Disembodied Thoughts
A podcast where the curiosities of life, death and the in-beteeen are celebrated and explored.
Disembodied Thoughts
The Truth Is Out There?
Have you ever felt a chill down your spine as you realize that the truth you hold may not be the whole story? Our latest episode is a tapestry of such revelations, tracing the shadowy lines between perception and reality through the cinematic Rashomon Effect and philosophical thought. Join us as we unravel the impact of storytelling on memory and truth, inspired by intriguing cinema that distorts reality to mesmerize audiences, and our dear friend Nitzche who believes truth is as unreliable as fictional narratives would lead us to think.
Hello listeners, howdy ho. Okay, listen. Before we get into our episode, I would like to say that I think I found a cult that I would join, the Rajneesh Puram. They believed that women were beings who could reach enlightenment, as they were supreme beings. Rajneesh believed that to be so because he stated that sex and sexuality would lead to enlightenment, and since women could have multiple orgasms, they were better equipped to reach enlightenment. I mean, that's awesome and all, but there is also this other belief that Rajneesh expressed, which was that emotions were suppressed and needed to be experienced and released. And boy do I feel that my therapist and I have worked hard at being vulnerable and expressing emotions, and I've come a long way. As I was listening to a podcast on this cult, I was like dang, that's me, they get me. Anyway, that's neither here nor there, but I just wanted to share as we discussed cults in our last episode. Well, a few episodes ago, you know what, though?
Speaker 2:It is here and there, because, finally, the recognition we deserve there is power in multiple orgasms. That's why sex magic exists.
Speaker 1:Maybe we'll do an episode on that. Who?
Speaker 2:knows.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also, I guess, emotions are valid too I mean, there's that also, um, but that also just reminds me of that book that I was talking to you about daring greatly, which is about vulnerability and shedding your armor and and all that good stuff that's gonna be a hard metamorphosis for me, Karina.
Speaker 2:I mean I'm going to still read it. I'm sure I'll find some wisdom in it, but I've got a tough shell. I feel like if I was a fruit I'd be a pineapple. Give me a pineapple, Show me a pineapple tattoo. For people that can't see her look really excited and hold her arm up when I interviewed for the position that I have now.
Speaker 1:That was the last question that was asked. If you were a fruit, what would you be and why? Oh yeah and I was like a pineapple, because I'm tough on the outside but sweet on the inside. Also. There's like this tough exterior because I feel the need to like put up a front or whatever, but did you divulge that in the interview I did?
Speaker 1:Whoa, good job. I almost cried too, but then I also spun it because I was like I understand that in this position you get a lot of like criticism and it's not always nice and there's a lot of stuff that gets thrown your way. So I've got this armor that I can help like deflect, and it's not going to necessarily get to me whoa wordsmithing your way into the job I like it. It's also true you can handle anything not yesterday, I almost couldn't, but that's okay everybody hurts sometimes and there's nothing wrong with feelings, yeah, remember that.
Speaker 1:Anyway, thank you for going on that little side quest with us Devoted listeners of the show. We now move on to the main attraction. This week we will be discussing the Rashomon Effect. Our friend Wikipedia describes this as a storytelling and writing method in cinema in which an event is given contradictory interpretations or descriptions by the individuals involved, thereby providing different perspectives and points of view on the same incident. The term derived from the 1950 Japanese film Rashomon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, and in this movie it's used to describe the phenomena of the unreliability of eyewitnesses. Studio Binder further describes the Rashomon effect as a term used to describe how a single event can be described in a variety of ways due to the unreliability of multiple witnesses. The witnesses' unreliability and subjectivity are a result of situational, social and cultural differences. And subjectivity are a result of situational, social and cultural differences. So in order to understand the effect, we must dive a little into the movie itself. The film opens with three men a priest, a commoner and a woodcutter.
Speaker 2:That sounds like the make-joke Quick.
Speaker 1:what's the?
Speaker 2:punchline.
Speaker 1:So this priest, the commoner and the woodcutter. They take shelter from a storm under the Rashomon Gate in Kyoto. The woodcutter and the priest are discussing the story of how the woodcutter found the body of a slain samurai in the forest. Three days prior, a bandit was accused of murdering the samurai and raping the samurai's wife. The woodcutter, the priest, the samurai's wife, the bandit and even the ghost of the samurai were summoned at a trial. How cool would it be.
