Truth
What is truth?
Keats suggested that truth equaled beauty, and vice versa.
It's a neat syllogism, but I think it's somewhat simplistic.
Instead, I hold that truth is largely inconceivable to all humans. Our limited senses and finite minds cannot comprehend something so grand as "truth".
In other words, we don't know nothin'.
For example, everyone knows that 2+2=4. But is that a "true" statement? Is it any more true than the statement "pumpkin + coleslaw = Honda Accord?" The former is true only because we deem it so, and for no other reason.
We determine our environment solely from our five senses. As those five senses aren't perfect, our perception of the environment is flawed, and our determination of the truth is necessarily limited.
Imagine if we developed a new sense, and our whole view of the world changed before our eyes. We cannot estimate or categorize that which we cannot discern.
As humans, we are playing with a puzzle with worn pieces and possible missing parts that we likely will never find.
I'm sticking all the pieces back in the box, and simply deciding to live my life. There's no use playing with a broken toy. I'll simply make the decisions I think are best based on the information I have, realizing that said information is probably just a sliver of the entire data set.
In short, we will never know the answer to "What is truth?"
But then again, that could be a lie.
Who knows?
Keats suggested that truth equaled beauty, and vice versa.
It's a neat syllogism, but I think it's somewhat simplistic.
Instead, I hold that truth is largely inconceivable to all humans. Our limited senses and finite minds cannot comprehend something so grand as "truth".
In other words, we don't know nothin'.
For example, everyone knows that 2+2=4. But is that a "true" statement? Is it any more true than the statement "pumpkin + coleslaw = Honda Accord?" The former is true only because we deem it so, and for no other reason.
We determine our environment solely from our five senses. As those five senses aren't perfect, our perception of the environment is flawed, and our determination of the truth is necessarily limited.
Imagine if we developed a new sense, and our whole view of the world changed before our eyes. We cannot estimate or categorize that which we cannot discern.
As humans, we are playing with a puzzle with worn pieces and possible missing parts that we likely will never find.
I'm sticking all the pieces back in the box, and simply deciding to live my life. There's no use playing with a broken toy. I'll simply make the decisions I think are best based on the information I have, realizing that said information is probably just a sliver of the entire data set.
In short, we will never know the answer to "What is truth?"
But then again, that could be a lie.
Who knows?
posted by Yorick at 10:43 PM
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