Many people spend a lot of time pondering about truth, yet their ideas usually don't belong to the common knowledge. From two sides professional "Truthers" appear: science and religion. When it comes to the origin of our phenomenal universe, we have to choose sides whether we follow along the idea of a creator or that of a Big Bang.
I don't want to suggest in any way that I know this very answer, though I have some specific ideas. However, I don't think they matter. And I don't think that the "real" answer to this question really matters. although the answer an individual gives him/herself relates strongly to this individual's way to interact and communicate.
In most situations, "truth" as such has no special relevance. Although the western world claims to follow the principles of enlightenment, lies belong much more to our fabric of reality than truth. We lie to our children when we tell them that the sun sets and rises, and we lie to them when we talk about Santa.
Children understand the concept of lies at a relatively late, some claim as early as 6, others say 9 to 10 years of age. Children understand the concept of an endless unknown readily, and the Boogieman, bed bugs, super heroes, santa claus, allah, jahwe and god fill bits of this void.
Truth has rather interactive character than objectively measurable features in a young age. Most bits of abstract concepts labeled truth stem from the same people that provide the child with food, care and love. Truth and trust get mixed up, information from trustworthy sources compose the child's view of the world.
Some qualities of our phenomenal environment become the basis for our understanding of the world, luckily before the minds grasps the weird concept of truth. Things fall down, objects continue to exist even if invisible, animate and inanimate objects act differently, objects have different qualities like texture, taste, smell, shape and colour - we explore our environment by actively exploring and experiencing it.
The curiosity of fresh human beings seems endless, and caring parents arrange for a socially acceptable range of experiences. Communication allows to name things and to talk about these experiences. The grown-ups seem to have experienced other things, and are not easy to trick in varbal communication. Without knowing a lie we can only trust, which means most basic assumptions about life entered our mind absolutely uncritically.
After we learned about Santa Claus lie, we find ourselves in a dilemma. Do we lose our trust in our primary peers, or do we accept the arbitrary (and untruthful) nature of truth? We still live in dependency of our primary peers, so we have to accept the virtuality of reality. Experience becomes the less important source of knowledge gathering and the search for truth, expertise takes the first place.
We waste no time for fact or plausability checking in the first years of information gathering and shaping of the mind, so that the facility for critical thinking remains underdeveloped, unless specifically fostered. The unimpeded flow of life, a succession of social interaction, experiment and experience changes when the day get sliced up into school lessons.
Not understanding, but repetition lays the foundation for what most people spout out as tidbits of truth. Each time we see the sun "rising" on the horizon, we reaffirm the reality of a flat earth in the center of the universe. We live in a time that cherishes rationality, yet use a language that ridicules the advances in human knowledge.
Since Gödel we know that any approach to describe reality in abstract terms leads to either incomplete or contradictory systems. In my point of view, that applies to language as well. We can keep ourselves busy fighting about truth, like many people do - which reminds a bit of the attempt to use a spoon to stir an ocean. Mutual understanding exists independent of any objective truth, communication creates a common reality.
Most of "truths" in our minds relevant for social interaction belong rather to this unspeakable category. Stories model our behaviour towards other people, those we experienced immediately and vicariously. The power of large number occurs as theme over and over - masses seem to know the "truth" intuitively.
Nobody can know what masses think, whether they exist as a coherent temporary stable phenomenon or what drives them. But that doesn't anybody to spread ideas about mass opinions, and if mass media does so, reports about the people's voice become self fulfilling prophecies.
The fun starts when you begin to deconstruct reality. Open your eyes. Now.
accept belong bits children concept exist experience ideas interaction knowledge lie mass mind objects people reality social things think trust truth understanding world
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