Evidence & Perception

Is evidence just a lever to adjust how skewed your perception is?

There are a couple of great comments to the Trinity of Truth made by a friend of mine. The core of the comments are that truth (both relative and absolute) needs to have evidence to support that truth and that evidence is not part of truth but more bound to truth but in a separate plane. Both truth and evidence spin around each other in a constant dance of push/pull keeping everything in balance.

However, I posit (for today) that the Trinity of Truth stands that way it is with or without evidence and that it does not need to have evidence as a secondary partner. I posit (for today) that evidence is merely a way for people to view the real/absolute truth through their perceptions.

Let me give you an example: Many years ago our perceptions were that the world is flat. That was out truth at the time. However, the real/absolute truth is that the world is round, and as more and more evidence became available our perceptions became less skewed and our perception circle started to become more aligned with the real truth. At some point enough evidence entered into the collective human consciousness that we now all accept the truth that the world is round.

The truth was always there; we just couldn’t see it due to our perceptions and the evidence cleared things up.

So, my theory is that evidence is a lever to adjust how skewed your truth line or truth circle is relative to the real absolute truth.

See you on the wire

Steven

The Trinity of Truth

The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit all combined into a single being … well at least that is what they’ve told us about the Holy Trinity. A close (very close) friend of mine, no matter what the topic, and I always end up at the same place – talking about truth. In every aspect of our lives, personal, business, emotional the truth is there guiding us even though we may be blind to it. Just as gravity guides our daily walk through the physical world, the truth guides our daily walk through our decisions. The truth is not good or bad, it is neither ugly or pretty, it is just clear honesty without denial, without personal perception.

Since truth seems to center out discussions recently we started talking about what is truth? What is it made of? And we came up with our own Holy Trinity, the three sides of truth.

We decided (for today) that truth is at the center and that Perception, Trust and Expectation are some of the various sides of the truth. And that these sides need to be congruent and the same size otherwise your view of the truth will be lopsided.

Perception – Is what I think is real; really real … that is the basis of perception. According to Wikipedia, perception comes from the Latin percepio, meaning "receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses." It is the process of taking awareness or understanding of sensory information.

It is this accurate processing of outside information that drives perception. Imagine taking in what the world has to offer and accurately understanding its meaning. Not coloring the input with your own biases, but really seeing the input for what it is. Imagine not doing that: Imagine seeing a truck bearing down on you at 60 mph and misperceiving its intension to stop. Your perception of truth (the truck will stop) would be sorely shattered when the real truth comes running you down. The more you color the inputs of the world with your own perceptions, the larger this leg of the trinity becomes and the further from the real truth you get.

Trust – Why would I trust you? Without trust you can never find real truth. If I don’t trust that you’ll do what you said you would; then I have to constantly protect myself from you and I can never explore the truth. When trust is skewed and so important to you that you cannot see anything but the trust that you expected (eg. when a child trusts his mother implicitly), the truth is obscured (a child’s trust can be easily misplaced and the truth can be very different from what the child thought). It is this connection between intention (what someone said or implied they would do) and action (what they actually do) that defines trust. And the more you NEED that trust, the stronger the outcome that is based on that trust, the more skewed the trust leg of the trinity becomes and the harder it is to see the truth.

Expectation – These are the should’s of the world: The values and actions you believe others should perform based on their status, relationship, or point of view. If I view the world through big expectation glasses then the truth of a situation becomes distorted and difficult to see because I’m always looking for what other people should do … not the truth of what they will do or have done. Expectations are important when kept in line with perceptions and trust, but when they are out of touch with the other parts of the truth then all I can see is what is expected, and what really happens (the truth) fades away.

Ok, so a lot of this seems fuzzy, new age-y, and difficult to swallow. But it does seem to fit with our view of the truth. That the truth is a clear vision of reality and that clarity comes from being in balance with your view of the world and the world itself. That clarity comes from realizing that the truth does not have nor make value judgments. We as people put values on the truth. The truth just is, our values come from our own internal decisions, our own internal fear, and that fear makes our triangles lopsided. But when you finally are not scared, can let go of your fear, and right-size your triangle … clarity and the truth come out.

See you on the wire

Steven