So, I had a conversation with a friend the other day in which it was mentioned that some might look at truth in a binary fashion. Either something is false (0) or something is true (1). We might call this “black and white” thinking. People like to think in this way because it is simpler and easier, but it doesn’t mesh well with reality. I suggested making the simple post “The sky is blue” in a forum I frequent only to prove a point –that the simplest most obvious truths are anything but.

Here are simplified summaries of some of the answers that came out of the discussion that followed:

1.) The sky cannot be said to be blue because color is a subjective experience.

2.) “The sky is blue” is a somewhat accurate simplification describing a part of the “spectrum that most people can uniformly identify.”

3.) “The sky is blue” because of the way that light is filtered through our atmosphere.

4.) “The sky is blue” because it is lonely.

5.) ” ‘The sky is blue’ is neither about the ‘sky’ nor about the ‘blue’ colour…. It is merely a description of your experience….”

6.) “The sky is blue” is a descriptive statement of fact.

7.) The sky cannot be said to be blue because the sky does not exist outside of the perceiver’s mind.

8.) It may be accurate to say that “The sky is green” because words have no inherent meaning but instead are given meaning by the communicators.

Yes, I can go outside on a clear day, look up, and I will see that the sky is blue. This is a simple common truth. However, as we have seen there are many ways to think about this that are true, or at the very least, not false. In fact, some of the ways of thinking about it actually make other ways false! I had suggested that truth lies on a continuum, but after further thought I would say that is also wrong. Truth cannot be quantified so easily. In common speech it is important for us to meet on some common ground of thought, but try as we might, even this is only our best attempt to relate to other minds and the world.

I do believe that there is a common reality, but none of us experience that. Indeed, the effort to understand or perceive this reality separates us further from it. It’s a useful and enlightening endeavor, but truth is illusive, like trying to grasp the air. It is there, but you cannot hold it.

Carl Jung suggested a difference between knowledge and understanding. From my notes on The Undiscovered Self, I saw a conclusion I drew from his writing. “To Jung, understanding seems to be a personal subjective experience while knowledge is widely available objective information.” Jung was speaking about people in a relationship losing their individuality by attempting to understand the other, which to Jung could only be done by experiencing things as the other experiences them.

With regards to the medical psychologist and their patient, Jung says, “As understanding deepens, the further removed it becomes from knowledge. An ideal understanding would ultimately result in each party’s unthinkingly going along with the other’s experience — a state of uncritical passivity coupled with the most complete subjectivity and lack of social responsibility. Understanding carried to such lengths is in any case impossible, for it would require the virtual identification of two different individuals.”

If we extrapolate this principle to other knowledge and understanding of the world around us, the same problem arises. Only a photon “understands” what a photon is. It experiences everything it is to be a photon. There are no questions regarding its photon-ness, it is only pure reality, assuming of course there is a thing “photon”. Nothing more or less. However, it has no knowledge of a photon though. The concepts we use to describe energy, time and space are unknown to it, so it is ignorant of how fast it goes or even of the concept of speed. It doesn’t know where it’s going or what it is for the same reasons.

I’m not suggesting that photons or other objects think and are simply stupid, I mean that to know what one thing is, one must have other things to compare and contrast it to. A human being that grows up on an island without other human beings would have no concept of “human being” –never mind the fact that they would be, as we’ve seen in cases such as Danielle Crockett; Natasha of Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia; Ng Chhaidy; and others, completely feral animal-like people.

Not only do we build a picture of reality in our heads separate from it though practically useful, but we require interaction with others to do this as well. So we have a reality that we can never truly understand or experience. Then we have our own picture of reality separate from it and built by our own perception of it coupled with our perception of what the societal mind’s picture of reality is.

We can never understand a thing completely, and therefore we can never fully claim that a thing is either absolutely true or false. These are all concepts which are merely practically useful to us for survival, health, psychological well being, and connectedness with one another.

There is no spoon.

(This post was heavily influenced by recent conversation with a fair number of people. I’m very grateful to have contact with minds that serve to sharpen mine and give me a feeling of connectedness.  Thanks.)