Speaker 2:If you could do that, wouldn't that be nice? How many cold cases could we solve? But the question is is a ghost a reliable narrator, if they're the one that was murdered, or a reliable witness?
Speaker 2:Who knows, by this interpretation, interpretation, none of them are reliable, that's true, there's so many questions I have about I'm going down like a rabbit hole now because, like there's so much we don't know about the other side and ghost world. How well is our memory? What can they? What if, like they're like holding on to something from the past, a grudge, and that gets transcended into the current day situation of their murder? How can you trust a ghost?
Speaker 1:Or what if you can't remember? What if, when you die, that is erased from your memory?
Speaker 2:I don't know man, I watched a teen drama called School Spirits or High School Spirits maybe Was it a Korean teen drama.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:I've been off that kick for a while, but don't worry, I'm back on it. I just watched the start of a new one yesterday, but this one's American and it's about this girl who goes missing at her high school and then it switches to her perspective and she's a ghost in her high school trying to solve what happened. It's good. Yeah, I actually really liked it.
Speaker 1:So in that case, yeah, she couldn't remember I just have a lot of questions and I feel like this is maybe a separate, I don't know story. Who knows?
Speaker 2:yeah, definitely not rashomon related, but they got me thinking that movie but it would.
Speaker 1:It would be something cool to like do our own story of, or, or something like that.
Speaker 2:Like dive into that for our next stint, after we're writing another story, you guys, we are.
Speaker 1:Bear with us. There's been some circumstances. We'll get back to writing. Stay tuned for more. Yes, so okay, back to this ghost being summoned to trial. Each account of the event is different and contradictory. The film ends rather ambiguously, without a clear resolution of what actually occurred.
Speaker 1:The film found success not only because of its engaging story, but its exploration of a common human experience. The quest for truth convoluted with deception, ego and vanity. Here are the elements of a Rashomon effect in movies. There's conflict, an unreliable narrator, an ambiguous ending. So I find this very fascinating because it makes for good storytelling, but it doesn't sit well with my need to have a nice neat bow wrapped around stories and really pretty much everything. I like to have resolution and certainty where I can. However, this method of storytelling doesn't provide any of that, but it does truly bring to light the fallacy and fickleness in the human mind and memory.
Speaker 1:Movies with multiple perspectives were unorthodox. However, Kurosawa's use of unreliable narrators did not tell the audience how to feel or what to believe. The audience had to decide that for themselves, and this is what made Rashomon so engaging. Today there are many examples of movies with multiple perspectives. A notable modern riff on the Rashomon effect that utilizes the unreliable narrator can be found in the 2004 film Gone Girl. In this mystery thriller, a man becomes suspect number one in the disappearance of his wife. As he becomes less reliable throughout the story, we become more engaged in finding out the truth. To be honest, I didn't watch that movie, so I don't really know, if that's true, gone Girl.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is it good?
Speaker 1:Yes, you got it.
Speaker 2:It is going to make you anxious, but it's also a book. I haven't read the book yet. I hear the book's much better, so maybe you dive into the book instead.
Speaker 1:But you are going to be on the right of your life and so, yeah, accurate I'm gonna add that to my list after I'm done reading this book which I'm currently reading. That's called, uh, buried dreams. Did I tell you about this it's? I thought it was gonna be about like kids and like past life regressions and all that stuff. No, I forgot that. I had put this on my list and ordered it. It is about John Wayne Gacy and like his buried bodies, but you know, okay, anyway, it's a good book.
Speaker 1:You should read it.
Speaker 2:Okay, ooh, another recommendation for my 52 book challenge. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome, and so, while this makes for utmost engagement in film and storytelling, it makes it much more difficult in a day-to-day experience or instance in which we need to get to the crux of the matter and say investigations or the like.
