How can we know when something is true or not?

Answer 1

It is difficult to begin with, as you cannot decipher truth from falsehood. But in due course, truth makes its way even in the crowded market place of falsehood and wrong notions.Some patience is needed to find the truth.

Answer 2

I don't think there is any such thing as truth, only what seems right at a particular moment in time.
I think as a race we undervalue intuition. If you look back on what you perceive to be bad decisions, with the benefit of hindsight, you will recognise that there were little niggles which you ignored for one reason or another. Sometimes we just want something to be right so badly, we chose to ignore the warning signs, other times we think we have the power to change things further down the line... any number of reasons.
I try to follow my intuition much more now, but it has taken a long time to realise it - I'm 41!

Answer 3

Surely that is only a matter of perception?

We can research things to the most of our abilities. We can try to understand the things around us as best we can within our own abilities.

But at the end the day, surely "truth" is little more than perception of the thing/situation/etc. After all in our society as is, we make our own "truths" to suit our needs - the beliefs in gods, energies, right and wrong, black and white. We believe what suits us in our own ways, which in turn becomes our truths.

and when it comes to history and the like, we only believe what we are told to be true. Should the "history" be fabricated, then how are we to know?

IMO, all we can do is try to find what understanding we can for ourselves, through research, talking, whatever means we can.

Toodles

Answer 4

When people lie to us they give it away with "tells" or deviations in body language. It could be rubbing the hands or brow, leaving eye-contact, playing with a pencil or something available.
If we are seeking to discover whether a proposition is true, we must gather as much data as possible. Remember that some still believe the Earth is flat, so some believe what is not true because they reject all evidence.

Answer 5

The longer I live the more I see how the world is divided into two groups: those that can see the truth and those that will not. The truth is self evident, but not everyone wants to accept it, because of pride.

Everyone has to follow what they see as the truth in their lives. If you are God's child, you will naturally find and follow what is true. If not, you will naturally follow what is deceptive. The former serves what is true and good, the latter serves what is prideful and selfish. The first leads on to life, the second to death and self destruction.

You have to follow your own perception of truth and be true to yourself. The end will justify the means.

Answer 6

We can only trust the best reference sources for any subject and these are located at the universities and in their archieves.

Other sources of trustworthy [hostirical] information are the local archieves at your town hall. These contain historical documents in the form of microfilm or may in some instances be viewable on line at their website.

There is no absolute truth and much of what we believe or think of as truth is handed down from generation to generation. Much of our truth is hidden in folklore.

Nursery rhymes, especially those of English origin, often contain more than a mere grain of truth.

For example, "Ring a ring a roses" describes the symptoms of the Black Death when a person's body would be covered in rose red sores and spots usually in the form of a ring around the body. The rhyme ends with ..."and we all fall down". This sums up the situation for the people of the Middle Ages faced with a disease for which they had no cure.

There are other similar 'truths' to be found in other nursery rhymes. One such is about George IV [Regent] which read, "Georgey porgey, pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry, when the boys came out to play, Georgey porgey ran away..."

The above rhyme aptly describes the Prince Regent who was fat and who incidentally claimed that the victory at the Battle of Waterloo was all of his doing. It was not so. Thankfully this clever rhyme explains that George was fat and a coward.

What is truth then? It may simply be that truth is what we have come to believe and trust.

We know that the Earth spins around the Sun. But in times past this was not so and people thought the Sun spun around the Earth. Were they right? Are we right?

Think back to the Black Death. Now fast forward to Bird Flu. If you take my advice and if you survive this pandemic, ask your boss for a 100% pay rise. That's exactly what our ancestors did back in the Middle Ages following an outbreak of ye olde black death.

When a third of the population is dead, you can command anything you like. Truth!

According to Mao Zetung, "Trusth speaks out of the barrel of a gun". Think he may have a point.

Answer 7

I am a man according to the biological definition of man. Change the definition so that what use to be male now is female, then I am a female. Truth is relative to the definitions we evaluate by that which we investigate.

No matter what you wish to verify, you will need some system for verification. It may be logic, maths or visual verification, yet with observation you will need to interpret what you are seeing, using, for example, language, where the visual field is abstracted into ideas, or concepts, to the idea of objects in space, further refined into types of objects, their relative position, and so on.

If you are not convinced, try and prove anything without utilising some system of thought.

Answer 8

Independent investigation is required. To find it, to recognize it, we must be hungry, thirsty. We must want it more than anything else. Approach the something in quesiton with an open but skeptical mind. We must see with our own eyes and not through the eyes of our neighbor. We must hear with our own ears and not the ears of our neighbor. We must use our own mind and not that of a lover, a parent, or anyone else claiming to have our best interests at heart. This is a journey we must take alone and we must have courage. Take nothing at face value. Allow time for investigation and consideration. The something must make sense on a head and a heart level. It must be intellectually satisfying as well as spiritually satisfying. It must be aligned with science and resonate on a deep level. Everyone is endowed with the capacity to know and recognize truth. Otherwise, for those who believe in an Ultimate-All Truth, how could we be held accountable?

Answer 9

There is no way that we can know what truth is. There is a universal truth that humans cannot obtain. Our brain filters in or out what it wants to, and what it has been trained to. Even the truth of God, which so many people talk about, cannot be gained with our meager and easily manipulated minds.

Answer 10

Truth is about belief. there was a time when thinking the world wasn't round was true. 2+2=4 holds true only becuase we simply believe it. the origins of mathematics is based on previous teachings/beliefs that we today hold true. its possible to believe something that is not true, true. you should go by the Judicial way, beyond a reasonable doubt. if all the fingers are pointing in 1 direction, then maybe, just maybe, its true. it really comes down to 1 concept, belief and true knowledge. and in the end, its more about belief than knowledge