What is the truth?

Trump probably can lay claim to popularisation of the term “Fake News”. Stretch that further and it becomes fake truth. What is truth coordinates with the theory of relativity because truth itself is really in the eyes of the beholder who sees it from their own perspective. In a brief explanation of the theory of relativity, consider one person standing on a platform has a long train passes by. While we are talking about micro timeframes, given the speed of light and that some of the passengers will at different times be closer to the person on the platform the time at which they see him in real time will be different.

So when we get back to what is truth, the question has similar dimensions because it depends on the person observing the data. Within a political context, you are going to have people with a left-wing bent because of their upbringing and additionally who will never see the same truth as the person from the other side who might also not see it from a left-wing perspective. Put that into a personal context and you can see different people in the community having different opinions about their peer group which is tempered by past experience and their established perceptions. Emotion is a major barrier to truth. In a domestic situation, what goes on between a husband and wife would also have its own connotations. No one can really know what exactly makes relationship tick and now that we have the raising of same-sex marriage is would complicate the issue further. Of course, within a divorce context what is really truth between any two people is unlikely to be perceived the same way by either of them, nor in the way they might present it.

Therefore what does that do to our overall concept of truth? It would seem that if reality is difficult to determine, in dealing with the exact value for a truth, people should be more circumspect in the way they utter their truths. In other words, whilst freedom of speech should be a universal right, civility should be the guiding principle in what we put out there limiting the tirade of abuse that’s out there leading to this new concept of “Fake news”.