History is founded by historians and archeologists are trying to obtain it by discovering scriptures, evidences to support events that happened in the past. They sometimes add their own imagination or assumptions which seems “humanly” and “logical” to fill the gaps in missing scriptures. The only evidence that history has is its records. However, what if they found a record and it’s written by someone who is writing a book? Maybe the history we learn now is a story from someone and the other evidence seems to support the story because the story is based on the place and time of the event, like some novels nowadays.
The evidences they found could led to misinterpretation, while the lost evidences could explain a really different point of view. Let’s say that a historian found a scripture saying that King Hedes killed many innocent people, a lot of people suffered in his power. The missing scripture that they didn’t find may say that King Hedes was threatened by his wife to do so, if not she would commit suicide.
Not understanding the language could alter the meanings of what we know. “King Hedes killed many innocent people…” as what it said could lead to a thought where he’s a dictator and made it into a true statement since most of us think that killing is wrong, especially innocent people. The missing scripture could tell us that he was forced to do it, and that could mean that he was a fine King. The missing scripture altered the meaning of the message.
Language has different meaning in the past and present. While studying history there are many arguments and books has different records, we studied the ones that seems the most logical. In the past too, people have different perceptions and ways in using their own language.
A priest sermon said that the meaning when Jesus was raise up above the clouds, in the bible actually meant Jesus was being glorified, it was a Jewish interpretation. For Christians who believe in the bible and didn’t study the Jewish culture may misinterpret this. There is also some mistranslation in the bible; behemoth was translated into a crocodile in Indonesian translation since they don’t have nor know behemoth. How do you expect to translate “ice” to people who live in the desert in the olden days? The meaning of your definition cannot be translated accurately.
Occasionally, we remember things and scenes depending on our emotion. If we were having a bad day we would remember the scene and the person who cause it. If it were a good day we would remember the time why it was good. Most of our memory of the past is focused on our emotion. We might remember our childhood friend to be really kind but in fact the person might not be because we our memory doesn’t remember all about the person.
Natural sciences gave us coherence proof about how things work around us. This AOK may have the most truth or the most false since we have assumptions in natural sciences. In physics there is an assumption that the amount energy given out is equal to the amount of energy taken. This assumption is actually true in everything we know that is why we still believe this theory. This could be an absolute truth. However, in future this theory could be found out that it’s not correct like caloric theory which first said that “heat is a fluid” and now we know that it is wrong since Joule found out from his experiment that “heat is another form of kinetic energy”.
It is the absolute truth now. This implies that we aren’t sure about it but considered it to be true, to gain knowledge and to calculate something. They accept some assumptions without empirical proof.
Scientists gain truth from experiments consistency. However, in experiments there are weaknesses, humans make mistakes. This may be covered by repeating the experiments but the mistakes we make can still be different in every attempt. How do we know that our observation is the same as everyone else? Scientists conclude their work with probabilities they gain throughout the experiment and provisional truth, the evidence they have then. However, the evidences that come from observation for each person may not be the same.
In ethics there are ethical values such as right and wrong and truth and false is kind of the same. Since we were young it is told that killing is wrong. What if someone’s trying to kill us, should we just stand or run away waiting for them to kill us? If we kill the killer for self-defense is it wrong? In law it is okay to kill for self-defense, but it is wrong to kill. Truth depends on the situation, and opinion. Truth can be changed.
People say that humans were the ones to create language and therefore there is absolute truth in what we made of our own. We know the absolute truth in our language, what “bad” means and what “human” means. Therefore if I said I’m a human being, it is true because I created the word “human” which means me. It is a way to communicate for me. I being “human” am the truth for my own existence. Even though in other language, “human” may mean something else, but I don’t know. That is why I am not sure if I am really “human” but since I created it the term on my own, it is my own absolute truth. Therefore absolute truth is just something created by our own opinion and situation. An absolute truth like that is not the “absolute” truth since “absolute” can’t change and is always forever true. However, there is “truth” in a moment. For example, two people were watching TV. Person A watch a part where, team Hugo won over Team Hippy in the first game and saw team Hugo won, then the TV off. While person B watches another match of Team Hugo and Team Hippy where team Hippy won on the same day. Person A will not know that there is another match after the first one and person A will only know about the match he watch assume that Team Hugo is the winner that day. This priori and posteriori knowledge is known as relative truth. It is true depending on the correspondence and situation we are in. When team Hugo won, it’s true but the truth can be altered having person A or B watch all the matches and know the whole truth.
Truth change, falsity can become the truth and we make our own distinction to what suites us. It depends on the situations we are in, the community we grew, our opinion, our emotion and understanding. There might be absolute truth somewhere but we can’t know it because we aren’t omnipotent. The things we know now might be absolute truth and we consider some of it as one.
Word count: 1,600
Bibliography (using MLA format edition 7):
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<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth-correspondence/>.
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jenonono (student)