Speaker 1:This non-linear approach has now become commonplace in my daily experiences, given my job, but also, if you'll allow me to digress just a little bit more, the reason this effect intrigues me so much is because of the unreliability in memory. Take, for instance, investigations and interviews with Henry Lee Lucas, a serial killer we've talked about before. When recounting an event, his story changed multiple times, with some of it being due to investigators asking leading questions, fulfilling the role of the unreliable narrator, while in other instances his retelling of events was different due to misremembering events. Unless we forget the witnesses who swear things happen this way or that way in yet another twist and turn to the story, therein providing the conflict in our tale. All of those elements in conjunction make for an engaging story in which our audience or in this case, the jury come to their own, and sometimes differing, conclusion. Yet they're gripped to the edge of their seat as they follow this sensational tale, which, unfortunately, isn't just a tale, because you're dealing with somebody's life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like literally someone could die for this a tale, because you're dealing with somebody's life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like literally someone could die for this Mm-hmm, and that, you know, brings to light other problems. But we're going to get back to our story. The Rashomon Effect can be seen in movies such as Hero, elephant, vantage Point, the Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs. In books, we see it in a grove, which is what the movie Rashomon is based on Anxious People by Frederick Backman. What Lies Between Us by John Mars, murder in Retrospect and Elephants Can't Remember, both by one of my favorites, agatha Christie.
Speaker 1:I cannot put it any more succinctly than Maria Popova did in her article. For the Marginalian, it is already disorienting enough to accept that our attention only absorbs a fraction of the events and phenomena unfolding within and around us at any given moment. Now consider that our memory only retains a fraction of what we have attended to in moments past. In the act of recollection, we take these fragments of fragments and try to reconstruct them totally of a remembered reality playing out in the theater of our mind, a stage on which, as neuroscientist Antonio Damasio has observed in his landmark work on consciousness, we often use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them. We do this on a personal level. Out of such selective memory and by such exquisite exclusion, we compose the narrative, that is the psychological pillar of our identity. We do it on the cultural level. What we call history is a collective, selective memory that excludes far more of the past's reality than it includes. Borges captured this in his characteristic poetic, philosophical precision when he observed that we are our memory, that chemical museum of shifting shapes, that pile of broken mirrors.
Speaker 1:To be aware of memories, chimera, is to recognize the slippery, shape-shifting nature of even those truths we think we are grasping most firmly. I love that we are our memory, as we've discussed in the past. I read a great book called the Untethered Soul, where we learn and journey through self-identification and grasping at who we really are. So I thought I knew that I was this 35-year-old named Karina, from Los Angeles, who graduated from the University of Washington. Those were things that happened to me, not who I was happened to me, not who I was.
Speaker 1:But then to read in Popova's article the following phrase to be aware of memories, chimera, is to recognize the slippery, shape-shifting nature of even those truths we think we are grasping most firmly. So we are a memory, but our memory is fallible. So then, what are we? Yes, we are, by the transitive property, fallible, but if who we are is identified by our memory, memory of events that happened to us, that we took part in. And since our memory is not reliable, then how do we know who we really are? And also, if we don't remember what happened to us, with us, around us, our minds make it up. Our minds fill in the blanks how much of who I am or what I have experienced was gaps filled in by my unreliable memory.
Speaker 2:I also feel like I don't know about you but when I was like. I have memories from my childhood too, where I don't know if I remember them firsthand or if they've been told to me so many times throughout my life that they feel like my own memory and therefore it's been adapted my my persona and my personal being and like this is kind of throwing me through a loop a little bit.
Speaker 2:Everything that you're saying it makes me feel like, well, who am I out of memories and objects and things that I like to do, like what is a who is? How is what who, why, I know?
Speaker 1:nothing I understand. I obviously we took these notes a long time ago, but I do remember spiraling back then. Now, as I'm rereading this, I'm like oh my god, yeah, really, though who? How do I explain?
Speaker 2:who I am. Yeah, a pleasant reminder of past spirals, everything cyclical, even your existential crisis, oh good I wouldn't have it any other way.
Speaker 1:I you know I I was trying and attempting to create an accurate narrative of who I am, but that's what I was left with and I felt felt that Kayla would be better equipped at speaking to the philosophical nature that comes with the Rashomon effect, because I believe that's what your notes are about, if I remember.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, you know me so well. Before I dive into my notes, I want to make a comment about my philosophy brain notes. I want to make a comment about my philosophy brain because I was doing a position review recently with uh, the cyber security guy for it was so exciting he works with like the fbi to stop like foreign attacks into our systems and like whoa, but anyways. So we had a two-part meeting. The first meeting was a meeting and then the second meeting was a continuation of that meeting. In the second one he was like can I ask you something? I just feel like I think that you're a writer, I think that you read philosophy and I think you like, like he was like profiling me right on the head and I'm like how did you know that after meeting me for one hour Literally one hour and he had me profiled?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing. You and him both know I like philosophy and you're right.
