We know truth comes in many forms. The scientific method brings truth. Mathematical proofs are truth. History, as it happened, is truth. What you see, when you are seeing clearly, is truth. But also what you see when you’re hallucinating is truth, and no one knows that truth but you.
The camera does not see what you see, it takes pictures through its own lens. The image it produces is not a reflection of what you saw, it is a reflection of what it saw. If your vision has been altered, no one can know what you see unless you try to show them. You can use words or art to attempt to paint that picture, but you can not show them your actual neurological vision. It is the same with feelings. How much something emotionally hurts, or pleases, can’t be seen by others. The wielder of the pain has sole knowledge of what she is feeling first-hand. The truth behind her outward emotional display is hidden. Even if she tells you, you can never know what she actually feels. You can not prove her honesty or dishonesty.
Whenever there is truth, even if it is hidden, it can be lied about. You can feel love and as a result, express pain. That pain displayed is what is known. What is not known, is if the display of pain is true. You can only know if it’s a lie, if you know the truth. But the truth is impossible to know because, like the hallucination example, you can not experience someone else’s actual emotions. All you know is that you can see someone showing pain. When you know of something, like the pain in this scenario, but do not know if it is true or not, that is called a false-truth within this theoretical framework.
Flipping this scenario around, when you tell him you love him, and show him your love, the truth that you hate him stays hidden inside you. Therefore your love is a real false-truth he embellishes, and not a lie that destroys him. Same goes for when someone ask you, “How are you doing?” You will often say, “Fine,” even if that is untrue. This is where false-truths always exist. False-truth, is what is known, when the truth is not known. You saying you are “Fine,” when you are not, it is a false-truth and not a lie. For a lie, the truth has to be known.
Going further with our logical analysis of emotional truth, we can see someone suffering on the exterior, but can not see their emotional pain. It can’t be discerned from what people tell or show you, if the emotional pain they display is true. For example, regrettably, there are times when a grandparent dies, and people show more or less caring than they truly feel.
There are rational expectations with emotions, but it is important to not confuse rational with logical. What is logical is true. What is rational is expected. Take it that you know of a backstory that is reasonably expected to produce a certain emotional response. It is rational that person responds the expected way. Yet even if they show the expected rational outcome, there is no way to be certain something unseen inside their heart, soul, or mind carries a different emotion. Actors are a great example of this. They make us believe of feelings that don’t really exist. No matter how much you want to believe someone’s tears are true, their crying remains a false-truth. We are all blind to emotions and can only see what is shown.
We can make assumptions and believe what we see, but the only key that unlocks the truth of the real emotions inside someone is honesty. Honesty is the scientific method of emotions. But honesty, unlike the scientific method, can not be proven. So given this philosophical theory of truth, to a skeptical person much of what’s unseen is a lie, and to the cynic emotions don’t matter because we can’t believe them. Can we unravel the cynic’s cynicism and the skeptical man’s skepticism by finding a way to reveal emotion’s truth beyond its vessel?
I want to trust everyone, but enslaving myself to logic, I can only believe what can be proven scientifically, mathematically, or otherwise. But I want love. I need it. Everyday is a desolate, dreary, slog without it. Sadly even my desperate yearning is a false-truth to those who see it. You don’t know what I feel of love, and how much I miss it. The void in my heart is so, so great, but you can’t see it. The pit I dwell in without love is so dark and lonely, that it forces me to find a way to prove my need for love is real. Because it is the only thing in this world I want. Can the grief of my empty heart get me closer to what makes love true? Can strong emotions, through their potency, reveal their truth?
My tears are real, I can feel them running out of my eyes and down my face. You can only guess why I am crying. I know why I cry. I know the reason so well that I can not stop. The feeling is in my mind, and won’t leave. So the tears keep flowing. I wish my mind could be a projector so you can see what I feel. But the closest thing to that I can do is tell you, and what I say, or write, are only words. They are not an equation that has a solution, or data that has been recorded. The words that explain my tears are only an interpretation of an experience that you don’t know is true. And even if you knew I just met the most perfect girl, there is no way you could tell that she instantly became everything to me, unless you could see inside my heart and mind. The cycle of emotional false-truths is endless.
There is no way for you to know what I am telling you is true. And expressions of emotions, are the only evidence of those emotions. So if the most caring, sweetest girl did everything she could to win my heart, and all I did in response was stay inanimate, that is the emotion I gave her; regardless of my true feelings. She doesn’t know that I would do anything for her. That I think she is the most perfect woman, and I have the most beautiful dreams of her every night and think of her everyday. I can not control how my inanimacy makes her feel, I can only decide to be inanimate or animated, to be dishonest or honest, respectively. But since emotions are a part of life, and we don’t know if any of them are true, what kind of life is that? Or is that just life? Is love unexpressed still love?
If life is about love and all you interpret is silence, then a big part of existence is missing. Say that silence is a false expression of an underlying love. The silence is what has an effect on you, not the love. The truth of love is not known to you. Therefore the false-truth of silence is real. It is only a lie when the truth is known. The caster of the silence is lying. But the false-truth of silence is very real and plagues the person in need of love. The lie of silence would mean nothing, if he knew he was loved. No emotion can be seen, only the expression or communication of it. Every expression of emotion is a false-truth to its receiver, some good and others bad, some backed by honesty and others lies.
But we can trust. In this theory displays of emotions are false-truths. There could be honesty behind these expressions of emotion, but there could also be malice. Every expression of emotion is a type of choice. Therefore the only way to find the truth behind emotion is honesty or virtue.
Virtue is an expansive topic. A very simple example being that what is virtuous, is not always honest. Yet even though virtue’s application varies amongst peoples and cultures, its motive does not. This is not a philosophy of virtue, it is one of truth. But what this logical framework for truth is telling us is that virtue and truth are co-dependent. Emotions we feel are real and are truth. They are the cause behind endless effects. Emotions you and I see are false-truths, and their realness is just obvious. Our perceptions of others feelings trigger us to do all types of things. But with virtue, if virtuosity is universal and forced (I know that is unrealistic, but we’re speaking in theory) it negates the possibility vice is exercised when expressing emotions. If I know you and know you are virtuous, then that false-truth of silence is a lie, and beneath the quietness true love resides.
- The purpose of this theory is to build an airtight philosophical framework that is understandable and teachable to aid in the search of truth, especially concerning delegitimizing misinformation.
- Part 1 gives a full view on how this theory operates.
