Background 1 - fake dinosaur or real dinosaur
In a relaxed afternoon, while napping on a couch, you see your kid playing with a plastic dinosaur. An adorable sight as long as he is not disturbed, and you are not disturbed. And you walk through the memory lane to figure out the origins of the dinosaur. You notice that it is made up of plastic, molded in a factory in mainland China. Obviously, even without the label it is sure that half of the products in your room are from China. And where did the plastic come from? From Crude Oil, dug deep in Oil farms of UAE. Plastic is essentially a byproduct of oil. How did oil generate in deep desert?
Now in your dream, you imagine, dinosaurs who once ruled earth in Paleoanthropic era, on their doom's day, instantly dead with a catastrophic earthquake, with thousands other flora and fauna, they were buried deep underground over years. Immense heat from earth's core and pressure from above dissolve their hydrocarbons into oil. Until humans evolve into a species capable into tap into the sap of earth's history to bring out Crude oil. And you wake up suddenly realizing, the dinosaur your child is holding actually and partially came from real dinosaurs!
Background 2- Why cannot I see an elephant in a pen?
I saw this amazing video, actually part of it, where a judge is starting to question a teenager, who is on the witness stand. Before real questioning began judge wanted to clarify what is truth to the child. So, she pointed out to her pen and said,
"If I said that this is a pen, Am I telling truth?"
The child answered yes.
And she continued.
"If I said that this is an elephant, Am I telling the truth? or am I lying?
The child answered "That would be lying"
You may have now in a position to look at the truth critically. Obviously, it is true when you point to a pen and say that is a pen. Obviously, it is not an elephant. However, if you would combine the wisdom you gained from the above background 1, you can definitely say there are some pieces of the dinosaur in the pen. Of course that would be a stupid answer to a Judge, you will still be guilty. But as a philosopher it fascinates me when I know it is likely that the pen similarly will hold atoms of an elephant, even dead ancestors of mine. As for years and years, living species on earth used and reused these hydrocarbon atoms. It is very unlikely total new atoms are there.
Philosophy of truth
We can further continue with above example as a mental experiment. Imagine someone melts the pen into a ball. If it was shown to anyone now, it would be a "Plastic ball" not a pen. Isn't it amazing. You wouldn't appreciate if you cannot see the timeline of the "Matter" in this case, So I would summaries this.
Star dust-matter after big bang -> matter on earth
Matter on earth-> matter in dinosaur/Elephant
matter in elephant -> matter in oil
Matter in oil -> matter in a pen
Matter in pen -> matter in plastic ball.
What does this mean philosophically? What is philosophy of truth? Following are my conclusions. Send me yours.
Saying there is a pen is a relative truth. As pen is just a form, at particular time at a particular place, a collection of matter. (It is true relative to the person who observe it)
You can see anything in everything, as we share only common pool of atoms. This makes me identify myself as nature, not separate entity.
We can understand this phenomenon, of relative nature of truth, when we look at different aspects of daily Life. If you are interested you can read following articles to learn about philosophy of Forms,
When we question the reality, it appears as something made up by our mind than what actually is.
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