(SEE TRUTH BLOG)
I have continued to make more interesting observations this semester. I am getting better and better at connecting the world around me to what I had been learning in class, such as in my post PURE luck where I talked about how my driving experience could relate to so-called Holy experiences the Puritans might have gone through. In this way, I have been able to see the way two seemingly unrelatable things relate.
I also have gotten better at attempting to answer my own questions instead of just leaving them out there. Such as in my Truth blog post, I talked about what I considered to be truthful while also leaving it open to my audience.
I believe I am getting better at engaging my audience as well, however I should probably try to incorporate more links and pictures to create even more sympathy for my reader. I also need to blog a little more often!!!
Monday, January 17, 2011
Truth
When we were given our prompt for the final exam, I immediately began grappling with the idea of truth. While it is fairly easy to identify a lie, it is often hard to decide what is truthful. For example, as little kids, my brother would often try to push me down the stairs :( When he succeeded and my mother would angrily ask him if he pushed me, my brother would respond 'she fell'. While this wasn't exactly a lie, I did fall, it still wasn't the whole truth. But could it still be considered truthful?
While thinking about this I remembered a story that I had read during my Freshman year, called The Allegory of the Cave by Plato. In this story some people are chained to the ground and forced to look forward in a cave. A fire is burning behind them, causing shadows to be cast on the wall in front of them. When one man was freed and shown the real world, he came back only to his friend's laughter. They laughed because, to them, the shadows were the real world, because they hadn't ever known anything else. But who are we to say our world is the real world? What if we're just seeing shadows?
This keeps leading me to the conclusion that truth, like so many other things, is relative. What is true to one person could be false to another based on what they know and see every day. Basically, experience shapes all of what a person believes.
While thinking about this I remembered a story that I had read during my Freshman year, called The Allegory of the Cave by Plato. In this story some people are chained to the ground and forced to look forward in a cave. A fire is burning behind them, causing shadows to be cast on the wall in front of them. When one man was freed and shown the real world, he came back only to his friend's laughter. They laughed because, to them, the shadows were the real world, because they hadn't ever known anything else. But who are we to say our world is the real world? What if we're just seeing shadows?
This keeps leading me to the conclusion that truth, like so many other things, is relative. What is true to one person could be false to another based on what they know and see every day. Basically, experience shapes all of what a person believes.
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