真相是发现的，而不是创造的
让我们回顾一下我们评估说揭露的情况。首先，我们的观念和信仰不可避免地受到他人的影响，特别是在儿童时期。第二，感知和记忆是不完美的。第三，我们的信息可能不准确或不完整。除此之外，注意到第二章的内容，有些人的思考能力非常糟糕并且/或者效率低下，那么这个“每个人都能创造他或者她的真理”的说法就变得可笑了。我们确实能创造一些事情，好吧，但是它不是真理，它是信念、我们认为是正确的观念，但是很可能是错误的。
那么，什么是最合理的真理观？关于某事的真理就是它原本就是什么——它们精确的安排和比例上的事实。当我们的信念和判断符合实际就是对的，否则就是错的。
篮球运动员将球投出去的时候时间结束了吗？重力如何发生作用的？谁偷了你的轮毂罩？宇宙有时间和空间的限制吗？上个周末你和邻居之间谁开始争论的？在这门课程上你发挥出了你的潜能吗？在这些事物上找到真相就是找到符合事实的答案，那个正确的答案。
真理是被发现的，充满了好奇和努力的过程。真相不依赖于我们的认可，任何情况下也不会因为我们的无知而改变，因为我们主观的想法而改变。图坦卡蒙国王的陵墓不是因为考古学家挖出来才存在，它只是等待被发现。在人们受骗时艺术赝品也不是真迹，而当骗局被揭穿时就成了假货。香烟不会因为我们喜欢而变得对我们的健康无害。
关于真理的困惑多数来自于复杂的情况，这时，很难确定或表达真理。考虑一个这样问题：是否真的有外星生物驾驶的不明飞行物（UFO)？虽然人们经常激烈地讨论这个问题，做出肯定的判断以表达真相。但是没有足够的证据说，我们知道关于不明飞行物的真相。虽然，这不意味着没有真相或者肯定他们存在的人和否认他们存在的人都一样正确。这意味着不管真相是什么，我们还没有拥有它。
类似的困难来自许多心理和哲学问题，例如：为什么有些人是异性恋，而另一些人是同性恋？犯罪的原因是遗传的还是环境的，还是两者的结合？人类是天生的暴力吗？有来世吗？什么是成功？这些问题以及在本书的练习中遇到的许多问题的答案，往往是不完整的或尝试性的。但是这些不会动摇你的信念：真理等待被发现。
2001年9月11日，当飞机撞上世贸中心双子座和五角大楼，造成数千人死亡时，这起事件被正式列为恐怖袭击。但不久之后，有人提出一个非常不同的理论——美国政府最高层的某些人制定并实施了这次撞击事件，目的是为攻击伊拉克提供一个借口。这个阴谋论有许多著名的支持者，包括电影和电视明星和至少一名国会议员，并在世界各地传播。比如在法国，一个支持这个理论的书成了畅销书。从某方面讲，这个问题成了国际间争论的主题，人们各持己见。在我看来，在这个国家或者外国人，没有谁认为两个观点都对——也就是，每个阵营都认为自己拥有真相。如果有人这么想，他或者她就会因为对重要问题胡说八道或者轻视而被两个阵营的人攻击。当涉及到9/11这样的重大事件时，人们想知道真相，到底发生了什么。
拥有思考的正确框架可以让你在追求真理的时候不那么辛苦，并且得到历史上伟大的思想家经历过的探索感觉。一个好的开端需要保持下面的思考模式：“我知道我的局限性，容易犯错误，而且肯定我永远找不到我需要的所有答案。但是我可以观察更仔细些，更全面地衡量事物，更小心地构建我的想法。如果我这样做，我会更接近真相。”
这和下面的说法大为不同，“每一个人都有他或者她自己的真理”或者“这完全取决于你如何看它”。这会更加合理。
文章同时会发表在steemit的同名账号上
原文：
Truth Is Discovered, Not Created
Let’s review what our evaluation has revealed. First, our ideas and beliefs are unavoidably influenced by other people’s, particularly in childhood. Second, perception and memory are imperfect. Third, our information can be inaccurate or incomplete. Add to this the fact, noted in Chapter 2, that some people’s thinking skills are woefully meager and/or ineffectively used, and the idea that “everyone creates his or her own truth” becomes laughable. We do create something, all right, but it is not truth. It is beliefs, ideas that we accept as true but that could easily be false.
What, then, is the most reasonable view of truth? The truth about something is what is so about it—the facts in their exact arrangement and proportions. Our beliefs and assertions are true when they correspond to that reality and false when they do not.
Did time run out before the basketball player got the shot off? How does gravity work? Who stole your hubcaps? Are there time/space limits to the universe? Who started the argument between you and your neighbor last weekend? Have you been working up to your potential in this course? To look for the truth in such matters is to look for the answer that fits the facts, the correct answer.
Truth is apprehended by discovery, a process that favors the curious and the diligent. Truth does not depend on our acknowledgment of it, nor is it in any way altered by our ignorance or transformed by our wishful thinking. King Tut’s tomb did not spring into existence when archaeologists dug it up; it was there waiting to be discovered. Art forgeries are not genuine when people are fooled and then fake when the deception is revealed. Cigarette smoking is not rendered harmless to our health because we would prefer it to be so.
Much of the confusion about truth arises from complex situations in which the truth is difficult to ascertain or express. Consider a question like Are there really UFOs that are piloted by extraterrestrial beings? Although the question is often hotly debated and people make assertions that purport to express the truth, there is not yet sufficient evidence to say we know the truth about UFOs. However, that doesn’t mean there is no truth about them or that people who affirm their existence and people who deny it are equally correct. It means that whatever the truth is, we do not yet possess it.
Similar difficulty arises from many psychological and philosophical questions—for example: Why are some people heterosexual and others homosexual? Is the cause of criminality genetic or environmental or a combination of the two? Are humans inherently violent? Is there an afterlife? What constitutes success? The answers to these questions, and to many of the issues you will encounter in the applications in this book, will often be incomplete or tentative. Yet that fact should not shake your conviction that there are truths to be discovered.
When planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, killing several thousand people, the event was officially classified as a terrorist attack. But before long, a very different theory was advanced—that individuals in the highest levels of the U.S. government had planned and executed the crashes to provide an excuse for attacking Iraq. This conspiracy theory gained a number of well-known supporters, including movie and television stars and at least one member of Congress, and was disseminated around the world. In France, for example, a book supporting the theory became a best-seller. The issue became the subject of international debate—in some quarters, people are still divided in their views. But to my knowledge, not a single individual, in this country or abroad, took the position that both views are correct—that is, that each side is entitled to its own truth. If anyone had, he or she would have been attacked by both camps for talking nonsense and trivializing an important issue. When it comes to significant events like 9/11, people want to know the truth, what really happened.
Having the right frame of mind can make your pursuit of the truth less burdensome and give it the sense of adventure that the great thinkers in history experienced. Agood way to begin is to keep the following thought in mind: “I know I have limitations and can easily be mistaken. And surely I’ll never find all the answers I’d like to. But I can observe a little more accurately, weigh things a little more thoroughly, and make up my mind a little more carefully. If I do so, I’ll be a little closer to the truth.”
That’s far different from saying, “Everyone makes his or her own truth” or “It all depends on how you look at it.” And it is much more reasonable.
