Elizaveta Friesem
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          • Knowing your true purpose
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          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
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          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Parenting
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power to see things in a certain way
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • We hurt others when we are in pain
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
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Truth

PAGE IN PROGRESS
What you see here is a page of my hypertext book Me, Looking for Meaning. Initially empty, it will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your interest and patience! :)

Walt Whitman: "All truths wait in all things."

Does this page tell the truth about truth? More like, a bunch of opinions, and it will not even cover all the opinions about truth.

A shared understanding of truth is important for the functioning of society. Examples: science and the justice system. We need to have this shared understanding for practical purposes. Having it does not mean that we cannot see its limitations.

Grannies from Bluey (fluidity/relativity of truth)

we live in the same physical reality, but interpretations differ
is the truth about physical reality or interpretations

Even simple facts: I own my clothes or do my clothes “own” me?

​Information: infodemic (quote Yonty Routlege book section). Is the problem that somebody is trying to deceive others by fronting false information? Or is it that, because more voices can be heard, more information can be accessed, truth has become more contested, it’s more obvious that there is no one subjective truth? ​

We say "she is saying the truth" as if truth is something monolithic. Whatever a person is saying is made up of a combination of statements, some of them more or less factual, more or less colored by this person's opinions. I was thinking about this as I was listing to the interview by the Russian actress Natalya Bondarchuk about the film Solaris by Andrey Tarkovsky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgmKpWk_5Ps&ab_channel=CharlesM). I started paying attention to how some of the things she was saying can be described as "truth" (e.g., Tarkovsky was the film director of Solaris), while others were difficult to describe as facts or opinions (e.g., intended interpretation of the film, Bondarchuk's relationship with Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky's relationship with his wife, and some specific situations - how they met, how they were filming certain movie scenes, etc.). As it often happens when people tell things to each other, Bondarchuk was presenting as truth things they may or may not have been her opinion. For example, she said that Tarkovsky's wife left him in the hospital (details were unclear) when her was dying of cancer. I caught myself thinking that the whole interview cannot be described as "fact", "lie" or "opinion" - it was probably a mix of them. For example, I have read somewhere else (but then, what kind of mixture did that source present) that Bondarchuk and Tarkovsky had an affair, something that in the interview she did not mention (she said they were friends). When we read a book, see a film, listen to news, or talk to another person, we similarly encounter a mix of the three (facts, lie, opinion) or at least of the first two (admittedly, some people lie less than others). [scene from Inside Out where they say that facts and opinions get mixed up all the time].

Salaris and truth:
​” What is simulated and what is real are, in Tarkovsky’s eyes, identical. As long as we believe something exists, everything else is lost in the ether.” From: https://lwlies.com/articles/solaris-andrei-tarkovsky-greatest-science-fiction-film/

About this project: Start page
Picture
  • About
  • Books
    • Media is us >
      • Principles of communication
      • Micro- and macropower
      • ACE model
      • Description of chapters
      • When conflicts get out of control
    • Hypertexts >
      • Me, looking for meaning >
        • A >
          • Anxiety
          • Am I strong or am I weak?
        • B >
          • Binaries
          • Both sides
        • C >
          • Can I give myself credit for being empathetic?
          • Choice
          • Circumstances
          • Cognitive biases
          • Common sense
          • Communication
          • Content and form of this book
          • Coronavirus and me
          • Culture
          • Cycle of violence
        • D >
          • Depression
          • Do children ask themselves about the purpose of life?
          • Doing the right thing
        • E >
          • Emotional pain
          • Empathy
          • Empathy as a matter of self-preservation
          • Everybody has their struggles
          • Everybody is connected
          • Explain/excuse conflation
        • F >
          • Feelings and emotions
          • Forgetting about your purpose
          • Free will
        • G >
          • Good vs. Bad
        • H >
          • How much do we understand each other?
          • Human brain
          • Human nature
          • Human needs
          • Human thinking
          • Human thinking is nonlinear
          • Hypertext books
        • I >
          • I am an optimist
          • Ideas
          • "I'll never understand!"
          • Individual meanings vs. shared meanings
          • Inner compass
          • Interpretation
          • "It is what it is"
        • J
        • K >
          • Knowing your true purpose
          • Knowledge
        • L >
          • Language
          • List of completed pages
          • Literal vs. nonliteral communication
        • M >
          • Make Sense
          • May I meet this, too, with kindness
          • Meaning as importance
          • Mean and stupid
          • Meaning
          • Meaningless
          • Meaning wars
          • Meaning of life
          • Meaning communities
          • Meanings perceived by animals
          • Meaning-seeking vs. meaning-making
          • Media
          • (Mis)understanding each other's needs
          • My quest for meaning
        • N >
          • Norms
        • O >
          • Objectification
          • On being a scholar
          • On being a writer
          • On being right
        • P >
          • Paradox
          • Parenting
          • Privilege
          • Polarization
          • Postmodern worldview
          • Postmodern philosophy
          • Power
          • Power to see things in a certain way
          • Problem/solution binary
        • Q
        • R >
          • Reality
          • Rhizome in philosophy
        • S >
          • Science, religion and art
          • Self-awareness and empathy of higher order
          • Self-awareness
          • Self-empathy
          • Subjectivity and objectivity
          • Suggested citation format
          • Synesthesia
        • T >
          • "The Death of the Author"
          • The importance of having a purpose
          • Truth
        • U >
          • Understanding ourselves
          • Us and them
        • V >
          • Verbal vs. nonverbal communication
          • Violence in the human nature
        • W >
          • What does it mean to "understand"?
          • What is a text?
          • What we can learn about ourselves from media
          • What is "natural"?
          • What's the point?
          • What will this project become?
          • We hurt others when we are in pain
          • Where do meanings come from?
          • Why am I trying to stay sane?
          • Why do people hurt each other?
          • Why is language so unhelpful?
          • Why do everyday objects make sense?
          • Why do misunderstandings happen?
        • X
        • Y
        • Z
      • Power of meanings // Meanings of power
      • It's not about "them"
  • Editing
    • Me as your editor
    • How I will help you
    • Pricing
    • Privacy policy
  • Blog
  • Workshops
    • Five (easy) steps to become media literate
    • Surviving the polarization vortex
    • Understanding yourself
    • Not enough
  • Learn more
    • Bio
    • Talks and interviews
    • Essays
    • Poems >
      • Stranger
      • Lonely heart
      • Fairy tales
      • Dreams and nightmares
      • Puzzles
      • Moon
      • Seasons
      • Muse
      • Art
      • Sketches
      • Nonsense
    • Educational materials
  • Contact me