Truth, by definition, is “That which is true or in accordance with fact or reality” which you can find by simply using Google to search the definition. Truth, is very similar to science, where something is either “true/fact” or it is “Not true/False/disproven” and in such a manner we can draw the conclusion that there is only one true truth, for everyone one individual.
Let’s leave that for a moment, and help make the example a slight more significant, here is an example of truth.
“I never killed a man in my life.” Is a truth, now it is not your truth but it is my truth and such it is the only truth I can say if asked.
“Did you kill a man before?”
What does this mean? It means, that the second I do kill a man, it is no longer true, it is “disproven” or is now false, and it can never be true again, that would be impossible, because I have killed a man in this example now.
So I suppose the question is, to find truth, one MUST ask the question to discover the facts leading to said truth.
So leading back to the science analogy, in science a theory only has to be disproven once, to become false, for instance;
Spontaneous generation - is a principle regarding the origin of life from inanimate matter, which held that this process was a commonplace and everyday occurrence, as distinguished from univocal generation, or reproduction from parent(s). Falsified by an elegant experiment by Louis Pasteur—where apparently spontaneous generation of microorganisms occurred, it did not happen on repeating the process without access to unfiltered air; on then opening the apparatus to the atmosphere, bacterial growth started.
Before being disproven, this was the accepted knowledge on earth, man came from inanimate matter (non-carbon/living matter), it was “truth” to them because they did not ask the questions required to get a different truth.
So now, back to my opening statement, if there is only one truth, and every person has a different truth, then perhaps we can conclude that it is not that every person has a different truth but the matter is that each person has a different level of understanding of the very same truth, through education/knowledge/experience etc. we see a spectrum of differentiating information.
To close, it is my belief that there is only a single truth to a single event, it is a functional value, for every X there is a corresponding Y value, and such peoples “opinions” are merely separated by how educated they are on the matter, and by educating yourself in all matters will you ever know true truth.
are fact not interpreted using preexisting theories? are those theories not derived from facts interpreted using other preexisting theories? If every theory is based on preexisting theories and/or axioms, is every fact not ultimately based on axioms? Since a axiom is a proposition that is not and cannot be proven within the system based on them, are all "truth" not based upon assumptions simply taken to be true? Thus, if individuals have different axioms, would their conclusion not vary as well? So how do you identify what is the true truth, if there exist different sets of axioms?
For static events, generally there is but one truth. And as for science (to be blunt), it is just a reflection of the truth itself. So science can be distorted like a cracked mirror, but that doesn't mean that the actual object being reflected isn't true. But that's uninteresting w/ regard to Truth.
The interesting question is whether there are truths behind certain ideas that are more dynamic. For example, when you start asking questions about ethics, meaning, and purpose, the idea that there is "one truth" crumbles apart.
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted" Taken straight from Assassins Creed, its pretty corny but the message is there. "Truth" is something that changes with time and people, the "truth" that the world is flat turned out to be false. The "Truth" that the moon had oceans like the earth is not true.
So we think now that the absolute truth of this universe is that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. Who know maybe 50 years maybe 1000 years that could be broken.
Well you can't reliably define anything without making up some axioms that you just have to accept. Philosophers like Descartes have been trying to build up knowledge without axioms and try to figure out fundamental truths, you just can't do it.
So science addresses this by just saying "so we'll measure stuff and extrapolate general rules, these rules are now scientific knowledge until we come across something that contradicts it". It's not about truth/knowledge but finding the best approximation of truth and knowledge we can extrapolate from observations (which we have no way of proving in and of themselves).
Basically, truth is the state of reality independent of human biases or interpretations.
We can't necessarily know truth in its actual form, we can only know our interpretations of what we believe to be true. Now, the consistency of our beliefs and observations of various truths lead us to believe that many of our interpretations are identical or VERY similar to actual truth.
I'm not suggesting that we don't understand the nature of the universe around us to a high degree, I think we do (in some realms, at least), only that the very concept of truth is independent of our beliefs or prejudices... if any of that makes any sense.
EPT
