Hope you all enjoyed the poem I posted a couple of days ago. I would like to return to the topic of truth and its value to us as human beings. How important is TRUTH to us? Is it necessary in everyday life? Is there a lack of it in everyday life? Are we bound by the truth?
For human beings truth must be relative. Meaning if a proposition has meaning to an individual that proposition becomes true to that particular individual. A very simple example would be "my glass is half full" or "my glass is half empty". Either proposition can be relatively true depending on who you are and how you look at it. People say that if you are a half full person you are an optimist and if you are a half empty person you are pessimist. Is this true?
A person who looks at the glass being half full is said to look at life in a positive way and the opposite goes for the one who looks at the glass as half empty. This is a great example for motivational speakers to use when giving examples of positive and negative ways of thinking. However the question still remains, is it true? If I said that my glass is half empty, does it mean that it is half full. Of course it does. Logically if my glass holds 50% water then the other 50% would have to be air or something else. The only reason one would buy this example of positive thinking is if it were true or at least if one believed it were true. However in my opinion saying that the glass is half full or empty doesn't make a person positive or negative, if it does anything at all it simply makes a person think that they are thinking in a positive or negative manner. It seems to be a play on words and nothing more.
What if I changed the words of the proposition to "my glass holds some water in it," how would one feel about it then? This means that it is neither full, nor empty. It is exactly what I said it is. I wonder if this makes me an "opti-pesi-mist". My statement, "my glass holds some water in it," can be a positive or negative statement depending on how much water I want. It seems even a relative truth would need to be positively and negatively balanced to be considered as remotely true. Let me know what you think.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
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2 comments:
Interesting topic. I think it’s all about Perception. Through your life experiences you gain information and knowledge that creates thoughts, presumptions, ideas and your own sense of truth or believes. Everyone has there own truth. Some might agree with your truth and some will disagree. Your truth is based on your experiences. Your glass half full (optimist) or half empty (pessimist) reflects how you see life. If you say the glass is half full, that means you feel a sense of satisfaction or fulfillment in your life. Therefore you are an optimist because you are feeling good amount your half filled glass and you do not have the feeling of wanting more or negative thoughts about your accomplishment. The glass half empty analogy is the opposite; you do not feel a sense of satisfaction, and accomplishment of an half filled glass, so therefore you perceive the glass as half empty because you are still looking for more. Your perception is your truth, which is learned throughout your life experiences
Thanks Linda, I completely agree with you on the points you made. As I said in my piece truth is subjective to one's perception, which also means that if you percieve the analogy of the half full/half empty glass as a metaphor for the type of person you are, that becomes your truth. Also don't forget that when the words are changed the idealogy of the half glass changes as well.
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