I've managed to spread myself pretty thin lately. I'm not complaining: it's just how things go with me. I like to keep myself busy in several different circles all at once, and, depending on my mood at the time, one circle tends to get more attention than the others. That said, one of the circles upon which I focus, where I'm still doing my small part to promote science, is the Carl Sagan Google Doodle Campaign.
This quote in particular by Sagan embodies everything this blog has been about for the past four years: questioning what we hear, asking the hard questions, settling for nothing less than truth. It's been a while since I talked about truth per se. I think it's time to revisit the topic. I'll try to be brief...
Truth is not contingent upon what we feel, want, hope, expect, demand, think, believe, fear, or refuse to listen to. Reality continues on, regardless of what we think about it. Either we become skeptics who ask questions in the attempt to find answers that lead us closer to truth, or we pretend that we have things all figured out and fool ourselves. We may never have perfect knowledge or complete understanding of truth, but we can at least get a little bit closer, day by day, and in doing so, better ourselves a little more, day by day.
