The idea that every individual has a right to his or her own version of truth, is in my opinion increasing the polarization we witness in our times. I think that personal truths may be important for individuals, but are completely useless for a shared understanding of the world we live in, a shared understanding that's of vital importance for our survival and our ability to coexist.
source: YouTube
I'll start with an excerpt from a short interview from a couple of years ago, between Richard Dawkins and Bill O'Reilly:
Dawkins: "You mean true for you is different that true for anybody else? How can something be true for you. Something either got to be true or not."
O'Reilly: "No, no. I can't prove to you that Jesus is God, so that truth is mine, and mine alone. But you can't prove to me that Jesus is not. So you have to stay in your little believe-system..."
Dawkins: "You can't prove Zeus is not, you can't prove Apollo is not, or Mithra..."
The decades long celebration of the individual as the highest authority for assessing truth, has led to the idea that we can all have our own version of reality, or at least that's how I see it ;-) It has given us an environment where Bill O'Reilly can say weird things like "it's true for me". Truth is that which is factual regardless of my or your opinion about it. Reality is what's there, what's happening with or without our presence. The fact that each and every one of us has their own model of reality projected by their individual brains, shouldn't be a reason to abandon the idea that that reality exists altogether. That is, whenever we discuss anything at all, we do so with the assertion that such a truth exists, or else all discussion is pointless.
It is factual, however, that we all do have our own world-model, our own perspective on reality, which leads to the inescapable conclusion that "the" truth can not be known by any individual. Again, through discussion, through interaction with other people, all as curious and hungry to learn about that reality as ourselves, we're able to compare our versions of reality, with the ultimate goal of defining what's true for all of us; only by sharing our inner world-models, our ideas about reality, can we come to a shared truth. And only by holding these shared truths are we able to build a shared future, are we able to cooperate and manage to create the highly technically advanced society of today.
Now, there's tons of ways to get to a shared truth, with the most notable division being the one between religion and science. In the search for such shared truths, we inevitably reach the limit of what we're able or willing to investigate. At some point we must take some things as a given, take them for granted, even in science. Such as the origin of the universe; my truth about that matter is that we don't know the truth about that matter yet, and maybe we never will, while others, like Bill O'Reilly know that God made it all by speaking words, and yet others don't believe this reality we're debating exists at all, that it's all a construct of the mind, of consciousness. I don't want to make this about religion, atheism or spiritualism, but I do want to point out the meaninglessness of asserting that something is true for you, because that just doesn't make it true.
However defective or incomplete, the shared truths as reached by the scientific method are, it is in my opinion the most reliable method of attaining facts, as it strictly deals with the external, the observable, the repeatable and the disprovable facts of our material plane of existence, with "disprovable" being a very important factor. The problem with religious or spiritual beliefs is that they can not be disproven. In the world of science, they don't even qualify as viable hypotheses, let alone facts or truths based on facts. Truth, as a concept, is complicated, and there are many different ways to get at truth. Deflationists, for example, say that the concept is unnecessary. For example, to say that "it's true that this man is guilty" is the same as saying "this man is guilty"; the addition that "it's true" is superfluous. Pragmatists say that what's true is whatever works. Then there's the famous "that which corresponds to facts". If you watch the below linked video you'll see how varied and multifaceted philosophical views on "truth" are.
For us mere mortals though, we get much of our truth by listening to the experts in our personal and public life; our parents, our teachers, the experts we see on TV, the writers whose books we read, and so on. There is a growing mistrust in all forms of authority, including the academia. This is unfortunate, but not beyond comprehension as far as I'm concerned; we're all familiar with the so-called "experts" who are being paraded on television, just to advance some ideological or political opinion. Regardless of your personal stance on the matter, the scientists spreading and opposing the climate scare are a large part of this, but also psychologists and "experts" in the humanities, sociology and economy are constantly defending opposing sides in all sorts of socioeconomic and political arguments, thereby eroding the trust we used to have in them.
I've seen, during my life in western Europe, the demise of the common good and the downfall of "big ideas". Idealism is dead, because a political or economical idealism takes one, or a handful, of characteristics of human existence and builds all truths around them. Communism takes the community as its pivotal center and describes the role of the individual around that truth. Capitalism takes the individual as its pivotal center and describes the role of society around that truth. Communism is not dead, but it has lost the battle of the opposing big ideas (for now at least) and at the same time capitalism has thereby lost its balancing force, so now all things in life are reduced to short term individualistic goals, mostly of the materialistic kind. The purely individualistic nature of our modern existence seems to have taken hold as an axiomatic truth upon which to build our shared reality. And the bias-bubbles created by online search-algorithms aren't helping either...
In the end though, I believe we'll have to realize that truth can only be attained through interaction with other human beings, as it is through their eyes that we can see another perspective on reality than our own, and to compare our own with. By bouncing ideas off each other about the reality we both observe, we can come to a mutual understanding and recognition of that reality. And we need that shared reality for us all to exist in. Truth, like the world, is shared, and not something to claim as our own. And our shared truth should be based around the facts about the world, as gathered and determined by the best method for gathering those facts, science.
What is truth? In the end I'm just someone who shares his own opinions online, without any authority or credentials. So I'll leave you with a video in which some people who have relevant credentials share their opinions and knowledge about truth.
What is Truth? | Episode 1405 | Closer To Truth
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