What is Truth?

Big Questions

As a budding scientist struggling his way through VCE physics, I have always appreciated how science is able to communicate the truth to us. How does ice keep my water bottle cold? Heat transfer. How did I grow to have such a huge head? Evolution. On most days I find myself rather satisfied with this scientific description of the truth – models and rules that do their best to describe objective reality.

On occasion though, I find myself searching for a deeper truth – looking for something to make sense of my life beyond what is purely physical. I can appreciate that every decision of mine can be reduced to the chemical reactions in my head, but it doesn’t intuitively feel that way. The reasoning (or lack thereof) behind every decision I make feels thought out by processes far less physical. In fact, my personal experience of self is incompatible with the science that describes it; the former is effusive and emotional while the latter is objective and concrete.

I do not mean to suggest that I am doubtful of science in this way – I do believe that consciousness is objectively a physical phenomenon. It is simply that as far as my interactions with the world are concerned, this scientific truth no longer describes my intuitive experience.

This beckons the fundamental question, what is the truth? Is it the most precise description of reality? Is it always objective? I will not approach the question in a purely logical sense, partly because it is beyond my capabilities and partly because I don’t think it is constructive.

To me, the truth in a human sense is entirely contextual. On a personal level, this is obviously apparent when we evaluate our surroundings. The statement, “that is a beautiful dress”, will never be unconditionally true – it depends on what that is referring to as well as the stylistic preferences of the person speaking the words. On a very semantic level, it even depends on what each of the words like dress mean in the language spoken. This is a very literal example of how truth for humans is at best circumstantial.

Additionally, the truth is inextricably linked to time; the statement, “I am having fun”, appears true when the person saying it is at a concert, but seems more ironic in the context of an exam. It is also worth considering how the acquisition of knowledge impacts our perception of the truth. If someone you once called a good person turned out to be a criminal, would you really say that in the past you had lied?

This leads me to what I believe is the closest thing to the truth that we can achieve; a statement said in complete congruence with a person’s consciousness. If you honestly have not the slightest doubt about the logical or moral underpinnings of an assertion you make – it is impossible to refute that, at least as far as we are concerned, it is the truth. Now, not everything that fits this definition is objectively accurate – but that isn’t the point of the definition. As humans we are biased and opinionated, and these two facts make it almost impossible to assert anything that is axiomatically true.

The best we can do is act honestly, in accordance with our consciousness, to best describe and recount the small patch of reality that we so blissfully inhabit.

- William Johnson