Letter 1: The Journey

Hi. I am Joshua, and these are my letters. They are a summary of findings from my journey to discover and comprehend the truth about the nature of our existence and life’s great questions. In them I will present a theory that, to my knowledge, has never been published before and that I hope you will find can unify what science and religion have to offer. With that in mind, I hope you will follow me on this journey through my letters as I explain.

 

Before diving in, I want to spend some time covering a few important concepts regarding the truth, because my experience is that many people don’t really know what the truth is, so I’d like to start by defining it.

 

The dictionary defines truth as “Reality. Things that are fact.” This is direct, but what does it mean? What is reality? What is fact? The dictionary defines these as “Reality: The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”; “Fact: A thing that is indisputably the case.” Combining these definitions yields: “Truth: The world or the state of things as they actually, indisputably exist, not the way that they are perceived to be.” This is straightforward, but I find it is missing something.

 

Many years back, I stumbled across a book that is from Mormon culture that contains a very interesting definition of truth. The book is called Doctrine and Covenants, and in it, God is portrayed to be the one speaking. In the 93rd chapter, he gives his definition of truth as follows: “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.”

 

Notice that this definition makes a critical distinction, that truth is the knowledge of things…” rather than the state of things. Truth on any topic exists whether anyone knows it or not, but is there value in an unknown truth or only in its potential to be known? According to this definition purported to be given by God himself, truth must be known in order to be truth and thus, unknown truth exists in the realm of existence but needs to be discovered and known. Those are interesting thoughts and they lead us to the next topic - discovery.

 

Discovery is defined in the dictionary as “The action or process of discovering or being discovered.” In other words, discovery is the process of learning something new and it happens to every person continually in one way or the other. The problem is that there is an overload of things to be discovered, more than anyone can possibly cover in a lifetime. Thus, if one hopes to discover the truth about our existence and life’s great questions, they have to be a seeker of such and a determined one at that. This is because truth by its very nature is a needle in a haystack, for it is singular while falsehood has infinite possibilities. To find truth, a process of identifying it is needed so that the seeker knows when they have found it and when they have not. This process I call the Circle of Truth.

 

One of the beautiful things about truth is that it is like a close-knit family where members stand with arms interwoven, forming an unbreakable circle of support for each other. Although each individual truth is singular, it is connected to other truths that are in turn connected to more. If the process of discovery is used to find a single truth and then continued to discover the surrounding truths, eventually the full circle is complete and the whole truth is revealed. This is why something that is true can stand against all tests and challenges because no matter how deep you dig; all of the surrounding truths will support it. An example of this is gravity. So far, mankind’s discoveries have all supported that it exists.

 

This leads to an obvious question however: How does one complete the Circle of Truth? Well, unfortunately, you don’t. Doing so requires the knowledge of all things, for anything less leaves the possibility that something undiscovered will arise and disprove what was thought to be true. This is why we have only theories in this life and why what I will reveal in these letters will be just that… a theory. 

 

The final facet of truth I want to cover is that truth cannot change. A truth that changes was never a truth in the first place, but rather truth as experienced and/or understood. If these two things were the same, then there would be no way to ever arrive at the truth as it would be a moving target, and no truth could ever be relied upon to remain true. Thus, it is our knowledge and understanding of the truth that changes, not the truth itself.

 

Hopefully you will find that what I will present in these letters - though not the entire truth about our existence - is unique and I will show it to be well supported in the Circle of Truth.

 

Much more to come.

 

Until next time,

 

Joshua

Reviews

[FlatDaddy]

I am no scientist, nor a philosopher, preacher, mystic or purveyor of "Truth," Religion, or alien realities. I am but a simple Writer. Well, perhaps not simple. You see, I INVENT the truth; It is what I will it; I bend it, color it, make it, and give it life. "Ah," you say, "but what YOU do is not REAL."
"Oh," say I, "Prove it."
You can't, and we both know it. Or, we can prove my point in YOUR world, if you prefer. You say that Truth is singular; so what is the true nature of man?
Sorry, that's just my little joke. That one may be impossible to answer -- so many variables, right? But then, that doesn't make it a problem with no answer, just a difficult one. If so, what IS the answer?
Perhaps I can bring this down to a more workable level.
: How heavy is a one square inch block of pure gold? WAIT! I don't want an answer using a made-up unit of measurement. "Heavy" is not something that can be defined in absolute terms. You're thinking that I asked, "What is its WEIGHT. I did not. Here is the answer:
For a one month old baby, the block of gold is VERY heavy; for a three year old child, it is a LITTLE BIT heavy; for a grown, well-nourished, virile young man ... need I go on?
What I am saying is that Truth is not so simple as you say. Truth is variable, because life, the universe, and all that is is variable.
But then, I am just a simple Writer. I can lie. And that, my friend, is Truth.

[wordman]

and i hope you found all the answers to lifes questions but i believe you must ascend first

[Earl Schumacker]

Hi Joshua,
Interesting. True. Truth is a time traveler. It is the same in all time periods. Period. I enjoyed your take on God in the Matrix world in your "Letter 6" chapter.
Not to change gears but I wanted to make a comment on time. I have studied modern philosophies that suggest that time does not exist. They are compelling arguments. If time does not exist does truth also not exist? It gets curiouser and curiouser. Good stuff Joshua. Thought provoking. Keep on writing. Earl

[613]

This is pretty fascinating . . . .

- Brittney

[Haeshin]

Personally philosophy isn't my thing, since it explores the abstract, so your writing comes off as confusing and hard to keep on a straight path.

To me truth is something you can't change even if you deny or forget about it.

[J.Nico]

Truth subject to debate. It seems to me that truth as presented here seems faithless. That is a limitation.
What abouth a true doubt?

[TL Boehm]

smart writing. I have always craved - amongst the stellar poetry here that more would write letters, novels etc - and this is intriguing. I hope to read more.

[Mila]

I like the way you said that truth is singular while falsehood is not. That's actually incredibly accurate and in the most concise way. Even so, something you mentioned about truth not changing and, if it does so, must not have been truth in the first place...I do agree with this in a certain degree, but can't the idea of a truth change depending on what a person perceives it to be verses how another sees it? Like you can tell me the sky is blue, with is a fact of nature most all humans accept, but what if I, as an individual found truth in the fact that yes, the sky may be SEEN as blue but is, in fact, purple? So what you said is not false, but the someone else found another truth within the truth that was told?
I don't know. I either read too much Stephen Hawking or I just totally went Edgar Allan Poe on you with the whole "Dream within a Dream" and what I just said probably makes zero sense. Even so, I found this to be very thought provoking and captivating and I will definitely be reading on with your work. :) Well done!

[Rana]

This is all so thought provoking.. A real treat for inquisitive souls.. A lot of witty stuff in here.. Um, converting these letters into diary entries might make it even better..!

[Violet Stone]

Read the first letter so far and great work already! Keep it up!