Your Truth versus My Truth
By: Ellion Magsino
Tags: Truth, Perspective, Conversations, News, Fake News

It is crazy to think about how the word “game” has significantly changed over the years. During my childhood, a game would be an activity where I would meet up with my friends and do physically challenging competitions that are done face-to-face and under the sun. But with the speedy development of technology and with that, a considerable change in cultural norms, there has been a change in the definition of a game. If you ask someone today to explain what a game is, they would most likely say that it is an activity done in front of a monitor through a mouse or a controller and with little to no physical interactions.

Photo from Carolina Parent

Because of this disparity, I always find it hard to relate and play with children who are younger than me. I understand that my childhood is not the same as them, but I only learned how significantly different it is when I had a conversation with a friend a few months ago. My friend grew up in a very urban area, and she spent most of her childhood in front of a computer playing online games with online people. I, however, lived in the suburbs, and I used to play physically exhausting games such as tag and scavenger hunts outside with my neighbors. Both of us believed that our method of games was superior to the other, which was where the disagreement started.

One of the main reasons why we believe that one is better than the other is the difference between their difficulty and required conditions. According to her, online games require less energy and conditions than physical games because in online gaming, you just sit in a chair and all you need is just a computer. Physical games, on the other hand, require more energy and you would have to consider your schedule and other’s schedule as well, the environment and the weather, and the resources for the game. However, I respond to her statement by saying that there are benefits to that exhaustion. Physical games can help improve not only our physical aspect but also our social, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being. Moreover, physical games also allow us to see things in a three-dimension world as opposed to a computer screen’s 2D which allows us to better reason out spatially compared to online players, which I believe is a pretty fair argument for my point.

Perhaps her most valid point for online gaming is that she explained how our society has become technologically advanced compared to past decades, and she believes that the skills learned in online games are more relevant in the real world. She elaborates on how many aspects of our lives nowadays are done online, such as school, job, shopping, and more. According to her, it would be advantageous for children to start being knowledgeable about the online space since our world is becoming more technology-dependent, which makes sense for me. In the end, we just laugh it all off and conclude that no method is better than the other. We both agreed that it is up to the person to choose which mode of gaming is best for them or not.

This might seem to be just a meaningless argument between two people, but it is a prime example of how biased we can be when we look at a piece of the given information. When dealing with a certain disagreement, humans tend to pick one side over another, such as how I chose physical games and my friend chose online games. The reason why we choose a certain side is that they believe that that argument is more factual and logical compared to the opposition. We do not notice it that much, but our experiences and beliefs massively influence our perception of what we believe is true. Each person has their own favorite ice cream flavor because they feel satisfied eating it compared to other flavors. Similarly, you might think that tattoos are unattractive and unappealing for you because your family has instilled a certain perspective on that matter. While we often see the truth as fixed and objective, the disagreement is not unique, but rather, represents increasingly divergent worldviews.

People often associate facts and the truth with their subjectivity and perspective.

But before jumping to conclusions, we need to identify and define the four words that are often interchanged when dealing with information: truth, fact, lie, and opinion. A lie would be a statement that is not true and is usually the opposite of the truth. Next, a fact would be a statement that is believed as true because it is backed up by evidence and experimentation, and it cannot be proven wrong. Conversely, an opinion would be a perspective on a given matter which usually has two sides, and it is not necessarily based on facts nor it is necessarily wrong. However, the last one, truth, has the most complicated definitions out of all the rest. According to Blackburn from the University of North Carolina’s Department of Philosophy, truth is the property of sentences, beliefs, thoughts, or propositions that are said, in ordinary discourse, to agree with the facts, or to state what is the case. In other words, the truth would be a statement that is believed as true because it is a common belief by many people, but it is not necessarily backed up by evidence. We can see how this is a problem because it shows that truth is mostly built upon opinions and perceptions.

In light of the worrying definition of truth, it is no surprise that the truth that we believe in can sometimes be misleading, especially if it is based on our own, personal beliefs. A great example of this can be found in Ted Chiang’s two-fold science fiction and historical novella framed as a journalist’s opinion piece. In this story, people use “Remem” to recall memories by searching a lifelog recorded on implanted cameras. The speaker does not use Remem, however, and thus not all of his memories are completely accurate. His flawed memory allowed him to think his daughter had deserted him out of resentment. But after examining his lifelog, however, he realized it was he who had pushed his daughter away. He was hit by the realization that he unconsciously fabricated the truth, as he said, “But in my choice of which details to include and which to omit, perhaps I have just constructed another story.” (Chiang 31) We can see how humans tend to change the truth, either unconsciously or consciously, to sway a certain story or memory to their favor, and although the journalist’s experience is entirely fictional, the ideas presented by Chiang do not fall far from the real world, and it introduces a shocking revelation about how we perceive truth.

