On Truth
From a cartoon in The New Yorker
“Truth is in the eye of the beholder” Ruth Hubbard, 1988
On the topic of reality, I am fond of the saying, “It’s not reality that counts. It’s what you make of reality.” We all, individually, are responsible for creating our own realities.
Particularly in this day, when our country is beset with such a sharp and deep political divide, one is bound to wonder how those on the “other side” could possibly believe the positions that they take. It’s like two people looking at the same wall - one person declaring that it is black while the other maintains that it is white. Can’t be!
However, the “fact” is this: every individual creates his/her reality, which is uniquely owned by that individual. To take this a step further, “reality” is one’s own interpretation of sensations experienced – in “real time” or recalled by our consciousness (memory).
There is no way of knowing what information, perceived and integrated by a person, is at any point in time. Reality is the believed result (realization) of countless possibilities. The experience of reality is the result of probability, of our individual “processing,” and of one’s own will. So, potential reality is infinite, in every dimension.
For example, we don’t really “see” an object. We perceive the signals produced by our eyes’ retinas which is integrated with information of different origins – from sensory organs such as such as hearing, touch and smell – and also from memory.
And so, reality - the truth - is really the product of an infinitely complex and continuous process of integration.
In the practical world, reality – as broadly accepted in our society - is what is (or has been) perceived by the five senses. Technology as well as human memory can store this form of reality, giving it “legs” or continuity. As such, this form of “reality” gives structure, which is needed for social consensus and the orchestration of human affairs, as well as for an individual’s sanity.
However, reality is also - and more comprehensively – experienced by individuals as a product not just of the five senses, but as influenced – sometimes powerfully – by attention, focus and by what may be referred to as the “subjective” contexts of feeling, memory, intuition, imagination dreaming and desire. That is why the “reality” associated with a certain situation is bound to vary from person to person.
This isn’t to say that there’s no such thing as a “objective fact.” There are facts (realities) to which the preponderance of reasonable individuals will agree. But, how a person feels about the “facts” and how she/he will recall them and react to them varies with every person. That’s what makes for “truth.”
Ask an experienced trial lawyer, and he or she likely will be able to recite numerous occasions upon which the recollections offered by eyewitnesses of a given incident vary widely. Or, consider forming a long line of people and asking the first in line to mention a “fact” (such as “Yesterday, I saw a purple cow with black spots”) to the next person in line, who then repeats this to the third person in line – an so on down the line. Asked to repeat what he or she was told, the last person in line will most certainly recount a “fact” that varies – sometimes widely and humorously – from what was said at the front end of the line.
The important thing is to understand is that reality is unique to every individual – a unique integrated product of all his/her senses and emotions.. And, that reality is the “truth” and what is believed by the individual.
That’s why “Truth is in the eye of the beholder.”
Perhaps – in more cases than we’re aware – this may all be beside the point.
As Nikhil Krishnan observed in a 2025 article he wrote in The New Yorker,
Perhaps truth isn’t so obvious. Uncovering it demands effort and a bit of luck… That conspiracy-minded cousin isn’t necessarily the result of mind control; he may simply have wandered down intellectual rabbit holes where evidence matters less than belonging.
What do you think? Let us know via the comment form below.
P.S. On a somewhat humorous note, many in the press and most politically independent and Democratic viewers got a big hoot out of then-White House counselor Kellyanne Conway’s defense of “alternative facts” in her 2017 Meet the Press interview. While the context of her observation might not have supported her defensiveness, perhaps the legitimacy of “alternative facts” shouldn’t be lightly dismissed!
