Thoughts about the importance of truth

in #philosophy6 years ago (edited)



Having access to correct information, or in other words, to the “truth” is the only way we have to properly understand our society, and on a higher plane, our reality.

Today we are living in an era like never before, because it is easier than ever to have access to tons of information about every single subject we can think of. There is nothing we cannot learn due to a lack of information because literally we have everything (or close to) available.

But so far that doesn’t necessarily means we are taking better decisions than before. In my case, I see too many people making big mistakes that can only be explained by a lack of proper recognition regarding what is true information and fake or wrong information.

 


 

A particular example is my own country, some of you already know I am from Venezuela, and if you happen to read international news I am sure you have read a lot of things about the situation in my country.

The current crisis in Venezuela is nothing more than the result of having a population that don’t have a proper understanding of how to find prosperity as a nation, or in other words, they don’t know the true about how to achieve success at a national scale.

Over the last several years, the amount of absurd and wrong decisions that have been taken by the government with the support of a considerable % of the voting population (I don’t say the majority because it is impossible to know the correct numbers, but either way, they did have a lot of supporters) is hard to believe, especially due to the fact it is not the first time in history for these mistakes to happen.

We saw in the twentieth century enough examples of totalitarian governments, and ignoring the lessons that should be learned by studying them is clearly not a wise thing to do. For people to have a proper understanding of history so to not repeat the same mistakes, they need to have a desire to really find and internalize the truth, but sadly, in our world this is not a priority for too many individuals that prefer to focus their attention in other more trivial subjects.

 


 

Sometimes the truth can be something ugly for us, but that is not enough reason to ignore it and act like if that truth weren’t real.

I believe humanity’s mistakes, especially when those mistakes are already documented and there is enough information to not commit them again, happen because those people decided to ignore the truth, or because they simply didn’t have access to it.

Based on that, we could see the absence of truth, or rather the presence of misinformation and lies, as a strong force of destruction capable of causing havoc in any place.

We see all kinds of people doing damage because of their lack of respect towards the truth. Realizing it is the concept of truth the only tool that can make humanity in general, reach a level of prosperity much higher than the ones we have today is crucial if we really want to continue our advancement in all levels.

Knowledge and understanding can only be attained through having access to the truth, and only with enough knowledge and understanding can we develop the solutions to any problem we might have, whether it is on an individual level, or at the collective level.

 


 

On the contrary, if we don’t have access to the truth, we have no way to defend ourselves from the potential manipulation that dishonest people push towards us. In places with no enough access to information and therefore, to the truth, it is common to see people having serious difficulties when taking decisions in their lives, and the more mistakes we make, the harder it will be to achieve a good life.

Therefore, such as lies and misinformation can be seen as a force for destruction, the truth can be seen as the most important force for construction there is, which is why it is so important to always take the necessary precautions when accepting something as truth.


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One problem with truth is that you must fundamentally trust someone or something outside of yourself, that the thing being presented as truth actually is the truth. And that goes without considering the possibility that our minds may distort the facts and we really have no way of absolutely knowing how deep our self-deception goes (if one's mind is powerful enough one could presumably hallucinate a whole lifetime).

So, it seems that life is not without faith at some level. Without trust in oneself or others the experience of living would certainly be one of alienation, if not downright hell. Yet, some brave, if not insane, souls choose to question everything, even their own existence and, moreover, some among them claim that it's the only way to know the real truth.

One problem with truth is that you must fundamentally trust someone or something outside of yourself

We need a good criteria so we can choose correctly who to trust. And that good criteria can only be developed by feeding our minds with information and trying to analyse it in the most objective way possible.

Yet, some brave, if not insane, souls choose to question everything, even their own existence

Questioning our existence can be too much, but questioning the nature of our reality (this sounded like Westworld :P) is always a nice intellectual exercise.

Thanks for stopping by @jamesbrown

We need a good criteria so we can choose correctly who to trust. And that good criteria can only be developed by feeding our minds with information and trying to analyse it in the most objective way possible.

I agree. Even though we can't really ever be 100% certain that we've made the right choice to trust certain sources, our reasoning and observational skills, when put to use, increase the probability of internalizing and adapting to actual facts, many-fold.

Thinking for ourselves is paramount to arriving at a reasonable estimate of all the facts.

Questioning our existence can be too much, but questioning the nature of our reality (this sounded like Westworld :P) is always an nice intellectual exercise.

Hahaha. Yes, questioning our existence is like trying to visualize infinity, times a million! It's something that I feel our brains aren't adequately equipped to do, at least not us "normal" (non-genius) people.

Agreed on the questioning the nature of reality, too. We have this type of questioning to thank for essentially all of our scientific advancements over the course of human history.

Yet, some brave, if not insane, souls choose to question everything, even their own existence and, moreover, some among them claim that it's the only way to know the real truth

Well, the only truth that is truth is the one within us, not the one we perceive in the outer world. It’s more important to look within. I mean truly

I wonder if real truth exists. Absolute truth is more like an infinite nothing. We are not even meant to know it in the first place

Cheers!

Yeah, I see it as levels of truth:

1.) the "relative truth" of relationships between things that appear to exist, but are based on the fundamental assumption that the objective world is real.

2.) the "intimate truth" of direct experience, based on the fact that something exists, namely myself, proven by my being aware.

3.) the "absolute truth" that stands alone after removing all erroneous assumptions/ conclusions/ abstractions. Whether it's observable or can be known by a human or any other "entity", I don't know. I don't even know if it exists.

Many supposed (spiritually) enlightened people have claimed that there is a (absolute) truth that stands alone and that it can't be known, words can't describe it, but it can be lived.

Well cemented!

Totally love this :)

They say history is written by the victors, but perhaps more important to us, here and now, is that today's truth is decided by those with the loudest voices. As @jamesbrown suggests, we have to trust someone to trust their truth, and when asked who they trust, most people just point to the guy with the megaphone.

I think the key to getting people to accept one particular truth, is to show why they should trust the people who provide it. Perhaps there is a good reason they are not? That doesn't necessarily make the truth wrong, but since truth is about consensus, it does make it basically ineffective. Knowing something is true seems to me only half the battle, the other half is convincing people it is worth believing! Frustrating, I know, but these struggles so often are.

Thanks for your article, it really got my mind working.

Knowing something is true seems to me only half the battle, the other half is convincing people it is worth believing

You are right, it can be frustrating to see people doing silly mistakes because of their lack of information or understanding.

I think the key to getting people to accept one particular truth, is to show why they should trust the people who provide it

It could work with people who have an open mind, but it will hardly cause any change with indoctrinated people.

Cheers!

Very true, I love this article. Resteemed

Very true, I love this article. Resteemed

Man I always like the way you approach things.

I like to tell people, knowledge is not power, truth is power!

But the informations we have all around does not signify truth. Because truth works in different ways for each of us. And the truth about truth is that one can’t recognize truth when he sees it if he doesn’t know the ‘truth’ about himself.

The intuitive mind is what helps us recognize truths

The intuitive mind is what helps us recognize truths

I do think intuition can play a role when we are trying to take good decisions, but in this case, developing it to the point is accuracy is good enough is not something easy to do for sure. But yes, intuition can be of big help!

Yeah man, cheers :)

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