The Ladder of Truth

When we first meet, dear stranger, I will be actively trying to have a “normal” conversation with you. I’m pretty bad at it, but I will try my best. This privilege however, only applies to the first 5 minutes we talk. If you stick for longer, you lose the right to a normal conversation, and I will invariably get philosophical on you. I would probably ask about your opinion on various things, your views on life, and if you’re lucky, I will keep it to a maximum of 2 stupid incomprehensible jokes per minute.

Life is a complicated chaotic system with very few answers that don’t begin with “it depends”. I find the way other people view things intriguing, and I keep prodding, asking, and arguing. Not to prove any point, but to understand your views better. Most of the time I’m the devil’s advocate (which leads to many misunderstandings).

That is all to say, as my friends would attest, I love arguing and discussions. My friends would also tell you that I sometimes claim in the middle of the argument “Knowing isn’t Believing”, at which point, they would roll their eyes at me and give me the classic “Here we go again with Salman’s crap”. Salman’s crap will now take the form of a blog post that I will share via Airdrop mid-argument; so you’ve been warned.

What the hell are you talking about?

Before supporting my claims with examples, I shall tell you what the idea is. We have been here for 3 paragraphs and I can feel your eyes glazing over the text. Here is another sentence just to annoy you.

I have noticed that most people treat all knowledge as the same. Something is either true, or it isn’t. The earth is either round, or it isn’t. While this is a perfectly valid stance to take if you plan to satisfy a Logician dealing with Formal Logic on a daily basis, it’s not a really good system to capture the nuance of human psychology, and how it deals with facts.

You don’t believe both that the sun is very bright indeed, and that multiplying two negative numbers will yield a positive. Both are true, and both have been proven to you. When asked if either is true, you will say “Of course it is. What a dumb question”. But I claim that while both are true, they’re not equally true. At least not to you.

The three levels of truth

When you ask someone a question and they answer with “It’s X things. First, …”, don’t you notice that they seem like more of an authority? I shall do the same here and claim that there are roughly 3 levels of truth.

Knowledge

You know the stars and constellations in the sky are far away from us. You saw it in some science video on youtube. You might have seen the calculations done to figure it out. Smart-looking people in lab coats told you so. You know it. It’s true.

You know when traveling by plane, that it’s pretty safe. You have seen the statistics on plane crashes, and how rare they are. There are 2 very competent people in the cockpit fiddling with buttons to make sure it’s a safe journey. Many smart technicians checked every corner of the place before the flight to make sure it’s in perfect flying condition. You know it. It’s also true.

You know money and fame can’t buy you happiness. You’ve read it in a magazine perhaps. You saw the news where some rich star took their own life. You might have met someone rich enough not to worry about money, and they might have told you they were not so happy. You know it. That is also true.

Knowing is when something is factually right. It might have been said to you, or perhaps even proven to you. We treat these things as true, but from my experience, they’re usually the first to crumble under doubt.

Belief

You believe the medicine will cure your flu. You experienced this before. Many times did that one good medicine cure your stuffy nose. You keep telling people about it. You know it, you believe it. It’s true.

You believe that seatbelts save lives. You had this one friend who was in a terrible car accident. They told you all about it. If it weren’t for the seatbelt, they would have been flung out of the car, and might not have survived. You wear your seatbelt now. You know it, you believe it. It’s also true.

You believe that tomorrow will come as scheduled. You woke up today, and it wasn’t yesterday anymore. You wake up every day and it’s not the day before. You have done it thousands of times. It happens every time.. You know it, you believe it. That is also true.

Believing is when you have seen for yourself. You might have conducted the experiment yourself consciously or subconsciously. This is what trust is. You’re not doubting.

Internalizing

You feel the pain when stubbing your toe. You dread that walk to the bathroom in the dark. You fear the assault of evil furniture against your feet. Many times you shrieked in pain when you stubbed your little toe on the edge of a hitherto invisible object. You feel it, you believe it, and you know it. It’s true.

You feel how bright the sun is. You look for your sunglasses before going out. You squint until your eyes hurt on sunny days. You can feel the warm buzz on your skin as the sun hits you after leaving home. You feel it, you believe it, and you know it. It’s also true.

