What is in existence, exists; it is what is. If you can demonstrate something is, is existent, then it is, and it is a truth. If something can’t be demonstrated as something that is, then it’s not something you can refer to as true or a truth, even if it is true. Wishing or wanting things we believe to be true doesn’t make them true.
There are beliefs we can pursue, possibilities which might be true. Having faith and trust in them, being attached to them, being loyal to them, and falling in love with them, is going to bind us into a potential or likely false truth.
Democritus may have envisioned the concept of atoms by inducing it from reality, but until this possibility from reality could be demonstrated, it was an honest belief at best, or maybe an attached belief that was bound to in trust, loyalty and faith. When this possibility or probability could be demonstrated, then it became a truth. You cannot call something true before you can verify if it is true.
To think better, we should define our knowledge better. Differentiate between possible, probable and actual truth. A belief can lead us to discover truth, but not taken as truth in reality until it’s demonstrated. Beliefs based in attachment and bound to with loyalty, trust and faith trap us as they have a hold on us, potentially taking something unreal (unreality) into our perception of reality.
Belief is easier than disbelief (opposition to belief). Unless the new information to believe in is contradicting information you are attached to, then disbelief is easier. A belief is easier because it’s information input, it just comes in. Disbelief is the removal of information already taken in. A conviction to a belief is continual and passive compared to the active rejection of new information one doesn’t want to believe. We have to be willing to doubt, be curious and question information and ourselves, think things through and refine our thought processes and concepts.
Verifying information, a concept or belief requires looking at the problems it has. The negatives are more powerful to invalidate a hypothesis than are the positives. Our positivity bias doesn’t help as we ignore and dismiss those negatives. A truth table, or correspondence of proposition tables, shows how we can evaluate the strength or veracity of a concept. One false premise in a proposition will invalidate that proposition. Whenever you have falsity, it overrides the truth in the aggregate and you have an overall false result in an attempt to combine something false with something true.
The input and addition of linguistic symbols to form a concept is inductive. The removal of negatives, such as false beliefs or contradictions, is deductive. Logic is a faculty to uncover and harmonize with reality; to harmonize with truth. It is powerful once we recognize and use this wonderful law of non-contradiction.
If you believe something untrue, it taints your perception, conception, understanding and navigation of reality. People can get easily swept up in claims of truth. They can be more interested in believing whatever they want to believe, than in knowing what is true. Rather than comfort ourselves in a belief as opposed to the darkness of the unknown (of not knowing an answer), we can pursue other possibilities than can pan out and demonstrably be true.
