What is truth?: A love story.

                For the sake of brevity, I will begin by saying that I have some trust issues. These are exacerbated when I know someone is trying to affect my decisions, or use some form of power over me. There are advantages and disadvantages to having a crippling suspicion of anything proposed as an absolute in an ever-changing world. One of those advantages is being able to detect when someone is trying to use their power to manipulate you. After practicing your research and pattern analysis, you learn that no one is born corrupt, no one is an expert in everything, and even experts are often wrong. You also learn that most people are good people, and it is still perfectly natural to be suspicious or scared of anything you don’t know, including people. If you want truth you have to find it for yourself, which means learning about anything and everything you can.

                Everything is connected in this world, and deception is around every turn. Any device that can connect to the internet is a salesman, a preacher, a teacher, or any other extension of human thought that you allow it to be. Some of the people you will encounter genuinely believe in doing you a service and do their best to do so; of those some are more effective and/or knowledgeable than others.  There will always be the opposite as well; those who are attempting to hide the truth from you for their benefit. You can assess the integrity and intentions of an active influence by determining what they have to gain by convincing you of their opinions. If a person has no intention other than to help without hurting you or anyone else, you might have found someone you can trust. Be skeptical and be wary, because even those you trust can still lie, intentionally or accidentally. You have to trust someone though; otherwise you are relying on a single perception of the world that you will either never question or will always question, and neither will lead you to the truth.

                Science, by definition, is the human pursuit of the truth; to find out everything we can about everything in order to improve our existence. Of course, that sounds like playing god, which is why the public should be informed of ethical dilemmas in science. Good scientists are interested in finding and defending truth, while simultaneously keeping the company they work for happy. Even good scientists get things wrong. As in any profession, people can get convinced that what they are doing is right no matter what the circumstances are. No one is perfect after all. However, I’d like to stress that it is fairly easy to become a cynic or worse when you begin questioning the integrity of scientists all the time, and as I explained earlier it is easy to assess someone’s integrity. Legitimate, moral, and self-questioning scientists are full of information that could save your life one day.

                If you want some truth, find a piece of non-fiction writing and read it with a critical eye. Fact-check every sentence in the source. Find out what you can about the subject they are writing about, read relevant statistics if you are hearing a single story, find more sources that present different points of view and fact-check them too. Learn to spot logical fallacies in an argument. Find what the general consensus among experts is on any given subject, learn what the outliers believe on either side, and draw your own conclusions based on any irrefutable evidence you may find. Don’t blame yourself if you turn out to be wrong; continue to learn.

                This is going to get a little abstract, but stay with me. You may ask what truth is. The answer is I don’t know. The dictionary says it is the quality or state of being true; in accordance with fact and reality. However, our perceptions of reality are distorted over time, and some people refuse to face reality for different reasons. That means what is true to some people isn’t true to others. If you make an effort to regularly learn more about the world, you get used to the idea of questioning your perception of reality and comparing it to others’ from an empathetic and critical standpoint. This can help you understand why people think what they think is true and can uncover assumed notions that either party may have that weren’t based in reality. If this sounds familiar, it’s what your mom called “using your words”. So go forth and learn all you will, and use what you learn in your interactions with fellow people to find truth.