You feel how things fall down. You discard that used tissue effortlessly into the basket from across the room. Your heart skips a beat when your phone falls down, and sometimes you reflexively grab it mid-air before looking (no one is ever there to see how cool you were). You feel it, you believe it, and you know it. That is also true.

Internalizing is feeling the effect of something first hand. This is the deepest state of knowledge. The truth of this level might be so obvious, that you might not have stopped to think about them once. Everything in your mind and body tells you these are true.

Knowing isn’t Believing

Now that we’ve seen what the levels are, I doubt you would disagree with my assertion that any of what we discussed was true. But do you really believe that they’re all equally true? I can’t see how you would. So why, then, do we treat them all the same way?

You might also now be imagining the ladder of truth to be an increasing progression. That is, you cant believe something without knowing it first, and you can’t internalize it without belief. I would, however, disagree with that.

There are many situations where we possess some of the levels but not others. It might not be obvious at first glance. But let’s think about it for a bit together.

For example, we’ve already established how safe planes are. But we all know of all the ways traveling by air is safe. But when that turbulence hits, you will be scared witless. You know the plane is safe, but most wouldn’t believe it. The cabin crew, and the pilot, would know, believe, and internalize it. They’re calm because they know, believe, and internalize it.

Take another example we discussed. Your belief that tomorrow will indeed come. It’s pretty obvious. But take a moment to consider how you felt at your lowest point in life. You were so depressed, that even though you knew and believed that tomorrow will come, it felt like an impossibility, and every fiber of your body told you that it wouldn’t. Some people on social media even had to keep reminding you that what you’re feeling is temporary, and that tomorrow will indeed come.

You will notice that most feelings are intuitions that are true to you, and they are the ones that feel most true and most immediate. Even when you wear the facade of knowledge and of belief, deep down, your truth is your intuition and your feelings.

Incidentally, this is how fear works, and why we find it hard to communicate it. You might make fun of that girl at the cafe who jumped when she saw a harmless cat. The cat is factually harmless. But it wasn’t true to her, despite her knowledge, and belief. Same thing with people suffering with anxiety. They know they’re safe in their home, but their mind is throwing all sorts of signals that tells them otherwise. Can you blame them for not believing it?

Our Journey Between the Levels

Throughout our life, we are in constant movement between these levels. We are born without truth. Funnily, we start immediately acquiring intuitions and internalization before the others. You will see the baby reaching out to the dangling toys trying to figure out how their body works, and how the world reacts. As they grow up, they will learn some knowledge and they will develop their beliefs as they grow up.

We keep going through these cycles of truth in life, sometimes acquiring new truths, sometimes having some truths crumple and be replaced with others. Such is our journey.

Take death for example. You grow up knowing every life has to, one day, end. That people are hurtling towards their demise. Then you reach a point where a family member passes on. You already knew that would happen, but it feels different when it happens. You struggle and climb up a rung in the ladder, and you believe death now that you have seen it yourself. One day, you might survive a near-death experience, and you would have first-hand seen what death is. It outweighs all your previous truths about death. You felt it. And this is the one that will change you the most.

My Little Journeys

I have always loved these “aha!” moments. They’re usually signifiers of climbing a rung in your ladder of truth. It’s a euphoric feeling of connectedness to the universe and everything in it.

I still vividly remember the first time I pointed my telescope at the sky. I found a bright star and tried to aim at it. When I looked through the telescope, I saw that it had a ring around it! It wasn’t a star, it was Saturn. Of course I knew Saturn is a planet orbiting the sun and all that, but to point my telescope and see it hurtling through space with my own eye. I believed it. It was beautiful.

Another moment I had was when I bought my first little digital piano many years ago. I could not get over the fact that I just had to move my fingers in some particular way, and the sound of my favorite pieces of music would come out. Again, it’s very obvious, but to experience it first hand for the first time was beautiful.

I have had many journeys like this, as I’m sure you have. I would urge you to take a moment when that happens and appreciate that you have just climbed another rung on the Ladder of Truth, and I would like you to feel how beautiful that is.

This might also convince us to judge people less. We assume truth to be universal and factual, but we all have our different viewpoints, and different experiences that caused us to climb different ladders. Be curious, ask people what they believe in, and what got them where they are. You might find it surprising, and addicting. You might also become a pain-in-the-ass guy who gets philosophical on someone they met for the first time, like yours truly.