23 December
2021
I have found truth to be insatiably
absorbing. Such that its pursuit has been among the overarching motifs of my
life.
As enthralling as this journey has been,
it has also been profoundly difficult and humbling.
It has been difficult because truth
constantly reminds me that I am answerable and responsible to an entity beyond
myself. That there is an omnipresent objective standard by which my thoughts,
words and actions are constantly weighed and often found wanting.
My working definition of truth is that
it is objective reality.
It is the ultimate perspective on
historical events. It is value personified and the authoritative arbiter of all
other claims to value. It has the ultimate say on who and what is right and
wrong in history. Both in the factual and moral sense.
The question of what really happened in
history is agelessly vexing. I have my own questions about ancient history, not
to mention modern history. All of us have very strong opinions about this
question in relation to a variety of historical events, from the personal to
academic.
It is either comforting or unnerving to
know that there is an objective history, one that accurately accounts for and weighs
all historical events.
I have spoken glibly as if the idea of
objective reality is a universally accepted fact. But it is not. Hence the
contemporary popularity of the contradictory notion of “your truth”, which confuses
subjective with objective reality.
It has been proposed that, “we can do
nothing against the truth, but for the truth”.
It is never the truth that is under examination, it is always us.
Truth is the grand fulcrum around which
all reality pivots. Not least, our lived reality.
The moment I get out of bed and walk to
the kitchen, I must contend with the fact that there is a ground beneath me and
various physical obstacles to be negotiated around. I am compelled to respond
to these if I want to get to the kitchen. In other words, there is an objective
world that exists independently of the views I hold, and it has the power to
constrain my actions, if I want to get to my envisaged destination.
From infancy, life is a continuous
attempt to effectively respond to objective facts that have little respect for
my opinions. In fact, the extent of the likely frustration I will experience in
life is defined by how well I align my subjective reality with the unyielding
objective world.
Even in the realm of ideas, this is no
less true. An idea is described as “the content of cognition; the thing you are
thinking about”.
The capacity to think is among the
foundational pillars of consciousness. Rene Descartes famously said, “I think,
therefore I am”, as a way of self-validating his existence.
But alas, our thoughts do not occur in a
vacuum. They occur within the context of an objective universe which constantly
gives its verdict on the validity of the ideas they carry.
I may have strong views about the
non-existence of gravity but sooner or later, if I am wise, I will have to adjust
my views to the unyielding feedback that the objective universe is giving me.
Maybe painfully.
The very process of learning how to walk
is an iterative journey of adapting my ideas about the world to the immutable
feedback I receive from the objective universe.
Good ideas are defined by their power to
guide us in the objective world better than bad ideas. In that sense,
subjective ideas must be validated by objective reality.
So, there is a self-serving reason why I
have chosen to pursue the truth. Even though my biography eloquently chronicles
the countless ways I fall short.
In the same way that individuals would
be misguided to claim ownership of the truth, society would be no less so. The truth judges all things, including the
ideas about the truth that individuals and societies have.
The modern state is generally regarded
as sovereign, implying ultimate authority within its borders. While there is a
measure of truth to this in terms of international relations, at times it is
taken too literally.
Truth is not the prevailing societal
consensus of what most people think truth is. It transcends all prevailing
cultural norms and fads in all generations. It is not synonymous with
legislated law. It is exogenous to societies and all communities are subject to
it and are ultimately judged by it.
This was brought into sharp focus during
the Nuremberg trials, when Nazi officials had to account for their war crimes.
The dilemma was that they had not broken any “sovereign law”, even though it is
abundantly clear to all and, I submit, to their consciences that they had
violated the truth.
The preeminence of Natural law or
objective law, if you will, was clearly illuminated.
“Natural law holds that there is a
fundamental moral law or moral source of law above man, the basic precepts of
which are reasonably knowable. Man-made law, to be just, should be in
accordance with and not violate those precepts or principles that natural law
articulates.”
It is self-evident that human beings did
not create the world. It is eminently clear that the grandeur of the objective
universe is orders of magnitude beyond our collective agency to create or even
fully comprehend.
Things like consciousness are mindboggling.
Never mind the micro and macro complexity of the universe. Our most spectacular
inventions are rather contemptible when juxtaposed with the majesty of the
objective universe.
