A fact is either true or false, but there are degrees of trueness to any statement. It seems to me that there are basically two types of truths: Objective and Subjective.

Subjective truths are those that arise out of feeling or opinion. For example, If I ask if a movie was any good, someone might respond that it was exciting and fun. But there are other indications to determine whether it was good. One can measure the profits that it made, the length of time it ran at the theaters, the number of awards it received or one can analyze it in terms of story elements that are accepted as good fiction.

All of those elements may seem to be objective observations but they arise from collections of subjective interpretations. It did well at the box office because people liked it. It won awards because the people who give out awards liked it.

We end up with a general subjective agreement that it was a good movie. Yet still, there will be someone who didn't like it for one reason or another.

Time is also very subjective. What's early to some is late to others. Even with watches, we can only approach an approximation of the actual time. If you say it is 9:27, someone else at that instant might have said 9:25 or 9:30. Someone in a different time zone would have given a different answer still.

The question is Does there exist Real Time? According to my 1991 Information Please Almanac, "The second is defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of the radiation associated with a specified transition of the cesium 133 atom."

However, Einstein muddied this very specific definition with the following:

Let us now consider a seconds-clock which is permanently situated at the origin [of a fixed frame of reference]. t'=O and t'=I are two successive ticks of this clock. The first and fourth equations of the Lorentz transformations give for these two ticks:

t=0

and

As judged from [the fixed reference], the clock is moving with the velocity v; as judged from this reference-body, the time which elapses between two strokes of the clock is not one second, but ... a somewhat larger time.

As a consequence of its motion the clock goes more slowly than when at rest.

-- Einstein 36,37

Perhaps the above definition truly and objectively defines the reality of the passage of time.

What about the color of the sky? It's not always blue. The color of the sky depends on the time of day and the weather conditions. Sometimes it is blue but other times its orange or red or purple. Actually, the sky isn't any color. It simply has the property of diffracting light of various wavelengths at different times.

Can we think of any truth that is not in some way subjective?

What about the truth that the position of a free falling object can be computed as its initial height minus 4.9 meters times the number of seconds squared?

But again, it's not quite that simple. I rounded the numbers, ignored air resistance and didn't take into account how far away from the earth the initial point is. Let's not even mention the gravitational effects of any other bodies in the area.

The point of these exercises is to show that, assuming there does exist a single Reality Of The Way Things Are, the only way we can understand that reality is to abstract it into something that our minds can better cope with, like physics, relativity or vision, which all turn out to be subjective to some degree. What color would the sky be if we could see electromagnetic radiation at wavelengths used to broadcast radio and television signals?

Is there a heaven?

That is certainly subjective. Some people don't believe in heaven or hell. Of those that do, everyone seems to have his or her own idea about what it's like. It's not something you can test like dropping things off of buildings. The existence of heaven and God can not be verified by any means that we know of at this time. If they have an existence, but one outside our physical reality, then no experiment could detect them and no equation could describe them. Thus, whatever one's belief, it is extreme vanity to hold an absolute opinion on the matter.

However, there is a great deal about the world and ourselves to be learned by examining what we can see. Scientific experimentation is the best tool we have at approaching an objective truth about our world. Even though the units of measurement are arbitrary and the mathematics an abstraction, science offers a more consistent and verifiable interpretation of the truth.

We find truth by first declaring our ignorance. We must give up our image of what we want the world to be and accept what it is. Most of us are told what to believe from the time we are born. We let people in positions of authority tell us what is right, wrong, truth and reality. However, if you want to see what is really there, behind the images, you must wipe the slate clean and say "I don't know."

Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. First realize that you are sick; then you can move toward health. The Master is her own physician. She has healed herself of all knowing. Thus she is truly whole."

--(TAO-71)

If you are looking for truth, you may not like what you find. You must be prepared for that possibility. If you want to hear only what you already think you know, repeated to you so you can relax and go on with your life, then go right ahead. That's you privilege. But it is not a search for truth.

Truth, whatever it is, can not be found by looking at one alternative and ignoring other possibilities. Unless a fact or idea can withstand brutal questioning and testing from all angles, it does not deserve the status of being a truth. If an assumed truth fails in providing an answer to a question, it must be discarded in favor of one that is more complete.

For example, it was once accepted as truth that the earth was the center of the universe. However, there were eventually a set of questions that simply could not fit within the boundaries of that truth. Eventually that truth was discarded for a better truth that said the planets made circles around the sun. But this truth was unable to explain subtle astronomical observations and it was discarded for the truth that the path of planets and comets around a star is actually an ellipse.

Scientists have accepted the challenge of looking towards nature, the earth and the universe itself to find the truth.

If we want to understand the world, life or anything, we must look at it, test it, think about it, question it and in the end, accept what it has to show us, whether we like it or not.

How can so many people listen to the radio, use computers, take medicine and watch satellite photos of our planet and still ignore the ability of science to explain the origins of stars, planets and life when is is exactly the same scientific methodology that was used for all of the above?

When Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, Einstein and Feynman each successively offered an alternative definition of reality, we have moved closer and closer to whatever reality actually exists.

However, science isn't the only means of approaching truth. Biology and psychology may be able to describe the electro-chemical triggering mechanism of neurons, but when billions of these interconnected cells work in unison, the end result of a mind defies simply scientific analysis.

Emotions and feelings cannot be dealt with at the same level as ordinary scientific experiments. Even with all the subtle and subjective ways in which the physical world can be observed, it's child's play compared to studying the human mind. Truths that the mind deals with are less measurable and purely subjective but are still valid. The type of person that we are, how we interact with others, whether we are nice or argumentative are as much a part of us as our pulse rate or shoe size.

It is unfortunate that so many issues can be cast in terms of science versus religion. The two are complimentary, not mutually exclusive and they both have something to offer. Science brings us a better understanding of the world around us and religion brings us a better understanding of the world inside us.

But we can only understand truth and reality, no matter what aspect we are considering, in a way that humans are capable of understanding.

This is the nature of truth.