Speaker 2:Mine is a little bit philosophical and that is okay. So I mean we kind of learned the Rashomon effect. Maybe it originated in movie but it's kind of expanded and grasped our attention because it really is an interesting concept and I particularly like that you were talking about how in that movie the writer and director didn't set out to tell you how to feel about things that are unfolding, and that is such a cool idea for me. In movies I agree with you that it's like anxiety driving not having like resolution. But I really like that idea of having just like an entire, like the omnipresent narrator of the story has is entirely unbiased and looking down at all these people that are manipulating the way people feel about things, just based on the memories and the perceptions and how they, how they, their mind's eye, witnessed something is so interesting to me and wild. So with that in mind, we've kind of learned how that extends to reality and how witnesses to the same occurrence may have different accounts of what actually happened.
Speaker 2:And in previous episodes I think we've talked about this a little bit as well. You know we talked about how human memory is a fickle thing. Misremembering turns into facts. A vivid dream you once had is mistaken for reality, and coercion or other external pressures lead to false memories and, in some cases, false confessions, which we talked about. And that culmination of internal and external influence leads to an alteration of our memory. And I'm thinking about my memories as a child. And have you ever seen this movie, aristocats? Uh-huh, really jazzy little number. A lot of things are a little socially unacceptable these days that they do in that movie, but the jazz still remains.
Speaker 2:But anyways, they drank like a saucer of like milk in that movie, uh-huh. And for many years of my childhood I was convinced that I tasted that milk because I had a dream about that milk and my brain was like this is reality. And I'm like it's kind of embarrassing to tell you how long I thought that I drank that milk, until one day it just dawned on me. I was like how is that possible? It's literally a cartoon Rashomon effect.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding, because that's our brains filling in the blanks and all of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like making reason out of unreasonable things.
Speaker 1:Okay, so yes, I've seen that movie no-transcript.
Speaker 2:She's in that cute song with the Thomas O'Malley the alley cat and she goes I'm rinky-tinky-tinky and I loved it. I really identified with that cat for a long time too.
Speaker 1:You can bring that back. That's fine, we support it.
Speaker 2:I'm worried about watching it again Because I'm worried it's going to impact my opinion. So we'll see if I bring Rinky Dinky Dinky back. Well, all of this to say about this weird story from my childhood and my weird false memories. Although we like to assume that memories are true and accurate and we like to assume that they're set in stone, they are as fluid as anything else in life. As our personal philosophies change, our perception of the world around us also changes, and who you are, how you think and what you value influence the information that you are receiving and comprehending and retaining on a daily basis. And I don't know about you guys. You already know that I'm thinking this, but I'm sitting here thinking if we can't trust our memories and if we have all these varying perceptions of the same topic, how do we know what's true and what's not within our society? How do you know anything? You can't, you can't. I hate that.
Speaker 1:Just give up, move on. Next thing I don't know.
Speaker 2:We don't know what's true like from a philosophical standpoint. But I don't even think the dictionary knows what truth is Like. The definition is so wild. To me it's talking about. It's the quality or state of being true, a fact or belief that is accepted as true, or that which is true in accordance with factor or reality.
Speaker 1:What is accepted is true Like that. None of it is explaining what it is.
Speaker 2:I know you're literally using the root word of truth to define truth. You can't say that. So it's pretty clear that we have some work to do on the subject to ascertain what true, truly truthfully, means. Of course, we're not the only minds that have come to this same quandary. Modern science bases its entire faculty on objective truth, establishing truth based on observable and quantifiable information, independent of any personal beliefs, like the Rosham and director did and biases. But long before there was modern science, there were philosophers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there it is.
Speaker 2:From Plato to Kierkegaard, philosophy's greatest minds have wrestled with a different kind of truth than our scientist what is accepted socially as truth and the influence of perception. Now Kierkegaard he was a prominent religious philosopher and he spoke a lot about subject and objective truth. He famously said the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.
Speaker 1:Okay, I feel like that could be problematic a little bit.
