If something is false, does our
perception matter? If we are unaware of the falsity of something, is it true
until our perception changes? If we are told that something is false, can it
never be true? In the episode of TV series Supernatural
entitled “The Monster at the End of this Book,” the main characters, Sam and
Dean, discover books that perfectly describe every detail of their lives. After
finding the author of said books, Chuck, they immediately assume he is nothing
more than a psychic; someone who can see the brothers’ actions before they actually
happen. Over the course of the episode, however, Sam and Dean find that Chuck
holds a lot more power. He is a prophet, and is transcribing the word of God.
With this realization, the brothers discover the “truth;” that they have no
free will. However, minutes before this discovery, they believe they are making
their own decisions, and creating their own path in life. Does this realization
change Sam and Dean’s reality? Nothing, aside from their perception, has
actually changed. So, did Sam and Dean ever have free will? If you think about
it literally, they didn’t. Their actions were always predetermined, whether or
not they knew about it. However, prior to meeting Chuck, their personal truths
were different than this truth. They believed in their own ability to make
decisions, and so, for them, wouldn’t this belief be considered the “truth?”
When we were discussing “An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” in class, we talked about the idea of reality
being equal to truth. While reading this short story, our idea of the main
character’s “reality” is constantly changing. We follow him through a long adventure;
only to find out he was dead before the second part of the story. Does this
mean, if reality and truth are synonymous, that the truth is changing? Is it
possible that truth is not concrete? For both the brothers in Supernatural, and the reader of “An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the end of the episode/story provides an
explanation of the truth about the situation. However, I believe, when we are
making our own reality out of what we see through our windows of perception, the truth can be something very different.
I like the way you explained your thought in terms of a “window of perception.” It describes what you wrote about—that we all look at the world differently, but it also adds another dimension to the complexity of perception. When we look through a window, we are not looking directly at a scene; we are looking at it through glass. This illustrates the idea that each individual comes to the world with varying experiences and values that taint the way he or she sees things around them (the experiences and values represented by the glass).
ReplyDeleteThe other question I have is if, as you argue (I think) that truth is changing based on our own realities, then does truth even exist at all?
I definitely agree with what you guys have both said here: if truth is subjective and means a different thing to each person interpreting it, then can there ever be one absolute "truth"? If what people view as the truth can be warped by their perception, then the word "truth" becomes a paradox; different things may be equally as true to different people. This reminds me of when I was younger and I was so confused by the perception of colors. I thought that I could live my whole life believing that the color blue was named blue, but that you could live your whole life believing that blue is the name of the color that I see as red. Although we would be be living in our own realities where these color schema make sense to each of us individually, we would technically be living in two different realities. Just like the truth of which color is which can be different between individuals, so can any other truth that is interpreted by multiple people.
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