In search for Truth...
The Morning the Tooth Fairy Remained Unconscious
My six-year-old daughter lost her first tooth yesterday. She shoved it under her pillow, fully expecting some cash in the morning. But when she woke up, there was nothing there.
She came to me completely deflated and asked why the Tooth Fairy didn’t come. Panicking, I lied on the spot: “Maybe the Tooth Fairy is sick?” She stared at me for a solid minute, trying to figure out if I was bluffing, then just walked off to get ready for school.
We both went about our morning, but once I was in the car driving to work, the guilt finally hit me.
A Panic-Induced Lie
Why did I just lie to my child about the Tooth Fairy?
Honestly? I forgot to swap the tooth for a coin last night. Instead of just admitting I messed up, I panicked and scrambled for a cover story. But should I have just been honest? If I told her the truth, I’m not sure I could handle the absolute avalanche of questions that would follow.
What started as a dumb parenting mistake instantly turned into a full-blown existential crisis. How do I actually know the Tooth Fairy isn’t real?
For that matter, how do we know anything for sure? How do we separate fact from fiction in a world like this?
1) Senses & Perception (Pratyaksha)
Have I ever seen the Tooth Fairy? Have I ever seen a unicorn? My answer is no, and perhaps that’s why I don’t believe in them. Have I ever seen air? No, but I can feel it when the wind blows. I know it is there when I blow up a balloon. I can see the sun almost every day, so I know it exists. I’ve eaten jalapeños, and I know they are spicy based on my own experience.
If I can touch it, see it, or taste it, it feels real. In ancient Indian philosophy, this direct observation is called Pratyaksha. For most of us, it is our ultimate proof of reality.
Limitation:
What about people who are blind or deaf or partially deaf? Their reality looks or sounds different, yet it is just as real. It shows that human senses aren’t a perfect window to ultimate truth. Even with “perfect” vision, our biology traps us.
For example, humans have three types of cone cells in their retinas: red, green, and blue. Cats and dogs only have two types. They lack the cone for the color red. Would a cat perceive a bright red Coca-Cola can the same way we do? Humans also cannot hear sounds outside the range of 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz. Meanwhile, bats can hear frequencies up to 200,000 Hz.
Because our sensory biological instruments are limited, Pratyaksha alone cannot be fully trusted to establish objective truth.
2) Inference (Anumana), Connecting the Dots
When our senses fail, we use inference to find truth. Ancient Eastern thinkers called this Anumana.
Imagine waking up during summer vacation. You look outside and see dry roads and dry roofs. You assume it didn’t rain overnight. Your brain uses past data points to construct a logical conclusion.
Limitation:
What if it actually rained for just five minutes? What if it dried up completely before sunrise? Your inference was perfectly logical, but still entirely wrong. Our logic is only as reliable as the number of data samples we can collect.
This is a famous logical trap. For centuries, Europeans inferred that all swans were white because every single swan they had ever seen was white. Then, explorers went to Australia and discovered a black swan. A million correct data points were destroyed by just one exception.
Author Nassim Nicholas Taleb turned this exact concept into a massive bestselling book called The Black Swan. He shows how humans’ assumed truth based on inference, can be totally blindsided.
Our Anumana lets us down because we don’t know what we don’t know.
3) Testimony (Shabda)
Truth told, recited and repeated by experts, our trusted people, trusted literature or trusted sources including Google.
Earth rotates around the Sun. Atoms are made of electrons, protons and neutrons. There is a God like person who created this world. There are hell and heaven afterlife. Etc.
This pathway to truth relies entirely on someone or something’s testimony. Eastern philosophy calls this Shabda. It is a vital way to learn in today’s world.
Limitation:
This version of reality is only as reliable as the sources we choose to trust, whether they are spiritual leaders, scientific authorities, or digital platforms. Bigger the authority, wider the impact on enforcing specific version of truth.
While there are other methods of deriving truth, they are omitted here as they are less significant than the three listed above and have similar limitations.
🧠 Over to You: Test Your Reality
Since all these methods have limitations, how do we know what is actually true? Is it even possible to know? Perhaps nothing is 100% certain, and things are only true to a certain degree of probability?
Philosophy is best done together. To see just how slippery “the truth” really is, pick one question from each category below and tell me your answer in the comments:
Senses & Perception (Pratyaksha): Think about jalapeños being spicy or a painting on your wall being green. Is that item actually spicy or green, or is your human brain just creating that sensation? Is painting really green or it’s the illusion created by eye (the receiver) and brain (the interpreter)?
Inference (Anumana): If you throw a rock into the sky, it always falls back to Earth. Do you know for absolute certain it will fall back down next time, or do you just strongly believe it will based on your past data points?
Testimony (Shabda): Think of a country you have never physically visited, like Tuvalu. Do you actually know it exists, or do you completely rely on the testimony of maps, books, and Google?
What’s your take on this? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so feel free to drop a comment below!
Note: This of course excludes concepts that do not rely on the physical world for their existence, such as mathematics and pure logic. Both disciplines only describe the relationships between concepts, rather than physical reality itself.