The Truth About the Truth .

Truth (n): something that corresponds with fact or reality, or a concept that an individual accepts as true. Even the definition of “truth” has different meanings. The second definition of the truth (a concept that an individual accepts as true) recognizes that there is not one universal truth, but rather truths that are distinct to the individual.

Each individual has different opinions and beliefs that shape the facts into a truth that is unique to him or her. For example, religious beliefs can sometimes influence how people conceive the world. While a scientist may believe that the world was created with a big bang, a creationist believes God created the world. Every human filters what they see, hear, and believe differently, so no one’s truth can be the exact same.

People also have different ideas or ways of seeing things that influence the way they perceive reality. For example, if a person is sitting in a classroom and someone standing in front of the individual moves to the right, for the person sitting directly across from that same individual, that the person in motion would be moving to the left. Humans even literally see things differently, because every person sees colors in different shades. For example, the shade of green person one sees on a tree will be different from the shade another person sees. Even though the green the person one is looking at is his or her truth, for another person it won’t be.

Conflicting memories prevent the existence of a universal truth. The way one person remembers something happen can be totally different from another person’s recollection. For example, if you ask different people in a room what happened during a specific event, each individual’s response will vary. This scenario happens in investigations. Most of the time witnesses are not lying when they recount on an event, they just experienced it differently.

A good way to grasp the idea that people have different viewpoints and perception is the question: Is the glass half full or half empty? The glass being half empty and full is the raw reality, however people filter the same set of facts differently. Individual beliefs, ideas, and opinions are applied to different situations which allow for a plethora of diverse truths in the universe.