People are great storytellers. Whether to make sense of a mysterious world beyond our control, to gain influence or power over others, or simply for the playful purposes of entertainment, the tales we spin have created a human reality quite distinct from that of the natural world. Buddhists call it Samsara.
Samsara is a reality of words and ideas expressed in words, a product of human imagination. Words and language, combined with our capabilities to inventively transform matter has resulted in living in both the natural physical world of earth, air, fire and water, but also a metaphysical world entirely produced by imagination. The products of human imagination have been added to the features of the natural world so successfully that their origins in imagination are all but forgotten as we carry out the activities of everyday life. Money, cars, computers, political parties, space satellites, the internet; all these and the entirety of culture are the tangible results of the tales we spin.
Within Samsara’s world of imagination, we use words of facts and words of fiction, and it’s often quite difficult to know for certain which is which; they both powerfully affect our beliefs and behavior. Storytelling employed to entertain, spinning fantastic tales about pretend people and places that do not physically exist or have never existed, is the basis of most of our entertainment – novels, movies, plays, and video games, for example. We don’t designate such productions as lying per se, though in some sense they are; because such pretending is openly acknowledged as works of fiction, we don’t condemn them but revel in the inventive power of their creativity. We reserve the term lying for behavior attached to an ill intent to deceive.
In courtrooms witnesses swear an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. This is, of course, impossible. Given the interconnectedness of the complex web of Samsara where one truth is conditionally and irrevocably tied to infinitely many others, telling the whole truth is beyond anyone’s ability. This contributes to the Buddhist idea of emptiness – not nothingness or that everything is an illusion – rather that no entity exists solely unto itself in absolute isolation but only and ever in relation to everything else; the whole truth, like the universe itself, is inconceivably complex.
Whether by employing myth or the logic of scientific rationalism, our explanations of truth as we understand it require using language. Created for a purpose, the use of language is a matter of intent, and when used for ill intent, we call it lying, manipulation, deceit or fraud. At its most extreme, untruthfulness becomes a mental illness called Pseudologia fantastica, or in common terms, pathological lying. People suffering from Pseudologia fantastica cannot control their impulse to lie, and do so elaborately and compulsively. Former GOP representative George Santos, for example, piled lie upon lie, and ultimately his fabricated house of lies collapsed and he was ejected from congress.
Words have great power, as is said they are “mightier than the sword.” When words are used in an effort to better understand others and our world, either the natural world or the metaphysical world of human imagination, they can enlighten. When words are used to manipulate, control, dominate, defraud, or to accrue and use personal power over others, words can instead descend into drivel and darkness, the living hell realm of Samsara.
Yes, but there is another sense of truth, as in being true to a person or ideal. How do you think the two senses are related.
You raise the issue of subjective v. objective truth. One’s personal sense of truth is always subjective; it may not match another person’s sense of truth. An empirical approach may bridge the gap, but not always. I think all one can do is present one’s truth honestly; it’s relationship to a greater truth is indeterminate.