Now, I'm going to argue that this is the truth that we decide. Your sex and gender is not assigned at birth. It is what you discover at birth. So when people have a gender reveal party, they're revealing a truth that is already there. They've just discovered what it is. In our culture today, people will say that gender is a truth that you decide. But maleness and femaleness is not just about your reproductive organs
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 3:07
It just makes you understand that even at the level of heavenly bodies in the world and of things that move through space and time, there are potential for discovery that you once thought was a truth. That's why quantum physics is so hard for traditional physicists to work with. But I think when it comes down to the individual's journey and knowing who they are being told truth that are decided for you can be very traumatic if it doesn't match with the discovery that you have as a person. Wow
And so because I think there is a difference between the boxes, labels, categories and what is, the more that we discover about what is, doesn't that mean then our understanding of the boxes needs to adapt as well? Or at least that we recognize they are a tool or a starting point and not the end point or the period? I mean, if someone says that they're an artist, if we just stop there, that tells us very, very little about them
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
There's no hate in me. There's no animosity in me, regardless. But if you was born with certain genitalia, whether you was born a man with a penis and testicles and no breasts, you was born a man, now a woman. The same thing. She was born with her female body parts. That's what she was born as
SOUL MIND
@BEAUTIFULSOULMI · 2:19
Wow, this is pretty interesting to think about. I am certainly in awe of the post. It's so simple yet so in depth at the same time. I'm pretty intrigued by it. But yeah, my ending to the reply would be it's being something that you are true to yourself as you think you feel and then you shall do your innate capacity. Some things can alter your existence. Yeah, pretty interesting
chan hearron
@chanstheman · 3:07
And as I look on just the astronomical space that we have out there and the billions and billions of stars and how big this place is, the space is, and how small we are, you see evidence of design. You see evidence of intelligence. Then when you go to the microscopic level, you see these cells that are like a tiny machine. And you mentioned the quantum level, and that's been one of those head scratchers that scientists are still wrestling with
And just as an example, you say you decide that it's true that chocolate is disgusting. Aren't those not your truth and my truth? Or if we want to use a different example, let's say I make a silly face at you and you say it's true that you made an offensive face to me. And I say, no, it's truth that I was self expressing
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 0:38
So we have this weird kind of Venn diagram we're creating reading here, where there's ideas about truth, which kind of marries fact, but then there's opinion, which does not marry fact. It marries the truth that's personal to someone's experience. OOH, we're having fun
Okay, that makes sense to me. But here is another example. Let's say we're all standing in a room. There's a sculpture in the center of the room. Or you could go with a more stereotypical idea of we're describing an elephant. We're all standing super close. We don't know exactly what it is that we're looking at, but we're all describing what's in front of us
I guess that's my ultimate point in any of the things that I've said here is there's a messiness to truth. Ah, whether we're talking time, whether we're talking knowledge, whether we're talking perspective, whether we're talking language and communication and then all of the facets of that, of, you know, perceptions and understanding and everything else. And so I guess we just come back to the original question what is truth?
Sorry to bombard you with messages, but now I'm confused. Because if there is a kind of truth that is decided, is that not opinion or is that something different? Because you said there's a Venn diagram. That would imply that it's different. But how is it different?
Deborah Pardes
@DBPardes · 2:59
But I'm an artist and I live in a very fluid world, and I'm surprised every day about how fluid things are, including the things that I used to think were true are not so true anymore. It's painful for the person who really wants structure, but it's kind of interesting and delightful for people who aren't afraid of the edges not even being there. I don't know. Let's see what Chan has to say
SOUL MIND
@BEAUTIFULSOULMI · 2:59
If that was so, we wouldn't have more than one religion. It would only be one. But all of them seek a higher power. All of them believe that there is a higher power that they cannot see or hear or touch at any time that they want. That depends on who you're talking to as well. But religion, a higher power, is that truth?
But all of that said, I think that whether we're using language or we're using math or even scientific studies or quote unquote facts, these are ways that we reduce the nuances and complexities into a more neatly packaged, structured way of understanding the world and then communicating to other people. We have general ideas of what is a frog, what is a human, what is a stick in a gender or race, or what have you. But they are not the entirety of what is
chan hearron
@chanstheman · 1:27
And so if I was to say the grass is green, and then you look out there and you see that the grass is green, then that is the truth. That's the corresponding definition of truth. Can we know things with greater degree of certainty? I think we can. There's a difference between I would say that knowledge is justified true belief. You have good reasons to think why something is true, and you can hold it to a high degree of certainty or a less degree of certainty
Because for me, I wasn't claiming that that is a truth, that that is an absolute, that that is the only way we can understand that. Quote, unquote no one can reach truth or understanding