Speaker 2:I think so too. While he acknowledges there's a place for objective truth like, say, science, he finds subjective truth to be more vital and, frankly, favored it. It's more important to kirkagard to find what is true to an individual based on their own beliefs and experiences of the world. This is an interesting thought to me, because if you favor your own perceptions of reality, it could also alter what is objectively true to you, and that, I believe, is the crux of many of our societal issues.
Speaker 2:People choose to believe like evolution is not real. Or take, for example, perceptions of guilt in our criminal justice system. A man could claim innocence in a murder trial, but through circumstantial evidence and perhaps a juror, judge, public, preconceived notion of this person's guilt, they are sentenced to life in prison or sometimes worse, death. A more concrete example would be the influence of a person's religious beliefs and how it impacts their acceptance of scientific findings. Oh, look at that. I use evolution as an example here. I didn't know I was going to do that, such as evolution. We have so much tangible evidence to support evolution and yet 32% of adults in America deny that objective truth based on their uniquely shaped perception of the world around them. That's wild, I know that makes me feel like, oh, embarrassing. What did you say? 36, 32, 32. One in three adults you walk past on that street is thinking that maybe we're brand new to this world.
Speaker 1:That is so crazy. I understand a little bit because, like some of it is religious based right, like they don't believe in the dinosaurs or whatever, because God made man. And there you go, but it's still like an astounding number when you put it that way.
Speaker 2:I think it's a I don't like the term slippery slope, so I'm going to avoid saying that, but I do think it's very dangerous to rely on text that doesn't have scientific evidence backing up statements. Okay, so that's Kierkegaard for you in a nutshell up statements. Okay, so that's Kierkegaard for you in a nutshell. And then you've got a guy called William James. And now William James he was our founder of the pragmatic school of thought. He was more equitable between perception, reality and his approach to truth.
Speaker 2:Everything we know today is because a person or persons have analyzed the subject through a compilation of sensory experiences. We've quantified and observed and collected what we label empirical evidence, and from this work an objective truth or definition is developed. We see an influx of immigration in the area, an inflation in cost of living, and ascertain it's because of the immigration, and that is our observed truth. We witness a crime and the suspect getting away in a rusty blue cadillac. Another witness of the same event sees a rusty green dodge, each seeing their perception as true. There's a ton of examples, and likely much better ones than this, but here we are. It's just.
Speaker 1:It's talking about, like what you were saying, people's personal beliefs, people's personal perceptions, people's race, religion, social, economic status, how they perceive color, like all of these things come into the development of opinions and therefore memories and therefore somebody's perceived truth of what is and what is not I think that just reminds me and I know we talked about this before, but like I don't really know the analogy itself but if people are sitting in a room, like in a circular table or whatever, and there's an elephant in the middle of the room, your perception, your idea of what an elephant is is going to be based on, like, what's directly in front of you, right, like yeah, maybe you're, you're sitting by the right foot or whatever, and that is what you're going to take to, to be what you identify as an elephant, because that's what you're seeing. That's your risk, your perception and your reality. That's just kind of what that reminds me of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, adjacently related. But one thing that really stuck with me when I like my very first sociology class, we talked about the influence of language on how you perceive society around you, and one of the concepts that's talked about commonly is that if we didn't have language for the things that our eyes were seeing, then we wouldn't like, we wouldn't be able to comprehend the things that we're seeing. So our brain just kind of blanks it out, and I think it's kind of similar for how perception and the language that we've grown to know and how we describe things impacts memory and therefore impacts our reality. Because, like one person could see a guy walking down the street smiling and be like, oh, look at that nice guy. And then the other person see that guy walking down the street smiling, look at that menacing demeanor, like he's obviously got something against me or something toward me, and it's all about the language that you've used to like, understand the world around you and how you project that language onto other situations. It's kind of interesting powerful.
Speaker 2:I like this but when we consider, kind of getting back to the romon train, if we talk about the Rashomon effect or any other external influences on our senses, we could logically conclude that senses aren't trustworthy and therefore truth also may not be. Now, pragmatists, which are our William James fellow here, they aren't as hung up on the validity of senses as, say, a criminologist. What they concern themselves with is the way in which we explain those sensory experiences, so that language aspect. What if truth is not an object to be defined, but rather a description of human experiences that can lead to common understanding of the world? If healthy discourse is standard, my gosh, there is a thread in my thoughts when we run into difficulties with this.
