Truth – Veritas

What is truth? According to Merriam-Webster, truth is “the body of real things, events, and facts” or “a judgement, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true”. To me, this relates to two types of truths in my mind.

Truth number 1: Objective truth or absolute truth. This is the truest sense of truth, the first definition where things are simply real and factual and indisputable. This truth is hard for us humans to truly see as we don’t understand enough of our universe.

Truth number 2: Subjective truth. This is the truth we deal with the most. This is what you or I believe to be true. This is the second definition where we accept something as true or believe something to be true.

An example of these truths would be a person born with certain chromosomes that determine someone’s biological sex, but the identify as a different sex. The objective truth is that the person has specific chromosomes and genitalia, but their subjective truth is they don’t want to be defined or identified as a certain or specific sex. While there may be arguments about this topic specifically, the idea illustrates both truths and how both can be right or accepted.

Another example would be witnessing a murder in a crowded room. Many times in real life situations, witnesses have proven unreliable as their statements differ wildly about the same incident. There are even studies that show our minds fill in holes in our memory. While this doesn’t mean you should never believe what you see or hear again, don’t necessarily rely on its accuracy.

Another way to think of this is the classic Star Wars question, who shot first? While this has been discussed and edited, the idea is the same and why witness testimony can be an issue in investigations and courtrooms.

So what is true? If we can never know true truth or objective truth, that doesn’t mean we can’t seek it. While we were technically wrong for many years with regards to our understanding of physics, we aren’t completely wrong. We just didn’t understand enough. We at least were moving in the right direction and gaining a general understanding of physics. So even though some of our original models and theories weren’t absolutely true, they were enough for us to get by and still create some technical wonders. Our subjective truths were enough for the time.