-like universe." I am saying that this book and your letters are merely a theory of truth. What you consider is true and what someone else may consider what is true are different.

"can be much more difficult, even impossible for us to accurately ascertain, but this does not mean that the truth on the matter somehow ceases to exist and becomes relative dependent upon the one interpreting the data regarding the cause of death" This quote is strange. An autopsy tells you the cause of death. Did you mean something like old age or something, like the decay of organisms? Otherwise, this is wrong.

In addition, what about the concept of the "soul"?? Are you going to venture into that?

The concept of truth is tricky like I said. This is why I stick to fantasy, lol in which I can change truth all I want.

Sincerely Livana Lowell (LL)

God bless

[Laura Storm]

Once again very thought provoking and well written. As for deeper thoughts on this I'll have to get back to you when I finish figuring out what all your chapters mean because I'm not a deep thinker or very bright by nature but you seem to be both. Love these chapters they challenge what I think and believe. Thank you for posting them.

[bOhEmIa (mahim)]

At one point in life, everyone seeks the truth about his existence or the existence of everything his eyes can grasp. The narrator of the write is no exception. The writing is very original and realistic.

[The Joshua Letters]

RainQueen... good points, but they exemplify the difficulty in finding the truth, not that there is no singular truth and/or that truth is relative. Indeed, the person may be dead, alive or somewhere in between. It might be in reality that instead of there being two possible answers on this topic, there are many, but still only one of them can be true for a given point in time. If this were not the case and the truth was relative, then in essence the investigator would hold the power of life and death over those whom they investigate (which now that I think of it would be a pretty good business... doctor's and coroners could just believe people back to life).

Also, yes there are an infinite number of questions that have no connection to truth but rather matters of opinion, "What is your favorite color?" This too is a point of controversy, because the question quickly becomes which questions are opinion based and is which are not. Well, :-) there is a truth to that question as well that I suppose the truth seeker must find.

[RainQueen]

It's dangerous to assume that all questions have an absolute truth for an answer. In a simplistic sense...Is she beautiful? Yes and no are both true, depending upon perspective.

There are truths that appear to be more cut-and-dry:
"For every given person, the question can be asked, “Are they dead or alive”. The truth to this question is generally easy to pin down."

Even this is not as easy, as black-and-white, as one would assume. For one thing, a dying person may hover between life and death for a very long time. The heart may stop beating for many seconds, respirations halt for as long as a minute as the person inches toward death. Is he dead during this time? Is the human whose heart beats aided by machines but whose brain activity is utterly flat alive? And then, of course, one moves into the more shady realms of spirituality. The person is embalmed, buried, but if there is an afterlie, is he really "dead?"

Truth becomes subjective because it is dependent of definitions an parameters set before the discussion can begin. What, exactly, is dead? What, exactly, is alive? Without careful and clear guidelines, and such debate becomes a senseless cacophony...

If it's this difficult to establish ground rules for a discussion of living vs. dead, imagine the difficulty when the debate begins over the existence of God...

Interesting write. Thanks so much for posting it!

[R J Askew]

Maybe the only real truth is to be found in numbers. In my case the only truth of any importance to me is that 8 people have bought my ebook. Also some 467 people have visited my website and they stay there for 56 seconds on average. Now all this cld mean two things 1) my ebook is crap 2) my ebook needs promoting. But the basic figures behind it all 8, 467 and 56 are what I wld call truth. As to what they or any other numbers actually mean... But what does it matter? Do we actually need to know the truth? And what if the truth is forever illusive? Then is it wise to spend our lives in pursuit of it? What happens when we reach a place where we have to believe. Is the thing we believe in truth? Many convince themselves it is. But is it not better to live in perpetual doubt than to surrender to belief? What if doubt and ignorance are the only truly reliable features to live by? And even if I believed that to be true I wld still have to accept that I might have made a mistake. In which case... HELP!

[Team_Jaward_Gale]

I agree basically with all of it well done