Speaker 2:Suggestion is very similar to the blurred lines of subjectivity and objectivity and that is the varying perspectives of people. William James believed there are two types of people in the world tough-minded people that require concrete evidence to understand and accept truth, and then tender minded people that develop their understanding through conceptual thinking. And it's this division in thought that creates obstacles in developing common understanding. I don't know why, like tender hearted thinking sounds kind of like demeaning to me.
Speaker 1:And I feel like you can be both. You don't have to be one or the other. But that also is kind of a tangent, but it reminds me of, like you know, hard skills versus soft skills and like just the way that soft skills like why it's called that they're important, too right, but it just the name of it makes it sound like it's less than I agree with you.
Speaker 2:It's probably tied back to like. I doubt it's that it's described that way in all languages in the world. So I do feel like it's a tied back to like. I doubt it's that it's described that way in all languages in the world. So I do feel like it's a cultural influence of english, where we devalue emotions and interpersonal connections.
Speaker 1:I'm looking at you, english everyone needs to read, especially in the united states. Everyone needs to read daring greatly.
Speaker 2:Okay, shed that vulnerability um required curriculum of high school. That's probably where it's needed the most. Let's be honest, that's true. William James Pragmatism believes to understand truth. That needs to be explained and accepted through both frames of thinking. Like you just said. Hey, are you William, maybe in a past life? Are you William, maybe in a past life? So what he says is we need a question is the truth useful and relevant to current society? Is there evidence in its favor? Will the proposed truth stand the test of counter argument and can it predict future results? I feel like it sounds good, like on paper, but I'd really need to see it in practice to really understand whether this is just like you talking at your booty there or, if it's, if there's evidence in its favor.
Speaker 1:Yes, I wish we had some scientists that could help with this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, scientists, are you out there? So that's William James for you. And then there's nietzsche, good old nietzsche. He's my favorite. Do you have a guess on what his hot take is?
Speaker 1:everything sucks, what yeah?
Speaker 2:he sees truth as a quote. Mobile army of metaphors, metonyms and anthropomorphisms. In short, a sum of human relations which have been enhanced, transposed and embellished poetically and rhetorically. Sounds about right.
Speaker 1:And I still. I like him. I don't care. Say what you will, don't say it wrong. There, buddy, I'll say you're wrong there, buddy?
Speaker 2:So if truths are structured from a language of metaphors, as he suggests, then we can also surmise that interpretation of those metaphors varies based on perspective. This is something Nietzsche, shocker, has coined as perspectivism. While he believes that truth exists, he also believes that truth cannot be discovered due to the influence of human behavior. I'm kind of with him. He's got something going there, yeah. Another aspect of his philosophy of truth that I find really interesting is its relation to power.
Speaker 2:To quote a Medium article by Somda, truth always comes with a set of conditions which are determined by the person or group making it. Truth is used as a way to meet individual needs, confirm biases and excuse behaviors, but the potency of those truths is dependent on the strength of a person's power. For example, if I told you I believed the earth was flat, that really has no impact on the society at large. I'm just a little old Kalo over here. Who am I in the grand scheme of things? But let's say a president made this statement and it came to be accepted as true by society at large. That would impact our flight patterns, our delivery systems, you name it. It would change the trajectory of our society and in this totally made up line of thought. If a religious organization shares a truth that women are built to be subservient to men, that could impact who we welcome and promote into our workforce.
Speaker 2:There is dangers to what we label as true and has a real, intangible impact.
Speaker 1:Will we ever learn that though?
Speaker 2:I guess not. I can't be the first people to bring this up. In his perspective, the only way to broach the subject of truth is through the pursuit of it, through lived experiences, through gaining knowledge. But we have to understand that whatever truths we discover, it is always bound to an individual's interpretation and perspective. I know that the topic of truth is slightly extended from our topic of Rashomon, but I do feel like it's really intrinsically intertwined.
Speaker 2:Perspective is literally everything and all that we do. And with so many definitions of truth, how can we get to the crux of truth, when a person's life hangs in the balance, when our political direction should be dependent on it, when our education system is based on truths developed by potentially unreliable narrators, for lack of a better term. Like many philosophers, I have thought, but I don't have answers. I tend to agree with Nietzsche when he says that the pursuit of truth is valid but may never be obtained. And the reality is that every second of every day, our perception impedes with truth, and that is unavoidable. But what we do have control over is understanding when our perceptions, biases or other psychological factors are at play, and how we can become better stewards of truth by separating subjectivity from objectivity, collectively opening up room for discourse.
