The elusive Truth. How difficult is it to agree on what the Truth is? After all, the Truth should be easy to identify. I believe that attempting to "find" the Truth will help us understand when something is or is not, in fact, True. Thinking critically about things can give us the brain muscle to become better at decerning when something is true. I also believe that Exercising our brains and minds can make us better thinkers. Just like we exercise our muscles, our brains and minds can be disciplined by guided and purposeful thinking.

I would dare to proffer that there is an absolute truth, but I also would like to say that I believe that absolute Truth resides outside of our everyday Reality. Our understanding, experiences, biases, and beliefs can instantly redefine our everyday Truth, so we do not need to analyze everything we perceive deeply. The Absolute Truth is, or resides, in absolute Reality. Therefore, strictly, Absolute Truth, like Absolute Reality, resides outside our conscious reach. But we can certainly make a conscious effort to formulate a truth that will help us navigate our Reality successfully.

To untangle things a bit, I will also argue that the opposite of Truth is not a Lie. Even a lie, just by its instantiation, become a True event. Remember, if something exists, then it is True.

Practically speaking, we can use Truth in our everyday life to bring forward some real profit and substance; I will argue that something is true when it can be proved to exist and be reliably reported and confirmed by critical thinking. We can also state that most of what we perceive as accurate or true has already been argued or proven to the point that our acceptance of it can be instantaneous.

We have already established that it is almost impossible to contemplate the absolute Truth because we are trapped in the Reality our conscious mind creates. However, this idea does not mean we must conclude that Truth does not exist or that Truth is a malleable construct driven by opinion. On the contrary, having an opinion-driven system of explaining the Truth will only lead us into chaos—too many opinions can exist and do exist.

To have a sense of order, we must agree when something is true. Agreeing on what is true is important to keep order. Then, how do we agree to have an ordered Reality that works for everybody?

To achieve order, we must use a strong set of basic ideas that we can generally agree with and trust. In turn, this set of ideas must have passed the tests of being logical, objective, and replicable with consistency.

Each idea that represents the Truth must still be Truth after being tested by empirical scrutiny and questioning. And when arguments of elemental nature are made, they must stand even their own sets of rules. In other words, a set of rules and ideas can not adjudicate Truth to a different set of rules and ideas while not being able to withstand its own set of rules and ideas when applied to itself.

For example, suppose a set of arguments dismiss science as the empirical method to prove or disprove itself or another set of arguments. In that case, it cannot use science to prove or disprove itself or another set of arguments.

Though it sound redicule that a set of ideas or ideology would dismiss something, like science, then try to use the ignored item, in this case, science, to prove that a set of ideas or ideology is true; these days many doctrines try to use this contradictory way of explaining things. As unbelievable as it sounds, many will attempt to use intellectual gymnastics to make the illogical sound logical.

Truth demands consistency because consistency creates an objective framework for upholding the Truth. Not only consistency is needed, though. The arguments for holding the Truth must be logical, provable, and replicable by, preferably, well-established and trusted methods like the Scientific Method or the Socratic Method.

The practical use of correctly defining Truth(s) should allow the emergence of positive outcomes, even if exposing or revealing the Truth causes immediate friction, discomfort, or damage. After all, we know that the Truth can be hard to accept. Still, once True ideas are exposed and proven, they become embodied elements that our judgment of Reality incorporates and takes as part of itself. In time True ideas and representations of Reality become part of our instant understanding that can free our minds from the demanding work of analyzing everything consciously. Following this process is what makes basic and true ideas facts.

Facts are the structural base for the Truth, and facts emerge as entities independent of opinion. Facts are unchangeable, rock-solid, and dependable. If a fact changes, that is indication that a new fact has emerged.

The Truth is based on facts. Facts are independent sets of information that are always true and can withstand independent and objective questioning.

We explore the ideas of what is a fact here.