The Truth

 

Am I thinking too much here?

I am not going apologize that I am going to piggyback on my last two blogs, “Meta’s Magic” and “The Sleeper” because I want to talk about something that we all hold dear, do our best to live by every day, and inadvertently question daily; The Truth.
But first, I am going to add something new to my posts. Music selection for the writing.
Now in my profile it says I like all music as long as it does not make me cringe. Much of the music I listen helps me get into the mood of the subject.

Today’s selection(s) on vinyl is:

Andreas Vollenweider – “Down To The Moon”, 1986

Back to the Subject -
What is the truth? Is it depending on the subject, author, speaker, witness, or research? Is it personal belief? There are too many questions for something that should be so simple, is it the truth or not, correct?
Truth defined by Merriam-Webster's:

1 a (1): the body of real things, events, and facts
(2): the state of being the case

B: a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true.

OK, that’s enough of the compressed definitions, you get the point.
These definitions come from a book written by an individual or a group of individuals, approved by a board of members, and updated on a regular basis.
So, two things I get out of that are, first, it is written by a staff of individuals, and two, it needs approval before print. Who is the deciding factor of the Truth?

I decided to start catching up on my history and began the arduous task of sorting through the books offered online. First thing I noticed in many of the summaries, there is plenty of opinion in the “facts”. How do we find the Truth of our history. It has been filtered, scrubbed and tainted so many times over the generations it makes my head spin. The common denominator is, all documentation is written by individuals, and unless they are an absolute phenomenon with no opinion, there will be some sort of bias in the text. This, I hate to say, goes as far back as the first written material. Written material is through the eye and mind of the author(s).

Let’s say two archaeologists are digging at the same site and are called over to a discovery in the ground. They arrive, they study the “find”, both taking a close look at the item lying in the dirt, all the while working carefully to not disturb anything around it. Both scientists have been doing research on this same site for years but have had slightly different views on what is in the dirt for which they dig. They know the foundation of their studies will lead to an answer, but with differences in the truth that will be written in the reports. In this case the Truth varies from research that has varied through the years to finally get to this discovery.
Yeah, I watch “Expedition Unknown” and see how Josh bounces all over the world to find this or that and meets with the different explorers that are all looking for the end prize, all the while looking in different locations because their “facts” are pointing to a different area. Their “facts” are perceived.

Is everybody seeing where I am leading to with this solo debate on Truth?

If as a student you are about to embark on your research paper, what sources are you told to use in an official capacity? Wikipedia and Google of course, NO, not at all. APA trusted sources like Library of Congress, accurate witness testimony, or peer reviewed journals, and so on are the only acceptable sources. Not places like Wikipedia where any body can input information whether accurate or not.
One individual can do extensive research and publish a book that may tell the unforgiving truth about a person or situation, such as “9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions” by Roland Morgan and Ian Henshall, then in retaliation other documentation say from the United States Dept of State Information website International Information Programs is published contradicting the research, by authors that do not want the first “truth” believed or taken seriously. Now we have polar opinions from readers that have read one or the other books, or even both. Which one is the real “truth”?

What some say is a conspiracy, others say is fact. When certain agencies can no longer cover something up, they start to spread the word that it is a conspiracy, and it’s crazy people that are pushing certain ideas. It certainly can be confusing about who and what to believe. I am not going to say it’s a current problem, as we have had opposing truths since the beginning of time. I am also not going to say that all so-called conspiracies are just that. I always say show me the proof that it ISN’T true. If there is missing evidence, or large gaps in story/timelines that cannot be explained, how can it be automatically assumed a conspiracy?

Hence the piggyback I mentioned earlier, what is a fact-checker? What information do they qualify before they take down a post saying it is misinformation. Many times, I have seen a post no longer available on Facebook seconds after it is posted. Not quite sure the fact-checker has had ample time to do the research to prove or disprove the post. Or is it from the fact-checker’s guidelines and script (algorithms) about what to allow and not? Seems a bit biased to me with no actual “truth”.
Fact-checking is a process of checking that all the information in a writing, article, or speech is in fact correct and factual. One issue with this definition, who is the deciding factor of what we will eventually see as their filtered version of a “fact”.

I can honestly say, in our current era with all of the bias and controlled media, and selected verbiage, (OK edited to their liking), that are “fact-checked”, what is the truth?

Anyway, I am just “thinking out loud.”

Thoughts?