A Philosophical Inquiry: Is There One Truth and Many Realities?

Dhruvaditya explores reality as a relative concept, highlighting its fluidity and varying interpretations, influenced by personal truths and shared experiences, drawing from Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. An exclusive for Different Truths.

As you can infer by the title, I am writing this to show how reality is relative. To do that, I will use two concepts. First is Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the other is a fact most people agree on: the truth is different for different people. So, it goes this way:

• Given-
  1. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
• 2. A unanimously agreed-upon statement: Truth is different for different people.

To Prove-
Reality is Relative

Proof-
Let’s start with the theory of relativity. I won’t go into detail but will use a perused example: when you sit with a nice girl for an hour, it seems like 10 minutes but when you sit on a hot stove for 10 minutes, it will feel like an hour. That’s relativity.

Now, assuming the statement that truth is different for different people is indeed true, we can say that reality is indeed relative. Let me explain with another example. Suppose a father and son are going on a drive after the car’s just returned from maintenance service. They think the car is in good condition but the mechanic who did the maintenance forgot to mention that they needed a change of breaks. On the drive, as the father turns, they are facing a pothole in a corner. The brakes are unable to stop the car. and an accident occurs.

The father survives, but unfortunately, the son doesn’t. Now the father blames himself for his son’s death, while the mechanic who repaired The car feels that he is at fault, as he forgot to mention the brakes. This may affect both of their lives, either directly or indirectly. Maybe in a small way, for example, the father gets old and dies with many regrets, and the mechanic loses his job and is not able to get a new one because he doesn’t think he is capable. In this case, there is only one truth: the son dies. however, the father and the mechanic both have different understandings of the truth, and hence their realities change depending on these. If seen from the father’s viewpoint, the reality is that his son dies because of his father’s carelessness by not checking the brakes beforehand or turning the corner carefully. However, if seen from the mechanic’s viewpoint, his reality is that The son died because he didn’t warn them about the brakes or wasn’t able to fix them. 

Thus, we can see that reality is not just relative; it is relative to the truth of the person or people involved. Many people can have common points in their realities, but not all their realities are likely to be the same. It depends highly on their truths and beliefs and what their realities entail, along with the incidents that may or may not affect their view of their truth. For instance, in the example I gave above, the common point in the reality of the father and mechanic is that the son dies, and it changes their life in some way. This is a big common point.

Generally, in life, these common points may not be so big; for example, in a joint family living together, each person has certain unique points, but not all of them have the same unique point. This gives us a subtle point that is common in the realities of all the people in the family, without them probably even noticing it. Now, these common points are very important, as they are the ones that tie all our realities together into one single whole. Whether it’s a big or small common point, all of them play a part in tying our realities together. together so we can live and interact as we do today.

With that, I have explained my understanding of why reality is relative and the concepts that may or may not be related to it. I may or may not be right, as this theory of reality being relative is yet to be proved by others (as per my knowledge), and so I will gladly welcome any further input on the same.

Picture design by Anumita Roy