Despite all its self-evident virtue and
glory, there is a demonstrable conflict between humanity and objective reality.
I want to explore this puzzling
conflict, beginning with myself.
There seems to be a principle at work in
my life, whose mission is to oppose alignment with the truth.
The intensity of this internal war is such
that I’ve come to fully identify with the author of these words, “For what I am
doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but
what I hate, that I do.”
Before you pity or judge me, I must tell
you that I am yet to meet another human being who is not similarly conflicted.
Maybe you are that person, and it would be my greatest honour to meet and learn
from you. But I suspect you're not.
At the heart of this conflict seems to
be an inveterate penchant for parochial self-interest, which is a tireless and
formidable opponent of my pursuit of truth.
I must get my way, it seems, in my own
terms regardless of its harmony with truth and the interests of other people.
I do not think that self-interest is
inherently wrong. I think there is a purer version of it. For example, the
pursuit of truth can be likened to the most enlightened expression of
self-interest because when I am acting in true accord with my real
self-interest, I love and practice the truth and it redounds to my most beneficial
end.
Yet the conflict persists. My greatest
opponent still stares at me on the mirror, daily cajoling me to choose what is
expedient over what is true, and alas it succeeds way more than it should.
Mindful of this perennial conflict, I
always try to be conscious of its workings in me. Its attempt to capture and
corrupt my internal reflections. Its insidious quest to subjectify and tame the
truth for the singular advance of my parochial self-interest.
My hope in striving for this
mindfulness, is to at least be able to distinguish between the voice of
expediency and that of the truth. Perchance to have a fighting chance in my
lifelong quest to embody the truth.
I must say that I have found it a
struggle to consistently choose the truth even with this commitment. How much
worse when I am unable to distinguish truth from my own self-interests, which
is, too often than it should, the case.
It has been fascinating to observe the
conflict between the truth and collective subjectivity. Think about any emotive
subject across the world. Don’t you find it interesting that the stance on
those topics is highly predicted by the collective identity into which the
holder of the stance happens to belong?
This highlights the proneness of truth
to attempted capture, and domestication for parochial collective interests.
This really is the story of humanity that defines our endless conflict with
each other. Our flimsy commitment to the truth and worse still, our belief that
we can co-opt truth in the service of our parochial individual and collective
projects.
Finally, I would like to reflect a
little on the nature of truth or objective reality. The question I want to
explore is whether truth is ultimately a concept or a personality.
This is a reasonable question considering
our definition of truth as objective reality. It is difficult distinguishing
between objective and ultimate reality. It seems the terms can be comfortably
used interchangeably, while violating neither meaning nor logic.
I would like to propose that if truth is
ultimate reality, the towering citadel to which all of us must account,
willingly or not, we cannot, in the same breath, be superior to it.
There is an indisputable hierarchy in
the natural order that cascades according to the level of consciousness. Those
with a higher level of consciousness seem to have natural authority over the
rest.
Human authority over geology, flora, and
fauna coincides with our higher-level of consciousness.
A concept has neither consciousness nor
mastery over me. Not least one that I devise rather than discover.
Because the truth is supreme, as I have
tried to demonstrate, there must be consciousness underpinning it. In any case,
it is absurd to think that I can have greater consciousness than ultimate
reality without being ultimate reality. (Which is a ridiculous thought considering
the inconsequentiality of place that I, my race and the planet we inhabit
occupies in the solar system, let alone, our galaxy and the universe!)
Besides, if a foundational pillar of
consciousness is the capacity to think. The evidence of incomprehensibly
profound thought and intelligence in the objective universe is overwhelming. It
towers so high that it reduces all collective human intelligence across space
and time utterly inconsequential, almost as good as non-existent.
Thought is impossible without
consciousness as it is inherently a self-conscious cognitive process.
In fact, objective reality implies the
existence of infinite consciousness outside our subjective realities. One that
accounts for every detail in existence, from the infinitesimal to the grand.
One that reigns over all content in all dimensions. The dimensions we know
about and those we are totally ignorant about.
When we talk about thought,
consciousness and uniquely distinguishable expressions and characteristics,
we're firmly in the realm of personality.
We can therefore surmise that truth must
at least be a grander form of the personality that we recognise in human
beings. It must be the Person from which all personality originates.
“Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the
truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
