The Difference Between Fact and Truth

Drop an apple and it will fall to the ground. This is a fact. Why the apple falls is a completely different story, and is what humans understand as truth.

We now understand the truth of gravity through the thousands of years of scientific research as "a natural phenomenon by which all things with mass are brought toward (or gravitate toward) one another, including planets, stars and galaxies. Since energy and mass are equivalent, all forms of energy, including light, also cause gravitation and are under the influence of it."

Not so long ago, the understanding of the apple falling to the ground was a completely different truth. Babylonians and Egyptians, while able to conclude extremely accurate calendars and predictions based on the movements of the heavenly bodies, really had no explanation for gravity. They could see what happened, but had no idea why it happened. It wasn't until the Golden Age of Greek science that humans began to question why the lights in the sky moved the way they did.

Even then, logical thinkers such as Socrates firmly believed that the motions of the stars and planets we now know as gravitational forces was carefully planned and put into motion by a supreme being. That was his truth. His pupil Plato believed that anything concluded by human senses was opinion and rendered a complete waste of time (and he was probably closest to the "truth" about gravity at that point.) He set his students on a journey to explain the rules that governed the motions of the planets, and that pretty much kept astronomers busy for the next two thousand years.

So it remained that the motion of heavenly bodies was the work of divine intervention, and if you believed anything to the contrary it could very easily get you burned at the stake or strung from the nearest tree. That was the truth and very few had any reason to believe otherwise, or were willing to risk their lives over something they couldn't explain.

It wasn't until Galileo challenged these truths, and was consequently tried in the Inquisition and forced to recant, spending the remainder of this life under house arrest, that this possibility of another truth began to emerge. Newton's publication of Principia Mathematica was the catalyst for the understanding of gravity as we know it today, a new "truth."

Now take a journey with me, outside the box, to coin the cliché. Imagine another world, or another universe, where our understanding of gravity is a different "truth." A universe in which we are no longer bound by bodies of mass drawn toward each other. An advanced state of being in which, as current theories of quantum physics tell us, everything we see and touch are just different orderings of energy. Control the energy, control the physical reality in this world.

What if the apple only falls because we will it to?

If you think this idea is preposterous, you're probably correct, but what if you're not? What if every fact you have observed and accepted as truth is only because that is the truth you choose to believe?

There is no such thing as "truth." Truth is the set of stories humans build around facts. When we observe facts and perceive our truth as facts, we eliminate the possibility of any other interpretation of the truth. To me, that is a very dangerous position to take, as an individual and collectively as a species.

"Truth" is why murderers brought to trial go free, and why innocent people are serving life sentences. Truth is the reason millions of people no more stupid, gullible, or evil than you and I followed Adolph Hitler. Truth is what compelled 918 people to drink the Kool-Aid at Jonestown. Truth is what is dividing us all, right now, today.

Consider the overload of information humans are bombarded with every day and ask yourself which ones you have decided to accept as "truth" when maybe, just possibly, it is not really a truth at all, it is the story you have chosen to accept as truth. This being an election year, one of the worst I can remember, examples aren't hard to find.

How much of the turmoil and conflict in our lives would go away if every one of us did the same? One of the paths to our awakening as a species lies somewhere along this path, letting go of our "truth." Best of luck to all who take this journey with me.