The Value of Truth

I think that someone who can accept the truth and live without the need to construct comforting beliefs will be happier; more so than someone who, when they see something about the universe that makes them feel sad, forms a belief that they then use to hide the ugly truth from themselves. For example, the man who believes in destiny because he is terrified by the thought that life has no greater significance. I've found that our happiness does not inherently depend on the universe being a certain way. We are all capable of seeing the world and our lives for exactly what they are and still being happy. In fact, for me, life's meaning comes from the supreme challenge of accepting all that we see and deciding that we can choose to be happy no matter how arbitrary and pointless the universe might be.

Whenever we form an opinion that's not directly based on evidence from our senses, we are no longer seeing reality; we are rejecting it and thusly placing emotional dependancy on fantasy.

However neither I nor anyone scientifically minded should assume that reality is more valuable, good, or right than beliefs and fantasies. The belief in the value of truth and facts is just yet another manifestation of a very common emotional need: the need to believe that certain things have meaning or inherent value. In scientists, this emotional need expresses itself in the belief that reality is more valuable than fantasy, that truth is meaningful whereas falsity is to be wiped out. This is simply not true and is no different from the beliefs of the religious people that they so often battle against. While in practical terms it is often more useful not to live by a fantasy such as "I am impervious to fire", there are actually no sound logical grounds in which to assert that fact is better than fiction. Therefore it is hypocrisy to think that a religious person should be pitied for their delusions because the belief that logic and fact are better is itself a delusion! Not only can we never be sure of the truth of anything but we are equally unable to logically assert that living only by evidence and hard facts will necessarily make you a happier person and give you a more meaningful life.

I should clarify what I mean by "delusion" and to do that I need to define "belief". A "belief" is a thing that a person holds to be definitely true. Thousands of years of science and philosophy have shown us that we can at least be fairly sure that the only certainty in the universe is that there is no certainty in the universe! Therefore any belief is inherently delusional. It is not delusional because of any particular detail of the belief itself; it is delusional by the mere fact that it is considered to be true. Beliefs are delusional by their very nature, however as I mentioned above it would be rash to consider delusions to necessarily be a bad thing. No one should be ashamed to think or even live by things that have no empirical evidence to back them up. I have some such beliefs of my own.

The lesson I've just been trying to teach myself is that it is not automatically right to try to tear down someone's belief just because it's illogical and based on nothing but their own emotions and psychological needs. To do so would make me a hypocrite. I don't know what would make them happiest; I can never know.


I'd like to end by asking a question that I genuinely can't even begin to answer. Is happiness valuable? All that I've come to think has shown that no logic can ever prove that one particular thing is any more valuable or meaningful than anything else. So what about happiness itself? Surely positive emotions are inherently good because they are "good" feelings; that's simply what they are. But none of that makes any sense when I consider all the things I've just said. What do you think? Is happiness the one thing that is inherently valuable or are positive emotions actually no better than negative ones? It seems almost insane to be even asking the question but my logic seems to be twisting and breaking before my eyes! Words fail me. Words always fail in the end. Time for a cup of tea and some toast.