The implication of Chiang’s story is significant because it tells us that truth is more subjective than we thought it could be. This can be surprising because we often associate subjectivity with opinion rather than truth. We live in a society where it is easy for us to believe information as long as it is consistent with our beliefs. This is evident when we look at our personal views and we see that more often than not, we tend to believe things because it is a common belief of our group, rather than because it is well-reasoned out and factual. The article “The Problem with Facts” explains this point accurately by saying that, “We see what we want to see-and we reject the facts that threaten our sense of who we are.” Tim Hartford, the author of the article, explains how our desire to fit in accurately portrays why we become either unquestioning or ignorant toward given information. This realization shows us that there is a fine line between what we perceive as opinion and truth, and all of us choose to put a given perspective as one over the other when conveying information to others.

Photo from Yext

Taking this insight into consideration, it is clear that we need to be more meticulous when we are given information. It would be difficult for us to be completely objective and impartial when looking into facts in the real world because people, including ourselves, have our own prejudices when faced with information. Claims and theories are more often than not delivered to sway to a certain belief, both intentionally or unintentionally, and it would be dangerous if we blindly believe in things without questioning. Because of this, people should learn how to look at information critically and determine whether it is from a reliable and objective source whenever they are faced with news from the media, a gossip from a friend, or an article on the internet, and never be too quick to trust someone just because they are able to romanticize a fact and make their claim factual. We are now living in a world where no one can be sure that a given piece of information is true or not, so we need to take the extra effort of validating and ensuring the substantiality of every news.

A TedTalk by Alex Edmans, a Professor of Finance at London Business School, lists three steps on how to ensure that we do not fall for the wrong information. First is that we should actively seek other viewpoints. Edman says that in order to remove our own bias, we should listen to the claims and beliefs of people with who you disagree with. By surrounding ourselves with people who challenge our own beliefs, we become more analytical towards a given data, and we can see the shortcomings of our own beliefs. Moreover, another practice that we should do is that we should listen to the claims of other experts. According to Edmans, expertise should be our go-to source because these claims have been tested. However, we should also ensure that these experts are, in fact, experts in their designated fields of study. Lastly, he emphasizes that we should think twice before sharing. Just as we should be skeptical before believing a claim, we should also double think if we want to spread that information because we could be spreading false claims. When dealing with data, we need to ensure that we have the best evidence to guide us, and these tips can help us avoid falling for misleading information.

Because my friend and I had different truths about gaming, we unexpectedly created a conflict between us. This mini-debate that we had is just one of many common conversations that we have in our everyday life, and you most probably had a conversation like this in some way of another. Most of these exchanges of beliefs are harmless and benign, but this can be harmful when we argue about serious issues such as if the current president is good for the country, whether one person is guilty of a crime or not, or if climate change is actually happening in the world. The consequences of these choices can affect the lives of many people, and it may evoke strong and powerful emotions toward one another. Because of this, it is important to make sure that we are looking at the right facts and disregarding hearsays before instigating action in order to avoid the possible consequences of a misled belief. In a world where the truth has become subjective rather than factual, we must always be wary when making conclusions; whether it is about who got the better gaming experience or when choosing the leading political party of the nation.

Now, before you end reading this essay, I want you to compare the ideas that I have said and compare it to yours; do they differ? Perhaps they do, or perhaps not. But if you have learned anything from what I have said in this text, then you should know to not quickly believe everything that I have said. Instead, you should make the extra effort of validating and criticizing the ideas in this essay, because the truths that I have said might very well just be my own perspective.

Works Cited

Blackburn, Simon W. Truth. 27 April 2020. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/truth-philosophy-and-logic>.

Chiang, Ted. The Truth of Fact, the Truth of Feeling. Subterranean Press, 2013.

Edmans, Alex. What to trust in a post-truth world 3 December 2018.

Hartford, Tim. The Problem With Facts. 17 March 2017. <https://timharford.com/2017/03/the-problem-with-facts/>.