301Truth: The Greatest Lie?
Truth doesn’t exist. If it does, it certainly doesn’t exist in daily human life. (Maybe it exists in the realm of the sanyasi.) Truth in daily life isn’t truth; it is an artificial construct of the mind in response to events and circumstances, personal thoughts and moral proclivities. It is an answer to a question posed; it does not exist of its own accord.
This doesn’t refer to statements like “this shirt is yellow.” it refers to propositions that have more of a moral dimension to them. Morality is about values. Truth is necessarily a value. To say it exists by pointing to a non-moral proposition is to equate it with fact, which is a non-value. If we can come up with different interpretations and inferences by using a selective number of circumstances, how can we say that we are proclaiming the truth?
[Use the statement, “My girlfriend wronged me because she cheated on me”. Is this the truth? Don’t say the truth is subjective. You’re insulting your own intelligence. Don’t say truth doesn’t matter here. If it exists, it’s the only thing that matters, everywhere.]
It is humanly impossible to see and understand EVERYTHING so that one can indeed say that in light of ALL those facts, we know what is true and what isn’t. Even if one claims to have evaluated all that is there to be considered, there’s no way to verify that everything that could be considered has been found/seen in the first place. All that can be said is that an argument, which is a construct of the mind, has been made to reflect what the author considers to be the truth.
But that contradicts the very essence of truth doesn’t it? The truth cannot be constructed. It just IS. All we can do is hope to arrive at it. But there’s no way to verify it. You have to bring faith in your conclusion to the table - an act which, once again, demeans truth. You can’t have faith that something you believe is the truth. That is to premise your beliefs on a possible non-truth.
So what I guess I’m saying is that the truth doesn’t exist in daily life, which is built around actions based on our interpretations of thoughts and events, or that there is no possible way for us to arrive at it. Unless you believe in enlightenment. But how can you be sure that’s true? You’ll need faith to step in. And you’re back to square one.
Truth is a logical impossibility, for all the reasons I’ve argued above. Perhaps that’s the only truth? But no, it can’t be.
Using faith to rescue a logically impossible conclusion is like saying that all a child needs from its parents is lots of love; it doesn’t solve anything. All it does is put a fluffy, comfortable blanket to hide an embarrassing shortcoming.
So where does that leave people like me who heretofore thought that life was about finding truth? How do you go on after the centre of your belief system has been shattered like that?
I guess you find another meaning for life. Or something that you can use as an alibi for it. Because you cannot go on otherwise.