Speaker 1:This ties in so well with our last episode.
Speaker 2:I know it kind of feels like a series and that was not our intention. I know it kind of feels like a series and that was not our intention.
Speaker 1:What had happened was that we recorded and then the recording disappeared, or something I can't remember.
Speaker 2:It entirely failed. It just didn't record half of it, your half of it, so it sounds like I'm having a really weird conversation with myself and so then here we are recording it now, and it just falls in line pretty nicely. I think it it makes sense. It's all very fresh for me too. It's kind of nice.
Speaker 1:I was like, oh my god I wrote that I was really like shocked by yourself, as you should.
Speaker 2:I was like whoa, I was spiraling for real here, but anyway, you're so intelligent in this episode, but it's just your insecurities coming out.
Speaker 1:I really do like Nietzsche for a lot of different things, but, and you know, people can disagree and that's fine because this is discourse, right, this is how we learn and all of that. But the pursuit of truth and all of that, like just what you said about it. Can you repeat it?
Speaker 2:the only way to broach the subject of truth is through the pursuit of it. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1:He's a smart guy, that one one of the only things that I really, really remember, and for some reason I don't know why, like okay, I know why it sticks in my head when he said you know, god is dead and we have killed him. And that is because I feel like this is why we can't have nice things right. Whenever we have something like, we inevitably mess it up, and I just feel like that is humanity, and I don't mean it to sound like in a I don't know like a spir, spiraling, depressing kind of way. I just feel like that's what happens it's yeah, I mean you know what?
Speaker 2:maybe it's a sad thought, but I I agree. And I kind of feel like nishi and camu both will be rolling around in their graves when I say this, because I think they're both vehemently like we are not in the same philosophy. But camus has a quote or it's I don't have the quote, but it's uh, one of his books is kind of talking about how there's no meaning to life, there's no purpose to life, right, like everything is just inherently meaningless. But it's up to us to rebel against that meaninglessness by creating your own meaning. And I feel like it's kind of similar to Nietzsche's thoughts about truth, like, okay, maybe there is no truth because we we've done buried truth pretty good as humanity, but the only way to really uncover it is to pursue it.
Speaker 2:And I really like those, those two philosophies, even though I know they're different absurdism and nihilism. But I think the threads are similar and it really resounds with me as a person at least, and I think at face value it's a very depressing thoughts, but it really actually, for me, makes me kind of unbury myself from depression a lot of the times, cause I do spiral thinking about truth and meaning and you know identity and all of these things, and like it's so hard to ascertain what is and what is not and having the freedom to say it doesn't matter what is and what is not, it's what matters. What I make it is dangerous and powerful, like we talked about, I think, like an independent personal level. If you're not projecting those own perceptions onto other people, I think it's good and healthy for your, your psyche, to kind of have more freedom and the things that you choose to do. It's when you project it onto other people and make your truth everybody else's truth.
Speaker 1:I think that's where you're kind of infringing absolutely I get that completely and camu's description of it right, like where you kind of just have to make your own meaning. That is something that has resonated with me too, like I don't want someone to define what the meaning of life is right, like I want to search for it for myself, like what that happiness is, what that truth is, and that's kind of how I view religion too, of how I view religion too. I have studied a lot of world religions, right, and I I grew up Catholic, that's what I was born into, but I take different pieces and I make it what I want. Is that good, bad or ugly, I don't know, but I think that there's a lot of beauty in different religions and a lot of similarities too.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But I'm not forcing that on anyone. And that's to your point where, like it could be bad if I started my own thing, because then that's what a cult right and it could could lead down a bat. I know enjoying you're like I'm so old, but I think that that's just. It's interesting and important for people to make their own opinions and find their, their truth and their meaning.
Speaker 2:Just be careful with it and be open to dialogue, and I think that's the key word that you just said, though it's their truth. They're meeting my truth, my meaning, not the truth and the meaning, and I think the, the words that you choose to use, have a lot of power, and so good job, karina.
Speaker 1:I don't know why I felt like I needed to end this, but words are important.
Speaker 2:Oh, words are important. Don't think about what you said. I guess on that, that's my closing. I forgot to write one Goodbye.
Speaker 1:Bye.