The Ever-Changing Truth Can’t Be Explained

The whole notion of truth, which naturally and without reflexion, we assume to mean the simple duplication by the mind of a ready-made and given reality, proves hard to understand clearly. There is no simple test available for adjudicating offhand between the diverse types of thought that claim to possess it. Common sense, or corpuscular philosophy, ultra-critical science, or energetics, and critical or idealistic philosophy, all seem insufficiently true in some regard and leave some dissatisfaction.

It is evident that the conflict of these widely differing systems obliges us to overhaul the very idea of truth, for at present we have no definite notion of what the word may mean.

William James in his 1907 essay, Pragmatism and Common Sense gives truth a run for its money. Are the truths we learn really true? Or are those facts and fables loaded with the partial convictions, the prompt associations and the past influences of the people that express them? Our beliefs are filled with these altered truths, and they become pliable in our box of beliefs as that box expands to accept other perceptual truths. We don’t usually dissect the truths in our belief box. We massage them with imaginary confirmations and exalt them with vocal acceptance. They are the foundation for our perceptions and the walls of our reality. These truths we call true cause happiness, pain and uncertainty, and the nature of our physical image changes as they change.

We experience truth in dreams, but we don’t acknowledge that truth. We dream in fables and change experiences in order to rearrange truth in our dreams. We are closer to the truth in dreams, yet we move away from it because it seems foreign and uncomfortable. Our wakeful box of beliefs trumps truth in dreams, and we thank God for that ability. But God is the truth in dreams. We try to disconnect from our dreams because the vision and the feel of God is only available in death, and death, according to our box of beliefs, is the end of life.

In some dreams, we try to empty our box of beliefs, but truth helps us keep those fabricated truths. We keep them because we know our box of beliefs can’t be emptied completely, and the ever-changing truth can’t be explained.