by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: October 26, 2009   Last Updated: February 08, 2012

Each person has their own way of bringing their minds to rest about the truth of a matter. Each individual has their on ways of dealing with facts. No two individuals has the same cognitive, behavioral, emotional, or other construct for settling on something as being true or false. Externally, two or more people may demonstrate agreement as to the truth of a matter, but internally, there is much more going on.

When we experience truth, we experience our own processes for resolving the facts of a matter into a final understanding that is comfortable and organized.We may claim to agree that something is true, in order to avoid negative responses or to get positive results, but there will still be internal conflict until the matter is resolved as true or false.

If "truth" as a final settling of an experiential matter, then we may eventually accept the imposed, untested and unproved facts as the truth, just to settle the matter, or because we fall for tricks. Our brains see no reason to continue with the internal and external turmoil and conflict. 

We experience facts through our senses: sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch. But the sensual observations must be interpreted and organized by the mind. If there are flaws in the senses or flaws in the mind, then any number of things can be categorized as being real or being the "truth". 

Qualitative and quantitative statements of fact are the easiest to process and accept as being truthful. Numbers, heat, colors, certain tastes and sounds and certain smells are examples of qualitative and quantitative facts that are difficult to deny.

But qualitative and quantitative statements have proved to not represent the facts. Quantitative and qualitative facts have been falsely constructed or falsely interpreted. Food that tastes as if it came from the natural world turns out to be made of chemicals that fool the taste buds. A silky fabric turns out to be from synthetic fibers. An Oscar winning film turns out to be a dud.

In other words, when very young and inexperienced with facts and truth, a person is more vulnerable to accepting anything as truth. With more experience with fact and truth, a person may refuse to accept that facts are automatically truthful. But as the mind and senses decline, a very elderly person may return to being vulnerable to accepting distorted facts as automatic truths.

An observer of fact is supposed to be unassailable when describing observations as fact and convincing others that the resulting facts are, indeed, the truth. A universally accepted fact must win out as being truthful in each and every competition with any and all challengers. A fact, however, is not always permanent, fixed, or immutable. And each and every individual mind functions differently as people age, making for new ways of experiencing facts and resolving those facts into the truth.

Truth is a final settling of the individual mind. Just as the facts are capable of becoming settled and unsettled, the mind becomes settled and unsettled.

It is the final and settled collection of facts as truth that the individual uses to function in the natural world and in life.

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